Some Thoughts on Sermon Preparation

by Phil Johnson

"Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15).

ack in the era when I was blogging on a regular basis, there was a lot of discussion about the ethical propriety of pastors' paying for research and writing from a company like the Docent Group. Docent claimed several well-known ministerial clients, including Tim Keller, Matt Chandler, Craig Groeschel, and—most notoriously—Mark Driscoll.

Driscoll's rapid downfall was partially sparked by accusations that he was a serial plagiarizer, and one of the charges made against him was that his sermons were written for him, at least in part, by Docent.

Management and staff at Docent are clearly sensitive about their reputation as an illegitimate shortcut enabling dilettante preachers to bypass the work they should be doing in sermon preparation. Docent's current website reflects the company's uneasiness with the idea of writing prefabricated sermons for lazy pastors. In the website's FAQ, the first question listed is, "Does Docent Write Sermons?" Their answer:

Docent does not and will never write sermons. We started Docent to help pastors become better preachers, and pastors will never become better preachers with someone else writing their sermons. We have received requests from potential clients to write sermons in the past, but we have declined to work with those pastors because writing sermons violates our core values.

To put it affirmatively, we believe that pastors are called to write their own sermons for their flocks.

On the other hand, they say they will

custom create—from scratch—content for busy pastors: sermon research, congregational surveys, small group, discipleship, and leadership pipeline curriculum, book summaries, assistance in turning the pastor’s content into books, and position papers and training seminars to help staff and/or attenders grapple with cultural challenges.

Docent partners with pastors to provide research assistance to lighten their load and help them serve their churches more effectively. We do provide sermon research, leadership consultation, and custom curriculum.

And they acknowledge that "there is no way for us to know with certainty that our clients are not misusing the material we provide them with."

There are, of course, legitimate ways a pastor can benefit from the help of a skilled researcher—fact finding, statistics, survey data, demographic details, or help in finding documentable sources for anecdotes or unsourced quotations. (I regularly answer questions from pastors who ask, "Did Spurgeon really say this thing that is often attributed to him? And if so, what's the source?") Nothing wrong with getting help at that level. Though candidly, AI would seem to render Docent's services unnecessary for questions like that.

Here's an informative criticism of Docent. I don't need to join the dogpile. Docent are by no means the worst in this internet-era genre of groups offering shortcuts for preachers. Perhaps they really do try to guard how their research is used. They say they try to "notice red flags if a client is regularly using too much of the content from the brief." I'm not sure what they might do (if anything) when they learn that a pastor is using Docent as an illegitimate shortcut. But at least they say they don't approve of or encourage that use of their work.

Other services and apps are available that don't seem to have any qualms at all about helping pastors cheat. There's Verble, who advertise with the slogan "Effortless Sermon Writing . . . Turn Scripture, prayer, and reflection into a clear, powerful sermon in minutes." Then there's Sermon Box, where you can buy whole sermon series, replete with "modern media packs" and "worship visuals." Or Rick Warren's Pastors.com. They say, "Our passion is to have healthy pastors leading healthy churches for the global glory of God." But in reality the website is a crass marketplace peddling prefabricated sermons and other material (mostly by Rick Warren) with precious little biblical content.

I could go on. It seems a lot of unscrupulous hustlers are making money hawking superficial sermons to slothful preachers.

There was a brief scandal among Southern Baptists in 2021 (dubbed "sermongate") when someone pointed out that SBC president Ed Litton preached the same sermon, nearly verbatim, that the previous SBC president, J. D. Greear, had preached a year earlier. (It soon came to light that this was a longtime pattern of Litton's.) Greear himself faced accusations that he had taken a personal anecdote from Paul Tripp and retold it as his own.

Every now and then I'll get a letter or email from an elder somewhere who has discovered that his pastor is merely reading transcripts of John MacArthur's sermons or lifting material verbatim from his commentaries—while pretending he is preaching sermons that came out of his own study. John had no objection if other pastors incorporated into their messages ideas and observations borrowed from his sermons, and he didn't expect (or even desire) to be named in a credit line every time a preacher used an idea from one of his sermons or commentaries. But he did not approve of preachers using verbatim excerpts from someone else's work and passing it off as if it were their own original material. That is plagiarism. John's comment was that a man who does that is not a preacher; he is a performer—an actor.

But apparently there are a lot of men filling pulpits in evangelical churches who don't much bother to study the Scriptures for themselves. They use the work of others without attribution and pretend their sermons are the fruit of their own study. Whether they recite full sermons or just steal a paragraph here and there doesn't matter. It is still plagiarism. It is an illegitimate shortcut, and if a preacher does it routinely, in my judgment, he is not qualified to teach.

AI presents a whole new level of temptation for lazy preachers. It also offers a new and more efficient way to discover plagiarism in a pastor's sermons. If a preacher is reciting material verbatim from a published source, the AI machine will recognize that level of plagiarism pretty easily.

But as noted, AI can also be used in place of a research group like Docent. You can ask almost any AI app to write material for a sermon on, say, John 3:16, and the response will come back in seconds. AI is truly intelligent. The results can often be preached with no or minimal editing. And it will probably pass as "original," in the sense that it isn't word for word like anything currently available.

