But in leading their predominantly white, Republican congregations, Brown and Bolin have come to agree on one important thing: Both pastors believe there is a war for the soul of the American Churchand both have decided they cannot stand on the sidelines. He hints at a potential violent uprising.
It occurs to me, while he discusses these potential changes, that no church is guaranteed anything. In the 1970s Edward Fudge was an up and coming preacher and writer in the non-institutional churches. However, beginning in about 2000, I started having debates with preachers among
moral indecision, and false ecumenical fellowship, Truth Magazine has
other than fornication, just as long as there is no subsequent marriage,
In
In 1990, the then called Guardian of Truth magazine believed in
Colly wrote in clear and
In my ensuing visits to FloodGate, and in long conversations with Bolin, it became clear that this type of extreme political expression is central to his churchs identity, and to his own.
Even as Brown became more vocal, he knew he was being drowned out. It is now sad that Bill mentioned one thing that a young preacher, "Don, do not write articles because what you write can come He didnt have time to worry about politics. George W. Bush, whom evangelicals claimed as one of their own, was popular with Browns congregants. Bolin texted me the following day saying hed deleted it.). are adjusting our approach to reflect this conclusion." brethren will be fought through the Internet rather than through the papers. There is a story that one of his children broke down crying when he visited a home where they held hands and prayed before the meal. Not long ago, Locke was a small-time Tennessee preacher. I dont know of a single church thats not affected by this.. Bolin changed that. The video has collected 18 million views, and it launched Locke as a distinct evangelical brand. No-one would hire Edward Fudge again among the non-institutionals. Still, membership has been in decline for years, in part because so many Christians today gravitate toward the places that are outspokenly aligned with their extra-biblical beliefs. Then, in 2016, he went viral with a selfie video, shot outside his local Target, skewering the companys policies on bathrooms and gender identity.
He read the books, watched the videos, listened to the radio programs. The Christian, they say, may divorce without sin for I must humbly say that I do not recall having Visibly shaken, she refused to answer. Since I do have much interest in history, both from a retrospective and also Bingham is proud to say that he hasnt driven anyone away with his political views. To his credit, even when my dad would lean hard into a political debate, he was careful to remind his church of the appropriate Christian perspective. Pastors report losing an occasional liberal member because of their refusal to speak on Sunday mornings about bigotry or poverty or social injustice. He decries the Christian elites who look down on people like him. Lets be clear: Locke belongs to a category of his own. A lot of them didnt know what they were talking about, biblically, Brown said. mentioned, Steve Wolfgang had the overwhelming assignment of approaching Steve ably It was good for some laughs and lighthearted commentary. Bill Bolin gives a sermon at FloodGate Church, in Michigan; Ken Brown leads a Sunday service at Community Bible Church in Michigan; a scene from the parking lot at Global Vision Bible Church, in Tennessee; a baptism at Global Vision; the tattooed hands of a FloodGate member. reasonable prediction. Liberals have devised a plot to separate Christians from God. January 4, 1990 issue of the Guardian of Truth (now Truth Magazine) Its heartbreaking. They were just trying to keep everybody happy. It was Ken, she said.
For the next three hours, the church became a coliseum. Bob cant imagine leaving the place he loves, the place where he and his wife, Valerie, teach Sunday school. The executive director of Stand Up Michigan decried the evil Democrats in charge of the state; said there was probably some truth to QAnon, which holds that satanic liberal elites are cannibalizing children for sustenance; and warned that Christians are too nice. The chair of the county board of commissioners railed against diversity training and critical race theory. And she sent me this fake, Photoshopped thing. He rolled his eyes at the condescending Christians who criticized Trumps ethics.
But this only adds to the urgency of fortifying Community Bible. A state senator tried to play to the basejoking that shed asked God why hed allowed Gretchen Whitmer to become governorbut then cowered when the base turned on her, with people standing to demand that she answer the question of whether Trump had won Michigan in 2020. There are still holdouts, Brown said, people whod prefer the church to go in another direction. "Third, Paul The pastor says FloodGates revenue has multiplied sixfold since 2020. Jeff and Deidre pressed Jenkinson on the churchs refusal to engage with politics. For the next 15 minutes, Bolin does not mention the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, or the life everlasting. We are doing everything we can to hold this place together, Myers told me. Truth Magazine, for instance, is a hodge podge of compromise and false putting away or divorcement (see addendum 3). He says hes worried about Christians getting their priorities mixed up. There will no longer be this massive division over COVID, Bolin says. Home * Website Purpose * History *UnBiblical Teachings * Spiritual Abuse Hands down, the biggest challenge facing the Church right now is the misinformation and disinformation coming in from the outside, Brown said. Go on! one man yells.
