King David a Rapist? & Confirmed: Cru Endorses Social Gospel

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I want to start off today by just saying thank you to you all.

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Thank you for the encouraging notes that I've received on email, social media, the prayer support, half of which

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I probably don't know the extent of, and the Patreon support, which really does help. Thank you so much. I've just been overwhelmed the last few days, and I don't deserve any of this at all.

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The Lord's been good to me, and he's been good to me through you all, and I just want to say thank you for that. I am going to talk a little bit about Crew today.

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I wasn't planning on it until about 3 o 'clock in the afternoon yesterday when I was made aware of some developments within the organization and how they're responding to some of the things that I've exposed.

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And honestly, the response is more concerning to me than the material that I've already presented. And if you don't know what

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I'm talking about, I'm talking about Campus Crusade for Christ, which is now called Crew, which is a campus organization that originally was for the dissemination of the gospel message on college campuses especially.

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And there's an apologetic element, because you need that when you're at a college campus. But there's been a mission drift in the organization, and I've received a lot of notes from those within Crew who are telling me that, yes,

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I am correct, and in some cases, John, you don't know the half of it. And I've been hearing, for lack of a better term, some horror stories.

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Those who are conservative, orthodox, Christian, traditional people being discriminated against in some form or fashion to the point that they can't really say anything about what they've experienced without repercussion.

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And that is concerning to me. And I said that in my last video, but it's still concerning to me, because I've received more of those notes.

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And so the encouraging part, though, is that there are those who are trying to be discerning within Crew, and they're bringing these concerns to the top levels of their organization.

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It is creating waves within the organization, which I'm going to share with you what I mean by that a little later in the video.

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But there's still hope in some sense that at least in some places within Crew, there's concern over this.

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I need to just address this before I say anything else in this video. I've been receiving a lot of questions about, what do

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I do? John, I'm a Crew staff member, what do I do about this? Do I leave? And most of the current staff that I've had reach out to me are trying to leave in some way or consider their alternatives.

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And I want to say this, I don't know what the answer is for you personally. There's always that question, do

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I stay in a sinking ship and try to bail it out so that it can float again? Or do I jump to a new ship?

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And usually the determining factor is, can your little bucket get as much water out of there as possible to counteract the tsunami that's coming in?

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Is it actually going to be seaworthy again? And the thing is, I don't know with Crew, I really don't.

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I'm not in the organization. It seems to me like it's probably past the point of no return, but I'm hoping

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I'm wrong on that. And I'm just basing this off of what I've seen and some of the stories that I've heard. If you are in Crew, I would try to find a place where you can survive and still be vocal about your

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Orthodox Christian beliefs on sexuality, on social justice, where you can proclaim the true gospel of Jesus Christ without distraction.

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And if there is not a place like that in the organization, then you probably need to get out.

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If you're concerned that the money that is being donated to you is going to fund bad elements of your organization, you might want to get out.

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I've been talking to some folks who have reached out to me about alternative organizations, and I'm hoping to have some of that information for you within the next month, if possible.

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We'll see how things go. But just so you know, I want there to be college ministry.

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We need to be on the campuses. We need to be proclaiming the gospel. We need apologetics. The last thing we need is an organization saying that they are proclaiming the gospel, but meanwhile, they're also capitulating to the culture and the sins the culture finds in flavor and just in vogue right now.

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Like greed in the sense of social justice, theft, stealing other people's things, sexual deviancies, and so forth.

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We don't want to support an organization if that's the direction they're going. And as far as I can tell, there's no orthodox opinion from CRU, like orthodox in the sense that there's no, like, this is our faith and we are soft -pedaling homosexuality.

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It seems like it's an unofficial stance. And so what do you do with that? There's some gray area there.

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You can probably exist in it, but I wouldn't want to exist somewhere where I cannot be honest and proclaim the full counsel of God.

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So that's my advice. If you feel like you can't do that, leave. If you have found a place where you can do that in CRU, then fight.

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Do the right thing where you are, but you're going to have a battle, and battles are exhausting. And if you have a family, that can be exhausting.

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So you've got to weigh the pros and the cons with that. And I've had to make some of those same decisions myself, not exactly parallel to the situation that CRU staff members are in, but as many of you know,

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I was in the Southern Baptist Convention at one point. I went to an SBC school intending on being involved in the

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SBC, and I have basically said that's not the direction I want to go. I respect those who hold the views that I hold who are in the

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SBC, but it's just not for me. I don't think that's where I can do the most good, and I know

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I'll be muzzled. There's no way for me to have the effect that I'd like to have and be used by God in ways that He may want to use me in that organization, knowing the trajectory of it.

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And that's just my opinion, and there's people who disagree with me on that, and that is absolutely fine. I respect and I support those in the

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SBC who are trying to fight the tsunami of social justice, but that wasn't for me.

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And so, yeah, that's my little personal opinion there, as well as hopefully some advice that maybe you will find helpful.

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Now, I do want to talk about something other than CRU today. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to talk about this latest debacle, especially on Twitter.

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This is mainly confined to Twitter, but there's some blogs that have picked up on this, over whether David, King David in the

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Bible, was a rapist, and whether this is a Me Too moment, and whether he supported and created a culture of rape within his family.

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I'm staggered by how fast some of this stuff is coming down the pike.

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I predicted this actually a few months ago, like three or four months ago, and I'm going to show you that, but I didn't expect it to come this quickly.

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So I want to talk about that. I want to walk you through 2 Samuel a little bit and just talk about whether King David was a rapist or not.

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And then I am going to get to CRU in the second part of the video and some of the developments that have taken place over the course of the last 24 hours,

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I suppose. And I'll just be perfectly honest with you, the reaction to the two videos that I made on Campus Crusade and what's going on within that organization, that reaction is more concerning to me from leadership than those videos were, the content that I showed you.

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I think, if anything, what I'm going to share with you today is the most concerning evidence of drift within CRU.

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And we need to talk about it. And I didn't want to, but we need to. This is important.

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So before I do that, though, let's talk about King David a little bit, shall we? Now, the story of David and Bathsheba begins in 2

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Samuel chapter 11. Nathan the prophet confronts David in chapter 12. And then you may be wondering, why do

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I have 2 Samuel 13 on the screen? And the reason for that is because an actual rape does occur in 2

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Samuel 13. It's an immediate context. And I want to get a rudimentary understanding of what rape is biblically before we get into the narrative with David and Bathsheba.

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So 2 Samuel 13 verse 11 talks about, these are brother and sister,

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David's kids, Amnon and Tamar. Tamar is bringing Amnon something to eat. And it says, when she brought the food to him, he took hold of her and said to her, come lie with me, my sister.

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But she answered him, no, my brother, do not violate me. And then jumping down to verse 14, he would not listen to her since he was stronger than she.

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He violated her. He lay with her. Now, the words took and stronger in verse 11 and 14 are both from chazak, which has a wide range of meaning, but it denotes strength.

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It means to make strong. And this word is used in another place in scripture to also denote a forced sexual encounter.

