Latest / CrossPolitic Show / Tales from the SBC Trenches (ft. Rod Martin & Jared Longshore)

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Tales from the SBC Trenches (ft. Rod Martin & Jared Longshore) · CrossPolitic Show

• launch. Message! We are live. Hey, all welcome to CrossbowlTick. We're live. So actually going to YouTube chats, Twitter chats, Facebook chats, whatever will probably comment. Hence us staring Dumbly at each other waiting because we were live and we didn't know we're live and now we're live. So which producer do we want to fire next? DJ, let's see, um, I could we see comments? Yeah, you might not want to go on. I want to go on you. We can answer questions. Yeah, yeah. If you guys Don't remember Jared Longshore. He was there. Remember Jared Long. No, no, I'm saying I'm saying he was there. If you don't remember me, I'm saying he was there. Remember he was there when the SBC trailer dropped in 2019. Oh, he was there there. Can I finish since I just did. Thank you guys for joining CrossbowlTick. We're going to talk about the trenches of what happened with SBC. Just this last week. Do we have to one of one of my friends in Indiana texted me and he texted me the link to the Facebook page. He said my my lieutenant governor of what of the SBC show that we did. Documentary. The same doctor. We did. Yeah. And he said look, my lieutenant governor literally literally shared your documentary. Yeah. And everything. So this got all the way up to the lieutenant governor, at least in Indiana of Indiana. I mean, how close to Mike Pence. Yeah. Follow that. Not that close. Not that close. But you know, so my actually Jared. Thank you for coming on the show. Man has been been been a minute since we had you on. I think Jared Longshore is a minister at Christ church in Moscow, Idaho. Yes. And he's a fellow theology and undergraduate dean in East and Andrews college. I feel like you should get a better like title. Like, you know, some kind of like, you know, chief ninja. Okay. You know, something like. I'll take under graduate dean. You just given out titles. I mean, I know what you. I mean, I know you're doing some awesome stuff in this in Andrews college. And I'm just I'm like, I'm really, really pleased with it. What are you doing with some awesome stuff you're doing over there? I just feel like undergraduate dean is kind of underwhelming. The dean. The dean's a great time. I'm like, I'm under undergraduate. I feel nervous. I can't graduate ninja. Ninja. Sure. I mean, that sounds like a ninja who hasn't graduated. I know. I know. There's a bump in the paper. I was ninja that had not graduated work on it. You write regularly on theology, family culture and church life with a focus on reformed and even gelical world alongside short devotional meditations. He's married to his wife Heather. They have seven awesome kids. Great to have you back on the show, man. Great to be here. You know, it's nice. You know, we are our offices are right next to each other. But I feel like we probably will get to talk more today than we've gotten to talking like, I don't know, last bus. We survived. People need to know Moscow like it's just. We're cracking full speed. You know, like we wave at each other regularly. Hey, you know, hey, you know, see it. But so I'm really pleased to have you. We also have Ron Martin on today. I'm. Yeah, we got to bring him in. He is a technology entrepreneur. That even already sounds a little bit better than undergraduate dean. I don't know. He's an undergraduate entrepreneur. I put tech entrepreneur in my venture capitalist futurist. I also always love that futurist based in Destin, Florida. He's founder CEO, both the Martin organization and Martin capital. Inc. Martin has advised political and technology leaders held leadership roles and Republican grassroots organizations even served on the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. Yes, he did. If you saw the recent the doc, how the SPC got played, you know, we used Rod's expertise extensively rod. Thanks for sharing more of your very valuable time with us. Great to be here. And I gotta say we hardly use his expertise because we wound him up with like maybe one question. One question. His wins. And he went from beginning to end from 25 and about halfway through. He was like, when are we going to start recording? Yes, we said we've been recording. We're good. Just keep going, man. And so like if you're not signed to become a club member, become a club member, that content is behind the paywall. And it's worth every 26 minutes of that. And then Megan Basham came on right after it. So they can watch him go and then like halfway through be like, when are we going to start recording? I'm there. I pay for that. Yes. Okay, Gabe, you were about to say something. I think. Yes. So I mean, honestly, one of the things I've been thinking about since we did this doc, I saw and experienced a lot of it through knocks his eyes because you guys had hired him to produce and film the documentary. You guys. Those founders. You guys were the chief of the program, the chief of the show. And so we got to experience, I guess a little more from knocks his eyes, what was going down. And you. Yeah, so so many layers are going down. And this is in 2019. And so I'm just curious, kind of, I don't know, it's the right terminology, but from like a money money, Monday morning quarterback kind of standpoint. Given what happened, your involvement in the process, what you know now, how do you see anything different in 2019? Do you process a different or, you know, what? Because part of what's happened is the document, this documentary that we released just kind of, I guess, refreshed some of the conversations. I don't know if it did. Yeah. It's I'll let you speak to that. Yeah. And I'm not very dialed into the conversation that haven't been for like, you know, four years. So it's the undergraduate ninja, new senator. But I do remember, I mean, I do remember what I was like being there doing it. The funny part of this story would be, I was sitting in my living room in Florida. I was a vice president of the founders ministries, me and Tom Askel, Tom was the president. I think we had sixish around sixish men on the board at that time. And I think by this time it was clear that founders had been an entity that was considered like was focused on teaching doctrine, confessional stuff, Baptist history. But it was clear that bad things were starting to come in. Tom was recognizing that there's all these bad ideologies of play. We like, yep, that's the case. Women preaching was kind of a thing. And nox texted me. Battle for God of this battle for the minds. Yes. I met my house in Florida. You texted me battle for the minds, which is an old documentary on YouTube. That's amazing that everybody in the Southern Baptist Convention should watch. It's about Al Molar. The days of Al Molar when you had like lady preachers in the SBC. And Al was going into Southern. And there was all of this like women can't be seen in your pastors and churches thing going on. And so that's an old doc. Nox texted me that and said, you guys are facing the same thing