The crisis for the Church is a crisis of discernment, he said over lunch. command of verse ten" (Ibid., pg. I really dont. Nestled in a wooded stretch of exurban Wilson County, Tennessee, the campus of Greg Lockes Global Vision Bible Church feels more like a compound. 3: 15. Almost all of them, he says, came bearing grievances against their former pastors. Hes searching for a successor and hopes in a few years to transition into a support role. requirement. He obsessed over the presidents every scandal and deception. The pastor is pushing harder than ever, and he feels, for the first time, that momentum is on his side. And then, in March 2020, everything fell apart. He asks if he can keep going. There is one person Pastor Brown doesnt have to convince of this: Pastor Bolin. Regarding the doctrine of The Church is not a victim of Americas civic strife. Brighton is a small town, and I knew the local evangelical scene like it was a second reporting beat. The table had been set by Bill Bolin himself. Where blatant false doctrine, as such, has not entered, I have! A sign reads This Is A MASK FREE Church Campus. This is about good against evil. But I get letters from preachers all the time: Oh, Brother Locke, you just need to take a chill pill. That is so easy to do.
Around that time, George Floyd was murdered. Today, some of us are being 13: 1)." the turn of this century possibly seventy-five percent of first marriages will "divorce and remarriage" from the historic prospective. Ive never been the same. When we got to FloodGate, it confirmed for us what wed been missing.. Or immigrants. Its a spiritual battle, and we are right at the precipice of it, Tony said. Brown also launched a blog and a podcast, vying for his members attention at a moment when so many were suddenly stuck at home and swimming in hearsay and innuendo.
When I would challenge him, asking for a source, Bolin would either cite multiple articles he had read or send me a link to a website like Headline USA or Conservative Fighters. marry another or the concept of two putting away actions, the latter of which I didnt see a single person carrying a Bible. Its a mass estrangement, in which people stop listening to the pastor or stop trusting one anotheror bothand the church slowly loses its cohesiveness. Not on a single issue, he told me. practice. Listening to Locke that morning, I felt a peculiar sort of disappointment. Before I turn to the Word, the preacher announces, Im gonna do another diatribe.. Pastors are not immune from anxiety over their mortgage or kids college tuitions; many younger clergy members, in particular, worry that they havent amassed enough goodwill to get argumentative with their congregation. felt, had minimized the concerns of peoplelike himselfwho worried they would lose their jobs for refusing the shot. But then something else happens in the cultureand if you preached on abortion, well, you better preach on voting rights. Deidre saw friends from other congregations, also displaced by shutdowns, posting on Facebook about FloodGate. written one thing that presently embarrasses me.
They taught that the only institution authorized by the Scriptures to do the work of the church is the church. permitted to put away wife for conduct short of fornication" (Ibid., pg. One of those people is B.J. as "divorce and remarriage" is reaching pandemic levels, that some present day He promotes a new book that tells of how the left has done a power grab to systematically dismantle religion and banish God from the lips, minds, and hearts of believers, prompting the couple in front of me to make a one-click Amazon purchase.
Tony and Linda say FloodGates styleand Bolins fiery messages on topics like vaccines and voter fraudhas changed the way they view their responsibilities as Christians. The hired hand, he says, is no better than the wolf. What a chaotic doctrine, as people try to decide and Almost everyone is concerned about job security. Still, the pastor emphasized Trumps personal failings and warned against political idolatry. Losing was no longer an option. (See addendum 2.) We revere God; we hold him in awe, Brown told me. Under "Christ's teaching," Ron unequivocally wrote: "Man not As word got around the conservative suburbs of Detroit, Bolin became a minor celebrity. In 1975, more than two-thirds of Americans expressed a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the church, according to Gallup, and as of 1985, organized religion was the most revered institution in American life. It became all about winning.. But I know its come at a cost., Every person I spoke with from Community Bible brought up the fact that some longtime members had quit the church. And then COVID hit. To many evangelicals today, the enemy is no longer secular America, but their fellow Christians, people who hold the same faith but different beliefs. Hence, two people may be viewed as in fornication,
13: 1f.). Every time I heard Bolin preach, I could also hear Brown, the pastors voices dueling inside my brain. cause other than fornication if there is no subsequent sexual activity.The out the door. Brown leads his own ministry, Community Bible Church, in the Detroit suburb of Trenton. important assignment of "definition of terms." They went to church together. Discernmentones basic ability to separate truth from untruthis a core biblical discipline. The churches that host election-fraud profiteers and weeknight speakers denouncing the pseudo-satanic agenda of Black Lives Matterchurches that consider themselves mainstreamwere starting to feel like old hat. I have also shown that as a rule, even in this circumstance, (Guardian of Truth, January Oak Pointe Novi, the parent church, introduced a video series called Conversations, which featured interviews with Black pastors and social-justice activists. Short-lived victories, however, came at a long-term cost. adultery and fornication and extending fellowship to these people. This seems to Gospel Guardian and Truth Magazine combined to form Guardian of Truth in the 1990s. Yet Im still struggling to make sense of the place. Furkas describes herself as a moderate Democratwhich, she joked, makes me the most liberal person at our church. When Trump became the Republican nominee and Pastor Brown shared his intention to vote for him, Furkas was so disappointed that she left the church. My only hope is that, when the time comes, our people can separate without shattering.. it was apparent that he was wrestling with whether to leave Community Bible. Then he put up a photograph of Ilhan Omar, the Democratic representative from Minnesota and a Muslim, wearing her hijab. Some of it was explainable: The cultural climate was getting chilly for evangelicals; the Great Recession was squeezing his blue-collar congregation. Hes just not sure anymore that Community Bible is a good fit for someone like himdeeply conservative, a Trump voter, a consumer of right-wing media. When the Foundation started sponsoring or offering At one point, Bolin looks up from his notes. was raised evangelical, graduated from Bob Jones University, and believes its his responsibility to be active in the Church. Lockes sermon is about the Philistines of the Old Testament stealing the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites, because they sensed that the only way to defeat Gods chosen people was to separate them from God. God doesnt bite his fingernails over any of this, he would say around election time. I dont, Bolin says, shaking his head. Clicking through a PowerPoint on the sanctuarys projector screens, Brown showed pictures of well-known faces. And many Christians are not practicing it. A stocky man with steely blue eyes and a subdued, matter-of-fact tone, Brown struck me as thoroughly disheartened.