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And that's in Deuteronomy 22. And I want to read for you a few passages there versus in Deuteronomy 22 and tell you what the law has to say about this.

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This is the, the old Testament mosaic law says, if there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of the city that you shall stone them to death.

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The girl, because she did not cry out in the city, the man, because he has violated his neighbor's wife, thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

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Now, why in this situation are both the man and the woman stoned?

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Now she's someone who's engaged in an engagement in that time, by the way, it's a little more than engagement in our culture.

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It's effectively their, their promise to one another. They're, they're almost married. They're basically married. And so this is, this is a case of adultery.

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And in Deuteronomy 22, it says that there's a penalty for this. Why for the woman?

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Because she was in the city and she could have cried out and she didn't. So there's a, there is a consensual element to this.

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Now, I don't, our culture wants to make consent the only factor that matters in sexual encounters of any kind.

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The only thing that makes something either right or wrong is consent, which that's not biblical, but, but consent, of course, factors into it because right here, if she did not consent and cried out, then she is to be spared.

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And how do I know that? Well, here's the next two verses. And the word chazak is used in the verse 25.

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Deuteronomy 22, 25 through 27. But if in the field, the man finds the girl who is engaged and the man forces her, chazak, forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die.

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But you shall do nothing to the girl. There is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as the man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case.

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When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her. Now, now here's an interesting thing, because you could have a situation in which the man and the woman are consensual, but there's no one there to prove it.

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And so this is one of those cases in which you find biblical justice. There's no one to witness.

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There's no one to say, because they're out in the middle of nowhere, whether this was consensual or not.

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So you know what? The man dies. You know why? Because he's stronger. Verse 25, chazak, he forces her. So you cannot disprove that the woman, you know, may have cried out.

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She may have. So you have to give her the benefit of the doubt. But the man receives no benefit of the doubt because he's stronger.

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So you know that this happened and we know the man's guilty.

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We're not sure about the woman perhaps, but she could be guiltless. So we're going to treat her that way. And we're just going to kill the man.

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And that's how it worked in the Old Testament Mosaic law. With this understanding, let's jump into the narrative of David and Bathsheba.

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So 2 Samuel chapter 11, it says in verse one that this is the spring at the time when kings go out to battle.

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Yet David sends Joab and he stays home. He's not where he should be. He's in Jerusalem. And evening came and David arose from his bed.

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So he's having an afternoon nap and he walked around on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof, he saw a woman bathing and the woman was very beautiful in appearance.

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So he's close enough that he can make out what she looks like. And this is what David does in chapter 11, verse four.

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He sends messengers and the messengers take her. And when she came to him, he lay with her.

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And when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house. So four things going on.

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David sent, messengers took, she came, and he lay. Now, this doesn't mean necessarily based on this verse that this was all consensual.

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She probably didn't know what the king really wanted from her. But of course, it's the king. So she's going to go with the messengers.

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But I do want to point out something. The word l 'cha is used here. It's a different word.

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And it's used in the next chapter in 2 Samuel 12 to talk about David taking

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Uriah the Hittite's wife. And of course, this was a legitimate thing.

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Deuteronomy 1, 25. It says, then they took some of the fruit of the land.

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Nothing wrong there, taking fruit of the land. Genesis 20, verse two.

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And this is probably the closest parallel. Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, she is my sister. So Abimelech, king of Gerar sent and took

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Sarah. So Abimelech is doing the same thing David's doing. He sees something he wants, and he's going to fetch it.

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It just so happens that what he wanted was a woman made in the image of God. Now, like I said, she was probably unaware that this was

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David's intention. But this happened in the city, right? There's no record of her crying out.

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And four times in the passage, she is identified as Uriah's wife. And she's upset because David murders

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Uriah. Gets him drunk, tries to cover up his mistake first. It doesn't work out.

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And then he murders him essentially because he commands Joab to make sure that the men fall back.

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And Uriah takes the brunt of the battle upon himself, and he dies. And David's sin here is adultery, and it's murder.

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But there is no evidence within the passage to say that it's rape. Now, here's my question.

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Why are some so adamant that it must be rape? It has to be rape. It doesn't seem like they're coming at it from even a biblical understanding of what that looks like based on the

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Mosaic law. We just went over that. But they really want this to be the Me Too moment somehow.

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And I had written this a while ago. I want to show it to you. This is back in,

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I believe, July or August. I wrote this article about what happened at the

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Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Patterson Hall, where they remove the portrait of Page Patterson and his wife as well.

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And one of the lines that I had put in there is this. I said, With all the controversy surrounding names, paintings, and monuments from history, one has to ask the question,

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How long before heroes of the faith receive the proverbial boot? Will Calvin be ousted for the way he handled

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Servetus, or Luther for his book On the Jews and Their Lies? Will slaveholders Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield survive modern scrutiny?

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What about the Apostle Paul's alleged misogyny or King David's affair with Uriah's wife?

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Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights credentials may protect him for now, but the Me Too movement can't ignore his scandals forever.

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And of course, I mentioned David in there. I didn't say rave. I said his adult affair. But I just didn't think that King David would be in the crosshairs this quickly.

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Yet, here we are. This happened on October 3rd. Matt Smethurst put out a tweet, which got a lot of attention.

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Adam fell. Noah got drunk. Abraham lied. Goes through a list of all the vices that different saints have had, and how

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Jesus redeems. Great tweet. And he said that David fornicated. And Rachel Denhollander had a problem with that.

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She says, David raped. It's important we get that right. Now, why is that important?

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You know, I've already shown you that the word that's associated with rape, the force, the strength, it's not in there.

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That word is not used when it says that David took Bathsheba. There's no evidence. This is in the city.

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There's no evidence that Bathsheba cried out. Why is it important that we get this right, that David raped?

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Even if he did, even if the text said he did rape, and Matt Smethurst said David fornicated, why is that so important?

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Well, I'm going to see if I can answer that. Malcolm Yarnell is a professor of systematic theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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Very welcomed at the conventions. He sits on some of the panels and so forth. He put, yeah,

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Rachel Denhollander's exegesis is correct. David thought he was better than Uriah and smarter than God.

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He was neither. David added murder to his crimes in a second cover -up, his time not of rape but of murder.

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This is from his latest book, Who is the Holy Spirit? I'm not sure what Malcolm Yarnell's motivations are here.

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I don't know if he's advertising his book. I don't know if he's trying to just give support to Rachel. But this is,

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I joked and he, I got blocked, I guess, right after I joked about this, but I was joking.

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I was like, this is sola yarnella. I mean, there's, this is just an arbitrary comment.

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There's no argument here. It's just, I said this in my latest book. Well, it's nice that you said that, but that doesn't change what the text says itself.

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That's what we should be concerned about, right? And here's Rachel Denhollander again, supporting her claim that David was a rapist.

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To start, when Nathan tells David the parable of the rich man who took the ewe, David is portrayed as stealing, not as two people running off together.

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Bathsheba is portrayed as an innocent lamb that is slaughtered. This is the exact imagery for rape from the Old Testament.