in the SBC today. We said, yeah, it's crazy. You know, that's like same a perennial issue. And my wife. My wife goes. You should have nox go to the SBC and do a video like film this like we need to do we should usually have them go film. Like and do do a whole doc thing for founders. I forgot all about this. And I was like, that's a great idea. So I was like, but all my good ideas and ministry have come from my wife. My wife telling me, hey, I'm like, yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah. I texted nox. Let's go texted Tom said, here's the plan. Let's have let's pay get nox out here. Have a camera at the Southern Baptist Convention. We'll do we'll do a ladies and ministry doc and we'll show how it's about a for the minds part two. Basically, that was kind of the origin story. And nox says. Yeah, let's do it. I think there were only like we were like a week away or something was really short. And then nox shows up at the convention. We smuggled them in because I think he got a voting card. Well, he stole a voting card. My SB secret answers revoked any more than they've already been. I didn't smuggle nox and nox. But we didn't have got hold of it. But you did have a press material with a camera with a voting card. Yeah, with a long distance lens. Yeah, that's how Pedro baptism got him to the SPC. Rob Mars, I'm not if I have anything to do. So he came to the SPC and we started doing a bunch of interviews on the floor. So you have the convention where all the things are happening. This is 2019. Yeah. This is 2019. Yeah. 2019. So we have you have the you have the convention hall like where all of the action is. But then you have the the exhibitor booth, which is at the SPC. It's like four football fields. And we're going around and we had little mics, nox gave us little mics. And people were getting upset that there's like hidden mics, but they were literally right on the front of your jacket. But we interviewed several people. And it was really about women and ministry. That was like where the most of the energy was. But it just so happened that resolution nine, the infamous like resolution nine that year dropped. We didn't know that that was happening. No, like we not just coming to do the women coming to do the women and ministry thing. And and and and yeah. And then the resolution nine marks a cityology. We can use them as glasses to determine the state of affairs analytical tools. Analytical tools. We can use we can use these kind of marks a cityology or whatnot as analytical tools. That became a thing. And then we kind of jumped on writing a response to that whole thing. And at the same time, they had was a ERLC event. And this pretty standard at the SPC you'd have these events. They had a ERLC event. And I think Russell Moore was on the stage. JD. JD. JD. JD Greer was on the stage. And then the Gauls name. I can't believe I can't believe I've got that. Beth Moore and I can't remember the other girl, but then Richard and Hollander was on the stage. And yeah, so we were there. Painting footage and all of that occurred. And it was very clear that this wasn't a good situation. And all that say that was all the that was all the footage. So we got all the footage knocks into over the trailer. Remember we watched the trailer and thought that's really, really good. And so trailer went live. And I do remember when the trailer dropped, however long after the SPC that was. Was it that summer? It was that thing in July. I think it was about a month later. And basically at the convention, what we should note is at the convention, Tom is at the mic on the floor, you know, going to town. Curtis Woods is on the stage. And I don't remember what he I think he was on the executive committee. Maybe he was okay. It was on the executive committee. Strangely, no, no, nothing executive committee. He was chairman of the Resolutions Committee. Resolutions committee. Thank you. All right. Curtis Woods. Curtis Woods and I did our PhD work together at Southern. And I didn't know when we were at Southern that he was kind of, you know, he was trying to harmonize. He was saying, what was it? I'm trying to go back to all these conversations. I didn't know that when we were studying together that he was studying this. I think he wrote on Phyllis Wheatley for his PhD work. And he's got some of this stuff in there. Now, he was not, I think his position was, I'm not like a Marxist. But I'm trying to harmonize an Afros, an Afrosensitive reading or something. He had some kind of language where he's like, I'm trying to harmonize. I'm really trying to do this. And what was interesting is I could talk to Curtis. Like, I really appreciated that Curtis had an opinion. Yeah. And he and I could talk. He was friendly about our opinion. Now, there's all sorts of interesting stories we could go into. But that would be, I just appreciate that we could, we could at least talk about it. But it was not good. He was teaching it. I believe he, I think he was teaching it Southern at the time. Yes. He was fascinating setup. So Tom's on the floor, the convention, there's like, I don't know, 10 to 20,000 people there. And we're saying we need to get rid of resolution nine. And I think, and they had just spoken, let's see, this is part of the story that people don't know. Before they had just spoken backstage and it was so friendly. They were just talking like, hey, you got to come down. Oh, yeah, it was so great. And then you see this battle right up on front and stage, you're like, what is going on? Who was they had just spoken? Who's that? Tom Asco and Curtis was had just spoken backstage and in a thing like handshake and everything was great. He's like, hey, you got to come through. Yeah, absolutely. He's like, I know we disagree on some things. Like Curtis was a real believer. I think Curtis was a real believer. I stuck in the middle of it. Oh, yeah, that was very true. And there's a lot of people in the SBC that were not real believers that are just kind of going to do whatever. And so that was interesting. But in any rate, I think there was even an amendment. I think that we agreed to an amendment. Like if we could just say that Marxism's really, really bad and terrible. Yeah. But whatever that was, even the amendment, I think that was a very, very interesting thing. And it was even the amendment, I think, failed. Yeah, that's right. That's more anyways. We failed. However long later, when the trailer dropped, when the trailer was sent, obviously, because of all this stuff happened at the convention, there was there was more to be done in the in the dock. And there was more done in the dock. Knocks to the amazing job. Sent the trailer. We watched the trailer. We dropped the trailer and the internet definitely went wild. It went wild mainly because of that clip of Rachel Denholland. And there I think it had Owen Strand over top saying their principalities and powers are pushing it upon us. And there was this whole thing of saying they're saying that Rachel Denholland or is a demon or something like that. That was the main thrust play. Yeah, we lost board members. The only people left were me and Tom. And