Having AI write sermon material for you is still an illegitimate shortcut, and your ministry will suffer if you do it—because it will isolate you from the sanctifying influence that you gain when you study the Scriptures for yourself. Second Timothy 2:15 should weigh heavily on the conscience of any preacher who takes such shortcuts.

Almost every website that offers sermon-prep shortcuts for preachers will say things like, "Pastors today are busy with administration, planning, organizing, counseling, and a host of other duties. We can help minimize the time you spend preparing sermons."

But preaching the Word, in season and out of season, is the primary duty and first priority of every pastor. If a preacher finds his schedule is too busy to spend personal time studying the biblical text and preparing a sermon, then he needs to cut something else out and "devote [himself] to prayer and to the service of the word" (Acts 6:4).

"Are you saying there is no use for AI in sermon preparation? We all use commentaries. How is this different? Where do you draw the line between plagiarism and borrowing an idea from Spurgeon?" This is not complex: You can use any tool available for study to gain information and ideas. But using words you didn't write and passing them off as your own, or copying directly from someone else's material without attribution (even if you rephrase) is plagiarism, an implicit form of bearing false witness.

 

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Whither TGC?

by Phil Johnson

If the following article seems a bit dated, it's because I wrote it on February 29—Leap Year—2024, just before the start of last year's Shepherds' Conference. Someone had asked me to explain why I often seem concerned about (if not outright opposed to) so much of what is featured and promoted online by The Gospel Coalition (TGC). This article was an effort to distill my thoughts succinctly.      Soon after the conference I had shoulder surgery, leading to a string of odd and mostly unrelated complications. Providentially, the ensuing medical tests brought to light the fact that I have Multiple Myeloma. That diagnosis quickly led to many subsequent treatments and hospitalizations over the past year. And in all the confusion, I totally forgot this document—until I found it today while archiving some old computer files. I'm pretty sure I never posted this anywhere. It's time to remedy that oversight.

ere are four items—a small sampling of some typical issues that illustrate my concerns about the doctrinal and ideological trajectory of The Gospel Coalition:

 

Despite the Coalition's stated view that the church needs to "dethrone politics," the organization's political sympathies seem suspiciously partisan. The political consensus among TGC contributors has a decidedly leftward tilt. Politically conservative voices are rarely heard or taken seriously by TGC writers.
     To cite one example, TheGospelCoalition.org has featured several articles by Michael Wear, Democrat strategist and former member of Obama's White House staff. Wear was also a key figure leading Obama's 2012 reelection campaign. He still works full time trying to persuade Christians to vote Democrat despite the Democrat Party's radical support for abortion on demand.
     TGC's website also published a glowing review of Wear's book, Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House about the Future of Faith in America. Among other things, the reviewer says, "Part of the agenda of Reclaiming Hope is to establish that, in spite of the dysfunctions of the culture war, politics is good; it's a primary mode of doing justice and mercy in God's world." The book (and the TGC review) celebrates Obama's record on "justice and mercy" as the principal category of political achievement in which "Obama did exceptionally well." That seems a fairly myopic assessment of a presidency under which ethnic strife, crime, abortion, drug use, and general hostility to biblical values in America increased at unprecedented rates.
     Wear is of course not the only left-leaning political figure who has been platformed by TGC. Coalition editors seem to favor progressive and quasi-progressive viewpoints from pundits like Ed Stetzer, Russ Moore, Ray Ortlund, Karen Swallow Prior, and David French (all of whom who seem never to miss an opportunity to scold conservatives while making concessions to secular progressives).

The relentless platforming of Sam Allberry is problematic, for reasons that should be obvious. His resolute defense of same-sex attraction seems quite contradictory to the principle Jesus sets forth in Matthew 5:28. On the one hand, Allberry has shown that he is capable of saying things that are good and edifying. It's true that he formally disavows same-sex marriage and clearly states that same-sex sexual relationships are sinful. But on the other hand, he insists that homosexual desire is not necessarily a sin to be mortified. He pleads for Christians to embrace and support people who self-identify as same-sex attracted. He and those influenced by his rhetoric have opened a door through which more radical activists have now come to lobby for full acceptance of "gay Christians." The organization Allberry helped found, "Living Out," has been rightly criticized for their tendency to see how far they can push the limits of propriety and holiness in order to "encourage" people who are attracted to members of their own sex.
     There are other indications that TGC is poised for compromise on biblical sexual ethics. For example, see TGC's positive review of Greg Johnson's book Still Time to Care: What We Can Learn from the Church's Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality.

