In ’98, I was removed from my position as a junior high youth leader for teaching against women pastors in a church that had women pastors. I was a relatively new believer, teaching through 1 Timothy, and came to the part where Paul said no women should have authority. So, I taught that, even though Pastor Tish’s daughter was in the Bible study. I was removed and told I had the spirit of the anti-Christ.
I rejected complementarianism the first time I was introduced to it through Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood around 2000. I did so because it was clear they were setting "patriarchy" against "egalitarianism" as if they were perfect opposites. I knew better, having read both the patristics (Clement, etc.) and radical feminists (Firestone, etc.).
I rejected the “Judeo-Christian” category around 1999 after discovering edgy thinkers like E. Michael Jones through Culture War magazine. A few years later, I met a pastor who had physical copies of most of the back issues, and I read all of them. Around the same time, I began reading Lew Rockwell. He introduced me to Pat Buchanan. I remember reading an article he wrote on “Churchill’s Colossal Blunders.” While I didn’t adopt many of their views, they introduced me to all sorts of alternative perspectives that were eye-opening.
I believe I first discovered Tim Keller in ’03—it may have been ’04. I do know that I was pretty much done with him by ’07. The turning point was his unwillingness to deal bluntly with homosexuality in his small group curriculum on Romans. As brilliant as Keller could be, I saw that he was ultimately unwilling to speak with bold clarity on costly issues. I hated that.
I left Acts 29 in 2008 after becoming frustrated with their emphasis on being "cool." The straw that broke the camel’s back was a post on the Acts 29 board titled something like “How to Have a Kick-Ass Worship Service.” I remember telling my wife, “Man, this has gotten gay.” Little did I know how much worse it would get after Driscoll left.
I haven’t liked The Gospel Coalition for a long time. In 2011, I was censored and banned from commenting on it. The main reason was that, around 2008, I realized 'gospel centrality' was mostly nonsense and not reflective of the church fathers' or reformers' approach to preaching.
Then was Federal Vision/Paedocommunion stuff I looked into around ’07, and then the compromises of Mortification of Spin in ’16 and so on…
It seems like a large group of people woke up around 2016, and another group around 2020, to the kind of things I’ve been thinking about for decades. In fact, I can tell many of them have read and repurposed the work Bnonn and I did through the It’s Good to Be a Man project—often without giving us credit.
But so what? Who cares? I don’t.
I think it’s great. It’s awesome that people are thinking about these things, and that I got to play a role in shaping the larger conversation.
I don’t care about getting credit, and neither should you. We should care about winning.
Some of us have been out here in the trenches for years, and there are many who were way ahead of me. I don’t see those showing up 'late in the game' as competitors. They’re needed reinforcements. Praise God. Let’s stay humble and take ground.
This is great. I particularly agree with your point about the "needed reinforcements."
I hear you, I was that guy in many ways and many times in my life. Not necessarily all in the orthodox camp stuff. There are a lot of rabbit wholes. Living faithfully at the home base is a good starting point, one that I have not always done well. I’m getting better I think. I recently listened to Kings Hall about brother wars. I suppose we will always have differences or distinctive, but we need unity for sure regarding clown world and how society in the West has come off the rails. Thanks brother I needed the reminder.