so that was a wild season of watching that happen. We're you surprised that the blowback, this blowback really focused on the Denholland or something. Because the trailer wasn't just, I mean, wasn't focused on Denholland or is it me and knocks him making a point for sure, but like. No, I mean, I wasn't surprised because the ERLC is usually where all of the action is and these kind of legal cases. That's where all the energy is going to be with the with the big media. That's that's the thing they're going to. They're going to go after and victimization because women really are abused and it's a it's a huge issue. So if you're going to come in and say, Hey, we actually we know how to deal with that. But the way you're dealing with it is wrong. We that's that's going to be a flashpoint for sure. I got a question here. This is actually from several hours ago. This is not live live. But it's it's a it's a response to the show that you guys did last week. Okay. I did a sub stack article about today. And this is from pastor Gabe Hughes. Are you just no Gabe Hughes? Yeah. I've met him conferences and stuff. But he says respectfully. The edit in the trailer was foolish. It derailed the whole project. Even though the suggestion being made in the trailer was correct. It was strategically the wrong move. And it won den holander sympathy points to keep doing what she did. That's what jump in on that. If you go ahead. Micro second bit of Rachel hadn't been in the trailer. Nobody would have watched this documentary. This is a great documentary. It was incredibly well produced. I mean, everybody in it was great. But let's be real. This is as inside baseball as it gets. And we could not find southern Baptist leaders who could even define critical race theory. I spoke to one particularly prominent mega church pastor here in Florida, who has been president of the state convention and has been, you know, head of the nominating committee and, you know, everything in the world. And I just said, look, do you understand what critical race theory is? He said, Rod, if you put a gun to my head, I could not define it. Now that's 2019. Nobody was going to watch this. Nobody cared. That trailer made it. It absolutely made the whole deal. And that was absolutely brilliance on your part, nox. It absolutely changed the landscape. And they can complain about it. And they can be mean to founders. And they can beat on Tom Askel. But no, you did what a filmmaker must do, which is get people's attention. And the truth is Rachel Den Hollander was a bad guy. And we discovered that later when we found that she had about four different layers of conflicts of interest that would get any other lawyer disbarred. The truth is she was playing all sides against the middle. And that came out in the course of all this. And we talked about that in the synodoc the other day. Yeah, so I find this. I thought a lot about that cut. I remember when I remember when Nox dropped it in. I think Nox dropped it in. I remember we reviewed one. And I don't think it was in there. I remember when I was like, oh my goodness, I saw that. I saw what you did there. And I appreciate Gabe. I think this is standard. That's a, I think it's a fair thing for him to be asking. I mean, it makes or bringing like this was. But I just disagree with him. Not only with Rod's point. I think Rod's point. I think Rod's point is that he's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. He's a very good guy. But I just disagree with him. Not only with Rod's point. I think Rod's point is very well played. It's actually, it's, it's targeting what needs to be targeted. Because this was on the stage at the ERLC event at the SBC. The rejoinder to what Rod said is going to be. But it wasn't fair. So you can sucker punch people just to get your video out. And point is. What? No, that's my point. I'm just raising the rhetorical. I'm coming, Rod. I got it. Rod's position, Rod. Rod is being very good. He was very rhetorical response. Rod is being very awful response. I'm trying to be right on the edge. Rod is being very awful response. I worked with Mark Eric Rod. So trust me, I thought about it a long time. I, what there's actually layers to this. What Owen says is the principality's and powers are pressing in upon us. Yeah. What makes people so mad is that is what was happening through Rachel. What Rachel was doing. Yes. Everyone likes, everyone agrees the principalities and powers can do this. Everyone believes that someone can be taken captive by the devil to do his will. But when you say you are doing it and you are doing it right now, and it's a woman, it's hilarious. And then I think it's going to put gay or others in this position of saying, well, okay, you're right about that, but you still shouldn't have set it. And say, well, but I'm a prophet. Like I'm a minister. And when the devil is taking someone captive to do his will, and this person is standing in front of a bunch of pastors, scolding them, actually telling them to do something that is unjust. I'm not, I don't know, I don't have my finger to the wind. I don't have the ability to tell what God's going to do with the word that I'm about to say, but I'm going to say it and let God bring whatever kind of growth he wants to say. I don't think there's any way. I think that being in the trailer and then us standing there amid chaos, because it probably was one of the most chaotic moments of having people that you love on your board, people that I have respect for still to this day, going, we can't do this. We think this was wrong. And just dealing with it before God and going, no, there's nothing wrong here. This is this was the right thing to do. I think that's been thoroughly vindicated downstream. But here's, so Rodman said in his comments, and I don't want to miss this. He said, you know, then it come to find out that we did find out that Rachel was the bad girl with all her tentacles that got exposed of being part of the guidepost support and also the conflict of interest. But all the conflict, but I mean, we knew, but I mean, the reason why Knox put Rachel in there is because we knew then that she was being a bad, a bad player. It was abundantly clear in that meeting in that very moment. All of the information was there in front of you. And that public panel, there's a lady scolding ministers. Yeah. And in the talking about David Ray Fashiba, just all the theological. I'm gonna hear from silliness. Knucks. What, what, yeah, what are the things like, why'd you do it? Because when I was brought in to make the film, it was the show that we were getting played. People always hear and remember that it was Owen Strand that was talking over the top of Rachel Denhaler's image. But they missed the fact that Tom Askel opens up the whole trailer saying brothers and sisters, principalities and powers and ideologies are sneaking in, right? Not being seen. And that's a problem. And the thing that everybody was comfortable seeing, at least to some degree, at least on our side too, was the fact that walkness and analytical theories inside of the SBC, that stuff. But yes, this thing's problematic. But when the sexual