TGC badly mishandled almost every aspect of the COVID crisis, uncritically echoing untruths that we now know were deliberately spun by Dr. Fauci and Francis Collins, parroted by most of the media, and used by government officials to impose tyrannical restrictions. Officials in Canada were literally jailing pastors while letting rapists walk free. In California the government was closing churches while opening casinos, strip clubs, and massage parlors. Officials in every major developed country forced policies on people that the politicians themselves flouted.
     Meanwhile, TGC writers were harshly critical of Grace Church for gathering to worship while county officials tried to keep us closed. None of the opinion pieces on COVID at TGC gave a helpful response to government and health officials' declaration that church meetings are "nonessential." The stance our church took has been fully vindicated by the courts and by facts that have since come to light. Namely, we now know the truth about the uselessness of masks, the ineffectiveness (and dangers) of the vaccines, and the less-than-apocalyptic danger of the virus itself.
     TGC seems to have shrewdly and quietly deleted the articles they published lauding Collins and Fauci. They no doubt wish they had taken a more balanced and charitable perspective than they took during the long months of lockdowns and the immediate aftermath. But they have never actually apologized for their harsh condemnations of people who raised legitimate questions about the official narrative.
     Overreaching government policy during COVID dealt a significant blow to churches everywhere, and TGC (where "engaging culture" is supposed to be a priority) squandered a choice opportunity to make a clear statement to our culture about the vital importance of gathered worship for the church of Jesus Christ.

TGC has shown a clear preference for the Woke notion that systemic injustice is a major factor causing ethnic strife, political unrest, and other social problems—and that practically all our institutions need a major overhaul to compensate for that. Since 2014 or so, themes from the secular debate about "social justice" have dominated the web pages at TheGospelCoalition.org. The overwhelming majority of TGC conferences, articles, videos, and podcasts dealing with elements of that debate have yielded ground unnecessarily to the underlying neo-Marxist ideology that gave birth to such a twisted definition of "justice."
     We are by no means alone in this perspective. The dozen or more Christian leaders who drafted the Dallas Statement on Social Justice in June of 2018 all shared a common concern about the aggressive way TGC promotes an unbiblical notion of what justice entails.

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Virtually all the concerns we have with TGC are prompted by the organization's tendency to move away from beliefs and values usually associated with the evangelical mainstream, while looking for things to praise in newer ideas touted by today's self-styled "progressives." It seems the organization desperately wants to stay in step with (or follow close behind) the trends of popular culture and the mores of secular thought leaders in the realms of academia, entertainment, and politics. We welcome biblical critiques of popular evangelicalism, but we are absolutely certain that remedies for what ails the evangelical movement will not be found by gleaning and embracing what's currently popular among secular progressives.

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PS: Here's an exchange I had with Joe Carter more than eight years ago about TGC's obsession with the trivial matters that dominate pop culture compared to the scant attention they give to actual gospel issues. The organization's middle name seems something of a misnomer, given what they actually pay attention to.

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John MacArthur: an appreciation

by Dan Phillips

After a longer time of faithful service than many of you, dear readers, have been alive, our brother John MacArthur has gone to his reward. He now sees the face of Him whom he loved and served with all his might, faithfully and with integrity.

His gain is our great loss, a fact which I think will become more apparent as the days pass. Old heresies and heterodoxies will dust themselves off and don new garb, and we will look for a clear and incisive voice to unmask them...and one such leading voice will remain silent.

Yet in another way and at the same time, we know that voice will be heard from faithful pulpits all around the globe. As surely as it will take years fully to feel the loss of John MacArthur, so it will take years to measure his impact. Men literally across the planet have been formed under God by MacArthur's teaching and example of biblically-faithful pastoral service. We recognize them for certain if they pronounce "brethren" as "brother-en." Even more, they will be known by their unswerving devotion to the exposition and application of the truths of Scripture.

I'll tell you one way in which some of us can measure John's impact. Decades ago, as a young Christian, I wrote a question to the expositor William Hendriksen. Just in passing and by way of introduction, I noted that I was "a Calvinist dispensationalist," then went on to my question.

Hendriksen was little interested in my question, to which he responded almost dismissively. He was much more interested in disabusing me of the thought that I could be Calvinist and dispensationalist. He assured me there was no such thing. I needed to read his commentary on Revelation and lose my dispensationalism, if I wanted to be "100% Calvinist." (Some dispensationalists felt similarly about my Calvinism.) I was not to write him again until I was "100% Calvinist."

Today, were I writing Hendriksen, I'd only need to have said that doctrinally I was "basically in John MacArthur's neck of the woods," and there would have been no turmoil. Though MacArthur and I came to our convictions separately — I was not a MacArthur reader — we landed in the same place by the same path: it is what Scripture taught. (I could never have imagined that one day John MacArthur would graciously endorse my first book.)

But it took John MacArthur to earn acceptance of that blend from people who just recently had been calling dispensationalism a heresy. They saw in John MacArthur a man who stood unwaveringly for the centrality, authority, sufficiency, and inerrancy of all of Scripture. They saw a veritable library of Biblical writing, and a fount of Christ-honoring ministry decisions, investments, and works. MacArthur blazed a trail where none had seemed likely, obvious as it should have been.

I personally became more exposed to John's qualities as a leader by getting to know Phil. Inevitably, I read more books and listened to more sermons and heard more anecdotes.

More than any one book or sermon, I came to respect and admire MacArthur's stance. He was not reflexively "agin'" everything, he just was not immediately "fer" anything. It had to be analyzed Biblically. And often he would see to the heart of The Latest Greatest Thing, with Biblical clarity, long before others did.

And he'd say so, with clarity. That word clarity is another key to understanding MacArthur's impact, I think. He dug into the Bible, and then he was able to bring what he learned to bear in clear, direct, memorable language. This made him useful — and quotable. I myself have quoted him in teaching a number of times, though (defying my own conviction) I can't always source my quotation.

