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00:00:18.020Hi, welcome to Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webbin,
00:00:21.240and today I am very, very privileged to have Megan Basham from The Daily Wire as my special guest,
00:00:26.760And we are discussing her recent bombshell article where she discusses the guidepost
00:00:33.280findings, their research and data about the SBC Southern Baptist Convention and all of
00:00:40.000the alleged abuse, sexual abuse that's taken place there and all the ways that those in
00:00:45.440positions of power, institutional power within the Southern Baptist Convention tried to cover
00:00:50.420it up. Megan Basham does a wonderful job exposing a lot of those things that have been hyperbole,
00:00:59.540exaggerated, and some of them just downright false. And so we discuss the all things SBC,
00:01:06.920why the SBC is so intent, or at least some leaders in the SBC are so intent in saying that the SBC
00:01:14.480is corrupt and therefore needs to believe all women and that it's sexually abusive and trying
00:01:21.240to cover up scandals. What are the facts? What do we know with certainty? And then towards the end
00:01:28.060of the episode, Megan and I speculate a little bit about what do we think are the motives?
00:01:33.340Why are there people trying to paint the SBC in this light? What's the end goal? This is a
00:01:40.560fantastic episode. And I think we are the first to have Megan Basham address her article in detail
00:01:47.980and provide even some more behind the scenes information. You're in for a real treat. Buckle
00:01:53.260up. Here we go. Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.
00:02:04.820Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with Right
00:02:08.700Response Ministries. And today in our episode, I'm very privileged to have as a special guest,
00:02:14.040Megan Basham from The Daily Wire. Megan, welcome to the show.
00:02:17.780Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
00:02:19.520Great. All right. Go ahead and introduce yourself for some of our listeners who may
00:02:22.860not be familiar with you and what you do. So I'm Megan Basham. I am a reporter with
00:02:28.340The Daily Wire. I actually started out as a culture reporter, but when I moved over there,
00:02:32.920I kind of let them know, look, I have a very special interest in evangelical coverage and
00:02:37.360evangelical issues. And, um, I, I made a deal. I'm like, I, you know, I, I definitely want to
00:02:42.660cover entertainment, but if you will allow me to cover this area that I have such a strong interest
00:02:49.400in, I'm your girl. And so we kind of made that deal. And, uh, before daily wire, I was world
00:02:54.480magazine, which if you're not familiar with it is, um, a Christian news organization that, you know,
00:03:01.160it's, it's, it's evangelical, but you know, a lot of presby's over there, Baptist non-denominational,
00:03:06.280um some anglican so it's kind of a grab bag and i spent a lot of years there covering culture
00:03:13.000um i worked on their podcast as well they have actually have a great daily news podcast if you
00:03:18.000haven't heard it the world and everything in it and um so those are kind of the two places that
00:03:23.100i am most known for uh working in news great well we're glad to have you and really what we want to
00:03:28.400talk about in this episode is your one of your most recent articles dealing with the sbc the
00:03:34.200Southern Baptist Convention, also known as the hashtag Me Too movement goes evangelical. So
00:03:40.940what are some of your thoughts on this? You just wrote this article. You did, I think,
00:03:45.640a wonderful job in just explaining some of the things that are concerning. What is your sense,
00:03:51.320right? We just had the convention. Tom Askell was my pick. I think he was your pick as well
00:03:55.660for SBC president, and he lost by a lot. It wasn't really even close. What are some of your
00:04:01.620thoughts on the SBC right now? Well, you know what I can tell you with this article that I wrote is
00:04:10.260it was really long. It was like 3,500 words. And I didn't even really feel like in that movement
00:04:16.200because it's complicated. You know, you go, there were real stories of abuse, but majority of what
00:04:23.760is covered in this report that the task force put in motion was already known. A lot of it had been
00:04:31.240dealt with already, even people had been ousted. Um, so there were things in it that I really
00:04:39.800wished I could cover. And if I get a chance, I'd love to do a part two about how the task force
00:04:44.360came about because my perception after talking to a lot of people was that, um, well, I believe that
00:04:51.020abuse is a real issue and a real issue that needs to be dealt with. I also don't believe it was
00:04:57.420probably the main motivating factor for some of the people who put the wheels in motion there
00:05:02.460it felt like you had people looking to sort of settle some scores and using it as a way to rest
00:05:10.260some political control of the denomination and introduce some other reforms that they wanted
00:05:16.260regarding complementarianism women's roles and even just we want to be seen differently by the
00:05:23.540world. So to get down kind of into the granular of what I did end up that didn't end up on the
