Three Problems with the Roman Catholic Church

Three Problems with the Roman Catholic Church

Three Problems with the Roman Catholic Church Heath Lambert In the early 2000s I was at the very beginning of my ministry and times were rough for the Roman Catholic Church. The Boston Globe had released a report detailing years of sexual abuse and cover up by church officials. Back then I was regularly talking to people disgusted by this behavior and wanting to leave the church. A quarter of a century later, things have changed dramatically. The buzz these days is not about disgust over the Catholic Church, but interest in it with widespread reporting about the church’s explosive growth. Numbers vary, but Roman Catholics are definitely experiencing dramatic growth unlike anything seen in decades. The reasons for the increase in the Western world appear to be linked to the failure of secular culture. Increasingly, young people are rejecting the isolationism imposed on them from a life lived on what is ironically called social media. They are bored with the incessant novelty of our shallow culture and want to connect to ancient traditions. Disappointed by a pluralistic culture that can find no anchor they are searching for objective truth.  Many are finding these relationships, traditions, and truth in the Catholic Church. The new interest in Roman Catholicism requires all of us to consider whether Rome can make good on the hopes of so many. Even though I am a convictional Baptist Pastor in the stream of the Protestant Reformation, I have had a lifelong interest in the Roman Catholic Church. But my study of Catholicism has led me away from that tradition, rather than toward it. There are many problems with the Roman Catholic Church, but here, I will explain just three. The Pope Isn’t Real The first problem Roman Catholics have is that the Pope is not real. Obviously, I don’t mean the Pope isn’t real in the sense that he does not exist. I believe in the existence of Pope Leo XIV and wish him every blessing. Saying the Pope isn’t real is not a denial of his existence but is a denial of his legitimacy. This is a great problem for the Roman Catholic church because of the importance they place on the Papacy. This importance is difficult to overstate. Here is just one statement from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, The Pope, the Bishop of Rome and Peter’s successor, “is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the company of the faithful.” “For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.” (882) This Catechism says some extraordinary things about the Pope: that he, as the Bishop of Rome, has an exalted place among other religious leaders, that he is the source of unity among Christians, that he is the Vicar—or representative—of Christ on earth, that he has total power over the whole church, and that he can use that power in an unhindered way. The Pope—Papa, or Father—is the exclusive head of the Catholic Church with “unhindered” power. The problem is that this office, so crucial to Catholicism, is not mentioned in Scripture.  The Papacy is instead a creation of the Roman Catholic Church imposed on the text of Scripture and developed over the course of thousands of years of intrigue, violence, immorality, and theological innovation. The Bible never mentions a successor to the Apostle Peter, never appoints a representative of Christ on earth, never gives any human being unhindered power in the church, and never identifies anyone as a spiritual father except our God and Father in heaven. All of these are inventions of Roman Catholic tradition. The Bible authorizes numerous spiritual offices including pastors, evangelists, teachers, apostles, and others. The Bible never gives any mere human plenary authority over the entire church. This means that the fundamental issue regards the authority of Scripture. Does the Bible alone get to say who the officers in Christ’s church are, or may church history add to and contradict that teaching? The Protestant Reformers insisted that Catholicism had corrupted the ancient faith. Their doctrine of sola scriptura declared Scripture alone as the first and final authority for the Christian. As God’s Word, it alone tells us how we should structure the church and who the leaders of that church should be—not the church, not church officers, and not church tradition. Because the Papacy is not found in Scripture but in the misinterpretation and misapplication of Scripture, we must reject it as illegitimate. Your Works Don’t Save You A second problem with the Roman Catholic Church is that as human beings our works play no role in our salvation but only in our condemnation. The Roman Catholic Church disagrees with this fundamental truth. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes room for works as a crucial part of the salvation of human beings. Faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his body. (1815) Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods. (2027) These statements make it clear that faith is not enough to fully unite the believer to Christ and that human merit is important in the attainment of saving grace. We should be honest here that the Roman Catholic Church has been clear in its teaching that the work of Christ on the cross is crucial in accomplishing salvation for his people. The Catholic Church is also clear about the importance of having faith in the work of Christ in order to be saved. The difference between Catholics and Protestants is the difference between faith and faith alone. Catholics believe that faith is necessary for salvation, but not sufficient for it. This is very different than what the New Testament teaches. When the Protestant Reformers sought to strip away unbiblical traditions that Catholics added to the ancient teaching of Scripture, one of their rallying cries was sola fide—faith alone. The Reformers believed that the Catholic Church had corrupted the Apostolic teaching of salvation by faith alone without any possibility of works leading to righteousness. This teaching is found repeatedly in the Scriptures in places like Romans 3:28, “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law,” Galatians 2:16, “A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ,” and Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith . . . not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Roman Catholics respond to this teaching by pointing to James 2:24 which says, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” When making sense of this statement, Christians must decide whether or not this reference is the one passage in the Bible that contradicts the consistent teaching about faith alone. The Protestant Reformers joined with the ancient church to argue that James believes the same thing about salvation through faith alone as the other authors of Scripture, but is making a very specific argument in the second chapter of his book.  