Inside, men wearing earpieces and camouflage pants guard the entrance. prospective slant (history often reveals the future, as history tends to repeat It was there that he began to question the union of his politics and his faith. And they fell for it.. The whisper campaigns brand conservative pastors as moderate, and moderate pastors as Marxists. The Church is becoming radicalizedand pastors who dont address this fact head-on are only contributing to the problem. Or gun rights. Followers of Jesus are to orient themselves toward his enduring promise of salvation, and away from the fleeting troubles of humanity. Theres no way around that, Bingham told me. They are: Looking back, he understands why. Whats coming is going to be brutal. Brown is a pastors kid and lifelong conservative whos never had a sip of alcohol; Bolin is an erstwhile radical liberal who once got so high on LSD that he jumped onstage and grabbed a guitar at a Tom Petty concert.
It was a period of harmony inside the church. organization and structure of the magazine or the Guardian of Truth statement 'but even if she does depart' (v. 11) does not free one to disobey the But Id never seen anything quite like this. constituting a privately supported "missionary society" was not as evident to Neither should you.. (See addendum 4.) etc.
dealing with issues among brethren (they have had a change of policy).
Between 40 minutes of praise music and 40 minutes of preaching is the strangest ritual Ive ever witnessed inside a house of worship. magazine, I see many subsequent changes, both in attitude, doctrine, and Bingham has been a pastor in the UMC for nearly 25 years. Then and now., Much like Pastor Brown, Bolin married conservative theology to conservative ideology. Brown committed himself not just to the dogma of the religious right, but to the precepts of political conservatism. I appreciated much about the way the From the January/February 2022 issue: Tim Alberta on Peter Meijer and what the GOP does to its own dissenters, There are different truths in politicsTrumps truth, Bidens truth, whatever, B.J. This isnt my first time at FloodGate, so none of what Bolin says shocks me. Their worst fears had already been confirmed: A friend on the elder board had told them that Jenkinsontheir pastor, their friendhad argued to keep the church closed. Evangelicalsincluding my own fatherbecame compulsively political, allowing specific ethical arguments to snowball into full-blown partisan advocacy, often in ways that distracted from their mission of evangelizing for Christ. Based on what was happening in 1990, this was a But he also cant imagine standing by while Brown pushes B.J. So I wrote her back and said, Hey, heres the deal: If you have forwarded this to anyone, you have an obligation to go back to them and correct it. Chasing Joan Didion, flawed forensic science, Ukrainian refugees in Poland, and how politics poisoned evangelical churches. twentieth century, rising divorce rates were reflected," wrote Steven, "in the However, since many have subsequent to 1990 now openly Mental resolve, appropriate declaration of intent, and compliance with The American life weve known If we see threats to something we value, we fearthat is, we revere, we hold in inappropriate awethose who can take it away. civil resolve or dissolution of the marriage. He has called President Biden a sex-trafficking, demon-possessed mongrel.. Tony and Linda had their share of complaintsthe church was too moderate and too seeker-friendly, catering more to newcomers than longtime Christiansbut they had no plans to leave.
7: 2f.). But that only validates his approach: Without this intervention, how much worse off might Community Bible be? Are we better off today? many states that provide the common law marriage situation require Addendum 1: The irony, Brown said, is that by pretending that a clash of Christian worldviews isnt happening, these pastors risk losing credibility with members who can see it unfolding inside their own church. Current statistics do not figure in how many in America are now He tells of a doctor who claims to know that between 100 and 200 United States Congress members, plus many of their staffers and family members with COVID, were treated by a colleague of his over the past 15 months with Bolin stops and puts a hand to his ear. And then, Brown said, came Barack Obama., It felt silly at firstjokes about Obamas birth certificate, comments about his faith. Once, when he visited Washington, D.C., for a pastors conference, he returned home to learn that people in the church had been entertaining a rumor started by one of its members. The evangelical Church is no exception. But I did see American flagslots of them. determine whether or not they are really married or just in a state of The more he studied scripture, the less confident he felt in the people hed listened to for so long. Scores of people stand up. Jeff added: It was the pastors sonwho, he claimed, is said to be a member of antifa in Canadalecturing on white privilege and critical race theory. (I could not confirm that the pastors son is, in fact, a member of antifa in Canada; several people who know the family laughed when I asked the question.). He reminded his people that Christians aspire to a higher standard than the lesser of two evils. Brown felt confident they understood him. Locke starts nodding.
