JD Hall and Friends: “Theological Thuggery” and Braxton Caner’s Suicide

"… Why is that not relevant, and why can’t I say it?  Well, kids are off limits!  Great!  You got a verse that says that?"- JD Hall

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*Trigger Alert*

This is one of the hardest posts that I have written. We will be discussing a teen boy's tragic suicide and the actions of some which tie into this tragedy. Some of the comments will be graphic but they are necessary to understand how some leaders and friends of Reformation Montana and Pulpit and Pen could have contributed to the situation. Our hearts and prayers go out the Caner family. TWW talked to a person close to the situation and we were told that we could proceed with this post. 

Never, Ever Again!

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Before we begin, here is some information to provide background for this tragic story. This list deliberately focuses on certain individuals.

Braxton Caner: Beloved son of Ergun and Jill Caner who passed into His Father's arms at the tender age of 15.
Pulpit and Pen:  A blog and audio sermon website featuring JD Hall and other writers
JD Hall :  Pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church Sidney, Montana and a member of the Board of Directors for Reformation Montana 
Dustin Germain: Contributor to Pulpit and Pen. He also has his own blog The Paperthin Hymn
Alan Maricle: Contributor to Pulpit and Pen as well as blogger at Rhoblogy and other.
James White:  Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a well known Reformed Christian apologist. He is well published.
Reformation Montana

…an affiliation of like-minded churches and individuals that cooperate for the purpose of sending missionaries from Montana and the surrounding regions to the rest of the world.

…Reformation and Revival Ministries is a ministry of the Reformation Montana Executive Board. In two to three day sessions including both Biblical preaching and seminar-style teaching sessions, RefMT leaders will come to your church and church plant to explain the connection between Reformationa (sic) and church revival.

The purpose of listing these speakers is to show that JD Hall is not some fringe guy even if he acts it. Speakers at Reformation Montana 2014 include:

Paul Washer:  SBC preacher and Director of HeartCry Missionay Society  Update 08/9/2014 Correction. Paul Washer spoke at the 2012 Reformation Montaana.
Phil Johnson: The Executive Director of John MacArthur's Grace to You.
Voddie Baucham:  A Gospel Coalition council member
Chris Rosebrough: Christian Pirate Radio.

James White was a speaker at Reformation 2013

TerminologyCyber stalking versus cyber bullying/cyber harrassment:

"Cyberbullying" is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. It has to have a minor on both sides, or at least have been instigated by a minor against another minor. Once adults become involved, it is plain and simple cyber-harassment or cyberstalking. Adult cyber-harassment or cyberstalking is NEVER called cyberbullying.

Adult Bullies: Such actions can lead to suicide

Bullying can be a very traumatic experience for your child. It can cause physical and emotional harm, and damage your child for a long time to come. Indeed, a victim of bullying can suffer from physical injury, but the long lasting effects to someone's psyche can be even more damaging in the long term, even though these effects might be subtle. It is also important to note that bullying can take place without physical contact. Emotional, verbal and electronic (online or through text messaging on cell phones) abuse can cause the same emotional and psychological effects as physical bullying. Being bullied can lead to difficulty in forming healthy personal relationships, as well as leading to depression, low self image and even suicide.

One would think that as people mature and progress through life, that they would stop behaviors of their youth. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Sadly, adults can be bullies, just as children and teenagers can be bullies. While adults are more likely to use verbal bullying as opposed to physical bullying, the fact of the matter is that adult bullying exists. The goal of an adult bully is to gain power over another person, and make himself or herself the dominant adult. They try to humiliate victims, and "show them who is boss."

…Narcissistic Adult Bully: This type of adult bully is self-centered and does not share empathy with others. Additionally, there is little anxiety about consequences. He or she seems to feel good about him or herself, but in reality has a brittle narcissism that requires putting others down.

Impulsive Adult Bully: Adult bullies in this category are more spontaneous and plan their bullying out less. Even if consequences are likely, this adult bully has a hard time restraining his or her behavior. In some cases, this type of bullying may be unintentional, resulting in periods of stress, or when the bully is actually upset or concerned about something unconnected with the victim

Secondary Adult Bully: This is someone who does not initiate the bullying, but joins in so that he or she does not actually become a victim down the road. Secondary bullies may feel bad about what they are doing, but are more concerned about protecting themselves.

…Adult bullies were often either bullies as children, or bullied as children. Understanding this about them may be able to help you cope with the behavior. But there is little you can do about it beyond doing your best to ignore the bully, report his or her behavior to the proper authorities, and document the instances of bullying so that you can take legal action down the road if necessary.

This post will not be addressing the Ergun Caner controversy except to say that the above individuals have long focused on the controversy surrounding Caner. In the interest of full disclosure, TWW has also critiqued the Caner situation in the past. This post will focus solely on what we believe to be  the inappropriate actions and words of adults that were aimed at Braxton Caner. Any critique of Ergun Caner will not be allowed in this discussion. In fact, if you think they should, you need a heart check, badly.

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James White

On July 29, 2014, Dee and Deb were in Washington DC meeting with a number of TWW readers. It was a wonderful time of fellowship, punctuated frequently by "So you're "so and so" (pen name.) We returned to our room and promptly do what we always do-check out the Internet. It is important to note that we had not heard of the controversy that occurred in early July. We saw a tweet that indicated that James White had addressed Braxton Caner's suicide. We were shocked and saddened. However, within that post we read the following comment.

Sadly, I have already seen some using this event as a pretext for criticism—not of Ergun Caner, but of those who have sought honesty and integrity in his life.  This needs to stop, immediately.  The issues surrounding Ergun Caner’s past can, and must, be set aside for the time being.  By all sides, including his most avid defenders.  I, for one, will not pursue the issues relating to Caner’s past claims until after a meaningful period of time has passed, and they become relevant to his future actions.  I call upon all others to likewise give the Caner family time to grieve and deal with this tragedy.  I include everyone in this request.  Leave all matters of speculation, finger-pointing, etc., to the side.

Please note two things. White is telling people not to criticize those who have sought honesty in his life. That was NOT the issue here. It is also evident that this is a "Move along nothing to see here" comment. Unfortunately, there is much to see here.

On Caner's Son

Meanwhile, Deb had discovered JD Halls post called On Caner's Son and began reading it to me as I was sifting through Google. I became so concerned with the tone of the post that I immediately tweeted 

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Within minutes, JD Hall "followed" our tweets. Shortly after that "follow," he removed the post. Note that this was after James White's post and after Caner's suicide. It is no longer in Google cache and Wayback has not captured it as of yet. But, Deb made sure that it would not fully disappear. We have copied the entire post along with all of the comments. Due to Fair Use, we cannot reprint the entire post, so we will  provide you with some excepts.

As we discovered, Hall was responding to Peter Lumpkins' critique which we will get to in a minute.

…And now, we see the ungodliness in his son’s Twitter account. 

…My comment was, “Why is @Ergun Caner’s son, @braxtoncaner89, posting make-out pics and profanity on his Twitter? The immorality surrounding Caner is astounding.” Braxton then responded with understandably aggressive comments, at which point I asked him – twice – if he and his sibling speak Arabic at home

… Keep in mind that this is a question that he will be asked (if he hasn’t already) over and again in his life until his father repents. I then told him that if he ever wanted to speak or seek truth concerning his father to email me. That was the extent of the conversation.

…Some have repeatedly characterized this as an “attack” or “going after” Caner’s son. In my opinion (which hasn’t changed and I see no Biblical reason why it should.

… Braxton Caner needs to hear the truth about his father. Ergun Caner needs to model, first of all, repentance so that his son can see it. 

…The response has been mixed, with some – including Caner’s spokesperson, Peter Lumpkins – calling for my “repentance

…Instead, Lumpkins posted an article without my original tweet, full of faux-outrage (imagine Peter’s outrage in the opposite direction if CJ Maheny’s son had posted such things), and is heavily censoring the com-box. I have asked for “scripture and verse” and haven’t had an answer. Repent for what, I would ask? What commandment has been broken?

…You’re using his son’s immorality to criticize his father.” Technically, I’d say “his father’s leadership,” but yep – I did. It’s relevant. It’s Biblical. 

…This is a young man in Caner’s household, which needs to be in order before he attempts to lead young people at church camps all across the country this summer and at Brewton-Parker college.

…This was not about “shaming” a young man (although he should be ashamed). His father has already shamed him. The content of his Twitter feed is shameful enough by itself.

…This is yet another indication that there is something seriously wrong with Ergun’s leadership – the same leadership that he now has over hundreds of young Southern Baptists.

Imagine if you were a teen and someone accused you of immorality and that your father was to blame for it? Could he have blamed himself for causing more pain to his father? One thing is for sure. It did nothing to encourage either him or his family.

Then, JD Hall apologizes, which occurred, as best as we can tell, sometime in early July. Here is what he said.

As I said on Friday’s program, I regret pointing people to the material or behavior exhibited on Caner’s son, Braxton’s Twitter account. That was a distraction, and I should have contacted Caner about it. I did reach out to one of Caner’s associates, but apparently didn’t give enough time for him to amend the situation. Again, I should not have done that.

I’ve asked for people “chapter and verse” why it’s wrong to point out publicly his already-public behavior. I’ve thought a lot about it. Proverbs 17:9 says, “Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.” Well, Caner and I are not exactly, “close friends” but the point is salient. While it was in no way an “attack,” Braxton wasn’t a public persona even though his tweets are public, and now even more are aware of the various things mentioned in the above blog post. Likewise, I shouldn’t have interacted with the boy those couple times once the original tweet was made.

Finally, I gave credence to the rumor in a tweet relating to Caner’s marriage which I should not have mentioned, even in passing. That, I will go so far as to say is sinful So, thinking my email address already blocked, I’ve reached out to a mutual friend of Caner and myself to give an apology to make sure he gets it. If someone wants to beat me over the head with this apology or the way it’s worded, then I apologize for that, too.

However, the post remained up, complete with his criticisms of Braxton Caner, until TWW asked him to remove it on July 29, the date of Caner's death. We find this apology disingenuous at best. He is also denying that he "attacked" Braxton. We will get back to some comments in a moment. 

Time to Stop Social Media Abusers by Peter Lumpkins

​I couldn't sleep because I was deeply disturbed by the progression of these events. I found the post by Peter Lumpkins that Hall had mentioned in his post. This post convinced me of the poor judgment exhibited by Hall in his encounter with Braxton. Lumpkins presented the tweets. But first, here is Hall's original tweet.

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Here are Braxton's responses. Please note that Braxton is clearly communicating that he wants nothing to do with Hall. Yet Hall persists. 

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Braxton had it right. Hall comes across as  "kinda creepy." Obviously, Caner was viewing this as a negative encounter.

Lumpkins said

when someone goes after a 15 year old boy, ridiculing him and his household, and even encouraging the teen to personally contact him if ever he wanted to know the "real truth" about his dad, now that's something else.

In this same post, Dustin Germain enters the fray in the comment section. Remember, he writes for Pulpit and Pen and is a friend of JD Hall. I contend that Germain was adding fuel to the fire, both at Lumpkins blog and in the original post by Hall. However, please note, most people in the comment section expressed disgust at the actions of Hall. Germain was, and is, the odd man out.

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Peter Lumpkins responded swiftly, and in so doing, owned the exchange.

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Dustin Germain comments on Hall's blog "On Caner's Son."

Please remember that this post is not currently available online. However, we have the entire post and comments.

…Again, who says this is bullying? You also still haven’t answered the question I’ve asked several times. What age is it acceptable? 18? 21? (July 16)

…Rho, just so you know I agree with everything you have said here,  (July 7)

…Paul, why the insistence that engaging a 15 year old, on any subject, is necessarily creepy and sinful and inappropriate and quite possibly even criminal? Where does that worldview and opinion come from?! That makes no sense and is quite honestly a very foolish and poorly thought-out position. Also, you can challenge and retort asking what age it is appropriate to confront, but you yourself have not answered the same question when posed to you first. Is this how you have discussions? Ignore the question and then try to appropriate it as an offensive? (July 9)

Introducing Rhology (Rhoblogy) who was also commenting "On Caner's Son."

This is just the beginning from this guy.

…(?)15 is legally considered a child.
(R's response) Y’all have to keep talking about “legality” because you have no biblical support to stand on.

(?) A brain is not fully developed until the late 20′s. He is a child.
(R's response) So we should wait until our kids are late 20′s before we share the law and Gospel with them. Got it. (July 7) 
 

…A “pastoral” concern isn’t really necessary… how about a Christian concern?
I don’t call out every sin, no, but that’s not necessarily a good thing, is it? Seems like the only sin you call out is the sin of calling out sin. I don’t know how commendable that is.
 