James is focusing on the corrupt claim that the presence of faith does not need to lead to the presence of righteousness and a changed life for the Christian. He is addressing whether it is possible to have a kind of faith that does not necessarily bring good works with it as evidence of its existence. James is not discussing whether our good works join together with our faith to grant salvation. Instead, James agrees with every other biblical author that true saving faith always brings good works in its wake. To quote the axiom attributed to several Protestant Reformers, “We are saved by faith alone but the faith that saves is never alone.” In the Bible, good works are important, not because they join with faith to save, but because they flow from faith to demonstrate salvation. Mary Wasn’t Perfect and Doesn’t Hear Your Prayers A final problem for Roman Catholics is that Mary was not perfect and does not hear your prayers. This is a problem for Catholics who believe doctrines that teach the opposite. These are the Catholic doctrines of the immaculate conception and the intercession of Mary. The immaculate conception teaches that Mary was sinless. The Catholic Catechism says, Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, “full of grace” through God was redeemed from the moment of her conception . . . and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. (491) By the grace of God Mary remained free from every personal sin her whole life long. (493) That is the immaculate conception. The Catholic teaching on the intercession of Mary teaches that Catholics can pray to Mary who hears those prayers and helps to answer them. The catechism says: Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation . . . Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the title of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix. (969). With these two doctrines, the Roman Catholic Church exalts Mary to an extraordinary degree. The Church is at pains to make clear that Mary is not God, only occupied her state of sinlessness by the grace of God, and that her role as “Mediatrix” does not detract from the role of Christ. And yet, with each of these teachings, the Roman Catholic Church has gone far beyond what the Bible teaches about Mary. Scripture is clear that Mary was full of grace and favor from God. Christians understand this is true and for millennia have revered Mary as one of God’s most choice servants who carried the Savior of the world in her virgin womb and delivered him on Christmas night. But the Bible never teaches that Mary was sinless. It also never teaches that any other person occupies a mediatorial role. 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” In their effort to honor Mary, Roman Catholics have dishonored her by saying things that are not founded in Scripture and have led into error those who follow their teaching. The Ancient Faith There are many doctrines that the Roman Catholic Church gets correct. I am thankful for their teaching on the Trinity, their teaching that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, and I am grateful for the ally they are to Christians on the sanctity of life. But Roman Catholic Teaching is full of many errors. Errors that, if believed, will bar the door to eternal life. I am thankful for growing interest from a new generation in truth, religion, and in ancient traditions. I pray that the many people whose interest in these matters lead them to look at the Catholic Church will do what the Protestant Reformers did and strip away the false trappings added to Christianity from Rome and will turn to the most ancient faith. I pray they will turn to the historic teaching of the Apostles, following Scripture alone and having faith alone in Christ alone.

The Mohler Amendment and SBC 2026

The Mohler Amendment and SBC 2026 Heath Lambert The Truth and Unity Amendment On Monday, May 18, Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, weighed in on the ongoing Southern Baptist confusion regarding female pastors. He did it in a big way. For years now, the Southern Baptist Convention has been in a debate about female pastors. As I have made repeatedly clear, this debate has not been whether the SBC is in favor of female pastors. They are decidedly against it. The debate has been how best to remove churches from the SBC when they engage in this unbiblical practice. For years, most Southern Baptists have been in favor of an amendment to the SBC constitution that would instruct the convention and our committees that churches with female pastors should be removed from friendly cooperation. In spite of large majorities supporting such an action, Southern Baptists have failed to reach the requirement of two years of supermajority votes necessary to amend the constitution. Why Amendments Keep Failing The reason for this failure has been a combination of messaging and activity on the part of a relatively small group of convention leaders. The messaging has been that Southern Baptists should not pass such amendments because it will incur legal liability for the convention, it could punish churches who agree with the SBC in principle but who apply the title pastor to women who do not function like a pastor, and because messengers can always vote on the convention floor to remove churches when necessary.  