The NXR Podcast - June 21, 2022


THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Truth Behind The SBC & The Guidepost Report ｜ Megan Basham

Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Russell Moore Jennifer Lal Rachel Denhollander David Sills Albert Moeller Joel Webin David French Eric Geiger Tom Askell Matt Walsh
DAILY TRUTH - How Are We To Worship？ DAILY TRUTH - Are You In Adam Or In Christ？

Episode Stats


Length

37 minutes

Words per minute

177.19

Word count

6,565

Sentence count

288

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

11

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Megan Basham from The Daily Wire joins Pastor Joel Webbin to discuss her recent bombshell article, about the Southern Baptist Convention. In this episode, Megan discusses why some in the SBC are so intent on portraying the denomination as corrupt, sexually abusive, and trying to cover up scandals.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
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00:00:18 Hi, welcome to Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webbin,
00:00:21 and today I am very, very privileged to have Megan Basham from The Daily Wire as my special guest,
00:00:26 And we are discussing her recent bombshell article where she discusses the guidepost
00:00:33 findings, their research and data about the SBC Southern Baptist Convention and all of
00:00:40 the alleged abuse, sexual abuse that's taken place there and all the ways that those in
00:00:45 positions of power, institutional power within the Southern Baptist Convention tried to cover
00:00:50 it up. Megan Basham does a wonderful job exposing a lot of those things that have been hyperbole,
00:00:59 exaggerated, and some of them just downright false. And so we discuss the all things SBC,
00:01:06 why the SBC is so intent, or at least some leaders in the SBC are so intent in saying that the SBC
00:01:14 is corrupt and therefore needs to believe all women and that it's sexually abusive and trying
00:01:21 to cover up scandals. What are the facts? What do we know with certainty? And then towards the end 0.88
00:01:28 of the episode, Megan and I speculate a little bit about what do we think are the motives?
00:01:33 Why are there people trying to paint the SBC in this light? What's the end goal? This is a
00:01:40 fantastic episode. And I think we are the first to have Megan Basham address her article in detail
00:01:47 and provide even some more behind the scenes information. You're in for a real treat. Buckle
00:01:53 up. Here we go. Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.
00:02:04 Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with Right
00:02:08 Response Ministries. And today in our episode, I'm very privileged to have as a special guest,
00:02:14 Megan Basham from The Daily Wire. Megan, welcome to the show.
00:02:17 Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
00:02:19 Great. All right. Go ahead and introduce yourself for some of our listeners who may
00:02:22 not be familiar with you and what you do. So I'm Megan Basham. I am a reporter with
00:02:28 The Daily Wire. I actually started out as a culture reporter, but when I moved over there,
00:02:32 I kind of let them know, look, I have a very special interest in evangelical coverage and
00:02:37 evangelical issues. And, um, I, I made a deal. I'm like, I, you know, I, I definitely want to
00:02:42 cover entertainment, but if you will allow me to cover this area that I have such a strong interest
00:02:49 in, I'm your girl. And so we kind of made that deal. And, uh, before daily wire, I was world
00:02:54 magazine, which if you're not familiar with it is, um, a Christian news organization that, you know,
00:03:01 it's, it's, it's evangelical, but you know, a lot of presby's over there, Baptist non-denominational,
00:03:06 um some anglican so it's kind of a grab bag and i spent a lot of years there covering culture
00:03:13 um i worked on their podcast as well they have actually have a great daily news podcast if you
00:03:18 haven't heard it the world and everything in it and um so those are kind of the two places that
00:03:23 i 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 talk about in this episode is your one of your most recent articles dealing with the sbc the
00:03:34 Southern Baptist Convention, also known as the hashtag Me Too movement goes evangelical. So
00:03:40 what are some of your thoughts on this? You just wrote this article. You did, I think,
00:03:45 a wonderful job in just explaining some of the things that are concerning. What is your sense,
00:03:51 right? We just had the convention. Tom Askell was my pick. I think he was your pick as well
00:03:55 for SBC president, and he lost by a lot. It wasn't really even close. What are some of your
00:04:01 thoughts on the SBC right now? Well, you know what I can tell you with this article that I wrote is
00:04:10 it was really long. It was like 3,500 words. And I didn't even really feel like in that movement
00:04:16 because it's complicated. You know, you go, there were real stories of abuse, but majority of what
00:04:23 is covered in this report that the task force put in motion was already known. A lot of it had been