….and of course it is of more interest b/c of who his dad is. It is amazingly sad to see the son is like his father. I would see the son escape the pattern that his dad has set forth. Do you love the family enough to do something about it?

…Ah ha.  Debbie doesn’t think that 15 year olds taking make-out selfies, putting up photos of other 15 year olds dressing like whores, and posting smut and profanity of their own free will is any big deal. And we care what she thinks about this incident…why? (July 7)

…Has a lot to do with it, actually. Since Ergun is pretty obviously unregenerate and yet well accepted in many Christian circles, it behooves those who love the truth to point out those sins until they are repented of or at least until everyone else realises it and alienates the man as well.

…And we pity the son enough to reach out to him. You would have him continue in his sin. You want to leave him in darkness. Shame on you, Paul.

JD Hall takes to the air to trash Braxton Caner!!!

Hall says he offered his apology to the family through a third party. However, this apology rings false in light of the fact that, as of the posting of this blog, the July 4 radio broadcast is still publicly accessible. Thanks to the efforts of Deb, we have complete transcript of the segment of the show that dealt with Braxton. We also have a copy of the audio broadcast "just in case." We are including some of the comments here. The entire transcript will be available at the end of the post.

…So I send out a Tweet, this was on Tuesday, I think. Why is Ergun Caner’s son BraxtonCaner89 — that’s his Twitter handle — posting make-out pics and profanity and make-out pics on Twitter?  The immorality surrounding Caner is astounding.

Well, almost immediately you had outrage.  Um, how dare you attack his son?  Why go after his son?  Uh, or why yeah my favorite one – why attack a child?  First of all, let’s let’s settle this – he’s not a child.  If you’re old enough to post what this young man was posting and to do it publicly in the public marketplace of ideas for all the world to see, you’re old enough to handle someone saying yeah this is this is not right, this is profane, you shouldn’t do that.

…Well, he responded to me.  Now I didn’t Tweet to him.  It was kinda out there.  I did use his uh Twitter handle.  But uh, not directly to him.  Not that it matters, I suppose, right or wrong.  (ed. note: Look at the first tweet-he made sure Braxton would see it.)

…Um, he responds to me, and I asked him a question, I was interested in knowing and that is do you speak Arabic?  Your father says you speak the native language at home.  Is that what you, do you speak that? 

He uh he went on a tirade, understandably.  (ed. note: Huh? The only one going on a tirade is Hall.)

…Um, this young man needs to, for the good of his own soul, um, see demonstrated for him an actual gospel with demonstrable repentance.  

….  Is that an attack?  Vicious?  And you know or some that would say, well you you’re using his son against him.  I’m using his son’s public behavior to demonstrate the immorality that surrounds Ergun Caner and the lack of holiness that he’s spreading to his children. 

…Does a Christian leader, specifically elder, but I think at least in some way it applies to Christian leadership all together.  Should his household not be in order?  Should his children not be submissive to him and and to the Lord? Should they be spiritually rebellious?  

…, do I have anything to repent for?  Well, you repent of sin.  And I ask people repeatedly, what is the chapter and verse that tells me this fifteen year old man’s public sin can’t be addressed publicly?  And I would get comments back like well it’s common decency or you sound like a jerk or things less polite than that. 

… Why is that not relevant, and why can’t I say it?  Well, kids are off limits!  Great!  You got a verse that says that?  I mean really, sin is a violation of God’s law.  That’s what the uh that’s what the Baptist catechism says.  I believe that’s the testimony of Scripture.  Sin is a violation of God’s laws.  What what law did I break?  

…And people have said well uh would you have called it out if it hadn’t of been Caner’s son?  Of course not, of course not.  I have no problem saying that because um had Caner not Tweeted to him (chuckle), instead of a rebuke like maybe you shouldn’t call her your babe, you’re not you know you’re not married to her, you’re not engaged to her, she’s not your property, she’s not your anything.  Um, that’s my response.  That would have been what mine was.  Um, it was Caner Tweeting to him that alerted us, so to be honest, no, no.  If if he wasn’t Caner’s son, we wouldn’t have even noticed.

….  I absolutely regret Tweeting that, um not because it was unfair, it was not at all unfair, not because I went after him quote unquote with a vengeance.  I in no way went after him with a vengeance.  Um, because it’s distracting from the actual issue.  Uh, it sent us on a wild goose chase; it got us off the main point.  Um, so yeah, was it unwise?  Sure, sure, I got distracted, I chased a rabbit.  Uh I apologize for that, but being distracted and chasing a rabbit is not a sin unless you give me a chapter and verse.  But yeah, I wish I hadn’t of for sure, for sure.  Um, and so the responses have been vicious. 

Twenty five days later, Braxton Caner took his own life. Pause…..

What does the world have to say?

1. An atheist group in the UK was amongst the first to pick up the story. From the title, you can guess what they think. The Suicide of a Preacher’s Kid: Did Braxton Paige Caner kills himself because of a Baptist preacher’s bullying? They quoted from a comment left by Paul on Hall's website.

– You are not his parent
– You are not his pastor
– You are not his friend
– You have no invested interest in this child
– You do not even know this teen
– You spent time searching and reading the twitter feed of a 15-year-old (which is not necessarily considered a public venue)
– You decided his picture and tweets were inappropriate
– You engaged another man’s 10th grade son in conversation online
– You asked a 15-year-old to private message you so you can correspond with him about his father
– You also stated that his mother and father are separated (which is a blatant lie)
– You have no God-given authority over this child in any way ….

It is not surprising to me you did this – it is typical JD and generates more publicity for you and your radio program. But I am somewhat surprised how quickly a few people came to your defense and tried to justify it.

For someone who loves to call people to repentance, you sure have a tough time acknowledging when you crossed a line.

2. A Fox News reporter picks up on the story.

Todd Starnes

(Note: The Caner family asked me to share my commentary with you. I am honored to do so.)

I did not know Braxton Caner. But I knew his father – Ergun – a Muslim convert who became a Christian preacher.

For years Ergun has been hounded by unrelenting critics accusing him of all sorts of ministerial misdeeds. They hunted him like prey — as if it was some sort of spiritual sport.

In early July – they found a new target — Ergun's teenage son – Braxton.

The 15-year-old was a son and a brother. He played football, dated a girl and drove a pickup truck. The young man's supposed "crime" was defending his father.

They wrote terrible things about the 15-year-old – beyond the pale. It was theological thuggery. (TWW borrowed this for our title)

And last week – Braxton ended his life.

We do not know what led young Braxton to do the unthinkable. We do not know if the postings of these online agitators pushed this young child over the edge. But these are the facts.

A 15 year old boy was bullied. His reputation tarnished at the hands of grown men who professed to be doing God's work. And now Braxton Caner is gone. Bullied in the name of Christ.

Twitter allows us to express our thoughts in 140 characters.

But I only need nine.

Jesus Wept.

3. The Phoenix Preacher (Michael Newnham) comments under Things I Think and nails it.

Last week , Braxton Caner, the 15 year old son of Ergun Caner, died by suicide. This unspeakably terrible tragedy is compounded by the fact that the young man was harassed (for lack of a better word) by prominent Reformed Baptist pastor J.D. Hall on Twitter in the weeks leading up to his death. This included an invitation to Braxton Caner to “private message” the pastor to learn the “real truth” about his father and an article on the pastors blog questioning the child’s upbringing on issues of morality. We have had a policy here from the beginning that no matter how much of a scoundrel we were speaking of, the family was to be left out of the discussion…period. In my opinion, what Hall did in engaging and defaming a child on social media is as reprehensible as Caner’s actions…and he needs to find another line of work, just as Caner should. Our prayers go out to the Caner family.

The Final Insult by Alan Maricle of Rhoblogy

​One would think these men would have learned their lesson. Well, one thing is for sure, Maricle has not. This comment, made on August 4, 2014, on his blog says it all.

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He said this even in light of the following news release from the Caner family.

"Our hearts are filled with great sorrow as the entire Brewton-Parker College family grieves with its beloved president, Dr. Ergun Caner, his wife Jill, and Drake, their youngest son over the tragic death of their oldest son and big brother, Braxton Paige Caner. Braxton was born March 8, 1999 in Denver, Colorado. He came to faith in Christ at the tender age of 6 and was baptized by his dad at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia," the statement reads.

"Braxton would later reaffirm his commitment to Christ at a youth camp under the preaching of evangelist Tony Nolan. Consequently, he began traveling with his dad and sharing his faith on mission trips, evangelistic meetings, Bible conferences, and youth camps in 41 states as well as foreign countries including Kenya, Israel, Wales and the Bahamas. He was a member of the Willow Park Baptist Church in Aledo, Texas.

Finally, these men now take on the role of the Almighty by judging the state of men's souls. Most Christians are smart enough to know that this job is way above their pay grade.

It is the opinion of TWW that JD Hall, Dustin Germain, and Alan Maricle overstepped the boundaries of decency, love and good judgment in engaging or speaking about Braxton Caner. Even more despicable, one has judged him as unsaved after his death. I believe that we speak for the majority of the Christian community in condemning these men for their actions and words. They all need to step down from their positions of leadership for "a meaningful period." We would also recommend that James White lay off the Caner family for more than a "meaningful period." Things have gone way too far.

Once again, we ask our readers to join us in praying for "the peace that passes all understanding" for the Caner family on the loss of their beloved son.

Never, Ever Again.


Transcript of JD Hall's July 4, 2014 broadcast

Hello and you are listening to the Pulpit and Pen program for July 4, 2014.  This is your host J.D. Hall.  This is the program that we hope will be glorifying to God, convicting to sinners, and edifying to the saints. Thank you so much for listening in.

On today’s program, we’re gonna talk about the skirmishes that started on when was it, Tuesday?  Something like that about Ergun Caner’s son.  Yep.  Then we’re gonna get to a Voice in the Wilderness segment.  Hope you enjoy it. 

O.K. so here’s the story for those of you that have not heard a little bit of a skirmish out there in social media, mostly on Twitter, a little bit on on Facebook.  We had a couple of kamikazes in the pulpit bunker uh say something and then like get out of the pulpit bunker right away.  I actually kicked one guy out just because he was being obnoxious, um but mostly confined to Twitter.

O.K. so here’s the story.  Uh, a number of people have been talking for for a couple of days um about the material that’s been on Ergun Caner’s son’s public Twitter profile, his his page. Of course, Twitter’s different than Facebook.  Facebook, you know depending upon your privacy settings you’ve gotta be friends with somebody to view and see what they say or whatever.  Twitter, it’s not like that, it’s not like that at all.  Even if you block someone, they can see everything that you you have to say.

And it took one person though in particular saying no look at this cause I just ignored it for for uh some time.  I think I first heard about it on Saturday or Sunday, a couple of rumors out there, but uh I was busy so. But uh one person in particular said “Look at this”, and I and I was shocked to see what I saw.  Um, first of all, his Twitter handle in Turkish uh refers to the phallus of a certain ethnicity, um, without being too graphic.  Pretty, pretty shocking.  Now his father claims to speak Turkish, so pretty sure he knows what that means. 

By the way, um how this came into light is because he said that he missed his babe, the son did.  And Caner responded to him, “Me too.”  So people are like, who’s he talking to?  And they look and it’s his son. And the first thing they see is a profile pic where he is, in my opinion, what I would call just making out with his girlfriend.  It’s a deep kiss.  It’s not a cute little kiss on the cheek or something like that.  Um, it was, it was something else, let me put it that way.  And and then without having to scroll down or anything, you see all kinds of um Tweets laced with profanity and so forth.

So I send out a Tweet, this was on Tuesday, I think. Why is Ergun Caner’s son BraxtonCaner89 — that’s his Twitter handle — posting make-out pics and profanity and make-out pics on Twitter?  The immorality surrounding Caner is astounding.

Well, almost immediately you had outrage.  Um, how dare you attack his son?  Why go after his son?  Uh, or why yeah my favorite one – why attack a child?  First of all, let’s let’s settle this – he’s not a child.  If you’re old enough to post what this young man was posting and to do it publicly in the public marketplace of ideas for all the world to see, you’re old enough to handle someone saying yeah this is this is not right, this is profane, you shouldn’t do that.

Well, he responded to me.  Now I didn’t Tweet to him.  It was kinda out there.  I did use his uh Twitter handle.  But uh, not directly to him.  Not that it matters, I suppose, right or wrong.  We’ll get into that in just a moment.

Um, he responds to me, and I asked him a question, I was interested in knowing and that is do you speak Arabic?  Your father says you speak the native language at home.  Is that what you, do you speak that?