Southern Baptists have been learning over the years that this messaging simply does not hold up. Regarding legal liability, Southern Baptists are already in print in our confessional documents declaring what we believe on this matter, and it has never been clear how repetition could increase our legal risk. Even if it did, the Southern Baptist commitment to the truth is not so weak that we will maintain our convictions until we are threatened with legal action. With regard to punishing churches that use the language of pastor for people who are not qualified to be pastor, this is exactly the point. While no one desires to punish people, this whole issue is about ensuring our use of the pastoral office, including the language used for that office, remains faithful to Scripture. Finally, regarding the proposal that Southern Baptists can just vote out churches from the floor, it is becoming clear that Southern Baptists are willing to do this every time it is necessary. It is also clear that there is no way for us to function as a healthy convention if we have to talk about this matter every year when we already know what we believe and can address it with an amendment. But the difficulty in getting an amendment has not only come down to messaging. The majority of Southern Baptists have also been thwarted from reaching the required supermajority because of a minority of leaders who have managed to maintain control of the platform at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. Platform control is no small thing. Those controlling the platform set the agenda for the meeting, decide who cannot speak, who can speak, and often how long they can speak. Southern Baptists have learned that we can win majorities without controlling the platform, but we cannot win supermajorities. That is why the announcement from Al Mohler this week is so important. Here is the motion he intends to make: Mohler video 2:00-1:22 (this is the countdown) Support for the Mohler Amendment Mohler referred to this action as the Truth and Unity Amendment. I’ll call it the Mohler Amendment for short. There have been other amendments named after other people, and Mohler has supported all of them. What is new about this amendment is that it comes after years of Southern Baptists learning hard lessons about our failure to get amendments like this passed. What is new this time around is that the amendment comes with a long list of supporters, including the current president of the SBC, Clint Pressley. Here is what Clint Pressley said (let’s put the visual of his X post up) “Thank you Dr Mohler! Looking forward to this year’s SBC in Orlando. Let’s get this thing done! Hope to see everyone in just a couple weeks!” It is not only the current president who has expressed his support for this amendment, but both of the announced candidates running for president this June in Orlando. Dr. Willy Rice is one of those candidates and, in his support of the amendment, he said something nobody else has said, Rice Video 1:02-:14 Rice fully supports the Mohler amendment, but also reminds us of how hard it is to pass a constitutional amendment. That is why he is continuing to call for a presidential task force in addition to the effort to pass an amendment. This is important because task force recommendations do not require a supermajority but can pass with a simple majority vote of Southern Baptists. In addition to supporting Mohler’s action, Rice is giving us another way to solve this problem should the amendment fail. Rice’s statement, however, did even more than that. He specifically pledged his full support for the amendment this year and the next. That means that if Willy Rice is elected president of the SBC, he is pledging the support of the SBC platform. This platform support is what it will take to pass the amendment and finally get this thing done. A Generational Opportunity for Southern Baptists I want to say to my fellow Southern Baptists that we have a remarkable opportunity waiting for us this year in Orlando. It is within our ability, finally, to address a problem we have been arguing about for years. Now is our chance to stand on conviction and to stand on clarity. Every generation has a few crucial moments to stand with God on his Word. There are a few situations when we have the privilege of standing in solidarity with our heroes in the faith from the past. In the 1970s and 80s, a generation of faithful Southern Baptists stood for the truth and saved our denomination. We stand on the shoulders of those great leaders. Now is the time to renew our resolve and square up our own shoulders so the generation after us can stand on something strong. This is our moment and our unique opportunity from God to be found faithful to him. God is calling you, me, and the churches we lead to stand on the faith once for all delivered to the saints. This is our time to answer that call. It is our time to say, not only, that we know what the Word of God says, but we really believe what it says and, and we are willing to do something about it. This June, the messengers to Orlando must make a bold stand for the truth that will make future Southern Baptists look back and be grateful to God for what we did. My Southern Baptist brothers and sisters, doing that requires getting to Orlando. You can’t fix this problem if you don’t vote. And you can’t vote if you stay home. I want to appeal to Southern Baptists who planned on missing the convention this year to change your plans. Adjust your calendar. Buy a plane ticket or get in the car. This June, we need every faithful Southern Baptist to fill the roads and the skies as we all cut a path to Orlando to answer God’s call to biblical fidelity. I am praying for God to be kind to our convention of churches. I am praying for God to shine his favor on us. I am praying that our Great God will raise us up as the leaders he has called us to be. I hope you will join me in this prayer and that we will join one another for this historic moment in Orlando.