Just last Sunday I quoted a tale of MacArthur. Someone asked him how many people he'd led to Christ. His answer (as I heard it): "Everyone I've ever preached to." That's perfect: profound, yet simple. Or his comment on the faux-Shekinah gold dust in Charismatic meetings: "If that really were the Shekinah, they'd all be dead."

It is that quality of incisive clarity, married to personal integrity, which I think I admire most, and will miss most. John MacArthur was unflappable and beyond intimidation. Talking to a guy at a conference, or talking to Larry King on national cable, or talking to the governor of California, he was the same man.

In fact, that really is a huge thing. You never had to wonder whether MacArthur would wobble, act embarrassed by the Bible, or equivocate, in any setting. He wouldn't be a jerk, but he wouldn't be a quaking aspen. He'd just kindly, firmly lay down the truth of what Scripture said, in any setting. Of how many can you say that — that you'd never worry about what he would say under bright spotlights? Precious few. And now there is one less, and it is a real loss.

I also appreciate MacArthur for his enemies. I'm sure all of us pastors have this or that where we think otherwise than John did. But when you see someone who really hates John MacArthur, or has only bad things to seethe about him — you can be fairly sure that something unhealthy is going on there.

Would I compare MacArthur to Spurgeon? Yes and no. In terms of eloquence and heart-stopping beauty of expression, in terms of speaking to despondent and fearful hearts — no. That's Spurgeon.

But in terms of the breadth, scope, and influence of his Gospel-centered works and impact? Yes, absolutely. What's more, in terms of lasting production of directly Biblical material, I'd say MacArthur excels. Spurgeon left a great library of timeless and priceless sermons and talks and articles. But CHS is not known for leaving a volume of exposition. That's John MacArthur's signature contribution.

The morning after John's passing into Christ's presence, I began the day with tears. I knew the world  — Christian world and world-world — had lost a key unwavering voice for God's truth. That is a hard blow, a gut-punch.

But God loves His church more than we do, He loves His word and truth more than we do, and He knows exactly what He is doing. There was no Spurgeon before Spurgeon, and no MacArthur before MacArthur. God formed and raised up those two faithful servants exactly for His purpose and for their time.

Who is He forming and preparing now? God knows. We can only pray.

And what is more, I can't think of a death of a public figure that had more personal impact on me than John MacArthur's death. His life challenges me to strive to give full value to both elements of the phrase "man of God." His passing makes me mindful of my own little field, and more determined to find a way to fill my remaining years with fruitful devotion to Christ and His Gospel.

As John MacArthur did.

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Twenty Years Ago Today

by Phil Johnson

arlene and I were in London 20 years ago today. I was preaching at the Metropolitan Tabernacle's School of Theology when suicide bombers detonated 3 bombs on the London Underground & one on a bus. 52 people died. More than 800 were maimed or injured.

We were not close enough to hear any of the explosions, but somehow word of the attacks spread through the Met Tab congregation, and when I finished my message, there was an eery silence. By the time I came down from the pulpit, the Tabernacle was already more than half empty.

I had never had a reaction like that to to any of my sermons, so I asked Darlene if I had said or done something unintentionally offensive. She told me there was some kind of emergency—explosions in the London Underground, possibly terrorism. The whole city was shutting down.

We didn't immediately understand the scope of it, but all of London quickly ground to a halt. There were no cars or buses moving on the roadways, but London's streets were filled with pedestrians trying to get home.

I had been posting regular updates from that visit to London. Here is what I posted that day.

...and I posted this the following day from the departure lounge in Heathrow as we waited to board our return flight to Los Angeles.

Hard to believe 20 years has come and gone since then.

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If God is Good, Omnipotent, and Sovereign, Where Does Evil Come From?

by Phil Johnson

When bad things happen, has God lost control?

rminian reasoning: "If God is sovereign, doesn't that make him the author of evil? Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing, beneficent God permit evil in the first place?

The only honest way for an Arminian to avoid the difficulty those questions pose would be to answer the same way process theology and open theology deal with the dilemma: "God doesn't actually know the future; he is taking calculated risks."

That opens up greater problems than ever. It nullifies divine omniscience; it erases the doctrine of divine immutability (the truth that God is unchanging; that Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever). It is a full-scale attack on classic theism.

Calvinists are often targeted with the charge that they make God the author or the instrumental cause of evil, but the truth is no one has thought more carefully about this issue or written more clarifying material on it than the great Calvinist theologians across reformation history.

Jonathan Edwards, for example, covers it in detail in his book The Freedom of the Will. He has a whole chapter titled "Concerning that objection against the doctrine which has been maintained, that it makes God the Author of Sin." (In modern editions, that title is shortened to the question: "Is God the Author of Sin?")