He uh he went on a tirade, understandably.  Uh, I asked him the question a second time, and then I asked him, uh no no then the fourth comment I made to him was you know because of your age I’m gonna discontinue the conversation, but if you ever want to seek truth or speak truth on your dad, just email me. 

Well, again, instant outrage.  How dare you try to turn a child against his father.  Um, listen, his father is in no uncertain terms an unrepentant liar that has made a living speaking lies about his own conversion.  Um, yeah, once again, we’ve talked to people that were in the room uh when he was supposedly converted.  Um, this young man needs to, for the good of his own soul, um, see demonstrated for him an actual gospel with demonstrable repentance. 

Uh, let’s get into something else, too.  Um, (chuckle), it’s the age of the internet.  How long, first of all, I was gonna ask a rhetorical question. How long should we shelter this young man from the legacy that he is now living?  Um, he’s not sheltered from it.  You don’t think he’s researched it?  You don’t think he knows?  Really?  Um, we need to call out sin, and we need to call out public sin.  That’s what we need to do.  Um, I don’t see a a Biblical age on that.  That’s not what the age of accountability means.  Neither is the age of accountability fifteen for crying out loud.  I don’t believe the concept to begin with.  But um you get the point.  You’re gonna post things publicly for the entire universe to see, expect to be called out on it.  People say, well how would you like it if that was your son?  Um, I think the proper response would be thank you for letting me know this.  Now, it’s not as though, let’s be honest, it’s not as though Caner didn’t know these things.  He’s responding to his son back and forth.  Caner surely speaks Turkish, right?  He knows what his son’s Twitter name means.  Um, he he would get that. Uh, (chuckle) well, we would hope so. 

Um, and then you know he’s obviously he’s looking at his son’s uh feed to comment off of it, that’s how anyone even knew that he he had a Twitter feed his son.  So he knows this stuff.  Uh, should he have been the one to call out his son?  Um, obviously.  But because he didn’t doesn’t mean I can’t.  But I what I want people to (inaudible) you say I attacked. Define attack.  He posted a make-out pic and profanity on his Twitter.  Is that an attack?  Vicious?  And you know or some that would say, well you you’re using his son against him.  I’m using his son’s public behavior to demonstrate the immorality that surrounds Ergun Caner and the lack of holiness that he’s spreading to his children.

Caner’s a Christian leader, or at least he’s a leader of some kind.  Uh, he’s at church camps all over the country this summer to lead kids at church camp – his son’s age.  Uh, for those just a few years older than his son, he’s leading them, he’s a spiritual steward of them at Brewton-Parker College.  It’s it’s the same type environment that was created when I believe he was twenty years old you remember the son of the president of Ronnie Floyd’s school of ministry posting all this atrocious, I mean, uh you know the Bible never says uh profanity is a sin, that type of thing.  Uh, posting that at the Pulpit and Pen, um claiming that uh making um vulgar music is wrong but not listening to it or dancing to it.

Um, so when I when I uh discuss the man’s comments on my Facebook page, the young man, not his child, the young man’s comments on my Facebook, excuse me on my website, you have people saying “Well, you can’t use this man’s son against him.”  Why not?  Does a Christian leader, specifically elder, but I think at least in some way it applies to Christian leadership all together.  Should his household not be in order?  Should his children not be submissive to him and and to the Lord? Should they be spiritually rebellious?  I mean if someone say for example at Ronnie’s school Ronnie Floyd’s school of ministry if his son is behaving this way in public and that’s the level of Bible knowledge that he has and understanding of Christian sanctification and holiness that type of thing, why are you sending your kids to him to be educated by him?  Look at what’s happened in his own household.

But uh that’s my take.  Now here if you disagree, feel free to disagree.  It was interesting because most of the people going after me nine out of ten were anonymous accounts, and I said something that made a lot of em mad, which is, one person said uh I don’t know all the anonymous accounts they all kinda blur together.  Um, going after a man’s son is cowardice.  And my comment to him was “No, operating an anonymous account is cowardice.”  Well then that set off all of the anonymous accounts and then for like two days it’s it’s uh I don’t know anonymous account Armageddon.  Um, they’re just exploding in rage.  I could have been clear.  I could have said, you know, rebuking people by name when you hide yours uh is cowardice.  Um.

I’ve I’ve said before on the Pulpit and Pen program there are reasons why there needs to be an anonymous account.  I’ve said that.  I’ve been on public record as as saying that.  Specifically when uh, let’s say you’re someone who uh is close to Ergun Caner, and I mean there are real consequences for you coming out, that’s fine.  But if you hide your identity simply to be a jerk to people, um, hey, people call me a jerk you know what I put my name on it.  Why isn’t your name on yours?  So here we have, you know, most of the people um having such outrage are either (a) Lumpkinites who if this was C.J. Mahaney’s son would be all over this like white on rice.  Uh, people that have, and let’s face it, if you listen to the program, I make people angry.  I have a lot of people looking for any, absolutely any opportunity to take me out, um, and they use this as an opportunity to do that.

Uh, specifically fascinating is comparing me to Tim Rogers.  Tim Rogers who uh and Tim Rogers is so vile I don’t even want to get into it um what he did.  Um, you’re going in what in what way is it the same?  It’s it’s not the same.  His son is grown up enough to put profane things out there in public.  I pointed people people to it.  And yes, I think it’s relevant to Caner.  You don’t think it is?  I, good, we we disagree, we disagree.

Now I talked to somebody yesterday, and they said well do you have here’s my question J.D.  Do you have anything to apologize for?  I said, well, you know, and I’ve thought long and hard about it because people were ticked off.  Um, I, I, here let me start here, do I have anything to repent for?  Well, you repent of sin.  And I ask people repeatedly, what is the chapter and verse that tells me this fifteen year old man’s public sin can’t be addressed publicly?  And I would get comments back like well it’s common decency or you sound like a jerk or things less polite than that.

Um, O.K. I, I sound like a jerk.  Great.  Do you have a chapter and verse as to why sounding like a jerk is sinful?  Why can’t I address this young man’s public sin publicly?  And why doesn’t it reflect upon his father, particularly when his father is well aware of his public behavior, when his father is in charge of leading children his age?  Why is that not relevant, and why can’t I say it?  Well, kids are off limits!  Great!  You got a verse that says that?  I mean really, sin is a violation of God’s law.  That’s what the uh that’s what the Baptist catechism says.  I believe that’s the testimony of Scripture.  Sin is a violation of God’s laws.  What what law did I break?  Well, there’s just this unspoken rule.  Well you know what, it’s also unwritten.  It’s public.  Well, it’s none of your business.  I beg to differ.  I think public sin, if you love people, call em out on it.  And people have said well uh would you have called it out if it hadn’t of been Caner’s son?  Of course not, of course not.  I have no problem saying that because um had Caner not Tweeted to him (chuckle), instead of a rebuke like maybe you shouldn’t call her your babe, you’re not you know you’re not married to her, you’re not engaged to her, she’s not your property, she’s not your anything.  Um, that’s my response.  That would have been what mine was.  Um, it was Caner Tweeting to him that alerted us, so to be honest, no, no.  If if he wasn’t Caner’s son, we wouldn’t have even noticed.

However, what part of the Pulpit and Pen program and what what do you know about J.D. Hall that would leave you to believe I wouldn’t call out sin of a young man with a different last name?  Do you really think I wouldn’t call that out if I saw it?  Really?

So, um yeah, then the anonymous accounts got mad.  Oh, I know what I was gonna say.  I got distracted earlier.  Yeah, the anonymous accounts saying things like “You need to delete that Tweet right now.  You need to delete that Tweet.”  Um, no.  Uh, if you disagree with it, disagree with it.  What what does deleting the Tweet accomplish?  Nothing.  I’m not gonna Canerize it.  That’s what Ergun does, Ergun does.  I’m I’m not gonna do that.  You want to beat me over the head with it, you go right ahead.  I mean, I’m not hiding my name, and secondly I’m not hiding the Tweet.  Uh, there there’s no point in that.

Secondly, why?  To keep the young man’s sin private?  It’s already public, it’s already on his page out there for all the world to see.  By the way, since then uh since we pointed out the translation of his uh of his Twitter handle he has changed that by the way, like I said earlier I believe the profile photo although I’m not I’m not positive and so you get everything from “You’re attacking children to you’re stalking him.”  It’s a public page.  Get a life, for crying out loud.  Uh, stalking?  Uh, Ergun Tweets to someone, we say who’s that, we click on it, pop, right there in your face.  Um, that’s just the way it is. 

Now do I have anything to repent for?  Well, again, repent implies sin.  You give me a chapter and verse as to why that’s sinful, not distasteful in your opinion.  One person when I pressed them, and they pressed me respectfully but when I pressed them they said “No I can’t, I just thought it was bad form.”  O.K. so let me stop there for a moment.  Was it bad form?  Let me say this. I don’t have a problem saying this.  I absolutely regret Tweeting that, um not because it was unfair, it was not at all unfair, not because I went after him quote unquote with a vengeance.  I in no way went after him with a vengeance.  Um, because it’s distracting from the actual issue.  Uh, it sent us on a wild goose chase; it got us off the main point.  Um, so yeah, was it unwise?  Sure, sure, I got distracted, I chased a rabbit.  Uh I apologize for that, but being distracted and chasing a rabbit is not a sin unless you give me a chapter and verse.  But yeah, I wish I hadn’t of for sure, for sure.  Um, and so the responses have been vicious.

Long-winded explanation by Hall on who he follows and unfollows on Twitter.

 

The response from Caner should have been, oh my, how did I overlook this?  You know what, thank you for bringing this to my attention.  This will not happen again.  I’ll correct this issue.  This could affect my testimony.  This could affect my my witness.  That’s how it ought to be addressed.  Um, I don’t know why it’s that complicated.  You gotta get her dander up.  If your son was sinning like that, I would encourage um you to uh show appreciation if someone were to point it out to you, um, I I really would.

Now there’s some people gonna say you know what I think the age eighteen is the age that we can address someone’s son.  O.K.  All right.  You you differ with me.  Again, was it unwise?  Yeah, it got us all off track.  Was it sinful?  I really don’t think it was.  Now here’s the thing though, I’m willing to say, if you can show me a chapter and verse other than you know, common decency, well apparently it’s not that common, right?  I mean, if I don’t get it, maybe it’s not common.  Um, give me your subjective opinion and viewpoint, uhnwith it give me some scripture that you think is pertinent, and I will seriously look at that, seriously consider it to determine if I have anything to repent for, that’s what I’ll do.  I think a lot of people are responding because all they heard was I attacked a child, which uh did not.  First of all, I disagree with the term child, secondly if you use the term attack, again, words, yeah, words matter I think.  Uh, yeah, O.K. so we’re ready for uh the Voice in the Wilderness segment…

Comments

JD Hall and Friends: “Theological Thuggery” and Braxton Caner’s Suicide — 772 Comments

  1. THC wrote:

    I’m sorry if I am missing the point. Was there a suicide note or some evidence that linked his suicide to the online attacks or is this thread just more salacious gossip?

    Clearly, the boy was in some kind of emotional pain or trauma to consider suicide and then go through with it.

    So, in light of that, do you think a grown man (i.e. Hall) picking on Braxton on Twitter (and a blog and radio show) helped Braxton in some way? Because I’m not seeing how Hall’s actions up-lifted an already- troubled youth in any way.

  2. Years ago my brother, a preacher, performed a funeral for someone who committed suicide. The suicide was a church elder. The elder's church refused to perform the funeral. What's more the elder's family was blackballed by their church. The family had nowhere to turn, and my brother, from a totally different denomination, ministered to them.

    I read one of the blogger's comments about Braxton going to hell, and it reminded me of the response by this elder's church. God has much more mercy than us humans have, and none of us really knows our fate since ultimately it isn't ours to decide.

    How could someone even make the comment that someone is condemned to hell? What an awful thing to say, and these people who bullied Braxton thought they were ministering to anyone?

  3. Hard to find the words… wrote:

    “Deep calls to deep” is true of her necklines and his knowing. The problem is, Jesus is not a fertility god. John Piper

    Good morning, folks. Let me rile up some folks and maybe this conversation can reach 700 or so. You all ready for some fun?

    I keep coming back to something which bothers me more and more. I keep running into situations where the totally secular world seems more concerned with some things than the church. Here is one. Young daughter serves on the XYZ committee at their public high school (department heads and a few others) and they address how the school with deal with certain problems. One of the problems they just dealt with is the fact that some of the teachers cannot/ will not keep the twin sisters adequately behind fabric on the job. There have been complaints about this. So now they have rules that can actually be measured with a ruler as to how much cleavage can be “shown” or not, basically and spelled out with some leeway for those with an anatomical problem with containing the individuals in question.