The Conflict Over Iran

The Conflict Over Iran Heath Lambert Epic Fury The American conflict in Iran began on February 28, 2026, and has been controversial from the start. It is called Operation Epic Fury and this week I don’t mostly want to talk about that military conflict but about the relational epic fury related to the conflict that is raging here at home. As the military engagement stretches toward the three-month mark and a solution to it seems increasingly difficult Americans are feeling growing pressure and are talking about it with mounting tension. That tension creates relational strain among people with different viewpoints on the military operation. More and more, I have church members approaching me to ask how we should think about this operation and describing conflict they are having with their friends, families, and fellow church members over their differences of opinion. As a pastor, I obviously bear no responsibility for American foreign policy and have no authority to deploy military resources. But I bear a great deal of responsibility for the relationships in my congregation and want to help my people grow in love for Jesus and for one another. When American military engagements create pressure in that regard, the call to faithfulness requires us to think carefully about these issues. We should be honest that knowing how to think about the military operation in Iran is very challenging for at least four reasons. The High Stakes of the Conflict First the stakes in this conflict could not be higher. The biggest reason for American interest in Iran is because of the pursuit of nuclear weapons by that regime. Everyone should be able to agree that a country that kills innocent people by the thousands, supports terrorism, holds hostages, and persecutes Christians could never be trusted with a nuclear weapon. But many of the same people who agree that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon disagree about when it is prudent to intervene. Should we stop Iran when they are a year away from the bomb? A few months? A week? American policy toward Iran has often been guided by avoiding military intervention until there is a proverbial “smoking gun.” This policy is manifestly unwise. If someone threatened to run you over with their car, you would not wait until they opened the door, started the ignition, and put the car in drive before you ran out of the way. It makes no sense to wait until the last possible moment to defend against a dangerous threat. But American presidents have treated Iran this way for decades because the very real threat of a nuclear Iran is brewing thousands of miles away at secret facilities built under mountains far out of the sight of Americans who want high wages and cheap gas. American presidents have not wanted to pay the political price that comes with eliminating a threat if it requires disrupting the good times at home. But this is a very dangerous gamble. Winning the gamble requires absolute certainty that you know everything about Iranian nuclear development including the location of all their secret facilities and the exact information about where they are in the developmental process. Losing the gamble requires being wrong only once and could result in tens of thousands of deaths. This is a gamble that Donald Trump has made clear he is not going to play. I am not saying I know for a fact that President Trump is handling this situation well—stay tuned for more on that in a moment. I am saying that when we remember the incredibly high stakes of a nuclear Iran it makes the calculation more complicated than whether the deployment of resources is something we want to do. It may be something we have to do whether we like it or not. Lack of Knowledge A second complicating factor is all the information we do not know. When we carry our strong opinions into a personal conflict, our desire to win an argument can make us forget how little we actually know. None of us have access to the best and most classified information that those in authority use to make their decisions. We simply do not know everything that is known by the decision-makers in this conflict. We can hope in the future we will know more than we do today, but right now we have to be honest that the real information we have about the state of Iranian nuclear development and the classified intelligence possessed by officials who initiated the conflict is limited enough to keep our boldest opinions in check. President Trump A third complicating factor in evaluating the conflict Iran is Donald Trump. President Trump’s statements are very hard to evaluate for at least few reasons. One reason his statements are challenging to evaluate is related to his office. As president, when Donald Trump speaks, his words are picked up by every media outlet in the world. President Trump knows this and understands that when he answers questions on the White House lawn, he cannot think only about speaking to the reporter in front of him, but must also speak through that reporter to nervous American allies and committed American enemies in Tehran. Another reason President Trump’s statements are difficult to evaluate is related to his personality. It is no secret that the president loves to speak highly of himself, that he loves to speak of his enemies in derogatory ways, and that he loves to trumpet his own accomplishments. When Donald Trump wants you to know about something he will tell you in grandiose terms that what he did was the best thing that has ever happened, that his enemies are the absolute worst, and that the things he is accomplishing are unlike anything anyone has ever seen. It is also a fact that Donald Trump has made confusing statements on Iran. In just the last week he has made alternating statements about his encouragement and discouragement about how close we are to the end of this conflict. The point of all this is that, for personal reasons and reasons connected to his office, it is absolutely impossible to gauge where we are on this issue on the basis of presidential pronouncements. Media Bias A final complicating factor is media bias. Donald Trump is not the only person whose statements are hard to evaluate. American information about this conflict is mediated through news agencies that all have a bias for or against the president and for or against this conflict. The other day, I did a little test. I turned on a cable news station and listened to their news on Iran. There were some expressions of concern and a few questions, but the entire segment was vigorously supportive of the president and the American mission in Iran. Then, I switched channels to a different network and didn’t hear a single word of support for the Iranian conflict but only condemnation and suspicion of the action and the president. This is a poisonously biased media culture that does terrible damage to our society. Conversational Care And that is actually the point I want to make. I am not saying there is no right and wrong on this matter. I am also not saying Christians should avoid discussing the issue, form opinions, and seek to influence the national conversation. I am saying that the current environment and the complexity of the issues make doing all those things very hard. I am saying that Christians should not take their cues for how we speak to one another from competing media networks and rival politicians. I am saying that we should emphasize humility and love when we talk to one another about these things. In Romans 12:3 the Bible says, “By the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.” This is a biblical command to hold our opinions with great humility especially when we are as far downstream as we are on this matter from authentic sources of information. The Bible also says in John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” When we interact with our brothers and sisters in church, we are allowed to have careful and humble opinions about the important matters in current events. But Jesus does not say that people will know you are his disciples when you have a strong opinion about international relations. He says people will know you are his children when you have love for one another. This means that we are not ready to have a careful conversation about a truly complex matter until we have prioritized the call to love other Christians. Iran is a big deal, and Christians need to seek to understand this issue and to talk about it together. But when we do that, we need to emphasize humility and love over our strong opinions that are less informed by fact than we sometimes wish. When we do that, we will find that the Epic Fury in Iran does not need to translate into epic fury in our homes and churches.