00:05:29.880cutting room floor was, so if you're not familiar, there was some leaked letters in 2021 from Russell
00:05:36.920Moore. And those letters brought up the fact that he felt that the executive committee did not do
00:05:42.600enough to address abuse allegations. And based on those leaked letters, and this is all very
00:05:48.760political. These are political maneuvers. Those leak letters were used as impetus to say,
00:05:53.660let's launch this investigation into the executive committee. Of course, it was convenient that those
00:05:59.820also happened to be Russell Moore's sort of enemies, you might say opponents, let's say
00:06:04.160opponents within the church. So at that point, someone I would say who was very closely aligned
00:06:12.620with Russell Moore, Rachel Denhollander, they're very well known for doing some conference
00:06:17.180stuff together for doing podcasts together um she was appointed as the person who would be
00:06:25.940advising this task force on who they would hire and how it would go about its business of
00:06:30.480investigating the executive committee so um they hired a firm called guidepost and guidepost
00:06:36.740started investigating and guidepost is distinctly christian right um i i can't at all no guidepost
00:06:43.200In fact, as everyone knows, a lot of people probably know by now, they put out a post that was, you know, pride waving flag, the rainbow flag for pride and their allies and affirming.
00:06:56.140So just to confirm, so Guidepost doesn't know what a woman is and they also don't know what a baby is, but they know that they know what sexual abuse is according to God's standards and the SBC is going to go to them.
00:07:07.920Yeah. And I think and part of what I get into and the reason I'm sort of laying all the groundwork here, one, because it is complex how it came about, but also because Rachel Denhollander played a really significant role in how all of this unfolded.
00:07:21.280So I think that her relationship with Russell Moore is fairly important and her relationship with some of the other major players who were driving this investigation is also very important.
00:07:34.320So Guidepost spends about eight months doing an investigation, and then they put out their report.
00:07:41.540Some of the things in that report, well, really most of the things in that report were already known.
00:07:48.920And I kind of tried to drill down, okay, what is the main case that they're putting forward to say that there was just egregious, rampant dismissal of abuse victims?
00:08:00.080and the number one story they had, there are other stories in it, but the key one was a woman named
00:08:06.060Jennifer Lyle and David Sills. Well, when I started looking into that case in particular,
00:08:13.060which guidepost directly says this is a case of a sexual abuser and a victim, there were a lot of
00:08:18.280problems with it. Just the bare outlines of it, you're talking about a 26-year-old woman
00:08:23.940who was a master of divinity student on the campus of Southern Seminary said she began
00:08:32.900some sort of interaction, let's put it that way, with a professor who was about 23 years older
00:08:39.540than her and that he was married. He had a family. She became very close with the family as well.
00:08:46.740Whatever relationship she had with him and with the family continued for another 12 years. She
00:08:53.020was only on the campus at Southern Seminary for two of those years. So from 26 to Moody Publishers
00:09:02.500in Chicago, she works for Lifeway in Nashville, and she's contracting with books with him. So
00:09:10.360she's asking him, you come work with me, I'm going to publish your books, things that you might say
00:09:15.880even put her in power over him in some ways. So this goes on for 12 years, there is a break,
00:09:22.060this is where the stories diverge. She says she was abused and got away from that. I'll say I
00:09:30.320talked to a lot of people and he relayed a lot to me through third parties. My sense is that David
00:09:34.740Sills is extremely leery of talking to anyone in the media and he hasn't really told his side of
00:09:40.400it. What his friends have informed me is that he is afraid of one, making the situation worse,
00:09:50.060of bringing more attention on himself i think that's kind of unmerited just because there's
00:09:55.700already so much attention there but um so along with that he also indicated that he feels like
00:10:04.200a lot of this negative press a lot of this labeling of him as an abuser is part of the
00:10:10.020consequences for what he did part of the consequences for having a relationship he would
00:10:15.960say an inappropriate relationship with jennifer sills i'm excuse me with jennifer lyle so he has
00:10:23.800never though confessed to abuse and really what you do have is a very classic she has a story of
00:10:30.840he was violent and threatening and coercive with me for these 12 years he has a story that is no
00:10:37.720this was consensual and sinful but consensual right so this is the main case um that guidepost
00:10:45.540put forward that's that's the main one in their report it is yes it is the most prominent so
00:10:51.260there's the most mentions of jennifer lyle she takes up the most pages about 35 pages
00:10:56.420okay so that was really why i focused on that particular case um and there were some other