    In the meantime, said daughter’s former husband used to complain that he saw more female anatomy at church than he ever saw on the job. But if the church or some preacher said anything about it there would be blip to pay for having done so. IMO, the world is better at dealing with things than the church, because we choose sides and rip at each other so intensely all the time. My parents used to say that some people have roast preacher for Sunday lunch all the time.

    Do I agree with the neo-Puritan theology? Nope. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that something is not necessarily vile just because it comes out of the mouth of one’s “enemy.”

  4. Hard to find the words… wrote:

    “Down by the river the teenagers would go to make out. I watched them drive back. They never looked happy. Especially she.”

    This made me laugh out loud. I used to get back from snogging sessions (UK’s equivalent to making out)with a silly grin plastered all over my teenaged face 🙂

    Maybe the guy was just not as good a kisser as the guy(s) I kissed? Or maybe it was because I did that stuff – limited to kissing & cuddling, no more – as a non-christian & did not get my knickers in a twist over all sorts of guilt laden weirdness, rather just enjoyed finding out a bit more about relating to the male gender.

    Also weird how what I learned during those session was that guys can stop at a line you draw, they understand & enjoy the concept of consent & they’re not all hormone driven monsters. I was around a lot of enthusiasm, but no pushing or force.

  5. Kay and our readers:

    I want to thank Kay for staying on the story. This is an important statement. I will say this. I am grateful that he did not continue the attacks like his “pulpiteer” Rhoblogy who is now “documenting” reasons why Braxton Caner is not a Christian.

    https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13358611&postID=7696429910539189728

    Just this morning (8/8) he wrote: (PS, I have screen shots, etc)RHOBLOGY says:

    Look at Braxton Caner’s online behavior.
    Where he talked about God, it was not biblical.
    And he much more frequently tweeted, microblogged, retweeted, and favorited material that is smut and filth.
    When someone asked him if he and his 15 year old girlfriend were sexually active, he said “Mind your own damn business”.
    He posted numerous pictures of the girlfriend dressed like a whore, and others where they are kissing, which is quite inappropriate for 15 year olds. Call me old-fashioned, I don’t care. I’ll call you a fool and a naif if you do (and I’ll be right).

    His excuse for his wanton sin was “Christians aren’t perfect”. No sign of any pursuit of holiness.

    You may say that this is only his online life. Of course. Yet what is online is often what is really at the heart, because people get lulled into thinking that the online life is less real than offline life. In many ways, it’s more real.

    Throw in the fact that his father is clearly unregenerate and preaches what can’t be properly called the Gospel and his being surrounded by lost people who affirmed his dad in his sin, and there is every reason to think that Braxton was just as lost as his dad, though it pains me to say.

    Fri Aug 08, 07:18:00 AM CDT

    End RHOBLOGY’s statement.

    It would seem in the best interests of these guys if a mature adult that has half a heart would tell this guy to stifle himself. Considering that he is a writer on Pulpit and Pen, this is damaging. What is wrong with these people ??????????????????????????????????????????

    ********************
    Transcript submitted by Kay. Worth repeating.

    JD HALL speaks. (Note: I’ve not listened to the entire audios, but skipped along the minutes and heard nothing on Braxton until the 8/7 audio.
    8/7/2014
    JD Hall talks about Braxton Caner early in the audio before launching into his program.

    JD HALL (excerpt transcript)
    “Let me address something really quickly, something terribly, terribly sad. Um the passing of Braxton Caner. Um a lot of people have asked me for comment, I don’t want to say a lot, but a few, a few have emailed me “Can you make a comment about this?” Um the answer is uh first of all the time is not right. Um no. No I’m not at this point in time. Um not exactly the sensitive thing to do. Um secondly, um I’ve had emails, couple phone calls, saying “What exactly happened there?” Um what was the extent of your interaction with with uh with Braxton Caner.

    Um I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told the handful of people that have called on the phone um it’s there for you to see. Uh nothing of our interaction has been deleted. Not a single thing
    .
    Uh we did take a post down off the Pulpit and Pen in relation to this um because I was asked um by uh The Wartburg Watch or one of their twitter accounts to do so and uh I talked to somebody smarter than me and they said yeah for the time being why don’t you do that. So we consented and then a few minutes later I saw some of the same people say “You’re just trying to hide stuff”. Nope um we’re trying to be sensitive. When the time comes we will discuss this more fully.

    In the meantime, like the rest of of the world I will be praying for the Caner family and would ask you to do the same. And so I will leave it there for the time being because that is what is prudent it is what is sensitive and at this point in time I think it is the only thing that is helpful and even that may be an overstatement in this terrible time. It’s one of those situations where words literally cannot express the hardship that is present in their lives at the moment.”

  6. @ Beakerj:
    Good comment. I am becoming concerned with piper’s comments. I think that the people who surround him should encourage him to seek some medical attention. There is a possibility that he is not aging well and needs some intervention.

  7. dee wrote:

    @ Beakerj:
    Good comment. I am becoming concerned with piper’s comments. I think that the people who surround him should encourage him to seek some medical attention. There is a possibility that he is not aging well and needs some intervention.

    You may very well have something there.

  8. Hard to find the words… wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:
    @ There is a sickness within the church, and there are many who have given their hearts away to fame, and I don’t mean the “fame of Jesus” to which so many appeal as justification for their actions.
    And yes, I am speaking about every one of the disciples of John Piper, all of the Together4Guys and TheGuyCoalition and Wayne Grudem (whose ST is used to interpret the Bible) and all of their clones/parrots/puppets/minions who have chosen to pattern their lives after these mere men. And this infects every other camp that focuses on humans rather than Christ, because it is not just a Calvin thing. It is worldliness masquerading as faith. It is frightening. And it is why this lifelong active church member is out of the organized church for the foreseeable future. While I see Jesus in the members, I cannot stomach the harm being perpetrated by the “shepherds” in Jesus’ name.
    I read the post at Wade Burleson’s. While I agree that no blame should be placed because we cannot know what was going on in Braxton’s mind, the callousness of the friends of J.D. Hall in that post’s comments are very disturbing. They are most anxious that J.D. be defended from blame for the suicide, but they will not say that it was sinful for this “pastor” to do what he actually and undeniably did. They are blinded by their rage at the “other” and looking for an excuse not to talk about their wrong behavior. Most of us already know how to do that without their example. There is yet no evidence that this will provoke self-examination among these chronological adults and self-appointed authorities.
    This whole episode hits very close to home in several ways, having experienced spiritual abuse personally and in my family, like many here. So I again thank TWW for providing a forum.

    Gram3, so well said. I would add to your list The Grace to You, Grace Community Staff, Master’s Sem, and Grace Advance group as well, not all for sure, but way too many of them.

    Hard to find,

    You are not alone in seeing this connection. Thank you for pointing it out.

  9. Oops. I forgot to take Gram3’s quote out. I was referring to this,

    I would add to your list The Grace to You, Grace Community Staff, Master’s Sem, and Grace Advance group as well, not all for sure, but way too many of them.

  10. This is probably going to get lost in such a long thread, but this morning while shaving I had an idea why JD Hall and so many Truly Reformed are such Jerks:

    THEY’RE TRYING TO PROVE TO THEMSELVES THAT THEY *ARE* ELECT.

    Think of the paradox of rigid Calvinism: God (or should that be Al’lah?) Predestines some to Election and some to Damnation since before the beginning of time. (And if you’re more Calvinist than Calvin, even God IS Predestined to do so.) And there is no way to tell who is Elect and who is Damned from all eternity, because your understanding is Totally Depraved. So how can you PROVE that YOU are Predestined Elect?

    In the aftershocks of the Protestant Reformation, some thought that God’s Favor (i.e. getting rich) was proof of Election. (This despite the continuing “Woe to the Rich” theme in the Bible.) From that you got the Protestant Work Ethic (to get rich and Prove Your Election) and (after a couple centuries of entropy) the Prosperity Gospel (where God showers goodies on you for your Faith).

    The Neo-Puritans in Victorian times went into Moral Purity. Especially Moral Superiority to those Not Elect. Add in entropy, and you get Church Ladies and Purity Culture and God Hates Fags.

    J.D.Hall and a lot of today’s Truly Truly Reformed took a different tack to Prove to themeslves that I Am Elect. The same one as the Communists and Objectivists:
    Purity of Ideology.

  11. @ Nancy: The problem with the dress police at school, as well as church or anywhere, is the preference that is shown. Kids valuable to the school's reputation get a pass and kids considered expendable or troublesome, or not having the grades to help boost the school's reputation are expellable. Pharisees are everywhere, unfortunately. One can find this problem in the office also. The skinny woman with good looking legs can wear (ed.) shorter skirts than the stocky woman.

  12. @ Bridget:

    Well, I did work for the federal government and we had a dress code of sorts approved by both management and the union. It worked at the time. Don’t know what they do now.

  13. Nancy wrote:

    @ Bridget:

    Well, I did work for the federal government and we had a dress code of sorts approved by both management and the union. It worked at the time. Don’t know what they do now.

    I’m not against dress codes is work/school environments. I’m against biased enforcement of the codes 🙂 which I’ve seen first hand.

  14. 1 comment removed.

    We would rather not get into discussions about what demons do and don’t at this time.

  15. After having a read of Wendy Alsup’s erudite and clarion article on the biblical qualifications of an elder, I’m afraid that the mean spirited and public reprimand of someone else’s teenager…(particularly someone with whom you have a very public bone to pick, and therefore cannot honestly trust your judgement of their child)…seems to disqualify you from being a elder/pastor. Just saying…

    http://www.theologyforwomen.org/2014/08/the-perspicuity-of-scripture-and-why.html

  16. One comment deleted.

    Remarks regarding murder and killing are highly inappropriate and will be promptly deleted.

  17. Mark wrote:

    What an awful thing to say, and these people who bullied Braxton thought they were ministering to anyone?

    Mark, Good point. JD Hall and company actually see the bullying as “ministering”.

  18. A Note to Our Readers

    Any commenter accusing anyone of murder is out of line. This stops now. Any further comments along these lines will not only be deleted but anyone who pushes it will be permanently banned from this blog.

    This situation is causing great pain to many people. Let’s not pile it on with inappropriate remarks.

  19. Lydia wrote:

    Mark wrote:
    What an awful thing to say, and these people who bullied Braxton thought they were ministering to anyone?
    Mark, Good point. JD Hall and company actually see the bullying as “ministering”.

    They also consider what they are doing “loving their neighbor.” The problem is they redefine numerous words so they can “do” what they want with a clear conscience. I do believe love is defined in scripture. I rarely see those verses quoted on-line.

  20. Bridget wrote:

    They also consider what they are doing “loving their neighbor.” The problem is they redefine numerous words so they can “do” what they want with a clear conscience. I do believe love is defined in scripture. I rarely see those verses quoted on-line.

    The degree to which the Bible is warped and twisted to support malicious behavior never ceases to leave me dumbfounded. They’ve turned “got to be cruel to be kind” from a song lyric into a Proverb.

  21. @ Bridget:

    I went to read them again for myself. I rarely post scripture, but I found these most comforting today so I will put them here for anyone who would like to read.

    “13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

    4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

    8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

    13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

  22. @Bridget,

    Thank you for sharing those. Like you, I don’t post scripture (and don’t usually quote it in conversations either.) And I love to talk about God but I don’t like to use Christianese:)

    But these were the quotes that kept coming to mind yesterday. And, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

  23. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    Bingo! Yes, I see this much with Calvin lovers. Let me prove and show how ultra-righteous I am so you have no doubt about where I’m going. Part of this is not just trying to prove their own “godliness” but pointing out how everyone else is so sinful, so they look all the more perfect.

  24. formerly anonymous wrote:

    Oops. I forgot to take Gram3′s quote out. I was referring to this,
    I would add to your list The Grace to You, Grace Community Staff, Master’s Sem, and Grace Advance group as well, not all for sure, but way too many of them.

    For organizations with “grace” in their names, they sure are lacking in it!

  25. Bunsen Honeydew wrote:

    Bingo! Yes, I see this much with Calvin lovers. Let me prove and show how ultra-righteous I am so you have no doubt about where I’m going. Part of this is not just trying to prove their own “godliness” but pointing out how everyone else is so sinful, so they look all the more perfect.

    And all the rest of us become unpaid extras (and Orcs, and expendable Red Shirts) in the live-stage production of Righteousness of the Elect.