abuse stuff came up, the fact that they had no biblical standards in order to judge the situation was glaring in the moment. And the fact that somebody could tell a minister who's supposed to be having guard over the sheep of God that they weren't trained to handle this type of thing. That was what she said. That's what she said. That's what she was saying, that they're not trained. That's what they need her. Look, I said this last week. It was, Matt Chandler had to rush in from sabbatical to respond to the false allegations that she laid that night on the stage. He's going the next day to be on the network to address it. And it was in all these things were happening. So it was very clear if there was a lever that pastors were not in that room. I remember it. Pastor Askel got up and walked out. It was so bad. Really? Inside the trailer, there's a cut where he gets up and walked out while she was talking. But people can't make the connection because I'm not make, I'm good. I'm going to show that later and I was going to show that later in the film. But he gets up and walked out because everything was being said where was antithetical to the responsibilities and duties as an elder as a pastor. And so you think, so you think everybody should have walked out at that event that what was being pastors were being played to hand over their authority to people who were better trained to handle the care of people who were victims. And that's exactly what happened to us at the executive committee. We were brow beaten as hard as a lot of people who should have known better could possibly do it to believe that we were not competent to do it. And we had to outsource it to these woke experts. And they weren't interested in the Bible. And you guys did a great job of showing later that they were in favor of transgenderism and everything out of the sun. Oh, it's a Godstone solution, yeah. Godpost. Not Godstone. Godpost. But Godpost. Godpost. Yeah. They come here. They're buddies with Russell Moore. Rachel was buddies with Russell Moore. It's this little cabal that Russell gathered around him primarily at the ERLC. And a bunch of people who wanted rid of anybody who had ever been a conservative or liked page Patterson or liked anybody they wanted rid of. And so they vary, very cynically in some cases used these issues to paint their enemies as demons so that they could remove them and take their place. And what we were talking about before this went live was this crucial point. Now that they're in power, all the things they said we had to do are out the window. The biggest single thing of course being a database of the credibly accused. Well, that sounds great. Every one of us certainly wants, you know, charges to know who they shouldn't hire. That's a good thing. Just one problem. Who gets to credibly accuse them? What standard is applied to that? Are there two or three witnesses in the way that the Bible requires? Or is this just critical theory power dynamics? Oh, somebody that is in a protected group has made an accusation. Therefore this person has to be blackballed for life. It was pure cancel culture. It was utterly anti-biblical. And crucially for Rachel Den Hollander, the lawyer, it would have put a litigation target on the SPC that would have absolutely destroyed the denomination. If you have a database of people you're saying or a bunch of sex abusers and there's been no proof of this and no substantiation of it, you're going to get sued for billions of dollars before you're done. And the SPC is no more. And that was the real thing. You know, can I speak to Pastor Gabriel quick too? I mean, I understand what he's talking about, but there's a couple of things I was thinking about. First of all, I don't think that God feels the same way he does. God told this story and it turns out that the way he tells stories is amazing. So a little, you know, for whatever it was, I remember being at the event at Southern Baptist Convention with founders and it was like an uphill battle to try and move any sort of group in the SPC to see what was going on. It was a battle and we didn't have any power. We were trying, but we just didn't have any movement. And so whatever we did, we need to move a behemoth. Right? Like that's what we need to do. I didn't, like, how else do you do that? Right? Outside of like going in and taking and making bread over some sort of manure, but neck it. Like, how else do you do it? Right? I'm grateful we didn't have to do that. Yeah, I'm grateful that that was an amazing thing. But so there's, but there's ways in order to shake people to get them to see when you touch their idols and they don't think they're from the idols. Right? And so I think God felt completely different about that. So that he brought the stories like five, six years around to the very thing that everybody thought was one thing. Now they're able to see it as something completely different and be like, wow, we didn't I wonder what you think. And the other thing, let me go more more things. I find it hilarious because these are the same people who will go to Boniface and be like Boniface, put down the ax. Like, not the tree, Boniface. This is the idols. You know, figuring out some other form of rhetoric that works really well that you might win them over. I just, I'm not very moved by that sort of rhetoric. Yeah. I actually wanted to hate that line at one Den Hollander sympathy points to keep doing what she did. So the Boniface thing, you know, like, yeah, she had already baked yourself into that case. But I think the story is less about her. Yeah. This is, this is the thing that everybody keeps missing. That's right. This is about the man that were in the room that couldn't understand the difference between biblical doctrine. That's what I wanted to say. That's what I wanted to say though is the fact that, you know, whatever she could win. Right. Is actually a reflection of a whole bunch of people that did not see what was the play that was being run. Right. This wasn't never getting in. I mean, like all the things you're saying on stage and no one called her out on it. Yeah. And they're different people in the room. Go ahead, Rod. There are different groups of people in that mix. You have people who cynically used both the physical theory and the sex abuse scandal, which was just another chapter of the critical theory scandal. You had people who were cynically using that to take power for themselves and they succeeded in that. They absolutely succeeded through all kinds of of artifuses and dishonesty. You also had guys who were just weak, absolutely weak. And you know, we can't possibly go against this. Oh my goodness. We've got to, we've got to keep our job. We've got to keep our career path. You also have guys who just could not possibly believe that any of these people could be wrong. And that was by far the biggest group. The guys who went to seminary with Russell Moore, or they went to seminary like you did Jared with Curtis or you know, all these people who had, you know, love, downmuller and they just couldn't imagine that anything they were saying or doing could possibly be wrong or bad or in