00:11:02.640issues with some other you know incidents that they brought up but that was the key one well
00:11:08.020that's important to mention so you you highlighted that case in your article not because you thought
00:11:12.360this is the weakest case and i can poke it apart and and make guideposts you know look like a sham
00:11:17.440but no this this is the one that guideposts themselves chose to highlight this was this was
00:11:22.040the tip of the spear for them so i'm dealing with what they're presenting as their strongest proof
00:11:27.720of the sbc being this dungeon of sexual abuse you know whatever and and it's flimsy
00:11:34.640it could be true but it's it's flimsy right and i was very careful in my reporting to go i don't
00:11:40.700know but here's what i'm sure guidepost doesn't know either i know for sure that um lyle's attorney
00:11:47.480rachel den hullander doesn't know either so what happened at that point is that um jennifer lyle
00:11:54.140told her story to her boss at Lifeway, who called up Dr. Albert Moeller, president of Southern
00:12:00.540Seminary, and they had a meeting. She relayed that this was abuse, and this was two years after
00:12:06.440contact had ended. So, this is in 2018. They stopped talking in 2016. And Moeller fired David
00:12:14.560Sills and said, I believe her that this was abuse. She told me this was abuse. This was a case of
00:12:20.660abuse. So at that point, Baptist Press was going to run some sort of story. And it sounds like
00:12:27.940Eric Geiger, her boss at Lifeway, suggested you should do a story with Baptist Press. And so there
00:12:34.640was sort of a first person thing in play, and they didn't end up doing that. And they were going to
00:12:38.420do a report. And the original draft of that story characterized it as abuse. Then the executive
00:12:47.300committee which is over the baptist press got a look at it and said we're uncomfortable saying
00:12:53.700that this is a very clear-cut case of abuse we're uncomfortable using that language and it actually
00:12:57.700makes a lot of sense to me because i they could have handled it better and communicating with
00:13:02.420her i think but the decision not and if it were me i just wouldn't run the story i don't think
00:13:06.900they should run the story but what they did was change the description within the story not her
00:13:14.740quotes but the description within the story of what that relationship was they called it a morally
00:13:19.460inappropriate relationship um so that was the key sticking point that everyone said this was how
00:13:26.980the executive committee was cruel and callous and dismissive to survivors so rachel den hollander
00:13:35.700then at a conference mentions this story that the infamous 2019 caring well conference with russell
00:13:42.740Moore, she mentions this story that brings a lot of negative press to the executive committee.
00:13:49.140At that point, she represents Jennifer Lyle in a threat. They never did actually file a suit,
00:13:57.600but in a threat of a defamation suit against the executive committee, that threat is successful.
00:14:03.920The insurance company agrees to pay Jennifer Lyle. I'm hearing about a million dollars,
00:14:09.780and they think that will be the end of it and then this story comes up and i look into it and
00:14:14.840guidepost represents it as abuse and you know callous disregard of survivors and then you start
00:14:21.500to look into the story and you go as i said so much of this doesn't really make sense and then
00:14:28.360i looked at the fact that jennifer lyle said that she um filed a police report with the louisville
00:14:34.420pd in 2018 when it happened so i called the louisville pd they have no record of her i then
00:14:41.380obtained another interview that she gave where she said not only that she called the police but
00:14:46.940that al moeller called the police they have no record of any of that either um then i spoke with
00:14:52.200her and she said no no i made a mistake it was this other uh police department it was jefferson
00:14:57.760town i called jefferson town jefferson town had no record of this so what you have really is
00:15:04.100something that illustrates the entire problem with what Guideposts did and what the recommendations
00:15:10.640are. And that is not just Guideposts, but Rachel Denhollander, lots of people on social media,
00:15:19.180the Religion News Service, numerous other reports in Washington Post. I don't want to name the
00:15:25.280others because I'm not positive, but there was a lot of reporting labeling this guy an abuser,
00:15:31.680someone who's violent someone who um really hurt this woman and i think you can always say that
00:15:38.040when there's sin involved you're hurting people you're hurting each other but this was different
00:15:42.480they were saying he was a violent sexual abuser those were rachel then hollander's words these
00:15:47.480were the words that were in that guidepost report so and nobody really looked into it so really all
00:15:54.720of these people were operating on the fact that we just believe her um and based on that also the
00:16:00.740Guidepost report said her story was corroborated. Well, when I looked into what they meant by her
00:16:05.200story was corroborated, that was what they meant, just that these people believed her.