Between songs, Schneider offers a different catalog of greatest hits. Bolin tells me the church has sold the building were sitting inwhere the congregation has met since the 1970sand purchased a sprawling complex down the road. How about this one? Bolin says. The second you get into any of the political stuff, you start losing focus, Michael Bingham, the lead pastor at Aldersgate United Methodist Church, in Greenville, South Carolina, told me during a visit last fall. itself), I spend some time looking back at tangible events and actions, which I Some people feel like Im just dropping random anti-Trump bombs, Brown said. 4, 1990, pg. And if that fails, we have a countryyes, Ill say itto take back.. If this all sounds a bit strangeominous, or even dangerous, as one local pastor warned me the night before I visitedwell, sure. Smaller denominations are losing affiliate churches as pastors and congregations break from their leadership over many of the same cultural flash points, choosing independence over associating with those who do not hold their views. If we attempt In the Book of John, Chapter 10, Jesus warns of the hired hand who puts his own safety ahead of the flocks: So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away.. While I commend the January 4, 1990 issue of Guardian of Truth for I believe both to be examples of privately supported not even observe intimation that one could privately and mentally or "in one's
It was clear that hed seen how this fanaticism had infected the church.. That was the beginning of a new ministry for me, he said. I have always been prone to protesting, Bolin told me. Baby." As with most of his letters, the apostle was addressing dysfunction and breakage in the community of believers.
The editor's family was full of hostility and seldom ate together. accept adulterous marriages and invent false doctrines to try to justify
When Brown felt called to join the clergy, he enrolled at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. Still, Bolin seems rattled. In the fall of 2016, Ken Brown informed his congregants that he planned to vote for Trump.
causes as divorcing for one's "emotional health." heart" put away. I have tried to tell him, Stay in your lane..
We, today, continue to witness the decay and deterioration of society and We didnt leave the church. He recently accused multiple women at his church of being witches (his source: a demon he encountered during an exorcism).
One preacher told me when I was
civil protocol and that we should not talk negatively about two people
When we finally met, in the spring of 2021, Brown told me his alarm had only grown. If this is a tale of two churches, it is also the tale of churches everywhere. from the scriptures that the only one that has a right to divorce and marry looking at it from this slant, while they wait to fulfill the state time When the church closed, rumors flew about the board of elders holding contentious late-night meetings to debate pandemic protocols. Thats the left.. Paul is a conservative, but his conservatism has no teeth., Tony DeFelice is another new arrival at FloodGateand another Christian who got tired of his pastor lacking teeth. They arent alone. He relinquished the editorship of the magazine to his brother, almost as pugnacious as he was. "In the early in society has been met (Rom. It seems that when Jesus established the church he was more interested in the actual organization of the congregation than in whether the members obeyed the Sermon on the Mount. Literally moments before he talked about the fervency dying down, Bolin previewed a shtick he was going to deliver on Sunday morning about Apple adding a pregnant-man emoji to the iPhone. Hard data are difficult to come by; churches are not required to disclose attendance figures. He began preaching about grace and forgiveness, and was summarily drummed out of the Antis by the editor of Truth Magazine. Locke salutes them as soldiers rising up in Gods army. Some hear this more literally than others: I spot a few folks carrying guns. When I visited, the churchan elegant structure with room for 500 in the sanctuarywas hosting maybe 150 people total across two Sunday services. subjects as "divorce and remarriage" is now Co-Editor, along with Mike not observe anywhere in this special edition of the Guardian of Truth,
addressed "divorce and remarriage issues." 6). To Elmer Moore was given the G.O.T., I did not read much about private or mental marriages, probably special edition of the Guardian of Truth He aimed to restore that tradition in his own ministry. It was May 2021, and the church was hosting an event for Stand Up Michigan, a group that had formed to protest pandemic shutdowns, masking, and, most recently, vaccine mandates. FiteBobs son. Pastor Bill Bolin calls it his diatribe. The congregants at FloodGate Church, in Brighton, Michigan, call it something else: Headline News.. A pastor asked me the other day, What percentage of churches would you say are grappling with these issues? And I said, One hundred percent. You can also have reverence and awe for other thingsreally, anything you put great value on. A quick Google search would have given Bolin the accurate numbers. Schneider has come to speak and sing. Today, Gallup reports, just 37 percent of Americans have confidence in the Church. Perhaps it shouldnt be surprising that Christians, like Americans from every walk of life, are self-selecting into cliques of shared habits and thinking. 4 in 1920 and 17. There are people at the church, people who Id consider friends, who would have said very hurtful, very unbiblical things, Furkas, the assistant principal of a local public school, told me. to eliminate any of these matters, we encounter problems. (Churches of Christ are renowned for having the most journals per capita of any religious organization.) They were even friends with the pastor, Paul Jenkinson, and his wife. His choice came down to abortion, he explained, and the Supreme Court appointments in the balance. She still attends Community Bible; the two have not spoken about the incident since. Pastors used to be the primary influencers in their communities in determining who we elected, Bolin said.