anybody malicious. And for, and to some degree that was fair. A lot of these guys weren't malicious. I agree with your assessment of Curtis. But some of these guys absolutely wanted to burn the place down as Russell Moore did. That was certainly his aim. And he was pretty blatant about it. So, so we had these different groups of people and it all worked together primarily because as you had a hundred years ago in the general assembly of the PC USA, you had these guys in the machine middle who didn't really understand what was going on. But they just love these leaders on the platform and they just couldn't hear reason at all. Right. Do you have use? Are you going to say something? Yeah, I mean, I can, I can, okay, I mean, I was mainly going to ask, I'd be really interested to hear from you, Rod, about have the, has the SPC at large learned lessons from this? Do you think that are we in? Could the SPC be played today as it was then and maybe, maybe on the, maybe you could speak to the convention itself, like are there structural changes that have been made? Or I'm also interested, are there ideas now? Are there, has there been a maturation in the way that people are thinking so that this wouldn't happen again? This exact thing probably wouldn't happen again. Everybody who was really pushing weakness is really backpedaling hard off of that and pretending maybe they never even knew about that or whatever. So we've got progress there. And by the way, we've got a good president right now. We have the possibility of a much, much better president in Orlando this year in Willie Rice, who is a mega church pastor in the Tampa St. Petersburg area. Willie was on the wrong team. He repented of that publicly. He's the only major SPC leader. I know of that I can say that about actually been out in public and said, here's what I believe. Here's why I was wrong. I was wrong. I'm sorry. Here's what I now realize about what the word has to say about these things. So I'm very hopeful that Willie Rice wins. And if he does, it will actually have a big impact on how these things play out as it would have if Tom Askell had been elected president. These guys appoint the committee on committees, which appoints the committee on nominations, which appoints all the members of all the boards. And that's a long process, but it starts by electing the president. So I feel good about where we are. I feel better about where we could be. On the other hand, is it really better? Well, the bad guys are still running the executive committee. There is about to be a change in the presidency at southeastern seminary, but it isn't going to amount to a hill of beans. The same mass is still there. The ERLC is about to get a new president. We'll see how he turns out. The interim guy is good. But yeah, there's still a lot of mass out there, and a lot of people haven't confronted what really happened. And they certainly haven't confronted the original issue you were talking about, Jared, which is the women pastors. We had an attempted amendment to the Constitution to prohibit that just in its entirety. It's plain as day in the baddest faith and message, which is the SBC's confessional statement. It's clear what is required. Lots of churches are violating it any way to one degree or another. And we were told going into the New Orleans Convention where we were first voting on this amendment to tighten things up that this never happens. There might be one or two exceptions in 47,000 churches. And when that argument didn't work, they shifted field within two weeks and said there are thousands of churches doing this, and you'll end up getting rid of all the black people. You're a racist. No, we're standing on the same doctrinal standard we always have. And that, honestly, all those black churches said they believed in. So anyway, something haven't changed. Somethings aren't in the direction of change. I feel good about where we're going. I don't feel as good about it as I would have if Tom Ascle had been elected president. Or my own either one. Have you heard, I haven't, you know, watching this report come out, I think it was from the clear, clear e-sources. LLC was a group, I believe, that did this report where they investigate the whole guy posts, his acts and everything like that. They reviewed guy posts. Yes, reviewed guy posts. Have you heard or how I saw little buzz about it? Well, you know, you have Megan Basham, by the way, we need to be praying for. Pray for cis. She's still dealing with some cancer stuff. I think she had to check up just yesterday. So we pray and that went well. But I don't see as much noise being made about this review as much as it was made about the sexual abuse cases. They use the Chronicles. Right. They are not. And the ERLC, I haven't heard much from them. Have they addressed this as executive committee? At any of the heads of the Sun<|vi|> or say they're stupid, which they'll never do. Because I mean, you're talking about preachers here. They're never going to admit that. So you have a group of people who talk about it. Tell the truth about it. So if they just sweep it under the rug. I got asked though, then how do they expect us to believe them when they talk about repitting for slavery? Yeah, no kidding. No kidding or anything else for them. Yes, answer to your question, Noxie's obvious. If they just make this go away, then they never have to answer that question. This is, I mean, I just, I think people know this about the SBC, but it's a, it's a, it's a wild place. Yeah. It can, it's a big convention. 10,000, I don't know, 10,000, 20,000 people, Robert's Rules of Order Business Meeting. It's the microcosm of America is what I loved about it. Honestly. It's a captivating, absolutely captivating experience. And there's, so people start to think it's a very, very political place. So people start to think in political terms, which is the kind of creates a wild situation. But I guess if we can't get one of the largest Christian denominations in America to repent, it doesn't make me feel good about the rest of the nation. You're talking about some leaders. You're not really talking about the 47,000 churches. Only about seven to nine percent of them even have representatives at a Southern Baptist convention in the first place. Participation is abysmalilo. I've been, I've been griping about that my whole life. And, and we need people to show up. If more people showed up, these things simply could not happen. They just wouldn't ever happen. The Baptist in the Pew is as conservative as ever. But you have leaders who are not really accountable to them all too often precisely because they're so low participation. And that produces this mess in very much the same way it did. I mentioned it before. You guys were talking about crossed fingers in the synodoc. And I appreciate you doing that because it is a magnificent work of church history that nobody else ever attempted. And that book lays out exactly how the PC USA was captured by almost an identical liberal insurgency in the 1920s. That's what we've experienced here. The only thing saving the SBC is it is much, much more diffuse. We are an entire denomination