I concur with these judgments, Bill. I am still amazed and angry about how Baylor treated you, but I feel nothing compared to what you experienced. Thank you for giving those Scriptures warning of worldliness. We could add 1 John 2:15-17. The accolades of the world meaning nothing in the end. What means everything is "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Also, I'm still amazed and angry not only with Baylor but Mohler and others at SBTS, though I do respect Mohler, but in your case that was...less than ideal.
Dembski is cut from the same cloth as Solzhenitsyn.
By the way, I highly recommend Gary Saul Morson's books Minds Wide Shut: How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us and Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter.
Dr. Dembski, thank you for this message which is succinct, profound and prophetic. Indeed a warning to all of us who are in danger of falling in love with the worldly realities rather than with the admonitions of our purpose here in this time and space. God bless you in His Name.
✝️✝️✝️✝️✝️✝️
For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.
Christian Standard Bible (Eph 2:8–10). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.
I'm Salvador Cordova. David Platt, pastor of McLean Bible Church (MBC) was mentioned in Basham's book. I'm a member of MBC.
In 2021, I was confronted by armed MBC security while I sat quietly in my chair at a Sunday morning service. I was threatened with arrest and jail if I ever returned. My supposed sin was calling out on youtube the lack of financial transparency and one of Platt's African American pastors (a friend of Obama) for saying, "it's difficult for me not to torch all white people." Later I discovered that MBC had been began imposing racial quotas on the church musicians and limiting the number of white singers and musicians on stage.
After I was threatened with arrest, a long series of multi-million dollar legal actions ensued (which involved me and others) which revealed among other things that the Southern Baptist Convention siphoned millions of dollars out of MBC without the congregation knowing. Like a communist dictator, Platt preached the poverty gospel while he himself raked in a good living while his congregations emptied their pockets. sometimes into poverty (just like he demanded).
Now a 2-part youtube documentary out called TheRealDavidPlatt came out, for anyone interested.
Way back in 2007 I was close to the epicenter of all the persecution of the Intelligent Design proponents in academia. Because I was featured in some news articles about ID (like the April 28, 2005 edition of Nature), I had bullseye painted on me while I went to grad school at Johns Hopkins. But the most dis-heartening thing was seeing the evangelical churches and seminaries be lukewarm and often hostile to Intelligent Design. At MBC and other evangelical circles there is now hostility against ID, against free markets, against secure borders, but instead welcoming of DEI, BLM, socialism, etc.
At least way back when, it was only hostility against ID, now its hostility against a few other things.
John Ferrer here. It's been a while. But I'm glad to see your writing here.
The post is well stated, and timely. Great music choice at the end too. I just bought that album last week. A lot of folks have missed the forest for the trees here. But you're see the forest . . . burning.
Would you be open to having this article shared at Crossexamined.org? You'd get full credit for it, and we'd include a link back to the original article. It might get this article out to a wider audience. And more people need to hear what you just said.
Hi John. Great to hear from you. I was delighted when I learned that you would be working for Crossexamined.org -- it seemed like a great fit for your interests and talents. Yes, by all means reprint the article (with a link back). We should catch up some time. Blessings!
Great article Bill. I’ve been curious about this book.
I follow Megan Basham on the socials and she’s done interviews with Doug Wilson and Cannon Press.
She said somewhere that evangelicals make up about a third of the voting population, and that the leftist progressives try to undermine them with the tactic of calling people “Christian nationalists”. It honestly seems to me that the left wants to persuade people in the evangelical elite to their side, and then silence and discredit evangelicals lest they be labeled as Christian nationalists.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences on this topic. Many parents have asked me where they should send their children to College to avoid the woke agenda. Organizations like ACTS2 Network are providing support to many Christians at elite secular Universities, this is an interesting approach.
Bill, very thoughtful response to Megan Basham's book. It sounds like she makes some very timely and good points - and provides strong warning to evangelical elites as well as the rest of us followers of Christ: be on your guard, do not be tempted by power, avoid compromise in the foundational principles of biblical Christianity, etc.
(Apologies if this is a duplicate. Your website says my first response did not go through.)
I am Seventh-day Adventist. We are more fundamentalist than the larger Protestant denominations and would have much farther to go before getting deep into the 'woke' ideologies circulating today. I think people tend to leave our denomination completely before they go too far into wokeness. (Websites of former Adventists trying to educate the rest of us seem to be a cottage industry.) Occasionally we'll hear about an Adventist pastor promoting LGBT issues, but those are rare. I recognize that I might be naive about that, and I am in one of the strongly conservative regions for our church (West Virginia), so perhaps news about those things just doesn't permeate here.
I felt sympathy for your description of the conflict between your old-earth beliefs and the Baptist university. I admire whatever wisdom you found that helped you come to a truce in the conflict for at least long enough to move elsewhere.
Thanks for writing. I enjoy the articles you publish, even if sometimes they reach beyond my understanding.
Thank you for this message. I doubt I will read Ms Basham's book, only because my current stack of unread books is so high, but I am glad to know of the issues she describes.
I think my own church and denomination is relatively safe from elitist pressure, but I will certainly watch for it.
I concur with these judgments, Bill. I am still amazed and angry about how Baylor treated you, but I feel nothing compared to what you experienced. Thank you for giving those Scriptures warning of worldliness. We could add 1 John 2:15-17. The accolades of the world meaning nothing in the end. What means everything is "Well done, good and faithful servant."