  26. Bridget wrote:

    They also consider what they are doing “loving their neighbor.” The problem is they redefine numerous words so they can “do” what they want with a clear conscience.

    My Dear Wormwood,
    Remember my previous epistle on semantics, specifically redefining words into their ‘diabolical meanings’.
    Your Ravenously Affectionate Uncle
    Screwtape

  27. My son is 15. If someone saw his Twitter feed (he does not have Twitter, BTW), I would hope they would speak to *me* or to *his dad* about the contents and let *us* handle it. I agree with several people who have asked the question, what in the world were grown men doing calling out a teenager on his online behavior?

    If the Twitter feeds weren’t the sole cause of Braxton’s suicide, they definitely didn’t help matters any. I would not be surprised if the Twitter feeds pushed him over the edge.

  28. Bunsen Honeydew wrote:

    Bingo! Yes, I see this much with Calvin lovers. Let me prove and show how ultra-righteous I am so you have no doubt about where I’m going. Part of this is not just trying to prove their own “godliness” but pointing out how everyone else is so sinful, so they look all the more perfect.

    You also find this attitude outside of Calvinism (and Christianity, for that matter). It’s very common among Activists of any stripe. Proving their own Righteousness through strict (no, stricter) Shari’a, Veganism, Communism, Objectivism, Progressivism, Complementarianism, Birthers, Truthers, anti-Vaxxers, driving a Hybrid (h/t South Park, “Smug Alert”), single-handedly Fighting Global Warming or Saving The PLAAAAAANET or whatever the Righteous Cause du Jour. Usually at the expense of the Other in a Zero-Sum Game. And all have this in common:

    “For in the Devil’s theology, the most important thing is to be Absolutely Right and to prove everyone else to be Absolutely Wrong.”
    — Thomas Merton, “Moral Theology of the Devil”

  29. JeffT wrote:

    The degree to which the Bible is warped and twisted to support malicious behavior never ceases to leave me dumbfounded

    Sadly I have to second that. The apostle Peter wrote of Paul and his epistles “There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” You presumably had this in mind.

    I believe ‘twist’ here can mean to torture, and it certainly seems pseudo-Christians in our own day know perfectly how to do this. The problem isn’t the scripture, it is what sinful men do with it, and like you I am gobsmacked at the level of insensitivity shown by some over this sad case, for example Rhology above. What’s wrong with them? Far from defending the bible, they are making it look as though those who read get turned into unfeeling monsters.

  30. @ Bunsen Honeydew:

    Another thing is the Zeitgeist of how Being Ultra-Righteous is expressed and how Showing My Ultra-Righteousness becomes an obstacle. Let’s use one of today’s big secular Causes du Jour, GLOBAL WARMING.

    I am just old enough to remember the tail end of the Nifty Fifties. That era had it’s problems, but coming off winning WW2 and ending the Great Depression, there was a general Zeitgeitst of Can-Do Optimism.

    If Global Warming had surfaced as a Big Problem in the Fifties instead of the Cold War, the response would have been expressed by that WW2 song, “We Did It Before and We Can Do It Again”. The emphasis would have been on Fixing this Global Problem and schemes and plans to Do It. Granted, a lot of these would have been crazy (this was the era of Atoms for Peace, when thermonukes were proposed for large-scale blasting and earthmoving, just wait 100 years for the radiation to decay), but they wouldn’t be thinking small.

    Today, the response is more like “ANGST! ANGST! ANGST! WE MUST MORTIFY OURSELVES FOR OUR SINS AGAINST THE PLAAAAANET! HUMANITY IS A CANCER! GET OUT THE HAIR SHIRTS! START WHIPPING OURSELVES FOR OUR SINS! GARGLE THAT LYE! ANGST! ANGST! ANGST!” And instead of trying to fix the problem, we compete to prove and show how Ultra-Righteousness and Correct *I* Am (and You’re Not). So navel-gazing on Proving My Absolute Righteousness (op cit Thomas Merton) that we’ll let everything slide into Hell as long as We Can Cop a Moral Superiority Attitude and Count Coup on the way down. (And besides, as The Elect God will make sure We Stay Out of Hell.)

    And the Pre-WW1 Post-Mil attitude and current Pre-Trib Pre-Mil Dispy also work into this to reinforce the difference, but I haven’t thought that part through. Just the Nifty Fifties seems akin to Post-Mil Optimism and today to Pre-Mil Dispy Pessimism.

  31. Tina wrote:

    My son is 15. If someone saw his Twitter feed (he does not have Twitter, BTW), I would hope they would speak to *me* or to *his dad* about the contents and let *us* handle it. I agree with several people who have asked the question, what in the world were grown men doing calling out a teenager on his online behavior?

    Making Street Cred with God and other MenaGAWD, parading their Righteousness and Correctness before men.

    Why do Church Ladies always stick their nose in other’s business?

  32. Nancy wrote:

    In the meantime, said daughter’s former husband used to complain that he saw more female anatomy at church than he ever saw on the job. But if the church or some preacher said anything about it there would be blip to pay for having done so. IMO, the world is better at dealing with things than the church, because we choose sides and rip at each other so intensely all the time.

    Here’s my first take on your very good question. Secular organizations can only make rules and regulations because they can only resort to external controls. Churches and other organizations can look to internal controls, i.e. the Holy Spirit and the Law of Love as several have referenced above.

    As one who has rather conservative views on this whole thing, I would still not make a rule my first choice when dealing with bad wardrobe judgment in the church as a whole. When the church or Christian organization is an employer, then I think there may be some value to objective measures of the “face” that the organization wishes to put forward, such as shirts with collars and no cleavage, and I think an argument can be made for objective measures or rules so that the “face” presented to the world of the organization is consistent.

    On an individual level, I believe we should make an appeal to the woman’s love for her brothers, and the desire she should have to help them avoid sin. I would also ask the woman to think about whether she is using her sexual power over her brother to garner attention for herself, and whether that was consistent with love for her brother. If she would not want her brother to exercise his power over her, then she should be willing to restrain herself. Of course, the Law of Love is really only possible by the power of the indwelling Spirit.

  33. IMO, to try to take a normal healthy teenager (maybe especially boys) and swaddle them is a really bad idea. Sure, it can get out of hand, but that is what parents are for. When my son was a teenager I let him ride a motorcycle. His dad rides and was anxious to teach the boy how to do it as safely as possible. So I let him, and they toured around a bit in the larger US. His dad, while at it, showed him some of the darker side of biker-dom by going to some rallies. You should have heard the protest from the people who wanted to tell me how to raise my kid. Anyhow, as an adult he is still way over on the right side of the law, but he is not naive by a long shot.

    BTW, I had a small bike at one time (Honda) but I almost killed myself and gave it up. Some folks were seriously scandalized at the time. Perhaps it did them some good to go ahead and be scandalized, if that is what they need to stay functioning, you know. Glad to help out.

  34. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    You also find this attitude outside of Calvinism (and Christianity, for that matter). It’s very common among Activists of any stripe. Proving their own Righteousness through strict (no, stricter) Shari’a, Veganism, Communism, Objectivism, Progressivism, Complementarianism, Birthers, Truthers, anti-Vaxxers, driving a Hybrid (h/t South Park, “Smug Alert”), single-handedly Fighting Global Warming or Saving The PLAAAAAANET or whatever the Righteous Cause du Jour. Usually at the expense of the Other in a Zero-Sum Game. And all have this in common:

    Yes, because this is the essence of fallenness. I know I don’t measure up, but I’m darn tootin’ a whole heckuva lot less fallen than you. Worldly standards are a false way to reassure ourselves that we are not really fallen.

    Worldliness sets up standards so that we can assess how well we are doing compared to another human. Much of the NT is addressed to the desire we as fallen humans have to demonstrate superiority to others in whatever ways we can. And if we don’t measure up in one way, then we will undervalue that measure and find one that we can overvalue so that our relatively superior position is maintained.

    Is good doctrine the measure? Well, then I know more doctrine than you and my stack of books is higher than your stack. Wealth? Then you need to see my new car and huge house. Powerful? See what a big crowd I can draw or what I can force you to do or not do. Holiness? Check out my wardrobe or kids’ behavior or countertops or the hat I wear to church when no one else does or the churchy buzzwords I can string together while wearing my “holy” expression.

    Also, I love your references to Orwell. Back in the day, we used one of his essays on the use of language to understand the art of propaganda. Uncanny how much of the stuff coming out of churchy circles of various stripes sounds more like propaganda than Biblical teaching.

  35. I was asked to share this here…

    I'm saddened by the responses from believers. I attended Braxton's funeral. I saw the many teens that came to a saving knowledge of Christ. I heard a brave young boy talk about the big brother he had lost and watched a brokenhearted father stand beside him with tears running down his face. I listened to friends remember their friend and the joy he brought to their lives. I listened to the uncontrollable, anguishing cries of a mother as her son was rolled away from her presence. I hugged the neck of a broken man whose eyes were swollen from tears. These are real people who are suffering. Where is the love of Christ? Are we to love and feel compassion only for the sinless? Ergun loved Braxton with all his being. It only took a few minutes in conversation with him to know that.

    Editor's remarks:  This is a touching description of the funeral.  A few sentences have been removed due to their inflammatory nature.

  36. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    Good insight, HUG.

    It’s probably safe to say that if one were to analyze a pastor’s preaching over a period of months or years and track specific themes and motifs in that preaching, one would be able to reasonably infer, based on the frequency of recurrence of certain themes and motifs, what issues matter most to said pastor.

    All of that to say: if a Christian obsessively emphasizes Reformed soteriology, we can safely bet that he or she has some sort of personal issues intertwined.

    Mature, healthy Christians emphasize what the Bible emphasizes: no more, no less. Taking an issue that the Bible portrays as secondary and elevating it to a primary concern is a sure sign of spiritual immaturity and dysfunction.

  37. Lydia wrote:

    I find it all very troubling. I cannot live in their world, it is too cruel.

    Their god is a cruel and petulant deity. Very much like the gods of the Greeks and the Canaanites.

  38. Chris Rosebrough: Christian Pirate Radio, Speaker at Reformation Montana 2014 is mentioned in TWW blog post. He weighs in on his audio program dated 8/7/2014.

    Audio here:
    http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2014/08/biophoton-spirituality.html

    Braxton Caner/JD Hall discussion at minute 7:13 – 11:17 and 36:35 – 55:50

    51:35 – 55:50 transcript

    …Did Braxton Caner commit suicide? Absolutely. Why? I have no idea. I don’t know why. Wha, how did it happen? I don’t know. Those details are not made known to the public or at least I haven’t been able to find the public details of what’s gone on and what happened so I don’t know what led up to it, but to somehow, for people to somehow step in and act like they know and somehow pin the blame on a man who apologized for what he believed was wrong and sinful, yeah that doesn’t make any sense. That doesn’t make any sense. I mean if anything, when I’m wronged and somebody apologizes for it, ?uhyouknow? quite frankly the feeling I have is not that I want to kill myself. Um it’s more or less along the lines of well I feel vindicated. Right?

    So I think people are not, are not dealing with this properly and and uh it’s really upsetting to see Jordan’s, Jordan Hall’s name being drug through the mud in the way that it’s being drug through. It’s not, it’s not Christian. It’s not in keeping with the facts and It doesn’t even make sense in light of the fact that Jordan owned what he did, apologized for it publicly and took some time off after the event. ?And so if you know???..? to label it cyber stalking cyber bullying is is again above and beyond what happened in the exchange. And like I said, if you know you’re a 15 year old kid and somebody comes at you and you’re thinking oh that guy’s creepy and weird and what’s his problem kind of thing and then later that guy apologizes to you, that doesn’t make you want to commit suicide, it makes you feel like you’ve been vindicated. That’s generally how human nature goes.

    So yeah, the people who are out there dragging Jordan Hall’s name through the mud or somehow trying to kind of in a veiled way say ‘Oh you know, Braxton Caner committed suicide because he was a victim of cyber-bullying’ wink, wink, nudge, nudge, yeah, that’s absolutely patently false, slanderous and the evidence doesn’t support it and all ya gotta do is go back and look through the timeline what happened and what was said and you’ll see what’s going on here.

    So in the meantime we got a dead 15 year old kid and it’s absolutely sad and tragic. Our prayers need to go out to the Caner family. We need to be praying for them, but in the long run we need to be praying that Ergun Caner and those whom he has deceived and continues to deceive with his lies regarding his past, that he would ultimately repent. That he would repent the same way that, well, Jordan Hall repented. That he would apologize and ask for forgiveness the way Jordan Hall apologized. You see what I’m saying cause that, when that happens you know what comes into play? The blood of Christ. The forgiveness of sins. Reconciliation between brothers. That’s how things are supposed to be resolved within Christianity and it’s very sad, very sad that we haven’t seen that behavior from Ergun Caner uh regarding his past sins. Not at all, but he’s persisted in continuing to defend the lies that he’s put forward.

