Discernment is not a team sport

You know the phrase, “There’s no I in team.” If you’ve grown up playing team sports, such as I did playing basketball, you heard that phrase over and over again. The premise of this mindset is to eliminate selfishness and promote a team-first mindset. In these circumstances, such as sports, business and military, this is a necessity that needs to be implemented. In those circumstances, your decision making needs to be about what is best for the team, not necessarily what is best for you.

However, when it comes to other circumstances, such as what we are seeing in the Christian evangelical world and the so-called “discernment” world, this type of thinking can create all sorts of unbiblical alliances and behaviors.

An example of this ungodly mindset is what I refer to as the Good Old Boys Club (GOBC). This is a mentality within the Evangelical Elite where they “defend their own”, often times hypocritically. The Bible says that we are supposed to judge equally and without partiality. Proverbs 20:10 tells us, “Unequal weights and unequal measures are both alike an abomination to the Lord.” James 2:9 reminds us that, “if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.”

However, we’ve seen countless examples of the Evangelical Elite showing partiality towards their friends or those deemed on their “team.” For example, Pastor MacArthur made a big deal during the Strange Fire Conference about sharing the stage with those that promote a false Gospel. However, now that we are facing the Social Justice war, all of a sudden his tune has changed. While he, at one time, said that Social Justice is the greatest threat to the Gospel in his lifetime (paraphrasing), he then shared the stage with three of the leaders of the Social Justice movement within mainstream Evangelicalism and said that he won’t fight his friends.

Another example of this is in regards to the Interfaith Dialogue that we saw with James White and Yasir Qadhi. In this example, we saw Phil Johnson come to the defense of his friends, in spite of the fact that traditionally John MacArthur and Co have always been against IFDs. We then saw JD Hall and Pulpit & Pen come to the defense of Phil Johnson & James White, accusing Brannon Howse and I of going too hard in condemning Dr White, and then turned around and attacked him harder than Brannon or I ever did. Now, we are seeing P&P flat out anathematizing White.

We also see this kind of mentality in the reverse. What do I mean by that? Well, if you defend those that are in your club no matter what, you’ll oftentimes attack those NOT in your club or on your team. We’ve seen this with Dr Michael Brown. The Strange Fire crowd (made up of guys like Phil Johnson, Justin Peters, JD Hall and the like) see Dr Brown as chief enemy number one when it comes to their war against the Charismatics. In their eyes, he can do no right. Even though they might agree with him on issues such as Social Justice, Old Testament Theology and even the Gospel, he is an “Apologist for Satan” because he is a Charismatic and defends many of the practices found within the Charismatic movement. (Although, to be fair to Dr Brown, he’s also condemned many of the extreme Charismatic abuses in his book Authentic Fire. Also, if you are a charismatic, of course you wouldn’t see a lot of the problems with your own theology that Cessationsts see…) In the Strange Fire guys’ eyes, Dr Brown is pure evil and can do no right.

We’ve also seen this with their attitude towards me. I’ve been very open about my theological beliefs. I’m a traditional Lordship Salvation, 5 Point Calvinist & Cessationist. For the most part, I agree with John MacArthur theologically. However, I’ve been critical of some of the behavior & decisions from, Dr… excuse me… Pastor MacArthur, his staffers and his supporters. Because of that, I’ve been called a Son of Satan, A Keeper of Goats (referring to the state of my salvation, as well as those who support my critiques) and many other slanderous and ungodly accusations. This has expanded now to those associating with me, as there have been articles from MacArthur staffers and Pulpit & Pen seeking to destroy not only me, but those associated with me like Pastor Sam Jones, Paige Rogers and JD Rucker.

You see, while we may all agree when it comes to The Gospel, Social Justice and the threat that we are facing as the church today, they just can’t fathom working with someone that disagrees with them. What’s happening is that they are getting distracted with personal vendettas when we have a war to win. We are literally facing the greatest threat to the church in our lifetime, when it comes to Social Justice. We are seeing the full-on assault on the Gospel. We are seeing the church crumble before our eyes. But these Evangelical Elite are too focused on their purse-strings… too focused on their status… too focused on their personal feuds with their brothers and sisters in Christ to actually set aside these petty differences and join together to destroy the enemy.

They’d rather fight over whether someone should be invited to speak at a conference about Social Justice who had a divorce. They’d rather fight over whether someone believes in the gift of tongues. They’d rather fight over secondary issues, small battles and personal vendettas instead of join together and fight a war together. They say that they believe that Social Justice is a threat to the Gospel, but their actions say otherwise. Sometimes you have to skip a battle to win the war.

You see, the enemy is in lockstep. We see that with the Democrats. We see that with the Cultural Marxists. We see that with The Gospel Coalition and Elites within the SBC. We see it with the “pastors” in the pulpits literally leading their congregations to hell. They are all in lockstep. And we can’t even fight the war because we are too distracted with the circular firing squad that would rather jockey for position as the “leader” of the team by destroying all allies that might be considered competition instead of just focusing on winning the war.

Set aside your pride. Set aside your status. Set aside all of that. We have a war to win. Suck it up, man up and let’s go Destroy Social Justice. If you can’t get past yourself and bring yourself to join in the fight, then you are going to get left behind. We have too much that we need to focus on than your distractions and cries for attention. You may talk a big game, but you are lukewarm. Remember what Revelation 3:16 says about being lukewarm. That’s my sentiments, as well. It’s time to spit you out.

This article was originally published on the Gatekeepers Online, and is reposted with permission from Jeff Dornik.

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