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Now, look, I showed you in the Mosaic Law what rape looks like. I showed you in the immediate context what a rape looks like.

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We didn't see this imagery. And in 2 Samuel chapter 12, when

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Nathan rebukes David, there's an analogy being drawn here. There's a parallel between David the rich man who has many wives, right?

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Many flocks and herds, and Uriah the poor man who has nothing except the one little ewe lamb. And David wants that for himself, so he takes it.

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And four times in the passage, Bathsheba is identified as the wife of Uriah. She belongs to him.

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That's what the parable is saying. And David takes, he steals. Now, why does that constitute rape?

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Why does that have to be rape? Could stealing not be adultery? If it had been, let's say, a consensual adulterous affair in the modern vernacular, why would this parallel be any different?

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Nathan could have given the same exact rebuke with the same exact parable.

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He's still stealing from Uriah either way. Why are you trying to force the text to make this a rape?

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Here's a blog that I found. I'm not even gonna say who it was or where I found it, but the blog is trying to support this claim.

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It says, In spite of veiled warning, David sent his men and took Bathsheba, at which point he lay with her.

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In point of fact, the scripture put 100 % of the blame on King David and none of it on Bathsheba.

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This was not an affair. Affairs are consensual acts of infidelity. This is why the law commanded death for both offenders in such cases.

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And he's right about that. This was not consensual. In fact, it was a Me Too assault long before the hashtag arrived.

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It was a Me Too assault. Now, guys, here's the thing. Look at the passage in 2

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Samuel chapter 11. Do we see evidence that this was not consensual or that it was consensual?

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Not a whole lot, not really. But if we're gonna go by the Old Testament law and this was done in the city and she didn't cry out, there's no evidence of that, then the law would say that both of them die, right?

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Now, they both didn't die. And David, as this author puts it, receives 100 % of the blame.

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And I have to ask this question now at this point. Did David really receive 100 % of the blame? Bathsheba lost her son.

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Is it harder for a man or a woman in most cases? If you're a pastor and you deal with miscarriages and so forth, you'll know it's harder for a woman generally when a child dies.

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Not all the time, but generally. And David deserves the responsibility. He is the king.

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He is, I mean, on multiple levels violating God's law. He's not where he should be. He murders in this.

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Bathsheba, yes, is portrayed as the ewe lamb. That doesn't necessarily make her innocent though.

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Where is the word innocent used in the parable in 2 Samuel 12? She's not portrayed that way.

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In fact, the story is about David stealing from Uriah more than anything else.

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And then murdering Uriah. They're forcing on the text something the text cannot support.

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And this is one of the things I'm passionate about, which is why I am bringing this up. This social justice movement, this

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Me Too Christianity, it's changing the way that we interpret scripture. This is eisegetical, completely.

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And it's concerning. This is a professor of systematic theology at one of the biggest,

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I think it's the second biggest, second or third, I think it goes between Southeastern and Southwestern. One of the biggest

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Southern Baptist seminaries supporting this with an arbitrary assertion.

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Guys, wake up, wake up. Get back to authorial intent. Get back to the clear meaning of the text.

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Get back to scripture interpreting scripture. Get back to the immediate context. Get back to the original audience and what they were supposed to take away from it.

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I just, I don't understand it quite. I do and I don't. But I've said this before, but hermeneutics was dropped as a requirement for the

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MDiv when I was at Southeastern. We need more hermeneutics. And we need good hermeneutics, grammatical, historical hermeneutics.

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This stuff wouldn't be able to survive with that though. And here's some more just random samples of people out there, because I could have picked a lot, believe me, people's opinions about this whole idea that David was a rapist.

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Here's Paul Dirks, agreed that David was a rapist. And even if at some points she willingly participated, it is still power coercion.

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So we're starting to figure out here that rape is about power. And this is exactly how the critical theorists think of rape.

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It's all about power. It's a power dynamic. And because David's a king and Bathsheba is just a citizen of the kingdom, then that power dynamic means it must've been a rape.

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Here's Rebecca Carroll. David did rape. Bathsheba had no power, privilege or rights. Really, none.

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No power, privilege or rights. David sent men, plural, to fetch her, used her and sent her back.

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Den Hollander is letting the text speak for itself. Well, you just imposed power, privilege or Bathsheba not having these things or rights onto the text.

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Yeah, Bathsheba didn't have the power King David had. That's true. But that doesn't mean it was a rape.

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Lowell Hennings, Hennings. He says the reality is not only that he raped Bathsheba.

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In fact, he created and sustained a rape culture. So David is the founding father of rape culture, right?

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He doesn't say founding father, but he's saying that's what he's doing. He's creating and sustaining a rape culture. The text of Samuel and Kings describes multiple examples of the denigration, bondage and abuse of women in David's household.

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Here's John Stark. To not see David's sin as rape is assume,

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I think he meant to assume, a kind of virtue in the power structure at work and David's grasping for what he wants.

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So look, we're talking about structure here. Structural injustice is coming up. Can you see the critical theory rearing its head?

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Here's Rachel Den Hollander. Check this out. She responds, It's expected. Why? Because the way we interpret and understand this story guides how we understand abuse today.

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If blame for rape can be spread to the women somehow, it changes things dramatically. It is a way of absolving men of responsibility for their sexual sins.

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Wow, guys, wake up. Wake up. This is reading the current cultural political environment, which is godless, into the

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Bible. Here's, I think this might be the last one I wanna show you. Derek M. Says again,

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David used power. He didn't saunter over to Bathsheba's home and seduce her.

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He had brought her to the palace of the king. Really? How do you know he didn't seduce her when he brought her over? I mean, this is assuming so much.

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And again, I will point out that Nathan's parable paints David as the true and only villain, a point you ignored.

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Right, because in the text, again, it's focusing on David's sin against Uriah, David's murder. The text is about David.

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He's the king. It is focused on him. Bathsheba is, if you wanna say a supporting role in the story, you can, but she's not the main focus.

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Here's a response. Not unusual for a man to use power, wealth, prestige, influence to seduce a woman. Then Derek again, then

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David sent messengers to her, 2 Samuel 11, 4. It appears she didn't come of her own volition. You're assuming.

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You're reading, and then here he's confronted. You're reading far too much into the text. I sent a limousine to pick up my wife and daughter once.

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It doesn't mean I raped them, which is a great response. And then Derek M says, and you're not reading what the text says, but that's okay.

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I know there are too many men out there in the fundy land that blame women for everything.

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Wow. Look at the assumptions, the lack of evidence, the accusation without evidence.

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He's accusing this man, Elliot, of, because he's saying, he's like, dude, you're reading too far into the text.

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He's accusing him of being in fundy land and blaming women for everything. These people are not about justice.

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Can you see this? I mean, you can talk about social justice all day long.

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These guys don't care about justice. They're accusing others of things they don't have proof for.

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And they're getting an example of how to do this when it comes to interpreting the

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Bible. That's scary. From leaders in evangelical circles.