Even as Brown became more vocal, he knew he was being drowned out. It is now sad that Bill mentioned one thing that a young preacher, "Don, do not write articles because what you write can come He didnt have time to worry about politics. George W. Bush, whom evangelicals claimed as one of their own, was popular with Browns congregants. Bolin texted me the following day saying hed deleted it.). are adjusting our approach to reflect this conclusion." brethren will be fought through the Internet rather than through the papers. There is a story that one of his children broke down crying when he visited a home where they held hands and prayed before the meal. Not long ago, Locke was a small-time Tennessee preacher. I dont know of a single church thats not affected by this.. Bolin changed that. The video has collected 18 million views, and it launched Locke as a distinct evangelical brand. No-one would hire Edward Fudge again among the non-institutionals. Still, membership has been in decline for years, in part because so many Christians today gravitate toward the places that are outspokenly aligned with their extra-biblical beliefs. Then, in 2016, he went viral with a selfie video, shot outside his local Target, skewering the companys policies on bathrooms and gender identity.
He read the books, watched the videos, listened to the radio programs. The Christian, they say, may divorce without sin for I must humbly say that I do not recall having Visibly shaken, she refused to answer. Since I do have much interest in history, both from a retrospective and also Bingham is proud to say that he hasnt driven anyone away with his political views. To his credit, even when my dad would lean hard into a political debate, he was careful to remind his church of the appropriate Christian perspective. Pastors report losing an occasional liberal member because of their refusal to speak on Sunday mornings about bigotry or poverty or social injustice. He decries the Christian elites who look down on people like him. Lets be clear: Locke belongs to a category of his own. A lot of them didnt know what they were talking about, biblically, Brown said. mentioned, Steve Wolfgang had the overwhelming assignment of approaching Steve ably It was good for some laughs and lighthearted commentary. Bill Bolin gives a sermon at FloodGate Church, in Michigan; Ken Brown leads a Sunday service at Community Bible Church in Michigan; a scene from the parking lot at Global Vision Bible Church, in Tennessee; a baptism at Global Vision; the tattooed hands of a FloodGate member. reasonable prediction. Liberals have devised a plot to separate Christians from God. January 4, 1990 issue of the Guardian of Truth (now Truth Magazine) Its heartbreaking. They were just trying to keep everybody happy. It was Ken, she said.
For the next three hours, the church became a coliseum. Bob cant imagine leaving the place he loves, the place where he and his wife, Valerie, teach Sunday school. The executive director of Stand Up Michigan decried the evil Democrats in charge of the state; said there was probably some truth to QAnon, which holds that satanic liberal elites are cannibalizing children for sustenance; and warned that Christians are too nice. The chair of the county board of commissioners railed against diversity training and critical race theory. And she sent me this fake, Photoshopped thing. He rolled his eyes at the condescending Christians who criticized Trumps ethics.
But this only adds to the urgency of fortifying Community Bible. A state senator tried to play to the basejoking that shed asked God why hed allowed Gretchen Whitmer to become governorbut then cowered when the base turned on her, with people standing to demand that she answer the question of whether Trump had won Michigan in 2020. There are still holdouts, Brown said, people whod prefer the church to go in another direction. "Third, Paul The pastor says FloodGates revenue has multiplied sixfold since 2020. Jeff and Deidre pressed Jenkinson on the churchs refusal to engage with politics. For the next 15 minutes, Bolin does not mention the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, or the life everlasting. We are doing everything we can to hold this place together, Myers told me. Truth Magazine, for instance, is a hodge podge of compromise and false putting away or divorcement (see addendum 3). He says hes worried about Christians getting their priorities mixed up. There will no longer be this massive division over COVID, Bolin says. Home * Website Purpose * History *UnBiblical Teachings * Spiritual Abuse Hands down, the biggest challenge facing the Church right now is the misinformation and disinformation coming in from the outside, Brown said. Go on! one man yells.
The crisis for the Church is a crisis of discernment, he said over lunch. command of verse ten" (Ibid., pg. I really dont. Nestled in a wooded stretch of exurban Wilson County, Tennessee, the campus of Greg Lockes Global Vision Bible Church feels more like a compound. 3: 15. Almost all of them, he says, came bearing grievances against their former pastors. Hes searching for a successor and hopes in a few years to transition into a support role. requirement. He obsessed over the presidents every scandal and deception. The pastor is pushing harder than ever, and he feels, for the first time, that momentum is on his side. And then, in March 2020, everything fell apart. He asks if he can keep going. There is one person Pastor Brown doesnt have to convince of this: Pastor Bolin. Regarding the doctrine of The Church is not a victim of Americas civic strife. Brighton is a small town, and I knew the local evangelical scene like it was a second reporting beat. The table had been set by Bill Bolin himself. Where blatant false doctrine, as such, has not entered, I have! A sign reads This Is A MASK FREE Church Campus. This is about good against evil. But I get letters from preachers all the time: Oh, Brother Locke, you just need to take a chill pill. That is so easy to do.