I couldn't agree more with Prof. Groothuis!
Also, I'm still amazed and angry not only with Baylor but Mohler and others at SBTS, though I do respect Mohler, but in your case that was...less than ideal.
Dembski is cut from the same cloth as Solzhenitsyn.
By the way, I highly recommend Gary Saul Morson's books Minds Wide Shut: How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us and Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter.
Dr. Dembski, thank you for this message which is succinct, profound and prophetic. Indeed a warning to all of us who are in danger of falling in love with the worldly realities rather than with the admonitions of our purpose here in this time and space. God bless you in His Name.
✝️✝️✝️✝️✝️✝️
For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.
Christian Standard Bible (Eph 2:8–10). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.
I'm Salvador Cordova. David Platt, pastor of McLean Bible Church (MBC) was mentioned in Basham's book. I'm a member of MBC.
In 2021, I was confronted by armed MBC security while I sat quietly in my chair at a Sunday morning service. I was threatened with arrest and jail if I ever returned. My supposed sin was calling out on youtube the lack of financial transparency and one of Platt's African American pastors (a friend of Obama) for saying, "it's difficult for me not to torch all white people." Later I discovered that MBC had been began imposing racial quotas on the church musicians and limiting the number of white singers and musicians on stage.
After I was threatened with arrest, a long series of multi-million dollar legal actions ensued (which involved me and others) which revealed among other things that the Southern Baptist Convention siphoned millions of dollars out of MBC without the congregation knowing. Like a communist dictator, Platt preached the poverty gospel while he himself raked in a good living while his congregations emptied their pockets. sometimes into poverty (just like he demanded).
Now a 2-part youtube documentary out called TheRealDavidPlatt came out, for anyone interested.
Way back in 2007 I was close to the epicenter of all the persecution of the Intelligent Design proponents in academia. Because I was featured in some news articles about ID (like the April 28, 2005 edition of Nature), I had bullseye painted on me while I went to grad school at Johns Hopkins. But the most dis-heartening thing was seeing the evangelical churches and seminaries be lukewarm and often hostile to Intelligent Design. At MBC and other evangelical circles there is now hostility against ID, against free markets, against secure borders, but instead welcoming of DEI, BLM, socialism, etc.
At least way back when, it was only hostility against ID, now its hostility against a few other things.
John Ferrer here. It's been a while. But I'm glad to see your writing here.
The post is well stated, and timely. Great music choice at the end too. I just bought that album last week. A lot of folks have missed the forest for the trees here. But you're see the forest . . . burning.
Would you be open to having this article shared at Crossexamined.org? You'd get full credit for it, and we'd include a link back to the original article. It might get this article out to a wider audience. And more people need to hear what you just said.
Hi John. Great to hear from you. I was delighted when I learned that you would be working for Crossexamined.org -- it seemed like a great fit for your interests and talents. Yes, by all means reprint the article (with a link back). We should catch up some time. Blessings!
Great article Bill. I’ve been curious about this book.
I follow Megan Basham on the socials and she’s done interviews with Doug Wilson and Cannon Press.
She said somewhere that evangelicals make up about a third of the voting population, and that the leftist progressives try to undermine them with the tactic of calling people “Christian nationalists”. It honestly seems to me that the left wants to persuade people in the evangelical elite to their side, and then silence and discredit evangelicals lest they be labeled as Christian nationalists.
*Canon Press.
Thanks Bill for the ruminations.
Good to know about JDG's reply to Megan's book.
May your words help expand this needed conversation, especially to those dabbling in regressivism, though not yet having drunk the kool-aid.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences on this topic. Many parents have asked me where they should send their children to College to avoid the woke agenda. Organizations like ACTS2 Network are providing support to many Christians at elite secular Universities, this is an interesting approach.
Bill, very thoughtful response to Megan Basham's book. It sounds like she makes some very timely and good points - and provides strong warning to evangelical elites as well as the rest of us followers of Christ: be on your guard, do not be tempted by power, avoid compromise in the foundational principles of biblical Christianity, etc.
Thanks for this review.
Blessings.
Hi Mr Dembski,
(Apologies if this is a duplicate. Your website says my first response did not go through.)
I am Seventh-day Adventist. We are more fundamentalist than the larger Protestant denominations and would have much farther to go before getting deep into the 'woke' ideologies circulating today. I think people tend to leave our denomination completely before they go too far into wokeness. (Websites of former Adventists trying to educate the rest of us seem to be a cottage industry.) Occasionally we'll hear about an Adventist pastor promoting LGBT issues, but those are rare. I recognize that I might be naive about that, and I am in one of the strongly conservative regions for our church (West Virginia), so perhaps news about those things just doesn't permeate here.
I felt sympathy for your description of the conflict between your old-earth beliefs and the Baptist university. I admire whatever wisdom you found that helped you come to a truce in the conflict for at least long enough to move elsewhere.
Thanks for writing. I enjoy the articles you publish, even if sometimes they reach beyond my understanding.
Have a great day!
--- Dennis in Morgantown, WV
Thank you for this message. I doubt I will read Ms Basham's book, only because my current stack of unread books is so high, but I am glad to know of the issues she describes.
I think my own church and denomination is relatively safe from elitist pressure, but I will certainly watch for it.
Thanks Dennis. Out of curiosity, what is your denomination and why do you think it is relatively safe from such pressure?
Even if I am an idiot and pursue irrational “progressivism,” at least I am useful.
Where have I heard the combination of those two words before?