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And here's the last page I wanted to show you. It's just to demonstrate the political aspect of this. Julia Dow. Frankly, this entire firestorm on Twitter over Dellen Hollander stating that David Ray Bathsheba explains a lot about why there is such an enormous crisis in the

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SBC with pastors sexually assaulting congregants. Do you all think that it's consensual sex affairs?

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So here's what she's saying. She's saying, people like me who are saying, Rachel, Dellen Hollander, Den Hollander, you're going too far here.

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This is not supported by the text. People like us who say that we are somehow complicit in the enormous crisis in the

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SBC with pastors sexually assaulting congregants. This is amazing. This is being used for political motivations.

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Look at this Bonhoeffer's child. He says, Siri, what is a cult? Believers can relate to power in only one of two ways.

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Be Nathan's and call leaders to repentance and truth or be the craven servants bringing Bathsheba to David for rape.

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Look underneath what he is posting this on. Or what he's retweeting this news story.

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Trump says his fight with the Democrats and media has led to a Christian revival bigger than any in history, right? And there's a picture of Donald Trump there.

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Now, it's not true, Donald Trump, but that's what Trump does. And so he is reposting that and that's his comment.

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We need to be Nathan's. And so if you're supporting

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Trump, you're being the craven servants who bring Bathsheba to David. That's the implication. If you are calling

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Rachel Denhollander out for her eisegesis, you are being complicit with sexual assault in the

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SBC. We have got to wake up to what's happening out there.

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And we cannot count right now on our leaders, if you're in the SBC, to do that.

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Al Mohler's not coming out about this. This is, maybe it's just too low down on the totem pole on his priorities.

30:38

Danny Akin's not talking about this. I don't see other seminary professors that are conservative rushing into this.

30:45

Although there are those who, like I just pointed out with Yarnell, who are giving cover for it. We are at a crossroads right now.

30:54

And it's not looking good for the SBC. This is blatant eisegetical interpretation being used for a political purpose.

31:10

Let's talk about something else now. I want to talk about Crew and what's been happening in that organization.

31:21

Yesterday, I'm guessing it was yesterday that these things went out, but it was yesterday I was made aware that Steve Sellers, who is the executive vice president for Crew, put together a statement in reaction to my video and two other outlets who have picked up on what

31:39

I released in my video. And so I want to go through this and talk about it because it's concerning, especially if you're in Crew.

31:48

And then there was also some other material that came out, which I'll get to after this. But this is from Steve Sellers.

31:55

And I made some notes of it. I'm just gonna read through the statement. And if you're not concerned about Crew, you can just turn off the video now because the rest of the video is gonna be about Crew.

32:08

But for those who are just tuning in because all you wanted to hear was about Crew, this may take a little while because there's a lot of material here.

32:16

But I'm gonna read for you line by line what Steve Sellers has said and I'm gonna comment on it a bit, if that's okay.

32:22

So he says, Dear Ministry Partner, I am writing on behalf of Crew staff whom you personally support.

32:31

Now, I have to note here, this is not all the staff. I've had a lot of staff reach out to me that say we're not on board with the social justice stuff, the softening of sexual ethics stuff.

32:43

So he's not necessarily writing on behalf of all the Crew staff, I wouldn't think, because some of them don't go along with this.

32:50

But here's what he says. He says, In the last several weeks, a few social media sites have posted reports that raised questions about Crew's commitment to biblical fidelity and to its original calling.

33:02

That's true. In an effort to serve you well, I want to respond to concerns you may have and to provide the answers which you deserve as we partner together in the

33:10

Great Commission. Thank you for caring enough to ask questions and seek clarification. Now, they must be getting a lot of questions, right?

33:18

Or else you wouldn't have Steve Sellers coming out and making a statement to all the supporters of Crew.

33:27

He says, Bloggers and a radio outlet, that would be myself and I think Reformation Charlotte, who has picked up on some of what

33:34

I've revealed, and then Janet Mefford, who I did an interview with last week. That's who he's talking about. They picked up a story and it made two claims.

33:41

First, we have turned from our original mission of evangelism and discipleship and embraced a social gospel agenda.

33:48

The second is that we have shifted from our traditional biblical teaching on human sexuality. Both claims were made based on select quotes and sound bites from our most recent all staff gathering.

34:02

Now, here's the thing. These were not select quotes. And I've said this before, I watched just about every single session of Crew19.

34:11

There's a lot of stuff that could be put in there that wasn't. This was the flavor of Crew19.

34:17

And I've had folks who were there reach out to me and say, yep, that was the flavor and you missed this and this because you could have included that.

34:24

And I'm like, yeah, I already had a montage that was, what, 17 minutes long or so. It was long.

34:30

We didn't need more clips. But this isn't just select quotes and sound bites. And I would hasten to point out that you cannot have a discussion that is of the proper length.

34:48

I mean, was I gonna release a montage that was just the raw footage of crew?

34:55

I mean, that would be, what, 15 hours? I mean, you can't really have that and have anyone watch you.

35:04

You have to, especially if you're writing a book, you have to do this. You have to select quotes. The important thing is, this is what distinguishes cherry picking from being honest with representing a select quote is do you take it in context?

35:18

Do you present it in such a way that is fair to the intent of those who are delivering the message?

35:25

And I'd be open to anyone. Go watch the Crew 19 videos. See if those things were taken out of context.

35:33

See if they meant what they actually said in that montage or if the meaning is completely twisted.

35:40

I don't think sellers would want you to do that because it would reveal that, yes, this was about social justice.

35:47

This was about all the rest of it, the feminism, the critical race theory.

35:55

This was what Crew 19 was primarily about. Yes, there were other speeches there that were not about that, but more than half,

36:03

I'd say, had some element of this in the speech.

36:08

That's crazy. That's crazy. To have one is bad. If you just had Sarah Van Opstel speaking, that's bad.

36:14

But to have about half or more than half, that's the message being communicated, that became the dominant message of Crew 19.

36:24

Now, so these were not just select quotes and soundbites. I want to assure you, he says, that both of these claims are false.

36:31

They do not reflect in any way our perspective nor our daily practice as we carry the gospel to the world.

36:37

Now, let's see the evidence for that would be my response. In addition, I do need to say, not only were the clips that were presented in the montage fairly representative, but also,

36:52

I have shown that Matt McAulatus, the program director, invited Caitlin, who described herself as probably a pagan,

36:58

Native American Christian mystic, writes for Sojourners, invited her to come. That's not in the montage.

37:05

That's not a clip. Was it Grant Hartley, I believe is his name?

37:12

I showed a clip of him doing crew ministry on a campus with a poem called

37:18

Coming Out. He claims to be a same -sex attracted Christian of some variety.

37:25

He spoke at Revoice. This wasn't one of the clips in Crew 19. Rachel Gilson. Yeah, she said something at Crew 19, but she also,

37:34

I showed a clip of her at a event in December speaking, and that's where she talked about being celibate in a homosexual marriage and that being okay.

37:44

That was not a clip from Crew 19. Matt McAulatus embracing homosexual orientation as legitimate.