Around that time, George Floyd was murdered. Today, some of us are being 13: 1)." the turn of this century possibly seventy-five percent of first marriages will "divorce and remarriage" from the historic prospective. Ive never been the same. When we got to FloodGate, it confirmed for us what wed been missing.. Or immigrants. Its a spiritual battle, and we are right at the precipice of it, Tony said. Brown also launched a blog and a podcast, vying for his members attention at a moment when so many were suddenly stuck at home and swimming in hearsay and innuendo.
When I would challenge him, asking for a source, Bolin would either cite multiple articles he had read or send me a link to a website like Headline USA or Conservative Fighters. marry another or the concept of two putting away actions, the latter of which I didnt see a single person carrying a Bible. Its a mass estrangement, in which people stop listening to the pastor or stop trusting one anotheror bothand the church slowly loses its cohesiveness. Not on a single issue, he told me. practice. Listening to Locke that morning, I felt a peculiar sort of disappointment. Before I turn to the Word, the preacher announces, Im gonna do another diatribe.. Pastors are not immune from anxiety over their mortgage or kids college tuitions; many younger clergy members, in particular, worry that they havent amassed enough goodwill to get argumentative with their congregation. felt, had minimized the concerns of peoplelike himselfwho worried they would lose their jobs for refusing the shot. But then something else happens in the cultureand if you preached on abortion, well, you better preach on voting rights. Deidre saw friends from other congregations, also displaced by shutdowns, posting on Facebook about FloodGate. written one thing that presently embarrasses me.
They taught that the only institution authorized by the Scriptures to do the work of the church is the church. permitted to put away wife for conduct short of fornication" (Ibid., pg. One of those people is B.J. as "divorce and remarriage" is reaching pandemic levels, that some present day He promotes a new book that tells of how the left has done a power grab to systematically dismantle religion and banish God from the lips, minds, and hearts of believers, prompting the couple in front of me to make a one-click Amazon purchase.
Tony and Linda say FloodGates styleand Bolins fiery messages on topics like vaccines and voter fraudhas changed the way they view their responsibilities as Christians. The hired hand, he says, is no better than the wolf. What a chaotic doctrine, as people try to decide and Almost everyone is concerned about job security. Still, the pastor emphasized Trumps personal failings and warned against political idolatry. Losing was no longer an option. (See addendum 2.) We revere God; we hold him in awe, Brown told me. Under "Christ's teaching," Ron unequivocally wrote: "Man not As word got around the conservative suburbs of Detroit, Bolin became a minor celebrity. In 1975, more than two-thirds of Americans expressed a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the church, according to Gallup, and as of 1985, organized religion was the most revered institution in American life. It became all about winning.. But I know its come at a cost., Every person I spoke with from Community Bible brought up the fact that some longtime members had quit the church. And then COVID hit. To many evangelicals today, the enemy is no longer secular America, but their fellow Christians, people who hold the same faith but different beliefs. Hence, two people may be viewed as in fornication,
13: 1f.). Every time I heard Bolin preach, I could also hear Brown, the pastors voices dueling inside my brain. cause other than fornication if there is no subsequent sexual activity.The out the door. Brown leads his own ministry, Community Bible Church, in the Detroit suburb of Trenton. important assignment of "definition of terms." They went to church together. Discernmentones basic ability to separate truth from untruthis a core biblical discipline. The churches that host election-fraud profiteers and weeknight speakers denouncing the pseudo-satanic agenda of Black Lives Matterchurches that consider themselves mainstreamwere starting to feel like old hat. I have also shown that as a rule, even in this circumstance, (Guardian of Truth, January Oak Pointe Novi, the parent church, introduced a video series called Conversations, which featured interviews with Black pastors and social-justice activists. Short-lived victories, however, came at a long-term cost. adultery and fornication and extending fellowship to these people. This seems to Gospel Guardian and Truth Magazine combined to form Guardian of Truth in the 1990s. Yet Im still struggling to make sense of the place. Furkas describes herself as a moderate Democratwhich, she joked, makes me the most liberal person at our church. When Trump became the Republican nominee and Pastor Brown shared his intention to vote for him, Furkas was so disappointed that she left the church. My only hope is that, when the time comes, our people can separate without shattering.. it was apparent that he was wrestling with whether to leave Community Bible. Then he put up a photograph of Ilhan Omar, the Democratic representative from Minnesota and a Muslim, wearing her hijab. Some of it was explainable: The cultural climate was getting chilly for evangelicals; the Great Recession was squeezing his blue-collar congregation. Hes just not sure anymore that Community Bible is a good fit for someone like himdeeply conservative, a Trump voter, a consumer of right-wing media. When the Foundation started sponsoring or offering At one point, Bolin looks up from his notes. was raised evangelical, graduated from Bob Jones University, and believes its his responsibility to be active in the Church. Lockes sermon is about the Philistines of the Old Testament stealing the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites, because they sensed that the only way to defeat Gods chosen people was to separate them from God. God doesnt bite his fingernails over any of this, he would say around election time. I dont, Bolin says, shaking his head. Clicking through a PowerPoint on the sanctuarys projector screens, Brown showed pictures of well-known faces. And many Christians are not practicing it. A stocky man with steely blue eyes and a subdued, matter-of-fact tone, Brown struck me as thoroughly disheartened.