00:16:10.160Well, that's not due process. And based on all of that, you would have to go. So a firm like
00:16:15.420Guidepost, who is putting itself forward to create this public database of abusers for the SBC,
00:16:23.340Rachel Denhollander, who is demanding this public database, both of them clearly would be very
00:16:28.000comfortable adding david sill's name to that list even though we have no concrete evidence that he
00:16:35.100is an abuser he's never admitted to being abused an abuser and there are no public records that
00:16:40.660document the fact that he's an abuser there's no witnesses that say he's an abuser all we have is
00:16:47.520jennifer lyle's word and her claims that are somewhat undercut by the public record so there
00:16:53.980you go there's a long spiel on what the story was about no that's really helpful thank you for um
00:16:59.580just taking the time and doing so much work to investigate all that to follow through that's
00:17:03.360what we need we we need accountability for the alleged accountability that we we need someone
00:17:09.820to be able to address these things not to say that there's nothing true but to um to investigate and
00:17:13.740see is this actually true and is it true according to god's standards so real quick i want to take
00:17:18.260what you said that was so helpful and just kind of maybe just investigated in light of some
00:17:24.900scripture. So one, and I know that you're aware of this, you know, even in our case law system
00:17:30.360that we have in the United States of America that was built off of a lot of biblical principles,
00:17:35.840the Bible is very clear that we need to have two or three independent lines of testimony.
00:17:40.440And so a lot of times people will say, you know, well, as a pastor, I get this, you know, well,
00:17:44.640by God's grace, I haven't in a while, but I used to get this a lot. You know, somebody would come
00:17:48.000with a concern. Concern is a euphemism for criticism. And they would voice their criticism
00:17:52.940and they would always, you know, preface it by saying a lot of people are saying, right? A lot
00:17:58.040of people, right? Because you want to give weight to your opinion. You want to give weight to your
00:18:03.920perspective. And so a lot of people are saying, and then you would have to kind of press on that
00:18:07.940and say, well, okay, so what is a lot of people and who are these people? And could they come to
00:18:11.680me also? And let's meet with them. And a lot of times what you discover when somebody has some
00:18:16.320kind of discrepancy, some kind of frustration, is that the lot of people usually aren't quite
00:18:22.260as many as you thought. And even if it is, let's say it's 10 people, 20 people, 200 people,
00:18:27.360the question is, are these 200 independent lines of witness, 200 people that saw the same event,
00:18:34.280or is there only one actual eyewitness and then 199 other people that that eyewitness told and
00:18:41.760And then they told some, there's a difference between eyewitnesses that the Bible says in
00:18:47.840And a lot of Christians, they need to be refreshed on this and understand the distinction between
00:18:52.400hearsay and an actual witnessable testimony.
00:18:57.380And so in this case, you only have one witness and, and, and we'll actually, you have two
00:19:02.460witnesses, the man and the woman, um, and their testimony is contradictory.
00:19:08.040And so that's, so you're at a standstill unless somebody else witnessed it.
00:19:11.900And one of the verses that comes to mind, there's a lot that we could talk about, but
00:19:14.700one, just briefly, this is Deuteronomy chapter 22, starting verse 23.