37:54

That was from an article in Crosswalk that wasn't from Crew 19. Crew's Urban Project, I talked about that, and the

38:00

Marxism, they use John Perkins with Justice for All as their curriculum. That's not from Crew 19.

38:07

The Lenses Institute, I talked about that, and they're both headed by Michael Sylvester.

38:14

These weren't part of the recent staff gathering. So Steve Sellers is trying to narrow the target and say this is just about Crew 19.

38:26

It's not about just Crew 19. These aren't just clips taken from Crew 19. There's been a lot more said.

38:32

There's a lot more that can be dug up, and I don't wanna dig stuff up. A lot of stuff has just been thrown on my lap, to be honest, just about all of it has been just given to me by people inside Crew.

38:43

This isn't, he's acting like it's an outside organization, has an ax to grind, and they're just stringing things together.

38:48

No, this stuff was sent to me, and so he's not being accurate here.

38:55

I hesitate to say he's lying. I wanna claim that he could be ignorant, but he's being deceptive, very deceptive.

39:02

He goes on, he says, I wanna assure you that the calling and the mission of Crew is exactly the same as it was the day that Bill and Bennett Bright walked onto the campus of UCLA in 1951.

39:10

The reason we exist is to offer every person on earth the opportunity to hear and respond to God's offer of love and forgiveness found in Jesus Christ.

39:19

And I have to ask this question now. Were Bill and Bennett Bright talking about what the staff gathering this year was talking about?

39:29

Did they have people coming and pushing? I mean, this is before critical race theory was formulated, but they still had

39:37

Frankfurt School. They still had liberation theology. Were these things being pushed at the staff conferences back then?

39:46

I don't think so. I mean, if you wanna show me evidence from the 1950s and 60s from Bill Bright, where he is pushing any ideas associated with critical theory, neo -Marxism, any of that, feel free to send them to me.

40:01

I'd like to see them. He goes on, he states, Formally, we say that our calling is to help fulfill the

40:09

Great Commission by winning, building, and sending in the power of the Holy Spirit and helping the body of Christ to evangelism and discipleship.

40:18

Now, formally, you can say a lot of things, right? I mean, literally. The theme of the conference this year for the staff conference was the cause that God has called us to.

40:33

That's not the flavor you got from the conference. So you can put anything you want in writing. I'm gonna look at your deeds.

40:41

It's like James, right? Show me your works. Don't say you have faith.

40:48

Show me your works. He goes on, Practically, this means that all of our staff show up every day on campus and in their communities, trusting

40:55

God to connect with lost people, to share the gospel, and to help believers follow Jesus. That is their calling. It is the requirement for our missionaries.

41:01

The claim that we have shifted in any way from our original calling and mission is simply not true.

41:06

So let me ask this. Your conference then was not designed to help your students or your staff members share the gospel.

41:17

You didn't design it for that purpose because that's supposed to be the whole mission. That's the design of the organization.

41:23

So what was your staff conference about? If that was in keeping with the mission, the people that you invited were in keeping with the mission, there's a problem.

41:31

And that gets back to the original point of the video. This doesn't answer any of the objections and the concerns.

41:37

This actually legitimizes them. He says, it would be helpful.

41:44

You may be encouraged to hear my message to our staff this summer. It was a clear reminder of our priorities to all of our staff.

41:50

And so he posts a video of himself here where he is talking about the

41:57

Great Commission. And he does. He starts off with the passage. It was the only time during all the videos

42:04

I watched, I believe, where I heard the Great Commission offered. I think that the president may have also repeated it, but the vast majority of the speakers were not talking about that.

42:16

And that is the issue. So don't just watch Steve Seller's session. I would encourage you watch all the sessions if you really want to get a flavor for what's going.

42:26

Seller says that the second assertion made in the media was that crew staff members were affirming an unbiblical perspective on homosexuality.

42:34

The sources used a tweet and selected sentences lifted out of context from full presentations to make accusations that are not true.

42:42

Okay, well, here's what Rachel Gilson said at Crew 19. There is no command in scripture to be straight.

42:48

There is a command to be faithfully, single or faithfully married, and you can do either of those without being straight.

42:56

She said this at Crew 19. Now, if there's a context there that reverses the meaning of this,

43:02

I'm open. Let's see it. I don't know how you get around this, though. That was lifted out of context, apparently.

43:11

Rachel Gilson said in December, in a crew, in December of 2018, in a crew -sponsored event, a lesbian couple may stay married if they are celibate, essentially.

43:24

I mean, watch the clips. Don't know how you get around it. Don't know how the added context will reverse the meaning.

43:34

Matt Mikulatis said in a Crosswalk article that gay people can follow Jesus, that queer people can be deeply connected spiritually.

43:44

I've read the article. Don't see how the context makes any difference or reverses the meaning, and Steve Sellers does not provide any of that context that he supposedly says reverses the meaning.

43:58

So you can see that this is a major problem. He's just throwing out this accusation, but there is no evidence for it.

44:07

He says, please know that both crew and the staff members believe and teach a traditional biblical perspective that all of human sexuality is to be experienced in the context of a covenant relationship between one man and one woman.

44:18

This is true for all relationships. There is no variance on that thinking. Okay, that's not really the issue.

44:25

The issue is same -sex attracted Christians and Christianity. It's about this innate orientation that is not found in the

44:34

Bible that is now considered to be something Christians can have, and apparently even in a marriage, they can have this, a gay marriage, and they can live with that.

44:45

You're sidestepping the issue here, Steve. You're not addressing gay orientation at all.

44:53

And he says, I'd like to offer a final comment regarding this summer's all -staff gathering. As part of this event, we do invite guest speakers who are followers of Jesus and involved in the

45:04

Great Commission. These include godly men and women who may not see the world through the same lens that we do.

45:12

Our objective is to let other parts of the body of Christ offer their perspective on the culture which we are seeking to reach with the gospel.

45:21

So why were no conservatives invited, right? Why are you only inviting other godly men and women who happen to all seem, they all share the same lens on social justice?

45:34

Why are, there's a uniformity of thought here. You're acting like we're just big diverse or this big tent.

45:39

No, show me the conservative who stood up there and said, gay orientation is not biblical.

45:48

Or the person that said, you know, socialism is greed. Critical race theory is a lie.

45:55

There's none of that. None of that. I didn't even hear anyone talk about abortion.

46:01

Not even conservatives saying abortion's a problem. Now, the other thing about this is there are those within crew who are part of that montage, staff members, former staff members, people associated.

46:16

Everyone was associated pretty much to some extent because they're speaking, right? Someone's making that decision. But I mean like directly associated with crew.

46:26

And I'm gonna just read for you a few names because I went through and I was like, well, who was actually on staff with crew that spoke in that montage?

46:36

Gwen and Daryl Smith, Rick Barry, James White served with crew for 19 years.

46:43

Latasha Morrison, she's the one that had everyone stand up and basically lament whiteness.

46:50

She's partnered with crew, it says along the way. These are, this is their biographies on the crew website for crew 19.