Inside, men wearing earpieces and camouflage pants guard the entrance. prospective slant (history often reveals the future, as history tends to repeat It was there that he began to question the union of his politics and his faith. And they fell for it.. The whisper campaigns brand conservative pastors as moderate, and moderate pastors as Marxists. The Church is becoming radicalizedand pastors who dont address this fact head-on are only contributing to the problem. Or gun rights. Followers of Jesus are to orient themselves toward his enduring promise of salvation, and away from the fleeting troubles of humanity. Theres no way around that, Bingham told me. They are: Looking back, he understands why. Whats coming is going to be brutal. Brown is a pastors kid and lifelong conservative whos never had a sip of alcohol; Bolin is an erstwhile radical liberal who once got so high on LSD that he jumped onstage and grabbed a guitar at a Tom Petty concert.
It was a period of harmony inside the church. organization and structure of the magazine or the Guardian of Truth statement 'but even if she does depart' (v. 11) does not free one to disobey the But Id never seen anything quite like this. constituting a privately supported "missionary society" was not as evident to Neither should you.. (See addendum 4.) etc.
dealing with issues among brethren (they have had a change of policy).
Between 40 minutes of praise music and 40 minutes of preaching is the strangest ritual Ive ever witnessed inside a house of worship. magazine, I see many subsequent changes, both in attitude, doctrine, and Bingham has been a pastor in the UMC for nearly 25 years. Then and now., Much like Pastor Brown, Bolin married conservative theology to conservative ideology. Brown committed himself not just to the dogma of the religious right, but to the precepts of political conservatism. I appreciated much about the way the From the January/February 2022 issue: Tim Alberta on Peter Meijer and what the GOP does to its own dissenters, There are different truths in politicsTrumps truth, Bidens truth, whatever, B.J. This isnt my first time at FloodGate, so none of what Bolin says shocks me. Their worst fears had already been confirmed: A friend on the elder board had told them that Jenkinsontheir pastor, their friendhad argued to keep the church closed. Evangelicalsincluding my own fatherbecame compulsively political, allowing specific ethical arguments to snowball into full-blown partisan advocacy, often in ways that distracted from their mission of evangelizing for Christ. Based on what was happening in 1990, this was a But he also cant imagine standing by while Brown pushes B.J. So I wrote her back and said, Hey, heres the deal: If you have forwarded this to anyone, you have an obligation to go back to them and correct it. Chasing Joan Didion, flawed forensic science, Ukrainian refugees in Poland, and how politics poisoned evangelical churches. twentieth century, rising divorce rates were reflected," wrote Steven, "in the However, since many have subsequent to 1990 now openly Mental resolve, appropriate declaration of intent, and compliance with The American life weve known If we see threats to something we value, we fearthat is, we revere, we hold in inappropriate awethose who can take it away. civil resolve or dissolution of the marriage. He has called President Biden a sex-trafficking, demon-possessed mongrel.. Tony and Linda had their share of complaintsthe church was too moderate and too seeker-friendly, catering more to newcomers than longtime Christiansbut they had no plans to leave.
7: 2f.). But that only validates his approach: Without this intervention, how much worse off might Community Bible be? Are we better off today? many states that provide the common law marriage situation require Addendum 1: The irony, Brown said, is that by pretending that a clash of Christian worldviews isnt happening, these pastors risk losing credibility with members who can see it unfolding inside their own church. Current statistics do not figure in how many in America are now He tells of a doctor who claims to know that between 100 and 200 United States Congress members, plus many of their staffers and family members with COVID, were treated by a colleague of his over the past 15 months with Bolin stops and puts a hand to his ear. And then, Brown said, came Barack Obama., It felt silly at firstjokes about Obamas birth certificate, comments about his faith. Once, when he visited Washington, D.C., for a pastors conference, he returned home to learn that people in the church had been entertaining a rumor started by one of its members. The evangelical Church is no exception. But I did see American flagslots of them. determine whether or not they are really married or just in a state of The more he studied scripture, the less confident he felt in the people hed listened to for so long. Scores of people stand up. Jeff added: It was the pastors sonwho, he claimed, is said to be a member of antifa in Canadalecturing on white privilege and critical race theory. (I could not confirm that the pastors son is, in fact, a member of antifa in Canada; several people who know the family laughed when I asked the question.). He reminded his people that Christians aspire to a higher standard than the lesser of two evils. Brown felt confident they understood him. Locke starts nodding.
