Critique of Francis Chan (It's Not About Church History)

Critique of Weaselly Rhetorical Framing in Francis Chan’s Clip

Alright, well just a quick video today. I wanted to address this clip from Francis Chan, from a slightly different perspective, because to be honest, like the church history stuff, it's very interesting to me, but it's really not my specialty.

My understanding of church history is, well I think, I'll be honest, I think it's better than a lot of people, but it's definitely not my forte. So I'll let people that are much more skilled enough in church history address that part of this.

It's very, if you have a kind of a cursory understanding of church history though, and hey, I'll be honest, I get a little bit of this from my study of Federal Vision. Anyway, if you have a cursory understanding, you can very easily hear what Francis Chan says, and maybe if you can't refute it completely, at least you can be skeptical in a healthy way.

Personal Context and Why This Is Not a Church History Debate

Before I get into what I want to talk about, which again is not the church history aspect of it, I wanted to just say something about my life. Now, as I said in my last video, me and my wife were looking for a house to buy in New Hampshire, and one of the things that's made this challenging, I'm not going to lie, is I keep thinking as I tour these houses, which is a very frustrating process in my opinion, I really don't like doing that.

But I keep thinking, where am I going to shoot my videos? That's a tough one, man. There was a house that we put an offer in, but we didn't get it, and it had a garage, which normally you'd be like, oh, that's stupid, you can't shoot a video in a garage.

But this garage had a wood stove in it, and it would have been awesome, it would have had these fireside chats, it would have been really cool. Anyway, here's what I want to talk about today. So, in my last video, I talked about the Founders trailer, and one of the people that was in the Founders trailer, how he really answered in a very weaselly, kind of limp-wristed kind of way, a direct question about women's preaching and women leading the SBC and stuff like that.

And I didn't want to beat that guy up too much, even though I thought his answer was the exact wrong kind of answer that we need right now. And what I said in there is that the reason why I don't want to beat him up too much is not because I think what he did is excusable, but because I see a lot of myself in the way he answered.

I know that myself, I've too often given in to the temptation to answer in the kind of way that that guy answered, in a very limp-wristed, weaselly kind of a way. And Francis Chan, in this clip, he does something very similar.

Why Limp-Wristed Speech Is Unbecoming of a Christian Man

I really, really, really want to avoid talking like this, speaking like this, because it's just not becoming of a Christian man. And that's not to say that he's not a gifted speaker, because Francis Chan is clearly a gifted speaker.

Now, that's a matter of taste a lot of the time. There's a nice young lady that I work with who we were watching a Francis Chan clip once before a meeting, and she was saying how annoying she finds Francis Chan's voice.

And I completely agree. It's just a very whiny, you know what I mean? It's a super whiny voice. But that's not what I'm talking about, because he presents very well, he's compelling when you listen to him, and all of that kind of stuff.

So I'm not saying he's not a good speaker, but unfortunately, he says a lot of weaselly things. And I think that, and again, I don't want to beat him up too much, because I see a lot of myself in this.

And so when you see me criticizing what I'm about to criticize Francis Chan for here, I hope you can interpret this in a way that's like, I know I do this too, and I really want to stop. And I hope that I can encourage you, if you speak in this way as well, to stop.

Because it's not helpful, it's weaselly, it's kind of deceptive. And anyway, let me just play the clip, and I'll stop when it's time to stop. It's not going to be the whole clip, but here we go. So he's talking about the body and the blood of Christ.

A lot of people were saying how this is how Francis Chan's talking about transubstantiation. I don't know, I haven't listened to the whole thing. So I'm not talking about that. Again, I'm not addressing the church history stuff.

Let's go.

Francis Chan’s “I Don’t Want to Make a Grand Statement” Rhetorical Trick

Again, I'm not making any, like, grand statements. I'm just saying, some of this stuff I didn't know. I didn't know that for the first 1 ,500 years of church history, everyone saw it as the literal body and blood of Christ.

And it wasn't until 500 years ago that someone popularized a thought that it's just a symbol and nothing more. I didn't know that. I thought, wow, well that's something to consider. And while I won't make a strong statement, I will make a statement about this.

It was at that same time that for the first time, someone put a pulpit in the front of the gathering. All right, let's stop right there.

Here's what I want to talk about today. It's this idea, I don't want to make any grand statements. This is such a rhetorical trick. It's kind of akin to saying, with all due respect, as you're about to disrespect someone.

Because there's more than one way, Francis Chan, to make a grand statement. And the thing is, when you say, I don't want to make a grand statement, and then you immediately follow it with a very grand statement, you come off as disingenuous.

You come off as dishonest. And again, hear me saying this, guys. I do this. I do this. I try to soften an intense statement by saying, well, this is not an intense statement. And it's so weaselly. It's so effeminate in a bad way.

I don't think this is a good quality for feminine women as well. You know what I mean? It's just limp-wristed and weak. Instead, if you're going to make a grand statement like, the church for 1 ,500 years did X, that's a long time.

And then you're going to follow that up with, it's only in the last 500 years that we did Y. Like, that's an intense argument that you're making. And you're making it with the kind of trying to pretend like you're not making an argument.

And you are. You are. This is Rob Bell style. Well, I'm just asking questions here. I'm not saying. But you are, though. And we all can see that. So stop being like this. Stop arguing like this. Stop presenting like this.

Clarity, Female Pastors, and Saying “Thus Saith the Lord”

Again, I'm not saying he's not a gifted speaker. Of course he is. But this whole idea, well, I'm not making any grand statements in the middle of essentially trying to downgrade the place that we put on studying and preaching.

Like, that is a very grand statement. And it requires a lot of grand thinking and grand argumentation. It doesn't require just assertions while at the same time trying to soften it by saying, well, I'm not saying.

You know what I mean? I see a lot of myself in that. It is very limp-wristed. It is the exact opposite of what we need right now. The church needs clarity. We need clarity. We cannot be afraid to say, thus saith the Lord when God actually spoke.

We need to be clear where God is clear. And we can be, you know, we can hold things kind of tentatively. But not where the scripture is clear. Like, the scripture is clear on female pastors. So we need to be clear on that too.

The scripture is clear on that. Now, I would argue that we all kind of understand that the scripture is clear on some things that maybe other people don't think it's quite so clear on. And we can all kind of disagree on some of that stuff.

But this whole idea of making, I just, I really, it's not, it's unbecoming of a Christian man to speak in this way. I'm not making a grand statement to try to soften the grand statement that you're about to make.

And it's especially wrong, and I'm not going to make the case for this in this video. But it's especially wrong when you say, I'm not making a grand statement. Then you make a grand statement, and it's a grand statement that is completely incorrect.

Which I believe is the case here. Like that whole idea of 1500 years, the church was all doing X. That's just not the case at all. But anyway, that's just, that's what I want to say here. Because, again, I'm using Francis Chan as an example.

But I do this myself. I've seen others do this. And in this time of confusion, this time in our culture, we need super clarity. Not this weaselly kind of, you know, nonsensical way to argue without offending.

I just really don't like that. That's not what we need. And anyway, I hope this is helpful. God bless. You know, Francis Chan in one of my other videos I mentioned, he was the dude that said that the church had a lot to learn about community and brotherhood from street gangs in California.

So there's that.