46:57

So you have people that are, have drawn or are drawing paychecks from crew who are part of that montage.

47:06

You know, Daryl Smith is the one who said he doesn't wanna be called the N -word from a white person, but it's okay if a black person calls him that.

47:15

His wife, Gwen, is the one who told the lady at the end of the montage, she was saying,

47:22

I have no slaveholders in my family, what can I do to be made right? And she basically says, you benefited from systemic oppression and structural injustice.

47:32

They're drawing paychecks from crew. And Steve Sellers talks about, you know, some people just don't have the same lens that we do.

47:39

How about the lens being scripture? How about that being the lens? You know, a lot of this talk that we hear is, it stems from Kant originally, but it's made its way through the years into critical race theory and what we're facing right now in the

48:00

Southern Baptist Convention as well. And it's this perspectivalism, this epistemology that is a standpoint.

48:10

You need to look through this cultural lens of some kind to arrive at truth. He uses the word lens here again, and of course the other lens is institute.

48:18

There's one lens, there's one objective right way of looking at things. It's the way God looks at things and we should be striving for that, right?

48:25

That's the biblical view. There aren't multiple interpretations that are all equally valid. This is, you can see the postmodernism coming through in Sellers' letter here.

48:33

Sounds nice on the surface. Think about the implications though. He goes on, he says, it's important to realize that these invited guests are speaking to us and not for us, right?

48:42

Some of them were not invited guests. They are not speaking to students on campus. They are speaking to our staff and offering thoughts for us to consider as we live out our mission which

48:51

God has called us. That is more frightening because that means that they are speaking to your staff members. You're assuming here,

48:57

Steve, that your staff members have a discernment to divide truth from error so they can hear all this error and without crew even coming out and saying that that's error, crew's legitimizing it in some way, that your staff members are gonna be able to discern and realize it's error so they don't tell students.

49:14

I wish it was like one campus or two campuses where these guys were talking to students because this is like teaching teachers.

49:23

This is like seminaries teaching pastors to go out into their churches. The impact of this horrible teaching is going to be felt now in a wider circle because of where this happened.

49:34

That's worse. We do not stray from our original calling and mission simply based on what is shared by our guests.

49:41

Yeah, but who you platform tells a lot about who you are. Again, don't talk about your faith, show me your works.

49:50

Show me who you associate with, who you feel comfortable with. Finally, let me say thank you for your partnership with crew for supporting our staff as they take the gospel to the nooks and crannies of our culture.

49:59

Together, we are seeing God open the eyes and hearts of thousands of people each day as he calls them into a relationship with himself.

50:05

The reality of changed lives alone may not alleviate your concerns, but we are grateful for how God is working through crew as we show up every day, inviting people to enter into a relationship with him.

50:16

I trust you will be encouraged that with your help, over 4 .5 million people have indicated decisions for Christ in the last three years.

50:25

Now, Jesus talked about the Pharisees going out and making someone twice as much a son of hell as they were.

50:30

I'm not saying that's crew in every sense of the word. There's a lot of, I've told you, there's a lot of great staff members who reached out to me who are proclaiming the true gospel.

50:37

And there's the Nicodemuses, right? There are those in the Pharisees who got it.

50:43

But we have to be skeptical about this, these claims, I think. I've never liked the whole numbers thing because we don't always know.

50:53

I mean, you can say there were this many decisions, but we don't know.

51:01

And this is worldwide. I've heard that it's different internationally in Korea than it is nationally. Internationally, some good things are still happening.

51:07

Hopefully that continues. I'm not sure. I'm not aware of what's going on in crew internationally as much, but we have to be skeptical here.

51:16

Who are they making converts for? Is it Jesus? I'm talking about some of the more, those who believe in this social justice.

51:23

And it is a gospel. It is a, Marxism is a parallel religion. Some of those who believe in that, who's the

51:29

Jesus they're calling them to? We can't just take this at face value, guys. Now he says at the end, thank you for your partnership.

51:37

I did want you to have the benefit of an insider perspective as you form conclusions about an ally in the

51:43

Great Commission. If you have further questions or would like to, additional clarity, I know that the staff members you support would be happy to interact.

51:49

And the reason they'd be happy to interact is because they have a talking points memo, which I will show you. They have prepped their staff for how to answer questions from donors.

51:58

So he's giving you an insider's perspective. I will give you more of an insider's perspective in a moment. I think three or four people asked me if they wanted me to send

52:08

Steve Sellers' letter to me. So more than one person has reached out to me and saying, you gotta see what

52:15

Steve is saying. So he says, grace as you follow Jesus and represent him to the lost world,

52:20

Steve Sellers, Executive Vice President for Crew. Now I'm gonna show you something else.

52:27

This is an insider's perspective, I guess. This is from the

52:32

Crew Workplace group. These are screenshots from it. These were given to me by...

52:39

Actually, these were given to me by someone who was not the first person in Crew to give me the previous screenshots.

52:45

There's more than one person who was concerned in this group. And not to make Matt paranoid, but this isn't like one guy who has psychological issues or something, which

52:55

Matt seems to indicate in this. This is a bunch of people. And I'm gonna read this for you.

53:01

He says, Matt Michelotis to the Crew staff, hi friends, there are multiple threads in different groups right now concerning a couple of fringe theological websites that are writing about Crew, Crew19 and various of our staff.

53:16

Now he says fringe, he said the bad actors, he uses the word evil intent.

53:24

He might just be a little bit biased. He might be just a little bit trying to read our hearts. You think like, you don't usually use those words.

53:32

I mean, he's not assuming that there's any ignorance on the part of anyone like myself or there's any benefit of the doubt given that we might have a good motivation.

53:38

No, we're fringe, we're bad actors and we have evil intent. So that's a way to try to discredit.

53:45

He says, I just wanted to remind you that our leadership has graciously provided us with some talking points to use if our supporters, alumni and others are coming to us with questions.

53:54

And I'm gonna show you those in a moment. He says, I realized there was some anger towards the staff person who has shared a screenshot from here on workplace and that is understandable.

54:04

Okay, there's multiple staff guys. This isn't just like one guy or one girl. It was certainly a betrayal of trust to their fellow staff.

54:15

But then again, the screenshot shared is nothing to be ashamed of. Now here's the thing guys, look.

54:21

If it's nothing to be ashamed of, why is it a betrayal to their fellow staff? Really, why?

54:29

Could it not be that the motives of those who are leaking, if you wanna call it that, who are whistleblowing, could it not be that their motives are to save crew, not to hurt crew and they're concerned?

54:45

Matt, even if you disagree, could that not be a motive? You're not allowing that. But it's nothing to be ashamed of.

54:52

So he's doubling down. He's standing by his invitation to Caitlin and probably a pagan,

54:58

Curtis, to speak. She called herself that on Twitter. I didn't make that up. Bad actors twisting it into something different than what it said, simply that.

55:10

Now what was twisted? Did you or did you not invite Caitlin, probably a pagan, to your crew to speak, to your crew staff conference?

