Joel Webbon - Comes Through in the Clutch

Curios Consulting and the Baseball Story

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Make it happen. The link is in the description. I apologize for nothing. The first few minutes of this video are going to be about baseball. All right. All right, man. What? I mean, it feels like it's been an entire season, but it's been a week.

It was a week ago today that the Mets made the postseason with that epic, unbelievable, ridiculous, hard to even put into words, comeback in Atlanta. It was the best game I'd ever seen at the time. I watch 150 games a year.

I'm 42 years old, just about. It's hard to put into words how awesome of a game that was. Then two days later, there's a game that tops it. Then a few days later, there's another game that, again, it tops it.

How do you even put this into words? Now, the Mets lost last night, but not before tying the game in the top of the ninth with another epic, unbelievable home run. It's just, how do you keep doing this?

Where do you get the fortitude, the ice in your veins to do this? It has just been absolutely, completely bonkers. What do you even say? What do you even say? It's just awesome. Listen, I want the team to win.

I want them to finish the series against Philadelphia and Citi Field. I want that to happen, but if it doesn't happen, it has been an unbelievable season. The Mets have done absolutely nothing but prove that they're just, it's a different kind of team than it used to be.

It's just unbelievable, unbelievable. In any case, I wanted to call one thing out about, man, there's been three or four instant classics in the last week, but what I want to talk about is the game against the Brewers.

Obviously, Pete Alonso had the big moment, unbelievable, do or die at bat. He hits a three run home run to take the lead. I mean, you can't even, it's a movie script is what it is. It's a movie script, but even the most shameless movie scripter would not, you know, put this in the movie like three or four times in one week of the season, but whatever.

But that was the big hit, but there was an underrated part of that game. There's a few underrated part of that game, but there's one in particular at the very end, the very last out. And so, you know, we're up by two runs and they get a base runner and stuff like that.

So, you know, the, the tying run is at the plate, which is like anxiety time and there's one out. And so, you know, basically a double play, you know, ends the game, you know what I mean? And so a perfect double play ball is hit right to the shortstop Francisco Lindor.

Francisco Lindor is the team's leader. This is no question about it. He's the best player on the team. He's also kind of like the, the, the, just the leader, like the cheerleader kind of thing of the team.

He leads by example. He leads on the, in the dugout. He's just the leader and it's a tailor made double play. And you know how double plays work. You know, the shortstop fields the ball, throws it to the second baseman, second baseman turns and throws it to first double play.

That's typically how it goes. And that's always how Lindor does it. This particular double play, he doesn't do that. He fields the ball, sprints to second, steps on second and throws to first. And it was kind of a slow developing play.

And I was very nervous because it's like, this is not what he normally does. Is he going to have time to throw the runner out at first? This is weird. I felt weird about it, but he gets them out and the game is over.

And I was thinking about why did he do that? Why did Lindor not do what he normally does? Every double play. It's a routine play. Why did he change it up? Why did he take it upon himself to make the play happen?

And I think I figured it out. He hasn't said this, but I think I figured it out. The guy playing second base is very young. He's a rookie. In fact, he spent most of the year in AAA. He's even young for AAA.

He's a young player. He's good, but he's young. And I think what Francisco Lindor was doing was Francisco Lindor said, you know, I know how the New York media is. I don't want to leave anything to chance.

If this guy messes up the transition and throws the ball away or doesn't catch it or something, and this double play is botched, I don't want that to fall on the young guy because he's good. He's developing.

What we don't need is to throw him to the wolves of the New York media to say he blew the game for the team, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So basically Francisco Lindor took it upon himself. He said, look, I'm a veteran.

I've heard the boos. I've heard the media ripping me. I've got too much of a contract. I can't live up to it. I've been there. I've done that. Let me take this play. And if it doesn't work out, it'll fall on me.

I will be the one to bear the brunt of he couldn't do it when the pressure was on. Let it fall on me. This is a true leader. This is a true leader. He didn't want to put it in the rookie's hands. He put it in his own hands.

I'll screw it up. I'll take the heat. I'll defend my guy. Man, that is just unbelievable leadership. It's just hard to even put into words how awesome that is. And I've got to say that that it reminded me quite a bit of a current situation with Joel Webbin.

Joel Webbon and the Holocaust Meme Controversy

Joel Webbin, if you didn't see it, Joel Webbin put out a video on Twitter, I believe. I don't know if he put it on YouTube, but I saw it on Twitter. It's called When a Member in Our Church Shared a Holocaust Meme.

And I've known about this problem, this controversy, for weeks and weeks and weeks. And personally, should he make this kind of a video? Should he wait? Should he not? Should he just ignore it? I don't know.