Edwards says this:

[Those] who object, that [the doctrine of divine sovereignty] makes God the Author of Sin, ought distinctly to explain what they mean by that phrase, "The Author of Sin." I know the phrase, as it is commonly used, signifies something very ill. If by the Author of Sin, be meant [that God is] the Sinner, the Agent, [the] Actor of Sin, or the Doer of a wicked thing; so it would be a reproach and blasphemy, to suppose God to be the Author of Sin. In [that] sense, I utterly deny God to be the Author of Sin . . . such an imputation on the Most High . . ..is infinitely to be abhorred . . ..But if, by the Author of Sin, is meant the permitter, or not a hinderer of Sin; and, at the same time, [He has a holy purpose in all that He does, and he uses even the evil that is done by evil agents for His own] wise, holy, and most excellent ends and purposes, that Sin, if it be permitted or not hindered, will most certainly and infallibly follow: [and as we know, God deplores evil, and will defeat it and glorify himself in doing so] This is not to be the Actor of Sin, but, on the contrary, of holiness. What God doth herein, is holy; and a glorious exercise of the infinite excellency of his nature.

God is never the instrumental cause of evil. He does not does not advocate sin, sanction it, instigate it, condone it, approve it, or otherwise countenance it.

But the appearance of evil in God's creation did not take Him by surprise or catch Him off guard. It was part of His plan from the beginning. He doesn't delight in it. It is abhorrent to Him. He remains utterly untainted by its existence. And even in His absolute sovereignty, God is never the efficient cause or the agent of evil. James 1:13: "God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one." He "is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). God is absolutely holy, and high above sin and evil, totally untouched by it.

Nevertheless, don't ever imagine that evil is something foreign to God's plan. The sudden appearance of evil at the dawn of the universe and in the early chapters of Genesis does not mean something went haywire in God's strategy. He planned for evil to enter His universe—indeed, He decreed that it would occur—so that He might use it to bring about an even greater good.

Not only that, but He also remains fully sovereign over every act of evil that is ever committed. The Old Testament book of Job gives us a little window into the workings of the Spirit world. It reveals that even Satan himself cannot act apart from God's permission. And God never allows evil agents to act unless His purpose is to overrule their evil intentions for His own wise and holy purposes.

He will glorify Himself in the defeat of evil, and He will make even the fruits of evil all work together for good, in accord with His good pleasure. He's doing it even now, for those who have spiritual eyes to see.

PS: See also "Does Calvinism Make God the Author of Evil?"

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About that Missing Blogpost....

A note from Dan Phillips

After about seven years without a post, I posted a copy of a letter I sent to the congregation I serve in Houston, Texas. I wanted to help parents talk with their children about the ubiquitous "Pride Month" intrusions. Then I followed up with a sermon. But someone flagged it to Blogger, where it was ruled that my post was "Hate Speech." Their definition: "content that promotes or condones violence against or has the primary purpose of inciting hatred against an individual or group on the basis of their …sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or any other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization." This, of a post that literally says "we don't hate people who want bad things…. We love people who don't know Jesus…" But today, to believe in the actual Jesus is to be called a "hater." You will find my letter posted elsewhere, unedited.

Click HERE to read the post Blogger tried to censor.

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Not Today, Devil

by Phil Johnson

any readers will remember a blogpost I wrote in August of 2011 analyzing Mark Driscoll's claim that he had a bizarre spiritual gift: an uncanny psychic ability enabling him to function as a kind of supernatural peeping Tom. He claimed to be able to watch vivid, full-color replays of his counselees' sexual sins on some sort of cosmic big screen. It was a tasteless claim—

No, it was worse. It was a rank blasphemy to claim such a freakishly prurient peculiarity had been given to him by the Holy Spirit.

A few weeks ago he filed a copyright claim to have YouTube remove that video. It was an ironic stance for him to take, given his own reputation as an unbridled plagiarist.

Anyway, I never received any notice of the takedown, and since I rarely look at my own YouTube channel, I didn't notice until YouTube's referees had already judged Driscoll's claim as legitimate. I nevertheless wrote three appeals pointing out that my use of the video clearly falls well within the 1976 Copyright Law's definition of "Fair Use," because I posted it in order to make critical commentary for a purpose that was both newsworthy and (in the proper sense) educational.

YouTube's judges held their ground, however—apparently because my actual criticisms of Driscoll's remarks were posted in the accompanying blogpost, and not in the video itself.

So I have corrected that problem by incorporating the gist of my critical remarks into the video and reposting it, together with a quotation from the relevant legal statute demonstrating why the Fair Use doctrine protects my posting of these excerpts.

If you'd like to see the revised video (unaltered except for the addition of my commentary), you can observe it where it is now imbedded in that 2011 blogpost, or at my Youtube channel. I won't imbed it here, because frankly it gives me nausea every time I see it. But I wanted to keep the matter well documented, because I hear that Driscoll has gained a sizeable new following of naive young people, and frankly, I think he is more dangerous and more unorthodox than he was at the peak of his original popularity.

 

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Current Status

Still no response from Twitter:

19 December update: People keep writing to tell me they don't think I'm banned from Twitter because if they go to my Twitter account, they can see my Tweets. Here's the deal: Anyone with Twitter access can see my old Tweets, up to the day I was banned (October 14, 2022). But I can't sign on, post, or read any Tweets using my own account. They are holding me hostage, insistent that I must first confess that I committed a crime of "hate speech." What did I say? Well, I linked to a news story about a drag-queen crossing guard hired to work at a public elementary school. Then on that same day I linked to a TikTok video posted by an elementary-school teacher who insists it ought to be a very high priority for all public schools to indoctrinate kindergartners to embrace and celebrate gender fluidity, regardless of their parents' opinions. And then I said this is tantamount to government-sponsored, taxpayer-funded grooming. Twitter demands that I delete the offending Tweet[s], and they say I can have my account back whenever I do that. However, they also add: "By clicking delete you acknowledge that your Tweet violated the Twitter [hate speech] rules." I refuse to kowtow to such a worldview. Hence it seems I'm off Twitter permanently or until they acknowledge my right to have moral convictions that are shaped by Scripture rather than the opinions of humanistic elitists. It's not an insignificant fine point, in my judgment.