    But Jordan Hall has shown that he has true Christian character by acknowledging that what he did was wrong and apologizing publicly and privately for for what he did. And the irony in this particular situation is the people who are trying to paint Jordan Hall out as some kind of a sick cyber bully who is responsible for the death of a 15 year old, the weird thing about this, and here’s the irony, those people who are saying these things on the internet, they’re actually guilty of the thing they are accusing Jordan Hall of doing. They have become the cyber-bullies. They are slandering him and slandering his character and not actually telling the truth about what has happened and have gone beyond the evidence. They need to repent. They need to ask for forgiveness and be forgiven for what they’ve done. That’s what this situation calls for. . .

  39.   __

    “Cyber Bullying R’ Us?”

    hmmm…

    Been thinkin’ bout ‘dis’ appalling tragedy all week.

    (sob)

      I rememba da story about a ‘couple’ of  people who ‘apparently’ maliciously prank’d N’ ‘cyber bully’d’ 13 year old Meg Meier. 

    (sadface)

    Odd, she never reach’d her fourteenth birthday even though she had sent out the invitations and ‘it’ was only a ‘few’ days away…

      As she hung there dying in her closet conspicuously conflicted, a belt around her tender neck, – tears were seen streaming down her lit’l angelic face.

    … inauspicious agony?

    Yep.

    Her poor folks will never b da same, huh?

    Sopy
    __
    The Megan Meier Story: 

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Megan_Meier

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFsfDLCkfQU

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD9OUas5pDs

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sagy9fHnseU

    🙁

  40. Kay wrote:

    Chris Rosebrough: Christian Pirate Radio, Speaker at Reformation Montana 2014 is mentioned in TWW blog post. He weighs in on his audio program dated 8/7/2014.

    Kay, thanks for your work and for posting this which is a great example of deflection by conflation and redirection.

    He is saying that those who are saying that Hall’s behavior is reprehensible and must not be repeated are *also* saying that Hall is to blame for Braxton’s suicide. Further, he is saying that since Hall apologized, then there can be no blame ascribed to Hall, therefore all who say that Hall should not have stalked Braxton in the first place are actually the *real* cyber-bullies.

    And then, to make sure that everyone notices that he totally misses the point about chronological adults stalking non-adults on social media and interposing himself between a child and his parents, Chris goes on to say we should actually be talking about what he wants to talk about which is Ergun Caner’s sins.

    Message to Chris:
    Chris, Braxton is not responsible for his father’s actions or words. As you said, just as we cannot blame Hall, we also cannot blame Caner. We. do. not. know. what. caused. this. tragedy. Please keep a low public presence on this until you can speak sensibly to the matter at hand, which is the behavior of chronological adults.

    All this shows what you are really concerned about. Everything must circle back to your agenda and your buddies, though I doubt you can see that. I can separate whether or not I think Ergun Caner is the worst person in the world from whether or not a chronological adult should be engaging a minor online about his father. This is not a difficult distinction to make.

    Chris, how about if we keep the issues separated so that we can discuss them rationally and Christianly. If you cannot divorce your agenda from the facts as we have them, then you should seriously consider what it would take to provoke some radical introspection among your like-minded cohorts about your general approach to a lot of things.

    But, since I am a mere woman, you may disregard all of the above with a clear conscience accompanied by the hearty support of your brethren.

  41. *
    *
    __

    ” ‘Malicious Pastoral Cyber Drama’ (TM); Perhaps?:  I’ll get you my pretty ‘Sinner’,

    …and your lit’l ‘child’ too?”

    hmmm…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRrEgORc_xo

    What?

    “…’They’ need to repent. They need to ask for forgiveness and be forgiven for what they’ve done. That’s what this situation calls for. . .” ~ Chris Rosebrough; Christian Pirate Radio

    hmmm…

    REPENT: For the era of ‘pastoral cyber bullying’ (TM) is at hand?!?

    Sopy
    __
    intermission: Jean Michel Jarre – “Equinoxe”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=511By0ruuv4

    🙁

  42. @ Gus:
    In a way, Proving to Yourself that You’re REALLY One of the Elect is the Calvinist spin on the Evangelical “Witnessing” shtick of “Are You Saved? Are You Sure You’re Saved? Are You Certain You’re Sure? Are You Sure You’re Certain You’re Sure? Are You Certain You’re Sure You’re Certain You’re Sure?” etc.

    I encountered this in my time in-country, and can affirm that This Way Lies Madness.

  43. Seneca “j” Griggs wrote:

    God has decided to reel Bro Driscoll in.

    More likely “William Wallace II” has become too much of a PR embarrassment to all his homeys. So he must not only cease to exist, but to never have existed. Just like all those doubleplusunpersons he threw under the Mars Hill bus and erased from Mars Hill history.

  44. @ Kay:

    It was not just JD Hall. It included multiple others in his circle of influence, one that he created to use social media to assail people on the other side of a theological divide. And the entire organization and all of those who actually were involved in any way also need to repent, apologize, and take a hiatus. And during that hiatus, they need to think about whether the entire assault by media serves any Christian purpose, before returning. And while I am among those who have commented elsewhere on Caner and his failures, they do not rise to the level of assault on individuals like has been done by JD Hall and his miniots (minions acting like idiots).

  45. Gram3 wrote:

    All this shows what you are really concerned about. Everything must circle back to your agenda and your buddies, though I doubt you can see that. I can separate whether or not I think Ergun Caner is the worst person in the world from whether or not a chronological adult should be engaging a minor online about his father. This is not a difficult distinction to make.
    Chris, how about if we keep the issues separated so that we can discuss them rationally and Christianly. If you cannot divorce your agenda from the facts as we have them, then you should seriously consider what it would take to provoke some radical introspection among your like-minded cohorts about your general approach to a lot of things.

    Words of Wisdom.
    Kay wrote:

    But Jordan Hall has shown that he has true Christian character by acknowledging that what he did was wrong and apologizing publicly and privately for for what he did.

    JD Hall’s entire ministry has focused on “calling people out” (mostly non Calvinists) and promoting a Reformation of Calvin. That is “Christian character” to these guys who are set on giving him a pass?

  46. Seneca “j” Griggs wrote:

    God has decided to reel Bro Driscoll in.

    If God waited this long then God is also responsible for all the victims of Driscoll over the years because He could have reeled him in much sooner to protect the innocents. That is giving God credit for the evil, too.

    So, it was more of a PR move to save face and keep the money coming in.

  47. Once again, I come from a world of 14-18 yr olds.
    And there is a line you can’t cross. Good bad, otherwise.
    If you cross that line and even if you apologize, there are ramifications for crossing that line.
    It’s all well and good for Christians to forgive, but sometimes, you have to pay for your mistakes, even if you are deeply sorry.
    I don’t know what happened to the boy. You don’t know what happened. That said, sometimes there are people who should be left out of adult disagreements.

  48. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Seneca “j” Griggs wrote:
    God has decided to reel Bro Driscoll in.
    More likely “William Wallace II” has become too much of a PR embarrassment to all his homeys. So he must not only cease to exist, but to never have existed. Just like all those doubleplusunpersons he threw under the Mars Hill bus and erased from Mars Hill history.

    I vote for your theory of the case, although Seneca may be right. Or both.

    While one can ignore the elephant in the room, at some point what the elephant has left behind gets too stinky to ignore.

    Interesting data would include how much attendance has declined recently in the Acts29 churches. And attendance is a proxy for “giving” which is the real concern of an enterprise. Another interesting aspect would be knowing what behind-the-scenes pressure is occurring in the SBC due to its NAMB support of Acts29. Anybody in the PCA know if MTW supports Acts29?

  49. Gram3

    If you don’t blog or publish somewhere, you really should. =)

    Lydia

    Just wanted to add the following words are not mine, but those of the Christian Pirate. =)

    “But Jordan Hall has shown that he has true Christian character by acknowledging that what he did was wrong and apologizing publicly and privately for for what he did.”

  50. K.D. wrote:

    I don’t know what happened to the boy. You don’t know what happened.

    Then Braxton’s not really dead?
    Or is this s Schrodinger’s Cat situation?

  51. Lydia wrote:

    JD Hall’s entire ministry has focused on “calling people out” (mostly non Calvinists) and promoting a Reformation of Calvin. That is “Christian character” to these guys who are set on giving him a pass?

    It is if they’re Calvinist.

  52. It truly is a shame that a thread with some meaningful comments are NOT going to the people who NEED to read it.

    Instead we have a thread 300 comments overdue.

    Why not address these otherwise well intentioned statements to JD Hall directly?
    There are a plethora of ways to contact him. What good are you doing arguing with his defenders?

  53. @ Kay:
    I don’t blog, but I do appreciate the opportunity to participate here. TWW provides a valuable service which too few understand as valuable. Especially those who should!

  54. Gram3 wrote:

    Also, I love your references to Orwell. Back in the day, we used one of his essays on the use of language to understand the art of propaganda. Uncanny how much of the stuff coming out of churchy circles of various stripes sounds more like propaganda than Biblical teaching.

    Remember where Eric Blair (Orwell was a pen name) spent WW2. Working in the BBC doing wartime propaganda.

    And being disappeared was also the normal way of getting fired there — you’d come in in the morning, there’d be a new guy sitting at the old guy’s desk, and nobody would dare speak about the old guy, like he never existed. Orwell included that in his 300-page political cartoon as a dig on his pointy-haired BBC bosses as well as on Stalin’s love of disappearing people.

  55. K.D. wrote:

    Once again, I come from a world of 14-18 yr olds.
    And there is a line you can’t cross. Good bad, otherwise.
    If you cross that line and even if you apologize, there are ramifications for crossing that line.

    As in “apology or not, Braxton remains dead”.

  56. Please, address your concerns and/or disgust with the man at the center of the matter.
    After reading some of the comments, I get the feeling that people just want to insult him or his defenders.

    From what I understand, the purpose of rebuking a brother or sister in Christ is that they would come to repentance. It really is discouraging and disheartening when someone’s sin is publicized. Why? Because people begin to judge whether that person is a Christian or not.

    It’s sad that people are questioning JD Hall, Dustin and others salvation.
    I have read their comments, I’ve even listened to their podcasts and astounding how people can come to such conclusions after a sin has been made public. I read Rhol’s comment in the article and was disgusted to be quite honest however I have no idea what the context was as it was not provided.

    JD Hall was quick to judge Braxton’s morality and that is wrong.
    People are quick to assume who is and isn’t saved based on sins they’ve committed.

    I’m sorry but two wrongs do NOT make a right.

    It’s sad that there is so much speculation going on regarding this child’s suicide as well. The accusations being made are unwise and should be kept to oneself until further information has been provided.

  57. That transcript that Kay posted makes me sick to my stomach.

    You can tell where that Chris person’s concern is. It is blatant. The lack of graciousness and sensitivity toward this family who lost their son is really amazing and is wholly UN-Christlike. I’m sorry… throwing in a “let’s pray for the family” all the while defending your friend and demanding repentance from people who are calling out bad behavior is just horrendously bad form and show’s that YOU DON’T CARE.

  58. @ Kay:

    Sorry Kay! I knew that! I did not mean to imply they were your words but I can see how others would. thanks for pointing that out. Sheesh!

  59. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    And being disappeared was also the normal way of getting fired there — you’d come in in the morning, there’d be a new guy sitting at the old guy’s desk, and nobody would dare speak about the old guy, like he never existed.

    Sounds like some mega churches I worked with. No one DARED to ask where they went. Unwritten rules.

  60. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    K.D. wrote:

    Once again, I come from a world of 14-18 yr olds.
    And there is a line you can’t cross. Good bad, otherwise.
    If you cross that line and even if you apologize, there are ramifications for crossing that line.

    As in “apology or not, Braxton remains dead”.

    Yes, a line was crossed. Wonder why more cannot see the ramifications for behavior that escalated over time. This is what JD does. It is part of his “ministry”. Why do so many seem to see that as benign?

    And the so called “apology” seemed to be gratuitous because of instant peer pressure. How can I say that? Because of all the other indicting words surrounding that so called apology on the podcast, etc.

  61. Since Chris whatshisname is an expert on what true Christian character is, I’d like take a minute to reflect on that. True Christian character is revealed over a length of time and is not reflected in a particular act. Further, an apology does not necessarily equate to an act of true Christian character. It MAY be a reflection of such but words are cheap and not always a reflection of the heart.