00:04:31 dealt with already, even people had been ousted. Um, so there were things in it that I really
00:04:39 wished 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 came about because my perception after talking to a lot of people was that, um, well, I believe that
00:04:51 abuse is a real issue and a real issue that needs to be dealt with. I also don't believe it was
00:04:57 probably the main motivating factor for some of the people who put the wheels in motion there
00:05:02 it felt like you had people looking to sort of settle some scores and using it as a way to rest
00:05:10 some political control of the denomination and introduce some other reforms that they wanted
00:05:16 regarding complementarianism women's roles and even just we want to be seen differently by the 1.00
00:05:23 world. 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 cutting room floor was, so if you're not familiar, there was some leaked letters in 2021 from Russell
00:05:36 Moore. And those letters brought up the fact that he felt that the executive committee did not do
00:05:42 enough to address abuse allegations. And based on those leaked letters, and this is all very
00:05:48 political. These are political maneuvers. Those leak letters were used as impetus to say,
00:05:53 let's launch this investigation into the executive committee. Of course, it was convenient that those
00:05:59 also happened to be Russell Moore's sort of enemies, you might say opponents, let's say
00:06:04 opponents within the church. So at that point, someone I would say who was very closely aligned
00:06:12 with Russell Moore, Rachel Denhollander, they're very well known for doing some conference
00:06:17 stuff together for doing podcasts together um she was appointed as the person who would be
00:06:25 advising this task force on who they would hire and how it would go about its business of
00:06:30 investigating the executive committee so um they hired a firm called guidepost and guidepost
00:06:36 started investigating and guidepost is distinctly christian right um i i can't at all no guidepost
00:06:43 In 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 So 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.
00:07:06 Okay.
00:07:07 Continue.
00:07:07 Yeah. 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 So 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 So Guidepost spends about eight months doing an investigation, and then they put out their report.
00:07:41 Some of the things in that report, well, really most of the things in that report were already known.
00:07:47 Other things were very questionable.
00:07:48 And 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 and the number one story they had, there are other stories in it, but the key one was a woman named
00:08:06 Jennifer Lyle and David Sills. Well, when I started looking into that case in particular,
00:08:13 which guidepost directly says this is a case of a sexual abuser and a victim, there were a lot of
00:08:18 problems with it. Just the bare outlines of it, you're talking about a 26-year-old woman
00:08:23 who was a master of divinity student on the campus of Southern Seminary said she began
00:08:32 some sort of interaction, let's put it that way, with a professor who was about 23 years older
00:08:39 than her and that he was married. He had a family. She became very close with the family as well.
00:08:46 Whatever relationship she had with him and with the family continued for another 12 years. She
00:08:53 was only on the campus at Southern Seminary for two of those years. So from 26 to Moody Publishers
00:09:02 in Chicago, she works for Lifeway in Nashville, and she's contracting with books with him. So
00:09:10 she's asking him, you come work with me, I'm going to publish your books, things that you might say
00:09:15 even put her in power over him in some ways. So this goes on for 12 years, there is a break,
00:09:22 this is where the stories diverge. She says she was abused and got away from that. I'll say I
00:09:30 talked to a lot of people and he relayed a lot to me through third parties. My sense is that David
00:09:34 Sills is extremely leery of talking to anyone in the media and he hasn't really told his side of
00:09:40 it. What his friends have informed me is that he is afraid of one, making the situation worse,
00:09:50 of bringing more attention on himself i think that's kind of unmerited just because there's
00:09:55 already so much attention there but um so along with that he also indicated that he feels like
00:10:04 a lot of this negative press a lot of this labeling of him as an abuser is part of the
00:10:10 consequences for what he did part of the consequences for having a relationship he would
00:10:15 say an inappropriate relationship with jennifer sills i'm excuse me with jennifer lyle so he has
00:10:23 never though confessed to abuse and really what you do have is a very classic she has a story of
00:10:30 he was violent and threatening and coercive with me for these 12 years he has a story that is no
00:10:37 this was consensual and sinful but consensual right so this is the main case um that guidepost
00:10:45 put forward that's that's the main one in their report it is yes it is the most prominent so