Who’s Bad? What the Legacy of Michael Jackson Says about Us

Who’s Bad? What the Legacy of Michael Jackson Says about Us Heath Lambert Michael Jackson became an icon when I was a kid in the 1980s growing up in Eastern Kentucky and was partial to country music. But Jackson’s music struck the culture with a force hard enough to penetrate the foothills of Appalachia, and the heart of a bunch of country boys more personally inclined to George Strait than the former lead singer of the Jackson Five. I remember being with my friends and leaving MTV on all day just waiting for Thriller, Billy Jean, Bad and other songs by the King of Pop. I was captivated by the music along with every friend I had. It was that captivating quality of Jackson’s music that created millions of fans around the world and fuels interest in the new movie about his life. I have not seen the movie and am not planning on it. But that may make me unusual since it has earned over $200 Million in less than two weeks of release. In addition to generating a lot of money, the movie has generated a lot of controversy. The film nearly ignores the numerous claims of sexual abuse made by the many children with whom Jackson surrounded himself. The movie raises questions about how we evaluate the legacy of someone who made an unparalleled impact on our society but who is simultaneously accused of devastating moral wickedness. Regardless of what you think about Jackson or the recent movie about this life, these are important questions that we regularly must address in a sinful world. Telling the Truth The film is controversial because it barely addresses the many scandalous sexual accusations made against Jackson. Some have responded that the film only covers the star’s life up to the late 80s and before the allegations of sex crimes became a serious issue. That is actually the point. The makers of the film made a conscious decision to cover the parts of Jackson’s life that led to his superstardom but to ignore the parts that led to scandal. The film paints an incomplete picture. It is true that Jackson, while accused of many crimes against children, was never convicted of any of them. But it is also true that the lack of criminal conviction does not mean there are no good reasons to believe Jackson was guilty of at least some of the crimes he was accused. It is true as well that there are some incontrovertible events to which Jackson has admitted that paint a picture of a man you would never want to leave alone with your children or grandchildren. The complexities of the situation—the trials that were never completed, the multi-million-dollar settlements paid to accusers, the people who once defended Jackson only to accuse him later, even his own death—mean we are unlikely ever to know exactly what happened between Michael Jackson and everyone who says he devastated their childhoods. But we should be able to agree that it does not serve the cause of truth to ignore the issue altogether. Obviously, a film bankrolled by Jackson’s estate has an interest in neglecting the most scandalous elements of the star’s life and legacy. But Christians should insist that a healthy society is not capable of evaluating someone’s life until we have considered all the relevant facts available. The one-sided picture of Jackson’s life portrayed in the recent film simply does not allow for an honest accounting of the singer’s legacy. Evaluating Success and Failure Once we consider all the available facts things get even more complicated. How should we evaluate someone with such remarkable accomplishments who is simultaneously suspected of such terrible evil? Answering this question requires tremendous care. In a world stained by sin only one man is untarnished by failure. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and savior of humanity through his death on the cross, is the only perfect person in history. He alone gives grace and forgiveness to anyone who comes to him in faith. But even when Jesus forgives, it is still true that the most accomplished people are sinners living lives with blemished records. That is true of biblical heroes like Moses, of doctrinal heroes like Luther, and of American heroes like Washington. A proper evaluation of someone’s legacy requires an evaluation of their accomplishments together with their failures. The crucial issue is how to weigh the legacies of people who are a mix of talents and transgressions. Society tends to do this by instinct rather than a clear moral formula. We tend to weigh the nature and extent of a person’s failures against the nature and extent of their accomplishments to yield an imprecise verdict regarding their legacy. For example, in the case of someone like Jeffrey Epstein, our society acknowledges the remarkable accomplishment of his vast fortune, but we have refused to celebrate that accomplishment because of the magnitude of his crimes against women. On the other hand, in the case of someone like Martin Luther King, Jr., society has generally been willing to overlook his marital infidelities because of the significance of his civil rights reforms. The verdict of society has been more split with politicians like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump whose many sexual sins are overlooked by their supporters and emphasized by their opponents. How should society weigh the accomplishments and failures of someone like Michael Jackson? In the category of accomplishments, Jackson was a phenomenal musician and entertainer—certainly one of the very best in history. In the category of failures, he has been accused of crimes that spanned a vast period of time, that included a vast number of people, and that involved behavior that is universally acknowledged to be among the most vile. More than that, if the claims are true, it means that Jackson’s moral failures were tied to his accomplishments. Jackson’s talent, fame, and wealth were a trap luring in his alleged victims. Jackson’s accomplishments that society is so ready to praise are the very realities that granted him access to many more victims than similarly accused men. The moral heart of the matter concerns how we weigh the heinous accusations from people who say Jackson ruined their lives against his accomplishments of singing and dancing. Do we have