    I like to think of true Christian character being described by the fruits of the spirit. Gal 5:22-23 but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Love, kindness, gentleness, and self-control would have prevented Mr. Hall from his bad behavior towards a teenager who apparently was dealing with some big stuff internally. Actually, true Christian character would have prevented such an unfortunate exchange.

  62. I have monitored some of what the pulpiteers have been saying and Rhology interacts with people in the most disgraceful way I have ever seen. I am sad to see that still going on. There is an arrogance about being regenerate that comes across as superiority and pride to anyone not of his exact way of thinking. Yet many of us love Christ because He first loved us. What needs to be taken away from this by the pulpiteers is not that they are right and everyone is blaming JD for a suicide. That misses the point. What we need to take away from this is how we interact as Christians truly matters. There is a distinct lack of love in the way the pulpiteers interact with others. It feels like attacking to prove a point rather than yearning for anyone’s salvation or actual repentance. I hope they will examine their own behavior and heart in this instead of assuming anything about my heart or other people’s for disagreeing with their methods. I hope this encourages those around them to reconsider their reputation with outsiders too. This really does matter.

  63. Psalm 51 wrote:

    JD Hall was quick to judge Braxton’s morality and that is wrong.
    People are quick to assume who is and isn’t saved based on sins they’ve committed.

    I don’t think anyone here has questioned whether any of the persons involved are saved or not. We could not possibly know that, and if that happened, then I hope I would call it out. If you could point to specifics, perhaps someone could respond more meaningfully.

    I think that people here are saying that even pagans know that an adult simply must not do what these “pastors” have done. It must not happen again, and the attitudes and beliefs which contributed to the behavior need to be examined. I think that many of us think that this is an excellent opportunity to abandon defensiveness and take a good look at how this behavior by “pastors” was ever even considered.

    In the real world, a lessons learned report or a post mortem are considered unpleasant but necessary and ultimately beneficial to prevent future harm to others. Shamefully, sometimes the world shows the way.

    Do you think that people should be implying that Ergun Caner is unregenerate? I am confused by what you are saying and to whom it applies.

  64. To clarify, there may be pulpiteers who are generous and humble with opposers. I have simply observed a majority attitude from several who run in that circle that appears as nothing more than arrogance to outsiders. Melody wrote:

    I have monitored some of what the pulpiteers have been saying and Rhology interacts with people in the most disgraceful way I have ever seen. I am sad to see that still going on. There is an arrogance about being regenerate that comes across as superiority and pride to anyone not of his exact way of thinking. Yet many of us love Christ because He first loved us. What needs to be taken away from this by the pulpiteers is not that they are right and everyone is blaming JD for a suicide. That misses the point. What we need to take away from this is how we interact as Christians truly matters. There is a distinct lack of love in the way the pulpiteers interact with others. It feels like attacking to prove a point rather than yearning for anyone’s salvation or actual repentance. I hope they will examine their own behavior and heart in this instead of assuming anything about my heart or other people’s for disagreeing with their methods. I hope this encourages those around them to reconsider their reputation with outsiders too. This really does matter.

  65. Lydia wrote:

    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
    And being disappeared was also the normal way of getting fired there — you’d come in in the morning, there’d be a new guy sitting at the old guy’s desk, and nobody would dare speak about the old guy, like he never existed.

    Sounds like some mega churches I worked with. No one DARED to ask where they went. Unwritten rules.

    Which tells you something about how those megachurches were run. When you see parallels between that megachurch culture and a fictional Ultimate Nasty Dictatorship (based on the nastiest dictatorship of the time it was written), something is definitely WRONG with that church culture.

  66. I apologize for redundancies in my comments . My editing skills lack at times, especially with little ones underfoot.

  67. Melody wrote:

    Yet many of us love Christ because He first loved us.

    Sweet, Melody. Can we all remember this from time to time?

  68. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    They are sick places, my friend. But the happy, entertained pew sitters have no clue. They don’t even ask to see a budget on how their money is spent. I regret those days more than you can imagine.

  69. Psalm 51 wrote:

    Please, address your concerns and/or disgust with the man at the center of the matter.
    After reading some of the comments, I get the feeling that people just want to insult him or his defenders.

    Forgive me for saying this, but I think you’re well-meaning but naive. Anyone who has been monitoring JD Hall’s online persona knows that he’s vicious and disrespectful, nothing like the Master he is called to imitate.

    Proverbs 23:9 says: “Don’t waste your breath on fools, for they will despise the wisest advice.”

  70. Thanks. I just saw what you heard from Pirate Christian guy. Saw some tweets that tell me he doesn’t get it. Disappointing. Not surprised but sad. I think I was right about the pulpiteers in general. I would rather walk with the wise than be connected with the always “right”. Sad sad times. This could have been a learning experience and time for some self- awareness. A good reputation with outsiders does indeed matter. Insulting anyone who doesn’t see things your way is not how to defend the gospel, and that seems to be a trend among them. And if the world sees this as bullying, which I believe it does, the church should step up. That isn’t the same as blaming anyone implicated as a bully for someone’s suicide. It’s about having the integrity to admit we have an abuse epidemic in the church because of extreme teaching that favors men. Not just at Mars Hill btw. I am praying and advocating for some self awareness and willingness to get some education on abuse dynamics. This really does matter because it’s our witness at stake.

    Gram3 wrote:

    @ Melody:
    Consider my comment an amen to yours. Read yours after posting mine. Great minds think alike.

  71. Lydia wrote:

    Seneca “j” Griggs wrote:
    God has decided to reel Bro Driscoll in.
    If God waited this long then God is also responsible for all the victims of Driscoll over the years because He could have reeled him in much sooner to protect the innocents. That is giving God credit for the evil, too.
    So, it was more of a PR move to save face and keep the money coming in.

    Frankly, I’m glad that God is “slow” to respond to our sins. So we humans think God should have acted about 5 years ago, but God has His timing, rarely is it mine.

  72. YSeneca “j” Griggs wrote:

    Lydia wrote:
    Seneca “j” Griggs wrote:
    God has decided to reel Bro Driscoll in.
    If God waited this long then God is also responsible for all the victims of Driscoll over the years because He could have reeled him in much sooner to protect the innocents. That is giving God credit for the evil, too.
    So, it was more of a PR move to save face and keep the money coming in.
    Frankly, I’m glad that God is “slow” to respond to our sins. So we humans think God should have acted about 5 years ago, but God has His timing, rarely is it mine.

    I don’t know that Driscoll and Mars Hill view the events as being from God. Their response is at Warren Throckmorton’s blog.

  73. Seneca “j” Griggs wrote:

    Seneca “j” Griggs wrote:

    Frankly, I’m glad that God is “slow” to respond to our sins. So we humans think God should have acted about 5 years ago, but God has His timing, rarely is it mine.

    Personally, if I am sinning, I would rather the Holy Spirit speak to me about it right away and not after I’ve kept on for five years.

  74. J. D. Hall needs to join the ranks of the unemployed! Cyber bullying a 15 year old shows what a “little” man he is. If he has time to stalk a 15 year old when does he pastor his church? I hope the church’s internet was not used for this.

  75. dee wrote:

    A Note to Our Readers

    Any commenter accusing anyone of murder is out of line. This stops now. Any further comments along these lines will not only be deleted but anyone who pushes it will be permanently banned from this blog.

    This situation is causing great pain to many people. Let’s not pile it on with inappropriate remarks.

    You missed one at 12:12 p.m. on August 7th.

  76. Daisy wrote:

    I looked at FBC Jax Watchdog’s comment box under his most recent Caner post, and there are a couple of major wack-a-doodles still trying to dig up dirt on Braxton Caner, saying all of this is Ergun Caner’s fault, and that teens should not have public Twitter pages.

    (The reasoning for that being -according to that particular Hall defender- if you’re a parent and don’t want your son harassed online, don’t permit him to have a Twitter page until he’s 18 years of age).

    It’s shocking how their dislike of the father keeps them going on about the son and trying to justify J D Hall’s actions.

    I guess I’m one of the “wack-a-doodles” of which you speak. I don’t understand why one can’t speculate that the issue we’re not allowed to discuss in this thread MAY have contributed to the kid’s stress level without being seen as a shill for J.D. Hall. I think Hall is despicable, but not for this incident. He was already despicable a long time before that.

    As for keeping your minor child off social media, heaven forbid you actually parent your kids instead of letting them have and do things “because all the other kids do,” and “they’re going to find a way to do it anyway.” So I’m labeled a “wack-a-doodle” because I dared agree with a previous commenter that if you want to help insure your kid isn’t a victim of cyber-bullying, then keep him off social media until he’s 18. I should have added that if you’re going to allow them to be on social media (the choice is the parents’) insist they set their accounts to private and allow you, the parent, access (to be used extremely rarely and only if there’s strong evidence of a problem, not to snoop). Teens need a certain amount of privacy, and responsible teens should earn more privacy, but just because they act responsible around you doesn’t mean you turn them loose and trust they’ll always do the right thing. They’re still kids. They will still make unwise choices.

    Where did I ever say it was okay for Hall or any other adult to try to contact a minor IRL or on the internet? I’ve stated that I think Hall handled the situation poorly from the beginning. He should have contacted the kid’s parents privately if he had a valid concern (he probably was meddling because it was EC’s kid, but it’s still difficult to separate the actions of one from the influence of the other), but he didn’t, and while I think he went overboard in his criticism, I keep going back to the fact that the kid posted all that stuff publicly. If you can’t take the fallout from what you post, set your account to private. It’s that simple, and it applies regardless of age. Why do so many people set their FB and Twitter accounts to public? Do they really think everybody in the world cares what they think or wants to see dozens of selfies of them?

    Nor was I saying that I thought cyber-bullying is okay, and yet that was the implication you made. As if I were saying, “It’s okay for people to bully and harrass your kid online if he posts anything publicly.” No, it’s not, but it happens. It just helps avoid that situation of unwanted attention if you, the responsible parent, sees to it that if your child does have an online presence it’s restricted to a short list of known people who can see it. I don’t think the exchange we witnessed came anywhere close to the definition of cyber-bullying, and the boy handled it on his own and moved on. Teens live in the here and now and often act impulsively. It’s hard to believe this would have festered almost a month before it caused him to pick up a gun and end his life.

    Now as much as I dislike Hall’s behavior in general, to his credit, he did apologize publicly and claims to have done so privately, albeit through a common friend/acquaintance because he said he assumed Caner had blocked him, and if he’d stopped there I would applaud him (while holding my nose). He apparently kept on talking about it though and didn’t take the offending post down until much later. (He claims it was at Dee’s request and that of “someone wiser.” I tend to think it was the “someone wiser,” perhaps a lawyer friend who recognized Caner’s propensity to file frivolous lawsuits, who actually convinced him. After all, Dee is a mere woman.) I tend to agree with Wade that it should not have been taken down but rather linked to the apology. After all, people should be able to see what he was apologizing for. Context is everything.

    I will even go so far as to say, without defending his actions after the initial couple of exchanges, that I believe him when he said he found the kid’s Twitter while he was reading Ergun’s. I’ve found plenty of kids’ Twitters and FBs the same way. It doesn’t mean he was “stalking” Caner’s son. He may not have even realized the boy was a minor at first. He asked one question — does your family speak Arabic at home as your father has suggested? Heck, if that was one of Steve Gaines’ kids whose father goes on incessant rants about women dressing “modestly” while his own daughters have posted hundreds of PUBLIC photos of themselves in their little bikinis and skimpy dresses which leave about 1% of their bodies to the imagination, and if I were on Twitter and stumbled upon one of their accounts, I might have asked a similarly-worded question. I would hope I would have paused and thought better of it, but sometimes even adults do things impulsively. The right thing to do would have been to contact the parent, but like Hall, I would have been blocked by SG long before then. Wouldn’t mean I was “stalking” anybody. Of course, his daughters are all of age now and responsible for their own actions, but the evidence was public and we all know the internet is forever.

    Just like in the days before the internet you should know who your kids’ friends are, and I would say that if they’re spending a lot of time with specific friends you should be acquainted with their parents, too. In other words, to the extent possible, know where your kids are and who they’re hanging out with. That applies to real life and online where your kid is exposed to a lot more people than IRL. I don’t pretend for one second it’s easy, but from what I’ve observed most kids want structure and some rules. Not to the point of being oppressive because they’ll just rebel, but you’re the parent for a reason. They may say they don’t want any rules, but whether they’ll admit it or not, they want and need it.