00:10:51 there's the most mentions of jennifer lyle she takes up the most pages about 35 pages
00:10:56 okay so that was really why i focused on that particular case um and there were some other
00:11:02 issues with some other you know incidents that they brought up but that was the key one well
00:11:08 that's important to mention so you you highlighted that case in your article not because you thought
00:11:12 this is the weakest case and i can poke it apart and and make guideposts you know look like a sham
00:11:17 but no this this is the one that guideposts themselves chose to highlight this was this was
00:11:22 the tip of the spear for them so i'm dealing with what they're presenting as their strongest proof
00:11:27 of the sbc being this dungeon of sexual abuse you know whatever and and it's flimsy
00:11:34 it 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 know but here's what i'm sure guidepost doesn't know either i know for sure that um lyle's attorney
00:11:47 rachel den hullander doesn't know either so what happened at that point is that um jennifer lyle
00:11:54 told her story to her boss at Lifeway, who called up Dr. Albert Moeller, president of Southern
00:12:00 Seminary, and they had a meeting. She relayed that this was abuse, and this was two years after
00:12:06 contact had ended. So, this is in 2018. They stopped talking in 2016. And Moeller fired David
00:12:14 Sills and said, I believe her that this was abuse. She told me this was abuse. This was a case of
00:12:20 abuse. So at that point, Baptist Press was going to run some sort of story. And it sounds like
00:12:27 Eric Geiger, her boss at Lifeway, suggested you should do a story with Baptist Press. And so there
00:12:34 was sort of a first person thing in play, and they didn't end up doing that. And they were going to
00:12:38 do a report. And the original draft of that story characterized it as abuse. Then the executive
00:12:47 committee which is over the baptist press got a look at it and said we're uncomfortable saying
00:12:53 that this is a very clear-cut case of abuse we're uncomfortable using that language and it actually
00:12:57 makes a lot of sense to me because i they could have handled it better and communicating with
00:13:02 her 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 they should run the story but what they did was change the description within the story not her
00:13:14 quotes but the description within the story of what that relationship was they called it a morally
00:13:19 inappropriate relationship um so that was the key sticking point that everyone said this was how
00:13:26 the executive committee was cruel and callous and dismissive to survivors so rachel den hollander
00:13:35 then at a conference mentions this story that the infamous 2019 caring well conference with russell
00:13:42 Moore, she mentions this story that brings a lot of negative press to the executive committee.
00:13:49 At that point, she represents Jennifer Lyle in a threat. They never did actually file a suit,
00:13:57 but in a threat of a defamation suit against the executive committee, that threat is successful.
00:14:03 The insurance company agrees to pay Jennifer Lyle. I'm hearing about a million dollars,
00:14:09 and they think that will be the end of it and then this story comes up and i look into it and
00:14:14 guidepost represents it as abuse and you know callous disregard of survivors and then you start
00:14:21 to look into the story and you go as i said so much of this doesn't really make sense and then
00:14:28 i looked at the fact that jennifer lyle said that she um filed a police report with the louisville
00:14:34 pd in 2018 when it happened so i called the louisville pd they have no record of her i then
00:14:41 obtained another interview that she gave where she said not only that she called the police but
00:14:46 that al moeller called the police they have no record of any of that either um then i spoke with
00:14:52 her and she said no no i made a mistake it was this other uh police department it was jefferson
00:14:57 town i called jefferson town jefferson town had no record of this so what you have really is
00:15:04 something that illustrates the entire problem with what Guideposts did and what the recommendations
00:15:10 are. And that is not just Guideposts, but Rachel Denhollander, lots of people on social media,
00:15:19 the Religion News Service, numerous other reports in Washington Post. I don't want to name the
00:15:25 others because I'm not positive, but there was a lot of reporting labeling this guy an abuser, 0.85
00:15:31 someone who's violent someone who um really hurt this woman and i think you can always say that
00:15:38 when there's sin involved you're hurting people you're hurting each other but this was different
00:15:42 they were saying he was a violent sexual abuser those were rachel then hollander's words these
00:15:47 were the words that were in that guidepost report so and nobody really looked into it so really all
00:15:54 of these people were operating on the fact that we just believe her um and based on that also the
00:16:00 Guidepost report said her story was corroborated. Well, when I looked into what they meant by her
00:16:05 story was corroborated, that was what they meant, just that these people believed her.