of independent churches and there's only so much the top can do. So that is positive. On the other hand, and I just got to say it, the institutions of the SBC really do matter. And the proof of that is Princeton seminary, which even after a century of Westminster being there to be the new Princeton, Princeton actually has more student body than Westminster a hundred years later. So we can't imagine that Southern seminaries just going to magically go away because some of us are unhappy with Curtis Woods. That's not going to happen. It's going to be training our next generations of pastors for a hundred, 200, 300 years to come. So it's important that people show up at the annual meeting and vote for the man who will pick the trustees, who will keep them faithful. That's the only way this works. And just, I'm sorry, Pastor, just real quick. I just got to say this on the teller of what you're saying. There is a tendency right now for a lot of us because of the failure of institutions over the last six years with COVID and everything else we've seen to reject institutionalism. But that's wrong. That's the absolute wrong way to go. Institutions are things that help shape people into being better for a society. It trains them and educates them. And so as we see the SBC go, they're still like pastor, like that pastor, Pastor Rod Martin. That's a scary thing for you. I'm sure. Dr. Wulpa is all. But they're entrepreneur. Yeah, they're going to be training pastors for generations and generations. It's going to be shaping the minds and hearts of your children from generation to generation. And how they're trained, especially with only six seminaries in the SBC, it really matters at that point. You know, we educate a third of all the seminary students in the country. This can't be missed. We don't graduate a third of all the pastors. That's not what I'm saying. But the students who come through our doors, come prize a third of all the students who go to seminary in the United States. It is so much bigger than just us. I had a Lutheran pastor from East Texas contact me during all of this, holo below. And he's like, I am praying for you. My church is praying for you every single day. My pastor, you know, lots of our pastors actually went to Southern Baptist seminaries because they're good seminaries. And if you guys went bad, we would be toast. And that's absolutely true. Maybe it doesn't affect your current pastor, but it affects the guy you're going to hire after him. Wow. 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If our children are to stand for Christ in a woke, hostile culture, they need more than lists and syllogisms which only create men without chests. We need to train and mature their loves. At Living Heritage, we do this through daily, historically rooted worship to start homeschool day and family style learning centered around classic books, church history and solid reform theology. All in a K through 12 open and go daily plan. You too can have joyful, consistent, restful homeschool days and about restful really. But anyways, you know, sorry, sorry, sorry, rooted in truth, cultivated and wonder and growing in wisdom. Find out more at www.livingheritage.info. I have a question for Rod if I can. I had a question for you actually. Oh no. Because you are probably the most SBC ignorant person that I know. I mean, seriously, like Gabe at least has like sub sort of, but you have like, I remember going through the trailer and walking through everything, the original field. I grew up Presbyterian, my dad's a Presbyterian pastor. I mean, I know it's all really weird and strange to me. But as you were making the second dog with us, it was interesting because I was watching how you were processing. What was the things that came to your mind? What did you see? How did you take all this in as a Presbyterian? No, you know, honestly, I think probably the biggest takeaway is like people, wherever you go, people are people. Yeah. I mean, I think the fact that you are looking at crossed fingers, you're the one that brought that up. You were like, guys, this is exactly what Gary North talks about in crossed fingers. And I know of the book. But, you know, so he's talking about the PCUSA church. And I grew up in the OPC, which is the denomination that Mason helped start when he was in response to the PCUSA. Exactly. In response to that, you know, he got kicked out for, you know, I mean, he was like, you know, he was like the Tom Askel in the PCUSA that got, but he got kicked out. He got excommunicated, defraught from the PCUSA. Yeah. For basically just throwing a godly, holy fit about what they were doing with their foreign missions committee. Flash in the image. And, but it was, it was all came down to liberalism and infiltrating the PCUSA. So I, my big takeaway honestly was like, despite the fact that I don't know how this, this stuff works exactly, it turns out it's like people are people are people are people are people. Where do you go? I mean, there's, you know, slightly different systems, you know, different committees, but it's committees. And it's people who play procedural games. Yes. In order to basically have a cover to be disobedient to God using your system against you. Yeah. It's, I, I actually was, I was just up in Canada last week and I helped it start a new, a new press secretary. And I gave an opening charge and the, and the charge was based on what Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark about, you know, when he's, his disciples are plucking heads of grain and, you know, he says, you know, you know, on the Sabbath and affairs, he's goat berserk and he says, you know, Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And I just said, I said, I want to take that and I'm going to apply that to church meetings. Polly, church government. Yeah. Church polity was made for man, not man for church polity. Yeah. There's something weird that happens when you decent Christian men sit down at tables like this. And they start saying, they start saying things like book of procedures, you know, or whatever. I actually think this is a game. And, and, and, and, and, and, you can't even find it in the filing cabinet. Where is it? Something weird happens and, and normal guys who are all going to be dead and gone and forgotten in a hundred years. Start thinking that they're, these rules they just thought up 15 minutes ago are super, super important. And they're the most important thing. And, and you get, and he gets all out of whack and it's what Pharisees always do. You're, you're tithing on the spice rack and you're forgetting justice and mercy and truth. And so, you know, that was my charge to those, you know, Canadian Presbyterians last week was, you know, you need to be ready. It's going to happen to every single church meeting. It happens that every single church meeting at some point comes the point at which a faithful man needs to stand up in the meeting and say, I know our rules say this, but we shouldn't do it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I said, and, and, and, you know, because the, the, the result of it would be to do something with that, that would actually not please God. Yeah. It would not be pleasing to God. And, and, and, and with all the wide eyes and the sharp intakes of breath happen, which we should not do, but have any sense right there in the book of procedures, you know, the Constitution says that we've been doing this for the last, you know, you know, three years. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. You need to be ready to say, nah, sometimes he ate the show bread. Yeah. Sorry. Sometimes, yeah, that's what David did. He said, I'm going to eat the show bread now. Yeah. And Jesus said, Jesus said, have you never heard of David who did what was not lawfully ate the show bread? It's for the priest. It's only for the priest. And Jesus says, the Sabbath was made for men, not man for the Sabbath. And so I think, you know, that's, that was sort of a big takeaway for me is, you know, wherever you go, there you are. People are people. And I think we have this, I mean, it goes, I mean, we are, we all have a little Pharisee in our hearts. Yeah. Everybody, you know, likes their rules. They want to be thought of as important. The thing that I'm building is really important. I agree with you. Institutions are important. But we have to keep them in the right place. In the right context. Yeah. We need our institutions. He can make, you know, 10 new ones tomorrow if he wants. And beware of the Tamar problem. So if you're, if you're a guy that, so amen to everything, Toby said, this is just a surprise break at the end. He lusted after Tamar, right? And after he used her, the hate with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he loved. And so I remember when I was in the SPC and I saw the carnal way people were using the system, using the institution, using the rule book. They were trusted. So you're supposed to trust God and use means. Don't trust means and use God. And I saw people trusting in the means. And so they, what they want to do then is totally for Sega. So I'm out of here. Forget denominationalism. Forget Robert Schruel's of order. Forget any kind of business meeting. Forget constitutions and bylaws. And so there is like you need to trust the Lord. And if you are an SPC guy and kind of up and come or just because other people are being idolaters, you can still be an idolater. You can like walk away from it, but still be an idolater. Still like in your heart. So it's a matter of trusting God and using means. But there's a whole, there's a whole lot of trusting the means that man gets up to and and all of whatever denomination he's in. So they meant to not doing that. And I mentioned this in the in the charge also just is I'm yeah, I'm I'm for you know, having a book of procedures. I'm have I'm for having like this is how we usually do things and let's do it in an orderly way so that we can make it's just basic. Um, it's it's civility. Manor's love. It's manners and I think in the best sense what it's actually supposed to do is exactly what the sabbathos made for it's actually supposed to protect the weak. It's supposed to actually defend the weak. Exactly. Exactly. And it's not just a powerful people oppressing them. So that's what it's intended to do. The problem is that powerful people don't like the fact that it hems them in and they start weaponizing it. But it but it absolutely is inescapable and you're right, you can't you can't just burn it all down. I'm anarchy isn't going to do it. You could burn some of it down though. I would, I would recommend no, I mean it like this. You can get in a mere contractualism. So that's the kind of problem with if it's full contractual, the contract keeps growing because there's no hierarchy, no order, no structure. And so yeah, if there are too many book of procedures, you have to do something about that. Right. I want to give you the last word. Yeah. I just want to say I completely agree with everything Jared and Toby just said of course, but I'm a lawyer. I'm coming at this from a little different direction than my preacher friends. Yeah, you are. And I got to tell you the alternative to democracy is tyranny. You don't want to have a pope and a bunch of bishops. You got to have a business meeting. I mean, it really is that. So as much as we may all hate it and I don't hate it, I think it's great. I'm all for it. You know, but I know I can't think of a preacher friend of mine who would agree with that, but I would encourage them to rethink it a little bit because while everything you guys just said is true, it's also true that this is as Toby said, the way that we're going to say that the way that we are defended from the strong, having Robert's rules, having procedural rules is a way for everybody to get their turn. And the biggest thing that went wrong in the in the entirety of what we're talking about is the abuse of those rules from the platform, particularly at the 2021 convention. If the rules had been followed more judiciously, some of the worst harm never would have happened because there would have been a full and free debate and everybody would have been heard and there would have been a different outcome to the vote. So I want to encourage people, everything you guys said is right, but embrace the political. Politics is how we're free. This is how we get to govern ourselves under Christ and not be governed from the sea of Rome. And we should be happy with the church polity that we have deliberately created to achieve exactly those ends. You know, just to, and I'm kind of right in the middle here, but I just want to say part of the reason why things were so bad by the time I show up was because a lot of people who were in the SPC were not engaging in the SPC. Right. Years before they did not tend it. They're gone. They had not been good husbands of their environment for a long time. And so they come in and when the weeds are high and have to chop them, all of a sudden everybody was like, this is ridiculous. It's like, it's been ridiculous. You know, this is true. And by the way, again, this is true everywhere. Yeah. And nobody likes doing the menial hard work of tending guard. That's right. Right. And there's, we all have multiple gardens. You have a garden in your own heart. And so you've got a 10, you've got a garden in your marriage, you've got a garden in your family, you've got a garden in your church, your neighborhood, your city, your state, your denomination, your nation. I mean, there's, and we all have different roles to play in those gardens. But the menial work is pulling the weeds. Yeah. And nobody wants, and so then it gets all gnarly. And there's these massive, spiky weeds in one of these gardens. And all you want to do is burn it down. Yeah. You're not allowed to burn it down. You need to hack it down now. You need to hack that thing out. And sometimes you've got to get a bulldozer to get it out. But the same is true of denominations. It's true of your business. It's true of your Christian school. Through all these things, Rod, your point is exactly right. It's true. There's no escaping politics. There's no escaping, unless you want tyranny or chaos. That's the only way you kind of do. But only for about