55:19

That's all that was said. Screenshots were shared. That was it. There wasn't any interpretive grid given.

55:25

There wasn't any, that was it. But that's twisting just to share the screenshot that you invited this person and that you invited these,

55:34

I guess, Catholic mystics or I don't know what to say.

55:40

That was all that was out there. It's just screenshot, here are the facts. But that's now bad actors twisting something.

55:48

If you know the staff person who shared the screenshot, I'd encourage you to show them compassion and just remember that they are likely in a hard emotional space and malicious gossip is a tempting sin when one is hurt.

56:01

Now I will hasten to point out to Matt that he right now is in a secret group talking about these whistleblowers and the media who has given some attention to what's going on at crew.

56:17

He has said about them that they are fringe bad actors and have evil intent in a secret group. And then he wants to accuse these guys of gossip.

56:26

Just let that sink in for a moment. He says that we are trying to distract people at crew from ministry.

56:35

No, we're pointing out that a distraction is already happening within the ministry. We need to get it back on the right track.

56:44

And that is being twisted into we're just trying to distract from ministry.

56:51

No, we want actual ministry to take place, not the social justice stuff. He says, just as a reminder, we can easily discern whether these sorts of posts and videos are from the

57:01

Holy Spirit or the flesh. He goes through the fruit of the spirit. And look, I'm fine with that. Compare what

57:07

Matt is saying here. Compare his language to what we're saying.

57:14

Fringe, bad actors, evil intent. He says, lastly,

57:21

Proverbs 26 20, without a wood, fire goes out, without gossip, quarrel dies. The best we can do to counteract these gossips, calling us gossips, is not to give them more wood for their fire.

57:30

Meaning let's not share their posts, interact with them. Various people have tried incidentally without success or give them more traffic.

57:37

Now, no one's privately reached out to me about any of this from the left side of the spectrum.

57:44

It's been a few people have come on YouTube and nothing, there's been no contradiction really to the facts, just disagreements over whether those actually indicate a problem.

58:01

But yeah, if, hey, look, if there's a lie, if there's real gossip going on, there's a misrepresentation, haven't heard anyone come out and show me anything different,

58:11

I'm open to it. I mean, I've done some deep diving and research. I've tried to be very careful about this, presenting it right.

58:18

But look, come speak with us if you want to. Not getting any of that. Just being called names, gossips, fringe, bad actors, evil intent.

58:26

They're doubling down. Matt's doubling down on this. And crew is doubling down because they've created this,

58:33

I'm gonna show it to you, this talking points memo, which may be the most frightening thing about all the crew stuff

58:41

I'm sharing in this particular video. Here it is. Two categories they give for staff to talk about.

58:49

These are talking points that they can use with someone who's a supporter of theirs, calls them and says what's going on in crew.

58:54

So this is from crew. This is crew's stance on these issues in their minds.

59:01

Now I'm gonna read this to you. This is more frightening, like I said, than probably any of the other stuff that I'm sharing with you. And I'm gonna show you why.

59:08

Sexuality. They hold to a traditional biblical conviction that all human sexuality is to be experienced in the context of a covenant relationship between one man and one woman.

59:18

And this has not changed since the founding or the organization. Well, good. So when Rachel Gilson says something like you can be, you don't have to be straight and you can be faithfully married, that causes some confusion, right?

59:31

So hopefully she's being talked to about this because if she doesn't believe that and if crew doesn't believe that, she shouldn't say that.

59:38

We seek to offer every person the opportunity to hear and respond to God's love, God's offer of love and forgiveness.

59:46

And I hope repentance and faith is part of that. Nothing to quibble with here. Although I will say in regards to going back to the traditional biblical conviction of human sexuality, why does it take someone like myself raising this issue for them to issue this statement?

01:00:01

How come when Rachel Gilson said what she said, crew didn't immediately come out and say we condemn that? Or if we don't condemn it, she misspoke?

01:00:09

Nothing. It takes someone like myself saying something. That should tell you a lot. Use three as needed.

01:00:16

Use three as needed. It says, for direct questions about Grant's tweet and Rachel's quote, right? Grant's tweet about Rachel was what

01:00:22

I just talked about. You can be faithfully married and not be straight. And Rachel also said in a winner conference, which

01:00:29

I've gone over in this video, that you can be in a marriage and celibate and homosexual, like a gay marriage.

01:00:36

It says this crew leader is strong and biblically grounded. And that was taken out of context.

01:00:41

So you have a strong, biblically grounded crew leader who's saying you can be faithful in a same -sex marriage and remain in it and be celibate.

01:00:50

Okay, that's frightening. It says use four if needed. A few are concerned about gay, same -sex attracted language choices.

01:00:58

There is currently a conversation in the church about the most helpful language describing obedient followers of Jesus who are attracted to same -sex.

01:01:04

You can find the God honoring perspectives for each side at, and they put this website up, centerforfaith .com.

01:01:10

Now I'm at that website right now looking at it and I would encourage you to go to this website.

01:01:17

It is absolutely frightening that this is what they put up. I'm gonna give you a little background. The article is from February 8th, 2019, and it's called

01:01:25

Gay vs. Same -Sex Attraction, A Dialogue. And the dialogue is between Greg Coles, who wrote Single Gay Christian, which

01:01:30

I read, and Rachel Gilson had made the quotes that are, some of them are being talked about here because she's on staff with crew.

01:01:39

And they debate, should we call Christians with same -sex attraction, same -sex attracted Christians, or gay? And that's the range of, those are the two sides.

01:01:52

Guys, no, these are both on the revoice side. These are both people that believe in this homosexual fixed orientation that you don't find in scripture.

01:02:01

And that's a thing, and it's a legitimate thing. I mean, I pointed this out, the absurdity of this in the last video

01:02:08

I did, but you don't go around calling yourself, you know, I'm a tempted thief, or I'm a racist, but I don't do anything racist.

01:02:17

I just have racist temptations. I'm a racist Christian. No one does this. But because the culture, the wind of the culture is blowing so strongly on Christian organizations, and the wind of the culture is that there's this same -sex orientation, which is fixed, you see that language being adopted.

01:02:36

It's the revoice stuff. It's the gospel coalition stuff. That's the range of meaning. They didn't post anything from Robert Oscar Lopez or Stephen Bennett, but there's nothing from the conservative side of the perspective.

01:02:47

People who actually lived the gay lifestyle, not had inclinations like Greg Coles, but didn't live the lifestyle.

01:02:54

No, people that actually lived it, and now have wives and kids, and they say there is no same -sex orientation.

01:03:01

They don't bring those guys in. They're not part of the debate. This is frightening, and it's probably the most frightening thing I'm sharing, because they think that they've already capitulated, because the range of disagreement is between Greg Coles and Rachel Gilson.

01:03:15

The biblical position is not even represented. Social justice and politics. They say the calling and mission of Crewe is exactly the same as it was.

01:03:23

We've already heard this. Crewe does not promote a political agenda. Crewe does not promote a political agenda.

01:03:36

I'm going to show it to you here, because yeah, you almost have to do a double take on this one.