00:16:10 Well, that's not due process. And based on all of that, you would have to go. So a firm like
00:16:15 Guidepost, who is putting itself forward to create this public database of abusers for the SBC,
00:16:23 Rachel Denhollander, who is demanding this public database, both of them clearly would be very
00:16:28 comfortable adding david sill's name to that list even though we have no concrete evidence that he
00:16:35 is an abuser he's never admitted to being abused an abuser and there are no public records that
00:16:40 document the fact that he's an abuser there's no witnesses that say he's an abuser all we have is
00:16:47 jennifer lyle's word and her claims that are somewhat undercut by the public record so there
00:16:53 you go there's a long spiel on what the story was about no that's really helpful thank you for um
00:16:59 just taking the time and doing so much work to investigate all that to follow through that's
00:17:03 what we need we we need accountability for the alleged accountability that we we need someone
00:17:09 to be able to address these things not to say that there's nothing true but to um to investigate and
00:17:13 see is this actually true and is it true according to god's standards so real quick i want to take
00:17:18 what you said that was so helpful and just kind of maybe just investigated in light of some
00:17:24 scripture. So one, and I know that you're aware of this, you know, even in our case law system
00:17:30 that we have in the United States of America that was built off of a lot of biblical principles,
00:17:35 the Bible is very clear that we need to have two or three independent lines of testimony.
00:17:40 And so a lot of times people will say, you know, well, as a pastor, I get this, you know, well,
00:17:44 by 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 with a concern. Concern is a euphemism for criticism. And they would voice their criticism
00:17:52 and they would always, you know, preface it by saying a lot of people are saying, right? A lot
00:17:58 of people, right? Because you want to give weight to your opinion. You want to give weight to your
00:18:03 perspective. And so a lot of people are saying, and then you would have to kind of press on that
00:18:07 and say, well, okay, so what is a lot of people and who are these people? And could they come to
00:18:11 me also? And let's meet with them. And a lot of times what you discover when somebody has some
00:18:16 kind of discrepancy, some kind of frustration, is that the lot of people usually aren't quite
00:18:22 as many as you thought. And even if it is, let's say it's 10 people, 20 people, 200 people,
00:18:27 the question is, are these 200 independent lines of witness, 200 people that saw the same event,
00:18:34 or is there only one actual eyewitness and then 199 other people that that eyewitness told and
00:18:41 And then they told some, there's a difference between eyewitnesses that the Bible says in
00:18:45 our laws based on versus hearsay.
00:18:47 And a lot of Christians, they need to be refreshed on this and understand the distinction between
00:18:52 hearsay and an actual witnessable testimony.
00:18:57 And so in this case, you only have one witness and, and, and we'll actually, you have two
00:19:02 witnesses, the man and the woman, um, and their testimony is contradictory.
00:19:08 And so that's, so you're at a standstill unless somebody else witnessed it.
00:19:11 And one of the verses that comes to mind, there's a lot that we could talk about, but
00:19:14 one, just briefly, this is Deuteronomy chapter 22, starting verse 23.
00:19:19 It says, if there is a betrothed virgin and a man meets her in the city and lies with
00:19:24 her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of the city and you shall stone them 0.85
00:19:30 to death with stones, the young woman, because she did not cry for help, though she was in 0.99
00:19:35 the city. The implication being, because of the context, the place where this occurred,
00:19:41 what's being implied is God's word is saying, if she was actually a victim,
00:19:47 somebody would have heard her. She was in a public setting in a city. And so if she had yelled for
00:19:53 help, somebody would have heard her. And so because no one heard her, the text is assuming
00:19:59 she did not cry for help, which means that it was consensual. So she was engaged in this
00:20:05 infidelity. And so you shall stone both of them with stones. The young woman, because 0.99
00:20:10 she was complicit. She was a part of this. She did not cry for help, though she was in the city,
00:20:15 a context publicly where she would have been heard. And the man, because he violated his
00:20:19 neighbor's wife. This is a woman who is betrothed. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 0.77
00:20:24 Then verse 25 says, but if in the open country, right? There's not a bunch of people around. It's
00:20:30 not a public setting. If in an open field or open country, a man meets a young woman who is betrothed
00:20:36 and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. He shall 0.92
00:20:42 be put to death, but you shall do nothing to the young woman. She has committed no offense punishable 0.99