00:19:19.860It says, if there is a betrothed virgin and a man meets her in the city and lies with
00:19:24.360her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of the city and you shall stone them
00:19:30.140to death with stones, the young woman, because she did not cry for help, though she was in
00:19:35.580the city. The implication being, because of the context, the place where this occurred,
00:19:41.520what's being implied is God's word is saying, if she was actually a victim,
00:19:47.860somebody would have heard her. She was in a public setting in a city. And so if she had yelled for
00:19:53.260help, somebody would have heard her. And so because no one heard her, the text is assuming
00:19:59.460she did not cry for help, which means that it was consensual. So she was engaged in this
00:20:05.100infidelity. And so you shall stone both of them with stones. The young woman, because
00:20:10.340she was complicit. She was a part of this. She did not cry for help, though she was in the city,
00:20:15.120a context publicly where she would have been heard. And the man, because he violated his
00:20:19.500neighbor's wife. This is a woman who is betrothed. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
00:20:24.460Then verse 25 says, but if in the open country, right? There's not a bunch of people around. It's
00:20:30.900not a public setting. If in an open field or open country, a man meets a young woman who is betrothed
00:20:36.060and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. He shall
00:20:42.280be put to death, but you shall do nothing to the young woman. She has committed no offense punishable
00:20:47.400by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor. Now, real
00:20:54.040quick, the last thing I'll say on that is just in the private context of the open country or field
00:20:59.800where there was no witnesses around, if a woman, right, they're found afterwards and there is
00:21:06.040witnessable proof that infidelity happened and assumed in this is one of those proofs would be
00:21:11.180her testimony, then the man shall be put to death. Now that testimony has to be collaborated. It has
00:21:17.940to be proven, evidenced, but once proven, then the man would be put to death and she would go free
00:21:25.460because there was no one around. So it's giving the benefit of the doubt that she actually did
00:21:29.500cry for help. But even in that case scenario, it's not that this man is put to death on her
00:21:34.740singular testimony alone. The reason why the man is put to death is because even if it was
00:21:42.640consensual, the infidelity in this biblical context, according to God's law, the infidelity
00:21:48.520was sufficient. Meaning the man doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be a violent sexual abuse
00:21:55.140case, just the sexual immorality itself with a betrothed woman, another man coming, that would
00:22:02.860be enough to put him to death. So her independent testimony of saying, I yelled for help, but nobody
00:22:08.300was around because I was in an open country, an open field. That's enough not to incriminate
00:22:13.680her alleged perpetrator, but it is enough to save her life. So it's not enough to end his life,
00:22:20.200but to save her life. His life is ended because even if she's lying, even if she's lying,
00:22:26.340his infidelity, whether it was forced or not, regardless of whether it was consensual,
00:22:31.040is enough to be incriminating for him, according to biblical law, with Israel to be put to death.
00:22:37.240And so my point is, this is, you know, obviously this is, there's a lot of this that is unique
00:22:42.800to Israel, but there is the general equity, which is the Westminster Confession and the 16th,
00:22:48.440There is the general equity, the heart of this law, the spirit of the law that I believe is applicable and relevant for all people in all places in all times.
00:22:57.500And the heart of this is if a woman is in a public setting where she can cry for help, but no one hears her cry, that's fishy.
00:23:07.340so if you're talking about a grown woman something starts when she's 26 years old a 12 year long
00:23:14.360uh escapade uh and and you bring technology and cell phones you know at any point she could have
00:23:21.200given a call sent an email said this said that and when that's in the scenario and you might say well
00:23:26.540she did say it okay but how many how long did it take her to say something how many years did it
00:23:31.260take her to say something um russell fuller you know who was a professor is seeing the two of them
00:23:36.060smiling at the lunch table in the cafeteria at a seminary and laughing and these kinds of things
00:23:41.100according to your reporting, your article. And so it's just like, yeah, that doesn't look like
00:23:46.300a victim. So like you said so well, according to biblical standards, there's still sin
00:23:51.240and sin is a big deal, but there's a difference between sins and crimes. And so we have to
00:23:56.920understand that. And so, yeah, this is a problem. And if that's the leading proof in this guidepost
00:24:03.360reports, then what, what are we talking about? And you go on in your article. So I want to ask
00:24:08.760you this, you go on in your article and you said, I think it's only 400 something cases and only two
00:24:13.180of them were current. Can you explain how many cases and show us some of our listeners, they
00:24:18.440don't know how big the SBC is. Can you talk about that? Yeah. So I kind of opened with that because
00:24:24.940you know, you always sort of have to do that. Listen, abuse is serious. I'm very much against
00:24:29.240abuse because the initial immediate pushback you get is, oh, you're trying to minimize abuse.
00:24:35.100Well, no, I'm not. But I am trying to be very specific because there was a torrent of media
00:24:40.180coverage calling this bombshell, explosive, makes the SBC a diseased orchard. That was David French
00:24:48.160or apocalypse from Russell Moore. So you want to drill down and go, okay, let's look at what
00:24:53.920we're talking about. So, what we were talking about, this is what Guidepost found, 409 cases
00:25:01.060over the course of 21 years in 47,000 churches. Now, I spoke to a demographer, somebody who was
00:25:08.640an expert in these kinds of just looking at statistics and what we might infer from them,
00:25:13.040and he tells me, okay, looking at that, I might roughly estimate about 100 to 150,000 workers
00:25:20.740in SBC churches. And this guy was not SBC, by the way. You know, so he's just kind of looking at it
00:25:27.480from his professional opinion, not from having any invested interest in protecting the SBC.