the right to ignore the claims of sexual victimization against children because someone sang songs that made us feel good? Is it proper to celebrate the legacy of someone accused of devastating the lives of countless children because we loved watching him moonwalk? Check Your Own Heart The answers to these questions move us away from Michael Jackson and into our very own hearts. I don’t believe in censorship, and I reject cancel-culture. I find it unhelpful to ban books or movies and boycotts are often ineffective. That means that if people want to listen to Michael Jackson’s music or go to a movie celebrating his life, they should have the freedom to do that. But no person should embrace that freedom without examining their own heart. How does it make you feel to tap your foot to the music of a man said to use the influence of that music to trap countless in a lifetime of pain and heartbreak? How do you feel about spending your money on a movie that makes it harder rather than easier to discern the truth about this man’s life? A while back, I was listening to an 80’s playlist when Billy Jean began to play. I heard the syncopation of the opening drums, the synthesized bass line, and the electric keyboard play those familiar alternating notes. I heard that signature voice sing the opening line, “She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene . . .” As I listened my foot started tapping, my head started bobbing, and my heart rate quickened. That amazing music did something to me. I was transported back in time to incredible memories of silver gloves, ray bans, red leather jackets, and music that defined a generation. Then my mind was transported to some of the accusations I have heard over the years from people my age in news reports and documentaries. I remembered the things I heard Jackson say with my own ears about his bizarre attachment to children. I thought about the preciousness of the childhood of my own kids, and I started to think about the tender innocence of my incredible granddaughter. That recollection also did something to me. My stomach turned and that awesome song didn’t sound so awesome anymore. The joy I felt was replaced with pain and disgust and I turned it off. You can tell a lot about a society by the sin they will tolerate in order to be entertained. You can tell a lot about your own heart by which sins you’ll ignore so you can enjoy a really good song. When our interest in enjoying a good performance is stronger than the desire to weep over victimized children it reveals something truly bad deep in our hearts. That means the new Michael Jackson movie may say more about us than it does about the star himself.

Lessons on Theological Drift from the Biblical Counseling Movement

Lessons on Theological Drift from the Biblical Counseling Movement Heath Lambert Days of Drift More than ten years ago, I was in Hawaii for several weeks speaking with David Powlison at a series of conferences. In between events, we spent time on the island’s beautiful beaches. One lovely afternoon I was building sandcastles with our two youngest children and my wife was swimming in the ocean with our oldest. At one point I looked up and noticed that my wife and son were further out than I remembered, but I was not immediately alarmed. A bit later, I looked out again and noticed, not only that they were much further away than before, but also that my wife was now holding on to our son, was making a very panicked face, and was calling out words I could not hear over the crashing waves. My family was drifting and was in significant trouble. I was on the beach with two very young children who could not enter the water without life jackets and even if getting in the water was possible, I would not have been able to improve the situation. Desperate, I began to cry for help and God immediately answered with a man who swam out to my wife and son and pulled them to safety on his paddleboard. That scary afternoon our family learned a serious lesson about the danger of drift. It is a lesson I regularly consider in these days of theological drift. One of the hallmarks of life in our contemporary Christian culture is just how often we have conversations about individuals, organizations, and even entire denominations moving away from the convictions on which they were founded. Scripture discusses this problem in Hebrews 2:1 when it says, “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” Drift is what happens when Christians fail to pay careful attention to the teaching of Scripture. It is slow, hard to recognize at first, and requires absolutely no effort. Drift is a potential problem in every age of Christianity. Because Christianity is founded on a deposit of truth everything Christians do that matters must be built on faithfulness which, unlike drift, never happens on accident. Faithfulness requires care, purpose, and intentionality to resist the constant pull from the tides of error and compromise that which would carry us away from the truth. Drift should be a concern for every Christian. The biblical counseling movement should also be a concern for every Christian. Because Christianity is founded on truth few things are more important than the content of teaching that Christians receive. Christians know this and recognize that the public ministry of the word in preaching needs to be protected. They tend to be less diligent to protect the personal ministry of the word—the discipleship conversations that are often called counseling. But counseling is a teaching ministry of the church that either will be faithful or will syncretize biblical truth with the secular resources of a therapeutic culture. More than fifty years ago a group of faithful Christians created a formal biblical counseling movement to protect the church against secular thinking creeping into the church through counseling conversations. Their burden was to restore the Word of God to counseling and to protect Christians from drifting from the Bible in counseling ministry. But today the contemporary biblical counseling movement is now threatened with the very drift against which it was founded to protect. A movement created to keep secular strategies out of the church is now increasingly filled with leaders who want to use the movement to smuggle