5 December update: Last week's promised "general amnesty" didn't materialize. Also, Twitter support has not replied to any of my queries. Apparently the old policy is still in place—namely if you want to be reinstated, you must plead guilty to the charge of "hate speech."

Twitter's staff are just as unresponsive as ever to emails and other queries from people they have arbitrarily banned.

Elon Musk needs to assign a cohort of capable employees to answering people's appeals, or (better yet) go ahead and implement the general amnesty he promised.

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About my Twitter "Hiatus"

by Phil Johnson

witter banned me a month ago today because I said that local school boards' efforts to normalize sexual perversion in the minds of elementary school children is taxpayer-funded, state-driven grooming.

Twitter says I can have my account back if I will delete the Tweet that offended their censors' notion of civil propriety. For the record, I would be happy to do that. I have even written them and offered to to that.

However—

They also expressly stated that by deleting the Tweet I would be formally admitting I broke Twitter's rules against "hate speech," and that is something I cannot conscientiously do.

This is a classic example of how social media moguls are attempting to overrule and reshape the consciences of their users. My Tweet was not an expression of "hate" aimed at anyone—not even the drag-queen crossing guard into whose custody kindergartners have been placed (contrary to many parents' wishes)—not even the teacher who boasted on Instagram how she was inculcating LGBTQRSTU ideology into the minds of her elementary students while keeping her moral agenda secret from parents. My Tweet (like this blog entry) was a simple statement of my own moral convictions, without malice or ill-will.

Several have urged me to go ahead and delete the offending Tweet rather than be silenced. I will be happy to do that if Twitter will state in writing that they understand my compliance with their wishes is not a guilty plea.

I'm not asking for anyone to start a campaign about this. I'm simply explaining (for the sake of many who keep asking) why I'm off Twitter and why I haven't done what Twitter is asking me to in order to get my account restored.

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Spurgeon to Archibald Brown

by Phil Johnson
(Click for a hi-res image.)

n October 28, 1887 (a Friday)—well into the Down Grade controversy—Charles Spurgeon wrote the Secretary of the Baptist union to withdraw his membership in the Union.

The following Tuesday, November 1, he hand-wrote this letter to his friend Archibald Brown, urging him to withdraw from the Union as well:

Westwood Beulah Hill Upper Norwood 1887 Nov 1 Dear Mr Brown, Mr. Booth recd a formal notice from me on Friday. Let him have yours too, for otherwise they will not know of yr going with me. We are to sink or swim together. Blessed be God for so dear a comrade. Did you see Clifford's Appeal in Pall Mall on Saturday? Deceivableness of unrighteousness!" The fire is catching in Scotland. God will I trust work by this discussion. The Lord bless you Yours Heartily C. H. Spurgeon

My most treasured item of historic Baptist memorabilia is the handwritten original of that letter. Some details about the context:

"Clifford" is John Clifford, who had written an unctuous "Appeal to Mr. Spurgeon" in the Saturday edition of The Pall Mall Gazette. (That article is what Spurgeon is referring to in his letter to Brown.) Clifford was serving at the time as Vice-President of the Baptist Union. A year later he would be elected president, and in that role he would preside over the Baptist Union's infamous censure of Spurgeon. In his mostly excellent biography of Spurgeon, W. Y. Fullerton charitably tries to portray Clifford as "one of Mr. Spurgeon's most ardent admirers." He was anything but. He was analogous to those who call themselves "progressive" today.

When Clifford first came to London at the age of 20 in 1856, he came to the city specifically to hear Spurgeon. But even in those days, Clifford was hardly a solid Bible-believing evangelical. He was enthralled with Ralph Waldo Emerson and had seriously contemplated becoming a Unitarian. Ultimately, however, he remained at least nominally evangelical and in 1858 took a position as pastor of the Praed Street Baptist Church in London, where he remained until his retirement in 1915.

By the late 1880s, Clifford had concluded that Spurgeon and the brand of evangelical conviction he represented were oldfangled and out of fashion—and Clifford thus helped lead the modernist effort to silence Spurgeon's concerns about doctrinal down grade. Tom Nettles describes Clifford as an "irrepressible liberal. Personally, I like Spurgeon's description of Clifford's passive-aggressive approach to Spurgeon and the Down Grade: "Deceivableness of unrighteousness!"

A month later, Spurgeon wrote the secretary of the Baptist Union Council, declining the council's plea for him to reconsider his resignation. In that letter, Spurgeon said candidly, "I regard full-grown 'modern thought' as a totally new cult, having no more relation to Christianity than the mist of the evening to the everlasting hills."