Between songs, Schneider offers a different catalog of greatest hits. Bolin tells me the church has sold the building were sitting inwhere the congregation has met since the 1970sand purchased a sprawling complex down the road. How about this one? Bolin says. The second you get into any of the political stuff, you start losing focus, Michael Bingham, the lead pastor at Aldersgate United Methodist Church, in Greenville, South Carolina, told me during a visit last fall. itself), I spend some time looking back at tangible events and actions, which I Some people feel like Im just dropping random anti-Trump bombs, Brown said. 4, 1990, pg. And if that fails, we have a countryyes, Ill say itto take back.. If this all sounds a bit strangeominous, or even dangerous, as one local pastor warned me the night before I visitedwell, sure. Smaller denominations are losing affiliate churches as pastors and congregations break from their leadership over many of the same cultural flash points, choosing independence over associating with those who do not hold their views. If we attempt In the Book of John, Chapter 10, Jesus warns of the hired hand who puts his own safety ahead of the flocks: So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away.. While I commend the January 4, 1990 issue of Guardian of Truth for I believe both to be examples of privately supported not even observe intimation that one could privately and mentally or "in one's
It was clear that hed seen how this fanaticism had infected the church.. That was the beginning of a new ministry for me, he said. I have always been prone to protesting, Bolin told me. Baby." As with most of his letters, the apostle was addressing dysfunction and breakage in the community of believers.
The editor's family was full of hostility and seldom ate together. accept adulterous marriages and invent false doctrines to try to justify
When Brown felt called to join the clergy, he enrolled at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. Still, Bolin seems rattled. In the fall of 2016, Ken Brown informed his congregants that he planned to vote for Trump.
causes as divorcing for one's "emotional health." heart" put away. I have tried to tell him, Stay in your lane..
We, today, continue to witness the decay and deterioration of society and We didnt leave the church. He recently accused multiple women at his church of being witches (his source: a demon he encountered during an exorcism).
One preacher told me when I was
civil protocol and that we should not talk negatively about two people
When we finally met, in the spring of 2021, Brown told me his alarm had only grown. If this is a tale of two churches, it is also the tale of churches everywhere. from the scriptures that the only one that has a right to divorce and marry looking at it from this slant, while they wait to fulfill the state time When the church closed, rumors flew about the board of elders holding contentious late-night meetings to debate pandemic protocols. Thats the left.. Paul is a conservative, but his conservatism has no teeth., Tony DeFelice is another new arrival at FloodGateand another Christian who got tired of his pastor lacking teeth. They arent alone. He relinquished the editorship of the magazine to his brother, almost as pugnacious as he was. "In the early in society has been met (Rom. It seems that when Jesus established the church he was more interested in the actual organization of the congregation than in whether the members obeyed the Sermon on the Mount. Literally moments before he talked about the fervency dying down, Bolin previewed a shtick he was going to deliver on Sunday morning about Apple adding a pregnant-man emoji to the iPhone. Hard data are difficult to come by; churches are not required to disclose attendance figures. He began preaching about grace and forgiveness, and was summarily drummed out of the Antis by the editor of Truth Magazine. Locke salutes them as soldiers rising up in Gods army. Some hear this more literally than others: I spot a few folks carrying guns. When I visited, the churchan elegant structure with room for 500 in the sanctuarywas hosting maybe 150 people total across two Sunday services. subjects as "divorce and remarriage" is now Co-Editor, along with Mike not observe anywhere in this special edition of the Guardian of Truth,
addressed "divorce and remarriage issues." 6). To Elmer Moore was given the G.O.T., I did not read much about private or mental marriages, probably special edition of the Guardian of Truth He aimed to restore that tradition in his own ministry. It was May 2021, and the church was hosting an event for Stand Up Michigan, a group that had formed to protest pandemic shutdowns, masking, and, most recently, vaccine mandates. FiteBobs son. Pastor Bill Bolin calls it his diatribe. The congregants at FloodGate Church, in Brighton, Michigan, call it something else: Headline News.. A pastor asked me the other day, What percentage of churches would you say are grappling with these issues? And I said, One hundred percent. You can also have reverence and awe for other thingsreally, anything you put great value on. A quick Google search would have given Bolin the accurate numbers. Schneider has come to speak and sing. Today, Gallup reports, just 37 percent of Americans have confidence in the Church. Perhaps it shouldnt be surprising that Christians, like Americans from every walk of life, are self-selecting into cliques of shared habits and thinking. 4 in 1920 and 17. There are people at the church, people who Id consider friends, who would have said very hurtful, very unbiblical things, Furkas, the assistant principal of a local public school, told me. to eliminate any of these matters, we encounter problems. (Churches of Christ are renowned for having the most journals per capita of any religious organization.) They were even friends with the pastor, Paul Jenkinson, and his wife. His choice came down to abortion, he explained, and the Supreme Court appointments in the balance. She still attends Community Bible; the two have not spoken about the incident since. Pastors used to be the primary influencers in their communities in determining who we elected, Bolin said.