00:25:33.240And he said, okay, if you're looking at 100 to 150,000 over that period of time, this is actually
00:25:39.760really remarkably low, particularly as you're only talking about two current connected to
00:25:46.480the SBC workers. It wasn't clear if they were staffers, if they were pastors or if they were
00:25:51.200volunteers. It wasn't clear what they were, but two people still connected to the SBC church who
00:25:56.560are right now accused. Yeah. And so the pushback from that was, well, Guidepost was only looking at
00:26:04.720the investigative committee and they got those numbers from this list of published reports
00:26:11.880of accused or convicted abusers or sex offenders that they had sort of assembled this list from
00:26:19.740already published reports in the public domain. And that is true. But you have to look at the
00:26:26.240Houston Chronicle also spent a year investigating as well. And their numbers were very similar.
00:26:32.520So when you look at that, you go, maybe, maybe there is more abuse that if somebody were
00:26:37.160investigating all of the SBC, they would find, but we have to deal with the numbers that we have.
00:26:41.760I'm not going to make a hypothetical assumption that there is some apocalypse that we just don't know about.
00:26:47.260Let's deal with the numbers that we have.
00:26:48.800And those were the numbers that we had.
00:26:51.160409, 21 years, 47,000 churches, 100 to 150,000 staffers.
00:27:02.760So the demographer said, looking at this, I am astonished that they found so little.
00:27:08.980So I think that's an important key to look at. And then you look at, okay, so then why? Why is the media treating it like it's something so significant when, I mean, the numbers in, say, the public school system are so much.
00:27:25.280I was going to say, I wish that same standard would be applied to public schools.
00:27:30.560You know, like the reform that I keep, you know, praying for and working towards with public schools is the reform of shutting all of them down.
00:27:36.800You know, that's if those standards were it's just it's such a double standard.
00:27:50.740But I also recognize this, that we live in a fallen world.
00:27:53.920um we live in just a sin cursed world and there is no organization that is going to be able to
00:28:00.840perfectly keep every predator out who will try to come in to get at victims so you try to act
00:28:08.040as quickly as possible you put up as many guardrails as you can that are reasonable but you
00:28:14.600also recognize that these things they are going to happen and we have to deal with them clear-eyed
00:28:19.840And you have to, amen. And you have to also present them truthfully because there are different forms of abuse. Sexual abuse is abuse. Bearing false witness against someone is also abuse.
00:28:32.720And we live in a current Me Too culture where the first person who runs into the room is established as the victim, and immediately it's believed, their testimony, without having necessarily two or three independent lines of witness.
00:28:52.200And the person that they're talking about is the perpetrator, without any shadow of it.
00:28:58.180But, but biblically speaking, you know, I mean, biblically speaking, the standard is
00:29:03.380that if you bear false witness about someone else and it's proven that your testimony was
00:29:08.340false, whatever the penalty would have been, had your testimony been true for them, that
00:30:45.920Why are there people in the SBC that want this report to be true, that want to make
00:30:50.000this big push of the SBC's corruption with covering up sexual abuse scandals? Who are some
00:30:55.880of those people, the ones that you could name that has been proven? But what, if you could
00:31:02.680speculate for a moment, what do you think is their motive? What are they after?