 

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"Enemies Within the Church": A review

by Phil Johnson

finally had an opportunity to see the documentary "Enemies Within the Church," and as promised, here is a candid review:

 

  The Good
     You need to watch this documentary. Its central message sounds a clear and necessary alarm that today's evangelicals (leaders and lay persons alike) urgently need to hear and heed. It is a two-hour video presenting undeniable evidence that influential forces within the church have been (and still are) working hard to advance an agenda that is rooted in neo-Marxism, overlaid with identity politics, and peppered with postmodern jargon. In other words, countless Christians are being force-fed an ideology that comes from the world, not from Scripture. It is being pushed in our seminaries and churches with tactics (and a lot of financing) taken from secular left-wing sources.

The worldview and values these change-agents promote are clearly influenced by radical feminism, the sexual revolution, academic elitism, socialist tenets, and critical theory. Those who traffic in these ideas don't necessarily sound overtly hostile to the authority of Scripture. Instead, they subtly undermine moral principles, vital doctrines, and the gospel itself. They subvert historic evangelical convictions by lobbying for Woke doctrines and liberal trends while relentlessly warning evangelicals that the church will lose the next generation, maybe even die, if we don't stay in step with the drift of the secular intelligentsia.

This is by no means a new phenomenon. There is an easily traceable line of descent that runs from the Socinians of the 16^th and 17^th centuries through the Deists and Unitarians of the 18^th century, the modernists of the 19^th century, the liberals and pragmatists of the 20^th century, and the Emergents of the 21^st century. Today's Wokevangelicals are following identical lines of argument, employing similar rhetoric, and drifting in the same direction as all of those previous departures from evangelical orthodoxy.

In 1887, The Sword and the Trowel (Charles Spurgeon's monthly journal) published two articles titled "The Down Grade," by Robert Schindler. A fierce polemical war ensued and lasted for several years, known as "The Downgrade Controversy." Anyone who has read about Spurgeon's final years of ministry knows of this controversy. Spurgeon himself and most who were close to him believed the stress of fighting the Downgrade hastened his death. He died less than five years after publishing Schindler's articles.

Robert Schindler's (and Spurgeon's) whole point was that the path of liberal apostasy is well-worn and familiar, and it should therefore be obvious to any vigilant observer when a church, educational institution, denomination, or Christian leader starts down that path. As the title suggests, Schindler noted that it's a steep downhill path, so once any person or group takes that turnoff, it becomes nearly impossible to stop the movement downhill.

Schindler was warning against the modernist influence that infected the Baptist Union in Victorian England, but his words are totally applicable to the current drift of Wokevangelicalism.

Be forewarned: "Enemies Within the Church"—like those 1887 articles in The Sword and the Trowel—will be deeply controversial. Sadly, many believers will conclude that the controversial nature of the documentary basically nullifies its message. After all, aren't Christians supposed to love one another? How can we warn against the influence of fellow church members and not be guilty of divisiveness?

But the New Testament is full of admonitions to be on guard against destructive influences within the church. These are wolves in sheep's clothing (Matt. 7:15)—"fierce wolves [that] will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them" (Acts 20:29-30). We are commanded to "to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3)—especially against those who want to rewrite the faith anew for each generation.

This documentary does a superb job in that task, and for that reason I commend it. The cinematography is stunning. The editing is superb. The story is told in a clear and compelling way. The message is poignant. Overall, I give the production high marks, and I hope it gains a large audience.

The Bad
     I should, however, mention that I have a few minor theological quibbles. The narrator (Cary Gordon) and several of the featured faces seem to be from Wesleyan backgrounds. That's not my complaint (though I'm a Calvinist). If there was any overt Arminianism in the presentation, I didn't notice it. On the whole, they did a fine job.

But at times speakers mentioned points of doctrine that I thought should have been presented with greater care, or omitted completely. For example, around 47:40, one of the interviewees mentioned John 1:14, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

Pastor Gordon replies, "That means the Old Testament was made flesh in Jesus Christ."

"Yup," says the interviewee.

Pastor Gordon continues: "So if we're to vilify the Old Testament and say we don't need it anymore, we're talking about some part of Jesus."

"No!" I say out loud. That's not what the apostle John is saying. The expression "the Word" throughout John 1 is a reference to Christ in his eternal glory, not the Old Testament. I share Pastor Gordon's contempt for the idea that Christians don't need the Old Testament, but it's not necessary make that point by getting sloppy with our exegesis of John's gospel.

Still, that's a disagreement that doesn't materially affect my endorsement of the film. It doesn't alter or diminish the validity of the larger central message.

A bigger objection of mine would be the way the documentary deals with the Ten Commandments. Here again, I agree with the point the documentary apparently wants to make, but I'm not completely satisfied with how they make it.

Here's the part I agree with: Postmodern evangelicals do overemphasize the love of God and deliberately truncate what Scripture says about sin, righteousness, and judgment—to the point where most in the evangelical movement today seem to think the whole gospel message is that God is love, or that God loves you in particular. The documentary correctly points out that we have not preached the gospel at all if we don't deal with the problem of sin and call unbelievers to repentance (Acts 17:30).

(I also agree that anyone who says the Ten Commandments have no relevance for Christians is an antinomian. And when you try to syncretize Wokeism with evangelicalism, antinomianism is one of the inevitable, and spiritually deadly, results.)