I was going back and forth myself on whether he should do it or not, but he did it. And I am very glad that he did it because it's a kind of video that it's about a very particular controversy, but it has a lot of long-term benefit, I think, to pastors in the church, because this is an issue that is helpful in so many contexts.

You got to be Francisco Lindor and protect your people. You're the pastor. Let you be the lightning rod. Let you be the one that if it's not going to work out, you take the fall. Let you be the one. And so often we hear of pastors that refuse to do this, that they have no problem throwing their own people to the wolves, to the wolves, and doing what people are pressuring them to do instead of doing the right thing.

And I got to hand it to Joel. I've known Joel for a few years now, and this has consistently been a part of his character. And I've seen other pastors do this kind of thing before. In fact, Doug Wilson, who's kind of implicated in this controversy a little bit, he's done this kind of thing many times.

He knows full well the right thing to do will cause people to say that he's harboring sex abusers and blah blah blah blah blah, but yet he's willing to take that hit for people in his church in order to do the right thing before the Lord.

So anyway, Joel's not the only one who does this kind of thing, but I want to just do what I can today to just really tip my hat to Joel and to say how appreciative of him I am, and I know his church is, and all of that kind of thing, because there's a lot that goes into this story.

I mean, this is a two-hour video, and this two-hour, it's a shame this had to be made, but I'm glad it was made. You know what I mean? This shouldn't be an issue, but I'm glad that it's coming to light because this is a good example, in my opinion, of how you should handle this kind of thing.

So anyway, let's listen to see what he has to say.

The Private Meme, James White, and Doug Wilson

So all that being said, again, so then how did this meme get out to where all these guys have seen it in Doug Wilson's blog and with James White on the dividing line and all, you know,.

This... So there's a holocaust meme that was featured on the dividing line. James White had a lot of harsh things to say about this and also the church that was harboring this meme person, and then Doug also had a lot of harsh things to say about the meme, although he did not go quite as far as Dr. White did regarding the church itself.

But yeah, everybody knows about this meme, and what's so interesting about this meme is that it wasn't a publicly shared meme. It was a privately shared meme. It was shared with two people. It was shared with this guy's friend and also his old pastor.

Now, this person who shared the meme goes to Joel's church, and the old pastor lost his mind about it and started sharing it and talking about it. He shared it with James White. He shared it with Doug Wilson, and that's what led to it being more of a public thing, which is so bizarre because it's a meme, for goodness sake.

You know, when I see a meme that I don't like or that I think is inappropriate, I mean, I move on with my life. I mean, that's what I do. I move on with my life. If I hear a holocaust joke that's not funny, that I think is, you know, kind of twisted or whatever, I just move on with my life.

It's a meme. It's a joke. It's unbelievable that it's come to this kind of thing. This is nothing. This is a non-issue. And while we're on the topic, let me just say this. Like, you know, and racial jokes fall into this category and stuff like that.

You know, there are legitimately funny racial jokes out there that if you can't laugh at, I can't trust you. It's as simple as that. I can't trust you. There are some racial jokes that I don't think are funny, and in my opinion, I think there are some racial jokes that I believe have a lot of hatred behind them.

But there are some racial jokes that I actually think the opposite. I think there's a lot of endearment behind them. They're still a little bit racial, but they're funny. And I can think of like 10 off the top of my head that I know.

But if you can't laugh at a joke like that, I mean, I can't trust you. It's as simple as that. And the same goes for holocaust jokes. Now, there's not that many holocaust jokes that I know that I would laugh at, but there are some.

There are definitely some legitimately funny holocaust jokes. In fact, if you're interested, I mean, I'm not going to tell you to do this because you might be all offended, but there's a YouTube video called No One Told a Holocaust Joke Like Norm Macdonald.

And I laughed and I laughed and I laughed. I'm not going to tell you to go watch it, but I think these are legitimately funny jokes. Anyway, let's let Joel explain this meme to you, because I think you'll understand how out of proportion this is.

This meme that, you know, that is the sinister, insidious meme that has been shared in Reformed churches. It was texted to two people, one of them being another member in our church who he's friends with texting it to a friend, the other being his former pastor, who is a pastor in Germany.

And I'm going to name him because he's gone on several shows. I didn't want to do this, but he's gone on several different podcasts naming me. So his name is Tobias, and he's a pastor in Frankfurt, Germany, of a Reformed Baptist church.

I've been friendly in the past. I love him. I think he's a great man and a great pastor, but I think he botched it on this one. And so he's talking to this former member of his church, who's now a member of my church.

And at some point in the conversation, this member in our church, he sends this meme. So what is the meme? It's a 1950s kind of setting, black and white sketch animation, like Rockefeller, you know, kind of style of a mother who's baking and her daughter who's sitting at the kitchen table.