00:20:47 by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor. Now, real
00:20:54 quick, the last thing I'll say on that is just in the private context of the open country or field
00:20:59 where there was no witnesses around, if a woman, right, they're found afterwards and there is
00:21:06 witnessable proof that infidelity happened and assumed in this is one of those proofs would be
00:21:11 her testimony, then the man shall be put to death. Now that testimony has to be collaborated. It has
00:21:17 to be proven, evidenced, but once proven, then the man would be put to death and she would go free
00:21:25 because there was no one around. So it's giving the benefit of the doubt that she actually did
00:21:29 cry for help. But even in that case scenario, it's not that this man is put to death on her
00:21:34 singular testimony alone. The reason why the man is put to death is because even if it was
00:21:42 consensual, the infidelity in this biblical context, according to God's law, the infidelity
00:21:48 was sufficient. Meaning the man doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be a violent sexual abuse
00:21:55 case, just the sexual immorality itself with a betrothed woman, another man coming, that would 0.98
00:22:02 be enough to put him to death. So her independent testimony of saying, I yelled for help, but nobody
00:22:08 was around because I was in an open country, an open field. That's enough not to incriminate
00:22:13 her alleged perpetrator, but it is enough to save her life. So it's not enough to end his life,
00:22:20 but to save her life. His life is ended because even if she's lying, even if she's lying,
00:22:26 his infidelity, whether it was forced or not, regardless of whether it was consensual, 0.84
00:22:31 is enough to be incriminating for him, according to biblical law, with Israel to be put to death.
00:22:37 And so my point is, this is, you know, obviously this is, there's a lot of this that is unique
00:22:42 to Israel, but there is the general equity, which is the Westminster Confession and the 16th,
00:22:48 There 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 And 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 so if you're talking about a grown woman something starts when she's 26 years old a 12 year long
00:23:14 uh escapade uh and and you bring technology and cell phones you know at any point she could have
00:23:21 given a call sent an email said this said that and when that's in the scenario and you might say well
00:23:26 she did say it okay but how many how long did it take her to say something how many years did it
00:23:31 take her to say something um russell fuller you know who was a professor is seeing the two of them
00:23:36 smiling at the lunch table in the cafeteria at a seminary and laughing and these kinds of things
00:23:41 according to your reporting, your article. And so it's just like, yeah, that doesn't look like
00:23:46 a victim. So like you said so well, according to biblical standards, there's still sin
00:23:51 and sin is a big deal, but there's a difference between sins and crimes. And so we have to
00:23:56 understand that. And so, yeah, this is a problem. And if that's the leading proof in this guidepost
00:24:03 reports, then what, what are we talking about? And you go on in your article. So I want to ask
00:24:08 you this, you go on in your article and you said, I think it's only 400 something cases and only two
00:24:13 of them were current. Can you explain how many cases and show us some of our listeners, they
00:24:18 don't know how big the SBC is. Can you talk about that? Yeah. So I kind of opened with that because
00:24:24 you know, you always sort of have to do that. Listen, abuse is serious. I'm very much against
00:24:29 abuse because the initial immediate pushback you get is, oh, you're trying to minimize abuse.
00:24:35 Well, no, I'm not. But I am trying to be very specific because there was a torrent of media
00:24:40 coverage calling this bombshell, explosive, makes the SBC a diseased orchard. That was David French
00:24:48 or apocalypse from Russell Moore. So you want to drill down and go, okay, let's look at what
00:24:53 we're talking about. So, what we were talking about, this is what Guidepost found, 409 cases
00:25:01 over the course of 21 years in 47,000 churches. Now, I spoke to a demographer, somebody who was
00:25:08 an expert in these kinds of just looking at statistics and what we might infer from them,
00:25:13 and he tells me, okay, looking at that, I might roughly estimate about 100 to 150,000 workers
00:25:20 in 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 from his professional opinion, not from having any invested interest in protecting the SBC.
00:25:33 And he said, okay, if you're looking at 100 to 150,000 over that period of time, this is actually
00:25:39 really remarkably low, particularly as you're only talking about two current connected to
00:25:46 the SBC workers. It wasn't clear if they were staffers, if they were pastors or if they were
00:25:51 volunteers. It wasn't clear what they were, but two people still connected to the SBC church who
00:25:56 are right now accused. Yeah. And so the pushback from that was, well, Guidepost was only looking at