Nevertheless, I wish the documentary had taken greater pains to make clear that the Ten Commandments are not the gospel, or even part of the gospel. They are a prelude to the gospel—a tutor that points us toward Christ and the gospel (Gal. 3:24). The gospel itself is a message about the work of Christ to liberate us from the bondage of sin and the condemnation of the law. The heart of the gospel is the doctrine of justification by faith—not the Ten Commandments.

I'll mention just one other nagging complaint: I think what the documentary says about pietism vs. political activism seems to imply that these are the only two options in a fairly well-defined either/or choice for Christians. But lots of godly, biblically astute, reasonable Christians are neither pietists nor political Zealots. They recognize that churches tend to lose their focus and sometimes even cease preaching the gospel when they become immersed in unbridled political activism.

The true remedy for what ails both the evangelical movement and secular culture is not something that can imposed by legislation. Nor can righteousness be achieved by Christians flexing their collective political clout. "If a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law" (Gal. 3:21). Dominionism is a corruption of the church's true agenda (Matt. 20:25-26). The disciples, not the party of the Zealots, are our role models in seeking to turn the world upside down.

The Ugly
     Now, if you've seen the online chatter surrounding the release of this documentary, you may be aware that there's a noisy squad of smart-alecky Zealots who began badgering a list of conservative Christian leaders who had previously spoken out against the influence of Wokeism. The Zealots demanded endorsements for this documentary almost as soon as it appeared in a downloadable format. Their nagging quickly turned to ugly public taunts and accusations.

I don't believe the documentary's producers were directly involved in or keenly aware of that campaign of harrassment. In fact, Judd Saul, the project's director, responded graciously to all the noise by making sure I had a speedy opportunity to see the full documentary. I would have eventually watched it anyway and most likely posted a recommendation, but I appreciate Judd's efforts to link me up with a timely review copy.

Still, those unauthorized efforts to promote the film by browbeating men in Christian leadership have prompted me to say once again that nothing undermines biblical discernment and the cause of truth more deeply and hurtfully than haughty controversialists who act like they firmly believe they are the kingpins and custodians of the cosmic war against false teaching. They seem to think the truth is best advanced by intimidation, insults, crass language, and caustic rhetoric. Passages like 1 Corinthians 13:4-7; Galatians 5:22-23; and 2 Timothy 2:24-25 have no obvious impact on their dealings with others—because as they will point out, undiscerning people misuse those texts to justify their refusal to contend for the faith. But that doesn't give spiritual warriors license to ignore those features of true Christlikeness altogether.

My counsel: Beware of anyone who treats captiousness as sport. Frankly, such people actually undermine the cause of truth, and in their own way, they can be just as dangerous to the spiritual health of the church as the out-and-out Marxists.

One Final Thing
     Virtually all the negative pushback I have seen aimed at "Enemies Within the Church" has come from Southern Baptist sources. The Conservative Baptist Network promoted the film and announced that they would host the premier on the campus of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. The President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary protested the showing and Tweeted an open letter expressing with "deep disappointment but strong conviction," a charge that the documentary contains "scandalous and scurrilous slander."

What about that claim? What is the right response to those who claim the documentary is slanderous?

Let me speak plainly: I don't have the time or the need to investigate and verify every individual claim made in the documentary. "Enemies Within the Church" echoes an opinion I have stated many times already, so yes I emphatically agree with the central message. Most of the claims made are either well-established facts, or they are sufficiently documented in the film itself with video records and direct quotations. Plus, the clear and persuasive testimony of multiple eyewitnesses is hard to gainsay.

So the documentary raises questions that need to be answered. It points out issues that need to be addressed. It highlights problems that need to be corrected. To single out a disputed claim or two and blow the whole thing off as "slander" would be a monumental mistake. Deconstructing the critics' concerns by splitting hairs over terminology or by denying that Critical Race Theory (CRT) has infiltrated Baptist seminaries is not an adequate answer to the concerns raised in this documentary. We've all seen the videos where Baptist seminary professors do parrot rhetoric from CRT sources. The concerns raised by this film cannot be sidestepped or pushed aside. They must be answered.

For the record, I didn't notice any factual claims in the documentary that struck me as questionable. Some statements were made that I would like to see thoroughly documented. For example, a critic might claim that some of the connections drawn between various people and organizations may or may not be more tenuous than the narration noted.

However, it would be ludicrous for any biblically minded believer to deny that large-movement evangelicalism is speeding quickly in a bad direction; that some of the very best leaders in key evangelical institutions do not appear to be trying very hard (if at all) to reverse the drift; and that many other key leaders are aggressively promoting wokeism, identity politics, and other ideas that clearly obscure the straightforward simplicity of the gospel. Those are all legitimate—and weighty—concerns.

In the 1970s, all conservative evangelicals regarded the Sojourners organization as a left-wing outlier and a threat to orthodoxy because of the socialist and radical political agenda they were pushing. Today that point of view is considered mainstream in the larger evangelical movement. Such a profound shift does raise vital questions (or should I say "serious doubts"?) about whether we are truly together for the same gospel.

"Enemies Within the Church" demands a careful inquiry and answers to those questions.

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