00:31:06.980Well, you know, obviously I can look at Russell Moore for sure, because just factually what we
00:31:11.960know is that Russell Moore had this sort of notorious apocalypse essay out within 30 minutes
00:31:18.820of the guideposts report hitting the web so you go he could not have read 288 pages he writes in
00:31:27.440this essay i was even more and i'm paraphrasing so this is not a verbatim quote but something
00:31:33.580in effect of i was even more shocked by what was in this report and i'm like you read 288 pages
00:31:40.800and 30 minutes to be shocked by what was in that part so it seemed very clear and it was notable
00:31:45.980that this essay that he published contained no specifics about this in particular shocked me or
00:31:51.760when I read about this, I was really astonished. He didn't give any specifics. He just said it was
00:31:55.880so much worse than I thought. And so I think if you look at someone like Russell Moore, you go,
00:32:00.200there was a personal motive. He sort of had written before about how they were trying to
00:32:06.720psychologically terrorize me. And I go, he really likes really hyperbolic language. But so I think
00:32:14.140in that case there were definitely some personal vendettas it felt like it was being used in that
00:32:18.180way um at the same time i go i think there is a wing that is looking to do away with the
00:32:25.280complementarian convictions within the sbc because the other thing you saw was in a lot of this
00:32:31.340reporting that immediately hit they talked about the fact that this cultural atmosphere within the
00:32:37.500sbc where women are dismissed and women's voices aren't heard and that's key women's voices aren't
00:32:43.740heard. That gave rise to this culture of abuse that allowed it to fester. And so I think that
00:32:51.600that is a big part of what it's being used for is to say, we need to have more women in leadership
00:32:57.460in order to make sure that women aren't abused and they feel free to come forward.
00:33:02.740I think you're absolutely right. And I don't think it's a coincidence that with the convention
00:33:06.700that just took place, those are the two things that you see hand in glove that are happening
00:33:12.020is, uh, here's all the sexual abuse cases and how we've hurt women as a denomination.
00:33:18.420And, uh, we've uniquely hurt women, right? Cause we live in a fallen world and this happens
00:33:22.500everywhere, but man, it really happened here. It happened worse here where the data just doesn't
00:33:27.440prove that, you know, uh, but it really happened here. Oh, and by the way, on a unrelated note,
00:33:33.700um, maybe women can be pastors. What, what, what is a pastor, right? We got Matt Walsh with what
00:33:39.820is a woman and the SBC, we're going to do a documentary. What is a pastor? You know? And
00:33:44.960yeah, I don't think that's a coincidence. I think that they're just, they're going left.
00:33:50.840Yeah. And I think, you know, it was really interesting too. I posted kind of,
00:33:55.840fairly astonishing, this story in Vox. If you're not familiar with Vox, it's very popular
00:34:00.760among maybe younger demographics. And they drew a hard line between abuse and complementarianism.
00:34:08.620Like there wasn't even there are other stories that kind of couched it a little bit, sort of, well, we're just drawing.
00:34:13.700But this was very clear. And this was something that I did not have time for in my story.
00:34:19.200So you're getting it exclusively, but it killed me that it ended up on the cutting room floor.
00:34:23.020And that was the fact that if you looked at the guidepost report on Christianity Today, they talked about that they didn't necessarily find a lot of abuse at Christianity Today.
00:34:35.980but what they did find was this sort of male dominated culture and again i'm paraphrasing
00:34:41.860but you can go read that report it's not nearly as long and find it and they talked about um you
00:34:47.220had a culture where men would speak over women and men were not listening to women and um these
00:34:54.080men in leadership were not promoting women to be in leadership and you went so that's where
00:35:00.060guideposts that's their worldview where they were coming from from as they put together this report
00:35:05.260that's very important all right well thank you so much for all your hard work on this and thanks
00:35:12.480for sharing with our listeners some of the the behind the scenes um details i really really
00:35:18.000appreciate any final thoughts that you want to add no just this look we have to start being
00:35:23.940unafraid to be discerning and look at the hard details and they're going to say oh you don't
00:35:28.800care about abuse or oh you don't care about victims and i kind of shared on social media
00:35:32.520this week. Look, I'm a victim myself. So I do care, but I also care about due process. And
00:35:38.200more than that, I want this message to get out to these young women. Don't make your identity
00:35:44.460victim. Don't even make your identity survivor. I'm a victor in Christ. I don't feel like somebody
00:35:51.120who is just surviving life. I feel victorious. I feel loved. I feel powerful in Christ. And so
00:35:58.820i really hate this movement that is teaching young women to um just live in that identity of victim
00:36:05.380amen well said and we care about truth and wherever truth is absent um there's a another
00:36:12.340kind of victim so because we we do want to protect victims of all kinds um women contrary to popular
00:36:20.180opinion do not have a monopoly on victimhood minority ethnicities do not have a monopoly
00:36:25.620on victimhood. Anyone by biblical standards can be a victim when they are physically sexually
00:36:31.020abused or just physically abused or when they are lied about. And so we care about the truth
00:36:36.180because we love all kinds of victims. We don't want anybody to be mistreated or oppressed.
00:36:42.000So thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it, Megan.