00:26:04 the investigative committee and they got those numbers from this list of published reports
00:26:11 of accused or convicted abusers or sex offenders that they had sort of assembled this list from
00:26:19 already published reports in the public domain. And that is true. But you have to look at the
00:26:26 Houston Chronicle also spent a year investigating as well. And their numbers were very similar.
00:26:32 So when you look at that, you go, maybe, maybe there is more abuse that if somebody were
00:26:37 investigating all of the SBC, they would find, but we have to deal with the numbers that we have.
00:26:41 I'm not going to make a hypothetical assumption that there is some apocalypse that we just don't know about.
00:26:47 Let's deal with the numbers that we have.
00:26:48 And those were the numbers that we had.
00:26:51 409, 21 years, 47,000 churches, 100 to 150,000 staffers.
00:26:58 And only two current individuals.
00:27:00 And only two current.
00:27:01 That is correct.
00:27:02 So the demographer said, looking at this, I am astonished that they found so little.
00:27:08 So 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 I was going to say, I wish that same standard would be applied to public schools.
00:27:30 You 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 You know, that's if those standards were it's just it's such a double standard.
00:27:41 It's frustrating. Go ahead. Sorry.
00:27:43 And the point is, you go, look, we don't want abuse anywhere.
00:27:46 You know, it's funny because people go, oh, you're just dismissing abuse.
00:27:48 I'm not. I don't want abuse anywhere.
00:27:50 But I also recognize this, that we live in a fallen world.
00:27:53 um we live in just a sin cursed world and there is no organization that is going to be able to
00:28:00 perfectly keep every predator out who will try to come in to get at victims so you try to act
00:28:08 as quickly as possible you put up as many guardrails as you can that are reasonable but you
00:28:14 also recognize that these things they are going to happen and we have to deal with them clear-eyed
00:28:19 And 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 And 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 And the person that they're talking about is the perpetrator, without any shadow of it.
00:28:58 But, but biblically speaking, you know, I mean, biblically speaking, the standard is
00:29:03 that if you bear false witness about someone else and it's proven that your testimony was
00:29:08 false, whatever the penalty would have been, had your testimony been true for them, that
00:29:13 penalty now comes on your head.
00:29:15 So if you were accusing them of something that is punishable by death, then you would 0.65
00:29:20 be put to death.
00:29:22 Bearing false witness, the Bible says that that's one of the things that the Lord hates, 0.97
00:29:25 that he detests a false witness, one who spews out lies. And so the point is that number one,
00:29:35 we have to be truthful. We can't just say this happened without a shadow of a doubt. According
00:29:40 to biblical standards, their leading case with this individual, this man, their leading case
00:29:46 cannot be proven, or at least has not yet been proven by biblical standards. And yet a denomination,
00:29:54 the SBC that claims to say that the Bible is the final arbiter for the final standard for what we
00:29:59 abide by is not abiding by that standard. So we want to be truthful. And so yes, there have been
00:30:08 cases of abuse and these kinds of things, but the way it's being presented is though like the SBC 0.97
00:30:12 is just the most corrupt, sexually abusive, you know, denomination of all time. And that's just 0.96
00:30:19 not true. So the last thing that I want to ask you is, you know, you've done great reporting.
00:30:24 But I'd love to hear some of your speculating, if you're willing to do so.
00:30:28 Why are there, you know, you mentioned there are some people in the SBC, right, that really
00:30:33 wanted this story to get out.
00:30:35 And they want to portray the SBC as being the harbors of sexual perpetrators.
00:30:44 What do you, why?
00:30:45 Why are there people in the SBC that want this report to be true, that want to make
00:30:50 this big push of the SBC's corruption with covering up sexual abuse scandals? Who are some
00:30:55 of those people, the ones that you could name that has been proven? But what, if you could
00:31:02 speculate for a moment, what do you think is their motive? What are they after?
00:31:06 Well, you know, obviously I can look at Russell Moore for sure, because just factually what we
00:31:11 know is that Russell Moore had this sort of notorious apocalypse essay out within 30 minutes
00:31:18 of the guideposts report hitting the web so you go he could not have read 288 pages he writes in
00:31:27 this essay i was even more and i'm paraphrasing so this is not a verbatim quote but something
00:31:33 in effect of i was even more shocked by what was in this report and i'm like you read 288 pages
00:31:40 and 30 minutes to be shocked by what was in that part so it seemed very clear and it was notable
00:31:45 that this essay that he published contained no specifics about this in particular shocked me or