And the daughter says, Mom, what's the Holocaust? And the mom answers and says, Oh, sweetheart, that's the one time in history that Jews had to do manual labor. And so they claimed that it killed them.

So he shared.

Revisiting the Meme, Revisionism, and the Historical Event Itself

Okay, so here's the thing. So that's the meme, right? And I'm sure you've known that kind of format before with the mother and the daughter, you know, having a conversation. That's the meme. Now, I personally don't think it's that good of a meme.

That's just me. That's just me. And as you know, I've got high standards for memes, right? I don't think it's that funny. But this is not a big deal. This is obviously not a big deal. And this is the thing, like, you've got to look at it from the person who wrote the memes perspective, or at least shared, I don't know if he wrote it.

His perspective is that essentially the Holocaust, you know, the numbers of Jewish people that were killed are over exaggerated. They're overblown. I think it's called being a revisionist. I'm not really sure.

I learned that from Norm Macdonald. But that's his perspective, right? And the thing is, this is a perspective quite a few people have had over the years, including, which is this is one of the things that boggles my mind about this, including Christians whose books are celebrated, lionized, taught with gusto, appreciated, in, like, reform circles, like Doug Wilson's circles.

I know Doug Wilson's circles. They love them some Rush Dooney. And I love Rush Dooney, too. I think Rush Dooney is a genius, in my opinion. You might not agree with everything he says, but I think he's very effective and very helpful.

I appreciate Rush Dooney. And so do Doug Wilson's circles. Rush Dooney was one of these guys that believed the numbers were overblown. In fact, in his most important work, at least in my opinion, the Institutes of Biblical Law, in the chapter about bearing false witness, he talks about, as an example of bearing false witness, the numbers in the Holocaust being over exaggerated.

Now, that's what his position was, right? You might not agree with it, and this is irrelevant to the conversation. You might not agree with his position, but that's what his position was. And so this person, like Rush Dooney, who again is celebrated in the church, Rush Dooney, he makes this meme, and that's his meme, because essentially he's trying to put forward the idea that this is exaggerated.

Now, before you get your panties in a little bunch, before you start clutching those pearls, just ask yourself, I mean, how dangerous is this idea? How dangerous is this idea? I mean, in the grand scheme of things, this is not really a big deal.

This isn't a big deal. This is a historical event that is not part of orthodoxy. Nobody in this conversation would put this historical event in orthodoxy, right? Like, this is not one of those things that you must believe what you've been told about this, or you're out of the church.

Nobody in this conversation would think that. We have historical events like that, like the resurrection, like the ascension, like the virgin birth, like creation. We've got plenty of historical events in the book that we have to believe.

This is not one of them. Nobody in this conversation would say that it is. So my question is, why would a pastor treat it like that? Why would Joel Webben be, you know, doing the wrong thing to not seek to church discipline this guy, seek to, you know, if he doesn't, I guess, respond to church discipline, seek to excommunicate this guy?

Because that's the pressure that's been put on Joel Webben. Now, Joel said, I don't know anything about Tobias. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care to know. I don't know. I'm sure he's a great guy.

But Joel in this video has said that that's essentially what Tobias wants. He wants this guy church disciplined. For this meme, Dr. White has gone on his show saying that if you're at a church where, you know, this is not taken seriously, and I don't remember if he called for church discipline, but I'm pretty sure it was along those lines.

If you're at Joel Webben's church, then you should leave the church if they don't take this seriously. Look, Tobias and Dr. White are not saying that this is part of orthodoxy. They don't believe that, but they sure are treating it that way.

They sure are treating it that way. All the while, there are plenty of people in both of these guys' churches, I'm assuming. Again, I don't know Tobias, but I know Dr. White. Apology. I love them some Rush Dooney.

They've got Rush Dooney books that they are encouraging men to read where it says the exact same thing that this memer believes, and yet that's okay. That's okay. They've got themselves all tied up in knots over this, and this is the thing.

I'm not saying that Dr. White or Tobias or Doug Wilson is treating this historical event, this interpretation of this historical event as a point of orthodoxy. I'm not saying that they think it's a point of orthodoxy, but they certainly seem to be treating it that way.

That's how they seem to be treating it, and pressure has been applied to Joel Webben. I mean, Dr. White in his video threatens Joel Webben. He's talking about Joel Webben without naming him and then says, don't make me name names.

If you're at a church who doesn't take this kind of thing so seriously, then you need to leave that church and don't make me name names. That's a threat. That's pressure being applied to Joel Webben over a meme, over nothing.