01:03:41

It says it right there, number two. Now guys, look, they may be well -meaning. They may not think they're promoting a political agenda.

01:03:48

I don't know how, but did you watch that montage of Crewe 19?

01:03:55

I mean, ICE is rounding people up. It's a new Holocaust. I mean,

01:04:01

Steve Sellers is the one who got up in front of everyone, and he didn't mention Trump by name, but that's who he was talking about.

01:04:07

It was right at the time when the news cycle was talking about Trump and some remark that he made, which was this particular one taken out of context, like legitimately taken out of context, not like what they're saying we're doing.

01:04:20

And he wasn't making a racist comment, but Steve Sellers gets up there and he's almost crying that leaders in our country are, it's in the montage, leaders in our country are saying insensitive things about people of color and so forth.

01:04:34

Right, guys? I mean, I can go on and on. There is a political agenda going on. Like, this has gotta be the most flimsy thing that they're trotting out there.

01:04:45

And the only reason they can do this is because when you take these Democratic talking points and you call them gospel issues, you've sanctified them and they're no longer political.

01:04:56

That's the only way you do it. So that's frightening. That's what I pointed out in the first video. I said, I think they're taking these political issues from the

01:05:04

Democratic side of the aisle, and they're saying these are gospel issues. Now, I'm gonna move on here.

01:05:10

Let's see. Staff are encouraged to search the scriptures, to listen to the Holy Spirit, and to live out their lives, biblical convictions in their personal lives.

01:05:16

However, crew staff members must not engage in political activity using their association with crew personally or on social media. Okay. I don't know.

01:05:26

I think the comments made about the police, which weren't even included in the montage. How about this?

01:05:32

How about politics from 100, 200, or 300 years ago? How about all the stuff that was brought up about the founding fathers and the

01:05:38

Constitution? And just racism since then. I mean, Jefferson Davis was brought up, and so was

01:05:43

Abraham Lincoln. Both bad guys. Both said racist things. How about moving forward into the 20th century?

01:05:52

And the statement by James White that if you were a black man after World War II and you put on your uniform, you'd be lynched.

01:06:01

Are political issues from hundreds of years ago or even 50 years ago, are those up for debate?

01:06:07

Can those be talked about? Because those were talked about as well. They're engaging in politics, guys, whether you want to admit it or not.

01:06:15

And it's for a current political agenda. All the things that were brought up from hundreds of years ago were then tied into modern inequities.

01:06:25

And we got to do something about those inequities, right? I've already pointed this out, so I don't want to beat a dead horse. At our internal staff conference, we invited a variety of speakers who are involved in proclaiming the gospel to the world in a variety of ways.

01:06:37

Okay, guys, there's one way to proclaim the gospel, not a variety. And here's where I think,

01:06:42

I'm gonna call it what it is. Here's where heresy comes in. Frightening, guys, frightening. Pay attention here. Some spoke from a viewpoint of the

01:06:48

Great Commission, Matthew 28, 18 through 20. Okay, that's good, right? Some invited guests spoke from a viewpoint more in line with James 1, 27.

01:06:58

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

01:07:08

Okay, pay attention here. This is where the heresy comes in, guys. They say in this, this is from Crew.

01:07:17

This isn't just some, this isn't one of the speakers. This is what Crew is sending.

01:07:24

This is their talking points. They publish here two ways to proclaim the gospel,

01:07:31

Matthew 28 and James 1, 27. Here's the problem. James 1, 27 isn't proclaiming the gospel.

01:07:37

It's religion that is pure and undefiled. It's the works. This isn't proclaiming the gospel.

01:07:45

This is heresy, guys. I don't know what else to call it. You're saying that proclaiming the gospel is visiting orphans and widows in their affliction and keeping oneself unstained from the world.

01:07:53

That's not the gospel. This is the social gospel, and it has come into Crew, and they have admitted it here in this, this document.

01:08:04

This is from Crew, guys. This was vetted. This was given as talking points that there are two ways to proclaim the gospel at least.

01:08:12

Say the variety of ways. Matthew 28, go and preach the gospel, and James 1, 27, visit orphans and widows in their affliction.

01:08:24

Now look, you can show someone the gospel by your works in the sense that you can show evidence for faith, but it must, it must, it must be coupled with repentance and faith.

01:08:45

And the message of who Jesus is and what he did there is no complete gospel in works.

01:08:54

It's just evidence of faith, your personal faith. That's all it is. So read

01:09:00

James. This is what I find to be disastrous and frightening because this isn't just some speaker, and we wouldn't have known this unless there were whistleblowers within Crew talking about what's going on.

01:09:12

They just handed us all the evidence that we need. I almost wish they didn't to show that this organization is running off the rails.

01:09:22

This is mission drift. It's heresy. Now they don't limit or edit the word choices they say of those who they have come.

01:09:31

I wish they would. I wish, hey, next year, invite a conservative. See how that goes over, right?

01:09:36

If you're just this big tent. Here's what I want to say in closing. I want to speak directly to Crew staff like I did at the beginning of this video.

01:09:47

Guys, I respect those of you who are hanging tough in there. And I know there's a lot of you.

01:09:53

You're one of the, I didn't point it out when I showed the slide, but Matt McAulatis' announcement where he shows, here are the talking points that you need to use, staff, when you get questions.

01:10:07

It had, at the time this was given to me, which was yesterday, I think around lunchtime, it was probably sent somewhere in there.

01:10:13

So at the time the screenshot was taken, it was seen by 654 people and 78 people had liked it in some fashion.

01:10:22

So here's the thing. You have a lot of people within Crew who do not agree with this.

01:10:28

And I don't know whether the people who didn't like it agree or disagree, but the vast majority of people who saw

01:10:33

Matt McAulatis' post did not like it. And I'm holding out hope that there are people within this organization who see what's going on to reversing the direction.

01:10:47

Get rid of the social gospel guys. If that, if you can't do that, and you probably should set a timeframe on it, you know, if you're a

01:10:55

Crew staff member, if you can't do that within the next year, get some language coming from Crew headquarters saying that's not proclaiming the gospel guys.

01:11:03

Look, no, these aren't the range of opinions between Greg Coles and our staff member who proclaims that you can live within a homosexual relationship.

01:11:14

And just be celibate, Rachel Gilson. That there's a biblical view. If you don't get language saying that there's a, acknowledging the biblical view and backtracking from the social gospel,

01:11:26

I'm gonna say, I don't think it can remain in the organization, honestly. That's the, those are the issues.

01:11:32

And they clarified them for us in their official documents. So I offer that up again as a plea to change direction, please

01:11:42

Crew, change direction. I appreciate those who are supporting me and listening to me. Hopefully we can move on from Crew next week.

01:11:50

We'll see what happens. I'm actually gonna be going on a trip. I may not be able to make a video for a little while, but I hope to be able to put some tweets out there and so forth, and you can keep up with me that way.

01:12:03

But God bless you all, and His kingdom cannot fail. It will prevail, and I'm encouraged in that.