secular strategies into the church through the door of counseling. More and more leaders are using their voice in the biblical counseling movement, not to keep secular interventions out of counseling, but to include them in it. In these days of drift, I think the contemporary biblical counseling movement provides lessons for all Christians who want to swim against the tide of drift and pursue biblical fidelity. Whether we are in the counseling world, a local church context, or in any other ministry, the biblical counseling movement has lessons that can help us all work toward biblical fidelity and fight against drift. Boundaries Must Be Convictional, Not Relational The only way to avoid the persistent problem of drift is to remain focused, rooted, and committed to truth. Faithfulness requires primary allegiance to God’s Word in Scripture. Once Christian organizations begin to compromise and drift, they will eventually die without repentance. But ministries possessing an unflinching commitment to biblical fidelity grow and endure. But the growth of faithful organizations brings temptations. Since solid organizations cannot be built on beliefs that compromise Scripture, those possessing such beliefs are drawn to the ministries built on faithfulness. In the same way that a parasite lives off a host, compromisers attach themselves to faithful organizations. As long as these attachments remain, drift is the inevitable result. The only way to stop the drift is to identify those responsible for diluting faithfulness and remove their influence from leadership in the organization. But the longer compromisers are part of an organization the harder it becomes to remove their influence. This is so because slowly and subtly the boundaries of the organization become more defined by personal relationships than by conviction. Instead of being driven by a concern to protect the truth we become concerned to protect our tribe even while it drifts into danger. We see this problem in the contemporary biblical counseling movement in an organization like the Biblical Counseling Coalition. I was part of the original group of biblical counselors that started the coalition almost two decades ago, I was on the draft committee that helped write their guiding documents, and I was a committed member for years. I know from the guiding documents I helped write and from deep personal experience that the organization was founded to advance a convictional definition of biblical counseling founded in the sufficiency of Scripture and the saving grace of Jesus. The initial group of biblical counseling leaders in the coalition all knew we had many different perspectives on a wide range of issues. We did not agree on everything, but we agreed on the Bible. The idea was to facilitate relationships between people who were united by the sufficiency of Scripture to diagnose and cure souls. But for years the coalition has been drifting. This is a fact demonstrated by the steady departure over the years of conservative biblical counselors among whom I am only one. The reasons for these departures have been many. While those who embrace the historic confessional positions of classic biblical counseling feel increasingly less welcome contemporary integrationists operating under the label of clinically informed counselors have been allowed to remain members in good standing. The coalition has been resistant to publish the views of classic biblical counselors when they oppose contemporary integration. But it has been willing to publish clinically informed integrationists even when they critique conservatives even if their articles are heterodox. When articles are published that violate—not just the commitments of the historic biblical counseling movement—but of historic Christianity, the articles are quietly removed without apology or explanation. I am not saying the biblical counseling coalition is all bad, that there is no place for it, that there are no conservatives in the organization, or that those who remain do not share sweet fellowship. Not at all. I am saying to the conservatives left in the organization that the way these disagreements have been handled weakens the position of those committed to an historic understanding of biblical counseling and that it strengthens the position of those who would confuse that understanding. I am saying this is a recipe for drift, not faithfulness. More than that, I am saying to anyone with institutional leadership of any organization founded on faithfulness that this is an example of what not to do. Our primary concern must always be to maintain fidelity to Scripture. As soon as we are driven by a concern to avoid offending those who advance novel approaches, the drift has already begun. The issue here is not whether we will be harsh or kind in defense of the truth. Christians are commanded to speak the truth in the love (Ephesians 4:15). But as soon we believe that drawing clear convictional boundaries is a violation of the law of love, we are letting those who compromise biblical truth define biblical love, we have drawn boundaries according to relationships instead of conviction, and, without a correction, we are guaranteed to drift. Critical Concerns Must Be Embraced, Not Dismissed Another lesson we can learn about drift from the contemporary biblical counseling movement is the importance of listening to critical voices expressing legitimate concerns. When ministries are defined by convictional boundaries informed by biblical truth, they are happy to hear when faithful people express critical concerns. When an organization or individual wants to stay anchored in the truth, they will embrace the concerns of people concerned about drift because of the words of Proverbs 27:6 which read, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” The “wounds of a friend” are a blessing in Scripture, but they are not received that way once an organization has started to draw their boundaries around relational lines. Once the boundaries are relational, critical concerns are dismissed or received with hostility because the goal is no longer protecting the truth but protecting the group and one’s place in it. When this poisonous environment takes root, those in the drifting organization will not respond reasonably in search