00:31:51 when I read about this, I was really astonished. He didn't give any specifics. He just said it was
00:31:55 so much worse than I thought. And so I think if you look at someone like Russell Moore, you go,
00:32:00 there was a personal motive. He sort of had written before about how they were trying to
00:32:06 psychologically terrorize me. And I go, he really likes really hyperbolic language. But so I think
00:32:14 in that case there were definitely some personal vendettas it felt like it was being used in that
00:32:18 way um at the same time i go i think there is a wing that is looking to do away with the
00:32:25 complementarian convictions within the sbc because the other thing you saw was in a lot of this
00:32:31 reporting that immediately hit they talked about the fact that this cultural atmosphere within the
00:32:37 sbc where women are dismissed and women's voices aren't heard and that's key women's voices aren't
00:32:43 heard. That gave rise to this culture of abuse that allowed it to fester. And so I think that 1.00
00:32:51 that 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 in order to make sure that women aren't abused and they feel free to come forward.
00:33:02 I think you're absolutely right. And I don't think it's a coincidence that with the convention
00:33:06 that just took place, those are the two things that you see hand in glove that are happening
00:33:12 is, uh, here's all the sexual abuse cases and how we've hurt women as a denomination.
00:33:18 And, uh, we've uniquely hurt women, right? Cause we live in a fallen world and this happens
00:33:22 everywhere, but man, it really happened here. It happened worse here where the data just doesn't
00:33:27 prove that, you know, uh, but it really happened here. Oh, and by the way, on a unrelated note,
00:33:33 um, maybe women can be pastors. What, what, what is a pastor, right? We got Matt Walsh with what 0.63
00:33:39 is a woman and the SBC, we're going to do a documentary. What is a pastor? You know? And
00:33:44 yeah, I don't think that's a coincidence. I think that they're just, they're going left.
00:33:50 Yeah. And I think, you know, it was really interesting too. I posted kind of,
00:33:55 fairly astonishing, this story in Vox. If you're not familiar with Vox, it's very popular
00:34:00 among maybe younger demographics. And they drew a hard line between abuse and complementarianism.
00:34:08 Like 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 But this was very clear. And this was something that I did not have time for in my story.
00:34:19 So you're getting it exclusively, but it killed me that it ended up on the cutting room floor.
00:34:23 And 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 but what they did find was this sort of male dominated culture and again i'm paraphrasing
00:34:41 but you can go read that report it's not nearly as long and find it and they talked about um you
00:34:47 had a culture where men would speak over women and men were not listening to women and um these
00:34:54 men in leadership were not promoting women to be in leadership and you went so that's where
00:35:00 guideposts that's their worldview where they were coming from from as they put together this report
00:35:05 that's very important all right well thank you so much for all your hard work on this and thanks
00:35:12 for sharing with our listeners some of the the behind the scenes um details i really really
00:35:18 appreciate any final thoughts that you want to add no just this look we have to start being
00:35:23 unafraid to be discerning and look at the hard details and they're going to say oh you don't
00:35:28 care about abuse or oh you don't care about victims and i kind of shared on social media
00:35:32 this week. Look, I'm a victim myself. So I do care, but I also care about due process. And
00:35:38 more than that, I want this message to get out to these young women. Don't make your identity 1.00
00:35:44 victim. Don't even make your identity survivor. I'm a victor in Christ. I don't feel like somebody
00:35:51 who is just surviving life. I feel victorious. I feel loved. I feel powerful in Christ. And so
00:35:58 i really hate this movement that is teaching young women to um just live in that identity of victim
00:36:05 amen well said and we care about truth and wherever truth is absent um there's a another
00:36:12 kind of victim so because we we do want to protect victims of all kinds um women contrary to popular
00:36:20 opinion do not have a monopoly on victimhood minority ethnicities do not have a monopoly 1.00
00:36:25 on victimhood. Anyone by biblical standards can be a victim when they are physically sexually
00:36:31 abused or just physically abused or when they are lied about. And so we care about the truth
00:36:36 because we love all kinds of victims. We don't want anybody to be mistreated or oppressed.
00:36:42 So thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it, Megan.
00:36:45 Thanks for having me.
00:36:46 Thanks so much for listening. But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor,
00:36:50 take a moment and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly
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00:37:00 to as many people as possible. Thanks so much.