five minutes. Because then human nature takes over again, and then you're going to have traditions. You're going to have ways of doing things. And the only question is, is the way you're doing things honoring to God and loving your neighbor or not. And so, but that means you've got to tend it. And you've got to do hard work, which means you're going to have to go to a meeting, a business meeting. And you're going to have to tell brother Tom or Fred or, you know, whatever somebody I didn't mean anybody in particular, by any of that. But you're going to have to tell somebody who you like, or you think is a decent guy, I think you're wrong about that. Actually, I think that would be a massive mistake if we made that decision. I'm going to vote no. Even though I know most of you at this table think this is a good idea. I think it's a terrible idea. And I'm going to vote no. And you've got to do the hard work of kind of being the awkward person sometimes. And then maybe you sway people to your side. Maybe you don't. And you shake everybody's hand and say, yeah, I think that was an awful decision. See you next year. Yeah. So I think that's good. I don't have, this is like a backstage thing. I don't know how much time we have. If you, I mean, all the questions. You're fine. So the question, I'm politics, yes, to politics. Rod, I love that. And I'm going to put it in a common place where you said something like, we're not going to have a bishop or a pope. So we got to have a business. If you don't want to vote a favorite, like just democratic things have heard. But my question I have, this is more just practical structural for the health of the Southern Baptist Convention moving forward. I don't know that there is any more democratic. So if you have, if you have a monarchy on one side of the spectrum and a democracy and the other side of the spectrum and aristocracy in the middle, I don't know any entity. Maybe in the history of the world that has been more like direct democracy side of the ledger than the Southern Baptist Convention. You have 50,000 churches and you want to send messengers from every one of them ideally. Like the whole idea is get out the vote. To a meeting that happens, I think for like two days, I mean, you did a ballot. You had to give out so many ballots, they let a press material in with that. Okay. Like I'm just talking about practically, can you even regulate having 20,000, 10 to 20,000 individuals, you know, voting on two days to just structurally is that I wonder if there could be little tweaks to that system that would still be give every person like the right in liberty, you know, still keep the independent nature of the churches. I'm not recommending to, I'm not recommending an aristocracy. Sure. Presbyteria. Yeah. I'm not recommending their stock. I'm just saying little tweaks that could bring in this idea of representation that might then just shrink the number of ballots a bit that are actually being exercised so that it could be somewhat governable. Because what's happening now, if you've read our McIntyre stuff on total state, what happens in a full fledged democracy, you have the manipulation of the people by the media and we know that's happening. It's happening at the state level. It's happening in our nation's happening. And I wonder if there's just like some structural changes. I would imagine, Rod, you'd be like the perfect guy to bring, to sell that to the people. There's other members can imagine. Just little changes, representative and shrinking it down so it could be a bit more manageable, something like that. It sounds like you don't want the women to vote. That's what I heard. I heard Rebuild the 19. Rod, is that what you heard? You heard something like that? Oh goodness. I agree that there are tweaks. There are always things you can make better. I don't have any issue with that. The founding fathers amended the Constitution 12 times. That's always fine. I just encourage our people to take their time money seriously. The annual meeting is a steward ship event. It's not a church service. It's not a chance to go here, a concert, the way some of our annual meetings have been treated. It is a chance to go steward the Lord's money for the Lord's work. And if people understood it that way, more of them would show up. And I'm telling you, the baddest in the pew is much more conservative than the guys who come there on a plane ticket paid for by an SBC entity to vote for their bosses' buddies. That's the bottom line. You need more of the regular baddest. The Billy baddest got to show up. That's essential. So it's not so much about constraining the numbers. It's about having the right mix in the room. And we have too many people there. And this was true in the PC USA 100 years ago. Probably true of everybody everywhere. The real problem is that it's just the insiders who show up. And there aren't enough of the regular people to balance that. That was certainly true in 2019 with Resolution 9. It was, I think there was like 5,000 people in the room at the time. It was an incredibly low attendance meeting. And it was mostly people who either worked for the denomination or wanted to. Wow. I need to read this. Or I'm going to be in trouble to produce it. Let's be clear about something. How you handle your money is not a neutral act. It's not separate from your walk with Christ. It's not exempt from his lordship. If you're a Christian, then everything you have is under the authority of Jesus. And we are commanded to be faithful in all of it. Dominion, wealth, strategists exist to help families think biblically and act wisely when it comes to financial stewardship. They offer education and consulting to help Christians align their household economics with a long term Christ centered post millennial vision. They provide guidance on areas like budgeting, saving, debt management, life insurance, estate organization, and developing a multi generational financial vision. Their goal is not to sell products. It's to help you ask the right questions and make informed decisions consistent with your convictions. This isn't about chasing wealth for its own sake. It's about faithfulness. Dominion helps their clients protect what matters and prepare for the future with clarity and conviction. If you're ready to think more intentionally about how you steward the resources God has entrusted to you. WWW dot reformed dot money and schedule a complimentary consultation today. Right, Jared. Thank you, brother. So much for joining us. I can talk to you all night. Very much. Very grateful. It's a ride. I just what next time the next doctor we're dropping in two weeks from now. Am I correct about that right? It's two weeks from now. And that's going to be on gambling. Yep. Good thing. Bad thing. You're going to give us a little bit of a taste of what's going to come. No. None. Just going to say gambling. All right. You can't go get married. If you married, have you a bunch of kids. And if you have those kids, go baptize them until next time. Love God with all your heart. Soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Go fight, laugh and feast. This is Cross Polytick.