of understanding. They will accuse of harshness those who are trying to love with the truth. They will look at conservatives who observe clear theological lines and will accuse them of drawing the lines themselves instead of appreciating that objective truth creates lines that we reject at our peril. They will take convictional concerns personally, they will respond with hostility, they will question your honesty, accuse you of ungodliness, cancel you, disinvite you, and make sure you know you are no longer welcome even in ministries you helped build. When this happens it is evidence of drift that is intensifying and accelerating. It is not just true of the biblical counseling movement but any Christian movement that begins to drift away from faithfulness. Every Christian ministry that was once defined by theological integrity and is now faithless at some point became a place that was inhospitable to the concerns of conservative voices. It was true of the Baptist Union in England when Spurgeon began addressing the downgrade controversy. It was true of every American mainline denomination. It was true of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1970s. It is increasingly true of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. In the public biblical counseling debate, it has been common for some to plead for private conversations and relational investment rather than open disagreement. Those making such appeals might not appreciate that many of us were rebuffed for years before going public with concerns that we repeatedly expressed privately. The conservatives I know who have left the coalition only did so after it became clear that the leadership was more interested in accommodating more liberal positions than they were in advancing conservative ones. Here is a simple fact that you can like or dislike, but which you cannot make untrue. That fact is that organizations only remain faithful when conservative convictions are embraced, rather than silenced. This doesn’t mean every concern from every conservative is valid. It does mean that the leadership of faithful organizations understand it is the nature of conservatism to conserve. It means that in faithful organizations defined by conviction, concerns are allowed to be expressed and are responded to with care. The silencing and marginalizing of conservative voices together with the repeated refusal to offer careful responses to careful arguments is evidence of an organization unmoored from faithfulness and drifting into dangerous territory. Responding to Accusations of Drift I mentioned that a hallmark of our age is growing concern about drift in many different corners. Another hallmark of our age, closely related to this one, is a significant transition in ministry leadership. People my age and younger are inheriting the leadership of churches, organizations, movements, and denominations from the faithful leaders who built and shaped them. With all my heart, I want my generation of Christian leaders to hand to the generation coming behind us ministries that are more faithful, not less. Increased faithfulness will require diligence to avoid drift. When we are challenged with a concern about drift, we should all ask at least three questions. First, what is the source of the accusation? I have been leading ministries for my entire adult life, and I know the difference between an accusation that comes from an enemy on the outside and one that comes from a friend on the inside. When someone expresses a concern who loves the ministry, has been invested in it, and wants to strengthen it, that is a voice I want to hear very carefully. Second, what is your response? When someone advances an objection, raises a concern, or pushes back on your leadership on a matter connected to theological faithfulness do you get angry and defensive, or are you interested in hearing something you may have missed? I have learned in my own life that angry and defensive responses are usually bad signs of what is happening in my own heart and never translates into faithful leadership. Third, how sure are you? How sure are you in your negative assumptions about the person raising the objection? How sure are you that you understand their concern? How sure are you about the commitments of everyone in your organization to biblical fidelity? It is easy to write off concerns as the protests of unreasonable troublemakers, to be prideful about our own perspective, and to feel justified in our own leadership and intentions. But are you certain you are right? Are you willing to bet the future of your organization that there is nothing to the claims of drift? As we think about those questions, it will be helpful for all of us to remember that every ministry that ever drifted away from faithfulness and today lies in wasted ruins was once led by people who heard the concerns about drift and dismissed them. We must use our leadership to avoid this devastating reality. That day in Hawaii, as my family drifted out further and further into the Pacific Ocean, the beach was full of delightful people having a lovely time. As I began my desperate cry for help, I looked like a lunatic to those people. I appeared only to be disrupting the good thing they had going. But only until they saw what I saw. If you want to stop drift, you must admit it is happening. That means you have to see it. This is hard to do. The initial phases of drift are hard to see, are easy to explain away, and, most, like tourists on a beach, would rather enjoy what they have received than spring into action. The long term costs of missing the signs is excruciatingly high. That is why church history is usually much kinder to the initial identifiers of drift than the contemporaries of those people. Make no mistake there is drift in the contemporary biblical counseling movement. History will have access to all the receipts of this conflict and will know where everyone stood. More than that, the God of heaven and earth, the Author of Scripture, and the Lord of all our ministries is watching. With all my heart, I am praying for the organizations and the people in a movement I love. I am praying for those who have received so much that they will be found faithful, that they will see the drift, and by God’s grace will work to stop it.