Joel Webbon's Pastoral Response and the Call to Stand Firm

What is Joel Webben to do? Well, he tells you what he did.

There's this meme, and here's the deal with this former pastor, and the former pastor loses his mind. He comes to me, and I end up having a two-hour Zoom call with him and all of his elders and this member of my church.

He's a member of your church now. He's a member of my church now, but we're meeting with this other church and all of his former elders, where he is no longer a member. And him, myself, and this member of our church now, we're two hours, the first hour, we're just quiet and just listening to all their many, many concerns.

Let me just say something to you, and this is why Joel Webben's a pastor and I'm not. Okay, I'll just say this right now. Joel Webben would have been completely in his rights to hear Tobias, Pastor Tobias, say, hey, I want to talk to you about this meme.

This is a serious issue. This is a very, this is an inter-church, inter-discipline issue. Joel Webben would have been completely in his rights to say, absolutely not grow up. It's a meme. I'm not jumping on the phone with you to discuss a meme.

This is ridiculous. Joel Webben would have been completely in his rights to do that, but that's not what Joel Webben does. What Joel Webben does is something I've seen him do again and again and again.

I wasn't involved in this issue, but I've been involved with other issues with Joel, and this is his posture. He bends over freaking backwards to think to himself, maybe I'm just not getting it. I'm a young pastor.

Maybe I don't understand. Let me hear them out. Let me hear them out and then spend an hour listening to their many grievances and woes over a freaking meme and take time out of his day. I've seen Joel pour hours out of his day, bending over backwards for people that have grievances against him.

This is what he does. He tries to keep a level head. He has his positions. I'm not saying he doesn't have his positions. He does have his positions because I'm guaranteeing you, Joel went into this call thinking this is the stupidest possible thing I've ever heard.

They want to have a call about a meme, but he does it and he thinks to himself, maybe I just don't get it. Maybe I'm wrong. That's what he does. That's what he does. And then later in the video, I mean, watch this whole video.

I recommend you watch it because it's a clinic in how to be, you know, how to not think too much of yourself and say, maybe I'm wrong on this. Maybe I'm wrong on this. At one point he says, you know, this is why the young men will come to me and no one will remember your name.

I think he's talking to Tobias there. And, you know, that could be interpreted as a little arrogant, but okay, he says something that, you know, a little bit questionable, but the consistency of the behavior here is one of maybe you're right and I'm wrong.

Let me hear you out. So then the second thing he does is he interrogates his own person because these people essentially pressure him into doing it, asking them stupid questions like, do you hate Jews?

Do you hate Jews? I can almost, I feel like Joel probably was embarrassed to even ask his person this. Do you hate Jews? Do you think that they can be saved? You know, this and that. What do you think of the Holocaust?

He's talking to him like a human being. And he asks him all the questions he needs to ask him. And the reason why I think he was probably embarrassed to even ask is because he eventually says, and then I stopped asking questions because this is enough already.

This is enough already. This interrogation is over. This is ridiculous. But this is the thing, and I'm going to end it here. I don't want to go too long on this. This is just, I mean, I'm just trying to show, you know, I'm trying to point you to this video so that pastors can understand how to talk to people that are to your right.

How to talk to people who might believe some unsavory things that, you know, your high school, you know, social studies teacher never taught you. The thing is, like, like this post-war consensus thing, these, the mythology that's kind of become sacrosanct, and I mean mythology just in the general sense, not like that it's fake.

I'm just saying you can't question it. You have to go along with the program. If you do, you're an anti-Semite, you know, stuff like that. This, this is really bewitched. A lot of people, a lot of good people, where they know full well this is not a point of orthodoxy, but there is a religious fervor.

There's a religious zealotry that surrounds these events, so much so that if you even walk down that road, they're going to question, should you even be allowed in the church, at the table? Should we deny the means of grace to you that are available to the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ because you're not going with the program on this historical narrative?

That is so bizarre, and there's a religious aspect to it that it's got people that are strong, that get, that have, that have, that have not acted like this in other comparable issues, but on this issue it gets really weird, and pressure is applied, and pressure is currently being applied, not just to Joel, but to other guys, other young guys who are not afraid to talk to people to their right or on the right like human beings, to treat them, you know, at the same scale that you would treat everybody.

Pressure is being applied, and it is very weird, hard to understand, it's hard to wrap your mind around it, but if you want to know how to, how to stand up to this, I feel like Joel is putting on a master class here, you know, bend over backwards to your elders, let them, hear them out, let them say their piece, let them apply their pressure, and just assume that maybe they've got something good to say, but then when they come at you like this, leave his church, don't make me name names, and stuff like that, I think at that point you've got all the information that you need.

Do the right thing, regardless. In any case, I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.