    So I repeat, to the commenter who called me a “wack-a-doodle” for those sentiments, why should your teen’s online life be different from the parent’s standpoint than his “real” life? A lot of parents seem to have resigned themselves that little Johnny is entitled to a Twitter, Facebook, iPhone, automobile/truck (how about a brand new custom F-150 4×4?), or (fill in the blank) because “all the other kids have them,” and their kids won’t be happy, popular, successful, etc. without those things.

    I contend that little Johnny is entitled to none of those things, and he has the potential to turn out to be a productive member of society with none of those things. After all, every generation until now has managed to do it. He’s entitled to a roof over his head, food, clothes, medical care, a high school education, as much unconditional love as you can give him, and some sort of faith-based or moral guidance with the goal of instilling in him a sense of right and wrong, a moral compass if you will. I admit I may have left out some things, but those are what come to mind. All the rest are privileges.

    I’m not blaming anyone or any one incident for this boy’s decision to end his life. I saw more red flags on his Twitter feed over the past couple of years than anything Hall and his friends said. Would they have been as concerning had he not killed himself? Probably not. Perhaps it was just melodramatic teenage angst, but if I were the parents I’d like to think I would have at least talked with him to find out if anything was wrong. And we don’t know. Maybe they did and concluded everything was fine.

  77. I stopped reading the second I realized you posted the article you asked JD Hall to remove. That is probably one of the most hypocritical things I’ve seen online. Thank heavens for the posts by Tom Rich and Wade Burleson… Voices of reason. Did you by any chance research teen suicide before you wrote this ? A very brief exchange of Tweets online is almost certainly not the cause. Although I am not a Caner fan, I hurt for them. Posts like yours are only adding to the pain. You want to armchair quarterback everything and get your two cents in … Hope you are enjoying your moments of self importance. I know someone very close to the situation but refuse to ask for information so I can spread it like gossip. A boy is dead and playing the blame game is totally inappropriate. Why dont you remove this thread? Oh, but that would be “different” than asking JD to remove his. Sometimes I don’t think you can see how the TWW comes across.

  78. @ Lydia:
    Lydia, you are talking about a PK. I am pretty sure that he was not impressed with the honorary title “man of God.”

  79. Shato wrote:

    A very brief exchange of Tweets online is almost certainly not the cause.

    That is the second or third time that point has come up on this thread already and as I said above, did Hall’s tweets to the boy help the boy? No. He may not have driven the boy to suicide, but he didn’t help the kid, either.

  80. Please read this: http://timguthrie.blogspot.com/2014/08/an-open-letter-to-pastors-stop-ministry.html?m=1

    Shato wrote:

    I stopped reading the second I realized you posted the article you asked JD Hall to remove. That is probably one of the most hypocritical things I’ve seen online. Thank heavens for the posts by Tom Rich and Wade Burleson… Voices of reason. Did you by any chance research teen suicide before you wrote this ? A very brief exchange of Tweets online is almost certainly not the cause. Although I am not a Caner fan, I hurt for them. Posts like yours are only adding to the pain. You want to armchair quarterback everything and get your two cents in … Hope you are enjoying your moments of self importance. I know someone very close to the situation but refuse to ask for information so I can spread it like gossip. A boy is dead and playing the blame game is totally inappropriate. Why dont you remove this thread? Oh, but that would be “different” than asking JD to remove his. Sometimes I don’t think you can see how the TWW comes across.

  81. @ dee:

    I second that any comment accusing Hall of murdering Braxton is deeply inappropriate. Thank you for cracking down on that immediately.

  82. amen and amen to your previous comment. 😉
    roebuck wrote:

    Melody wrote:

    Yet many of us love Christ because He first loved us.

    Sweet, Melody. Can we all remember this from time to time?

  83. oops- amen to someone else’s comment. got you two confused. can’t find it now either! But yes. Love is what Christians need to come back to. It’s brutal enough in the world.

    Melody wrote:

    amen and amen to your previous comment.
    roebuck wrote:

    Melody wrote:

    Yet many of us love Christ because He first loved us.

    Sweet, Melody. Can we all remember this from time to time?

  84. dee wrote:

    @ Marsha:
    I am flummoxed. I am beating my head against the table trying to communicate. These people sound unhinged and I think I am becoming unhinged. I think i will go and drown my sorrows in spaghetti.

    Personally, I have always found that a wee drop of bourbon works better for drowning most anything…..

  85. Bridget wrote:

    Marsha wrote:

    But even if I am wrong, I am far less bothered by a little vulgarity from a 15 year old trying to find his way in life than I am by adult men targeting the children of their theological opponents.

    Let’s make that “adult men who call themselves ‘pastors’(?)”

    I believe that “apparently adult men” or “supposedly adult men” would be better.

    Actually, now that I see my thoughts in type, I now favor “supposedly adult persons who appear to be male” is better than either. (But I dislike clanging gongs intensely, so I may be a wee bit overcritical).

  86. Adam Borsay wrote:

    There are real bullies out there who are directly harming kids, I would rather focus on them instead of straining to find bullying where it is hard to make the case that there was.

    We are talking about a DEAD CHILD, Adam.
    There is an old saying,: “How much of an egg do you have to taste before you know that it’s rotten?” The smell of sulphur rises from the words of J D Hall. How much of it do you intend to swallow before you recognize that the same principle applies?

  87. notastepfordsheep wrote:

    dee wrote:

    A Note to Our Readers

    Any commenter accusing anyone of murder is out of line. This stops now. Any further comments along these lines will not only be deleted but anyone who pushes it will be permanently banned from this blog.

    This situation is causing great pain to many people. Let’s not pile it on with inappropriate remarks.

    You missed one at 12:12 p.m. on August 7th.

    Thank you for removing that offensive comment… not to be confused with the comment by “Patrice.” There were two comments with the same time stamp.

  88. Feleina Rain wrote:

    #Pulpiteers are like JD Hall’s minions. Not only do they follow him, he uses them in ways that betray the fact that he loves control, and loves to pressure and manipulate people to do what he wants.

    I would love to tell you what period in Recent European History this reminds me of, but that personage’s name has been (quite rightly–if inconveniently) banned. I do wonder, though, if they are required to wear the same coloured shirts all the time??

  89. notastepfordsheep wrote:

    He may not have even realized the boy was a minor at first.

    Evidently you are not that familiar with JD Hall and company, their methods and pursuits –they knew how old he was. They have been stalking every thing about Caner for years. And I read the entire twitter exchange that included all the Hall followers and the editorials that followed.

  90. Bennett Willis wrote:

    @ Lydia:
    Lydia, you are talking about a PK. I am pretty sure that he was not impressed with the honorary title “man of God.”

    He did not use the title, I did. With sarcasm.

  91. Now wait, you posted what you requested Hall to remove. Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black. Like most online blogs/rants/”articles” this seems a lot like more of the she said he said fodder that’s out there everywhere.

  92. I would point out to those who seem to try to minimize the effects of JD’s actions on the child. It was not just JD’s direct contacts, but that many of JD’s minions were also idiot enough to pile on to the child as well. Multiple people, multiple times, all from JD’s circle of minions. The whole “pulpiteer” thing should be abandoned, repented of, repudiated, etc., for being unPastoral, unChristian, unChrist-like, etc., and rendering those involved unqualified to be a pastor, elder (they act like children not adults) etc.

  93. notastepfordsheep wrote:

    if you want to help insure your kid isn’t a victim of cyber-bullying, then keep him off social media until he’s 18

    I’m guessing you don’t have teenagers — or haven’t had teenagers in many years. Keep today’s 15-year-old off social media? How do you propose to do that? Lock him in a box? Keep him from owning a computer? Isolate him from friends with social media access? That’s not the answer. Plus, does cyber-bullying automatically become okay at 18? To me this is blaming the victim.

  94. Shato wrote:

    A very brief exchange of Tweets online is almost certainly not the cause.

    Are you a a close confident to Braxton, perhaps his therapist? If you aren’t, how can you be so sure that this isn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back? When I was that age, it would have been enough to put me into a tailspin to have one adult, much less a wolf pack of pastors, arrogantly pile onto me.

    Your comments are just as speculative as anyone’s. Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion.

  95. @ notastepfordsheep:

    I had an extended, serious argument yesterday with someone at another blog about whether Hall murdered Braxton. Some people are taking this way too far. I am SO GLAD Dee took the measures she did in this instance.

  96. Janey wrote:

    Keep today’s 15-year-old off social media? How do you propose to do that?

    In German it’s called Kindersicherung, a programme to monitor just where your offspring have been going on the net, and that will automatically limit the time the can spend there. It’s a difficult battle to prevent them getting adicted, one we are in at the moment. Allowing them personal freedom to grow up, including making mistakes you can see coming, whilst protecting them from the nastier side. Let them earn more autonomy by showing they can be responsible. I thought notastepfordsheep had a pretty good go at dealing with this.

    It would be so much easier if you could issue orders, but of course this is not possible nor enforcible by any means I would care to use, and it is certainly not how I would ever want to relate to my children.

    Most parents get this sussed by the time they are about to become grandparents, when it is no longer their responsibility…

  97. @ Janey:

    NOt only that but many high schools here are going to ipads instead of textbooks
    and using the internet in teaching. These have wifi attached and they can even take them home. They have strong filters but we all know how that works. It is a new day. Best to focus on character formation and critical thinking skills intead of censoring/isolation which only causes most of them to go wild when they can.

    Rare is the teen that does not misuse something in their life. It is a new world and we have to navigate it best we can. Most teens are more adept at navigating technology than their parents are!

  98. Lydia wrote:

    Most teens are more adept at navigating technology than their parents are!

    The parents better get with it then, because there is sure and certain danger to be avoided and/or dealt with. As in the current discussion.

  99. Nancy wrote:

    The parents better get with it then, because there is sure and certain danger to be avoided and/or dealt with. As in the current discussion.

    My brother works for Oracle. He has worked in software development. He has travelled the U.S. and internationally setting up networks for companies. He is our family’s go to IT man. He knows his boys will access things they shouldn’t. (They already have.) He is “with it” enough to be aware and watchful and involved with his boys. Kids can sometimes outsmart the most tech savvy parents.

  100. Jeff

    I am so glad that you brought this topic up. I have been dying to address it.

    The original post was perceived by many to be an attack by someone who was negative, not supportive, of Braxton. On the day of his suicide, the last thing that needed to be posted was a negative post on Braxton by the person who posted it. His removal of the post on that day was a positive action. It showed many that he got the issues involved.

    I was given a go ahead to do a post which included an analysis of the article in question by a person close to the family. Why?  Because I was NOT the person who posted the original article. That person had a negative view of Braxton.  I was a person who had a positive view of Braxton. I am a mother who has survived the teenage years with three children. I understand the difficulties of those years and have a great deal of empathy for teens.

     My purpose in doing the post was to show what Christians shouldn’t do in these situations. Although I was given permission to proceed, I waited until after the funeral was over. That post, and the radio program, are a good example of how NOT to proceed in a discussion with a teen. It is the purpose of the post which is at issue. 

  101. Shato wrote:

    I stopped reading the second I realized you posted the article you asked JD Hall to remove. That is probably one of the most hypocritical things I’ve seen online

    Of course you think that. Perhaps you couldn’t think of any reason why this might not be hypocritical or why I might have posted it. So let me assist you. Here is my response to another.

    dee wrote:

    The original post was perceived by many to be an attack by someone who was negative, not supportive, of Braxton. On the day of his suicide, the last thing that needed to be posted was a negative post on Braxton by the person who posted it. His removal of the post on that day was a positive action. It showed many that he got the issues involved.

    I was given a go ahead to do a post which included an analysis of the article in question by a person close to the family. Why?  Because I was NOT the person who posted the original article. That person had a negative view of Braxton.  I was a person who had a positive view of Braxton. I am a mother who has survived the teenage years with three children. I understand the difficulties of those years and have a great deal of empathy for teens.

     My purpose in doing the post was to show what Christians shouldn’t do in these situations. Although I was given permission to proceed, I waited until after the funeral was over. That post, and the radio program, are a good example of how NOT to proceed in a discussion with a teen. It is the purpose of that post which is at issue. 

    Shato wrote:

    A very brief exchange of Tweets online is almost certainly not the cause.

    Who said that it was? Please read the post that you did not read. Since you didn’t read the post, you really can’t comment on that. I didn’t say that which you would have known had you read.

    Shato wrote:

    Hope you are enjoying your moments of self importance.

    And you know this how? You do not know my motivations. You didn’t even read the post as you stated.

    I know why I wrote this post. Deb and I were in DC visiting some folks, many of who were hurt by SGM along the way. The night we heard about the suicide, we were in a hotel room together, talking a lot about people who have been hurt deeply by the church. We are both mothers who have raised teens. To us, this was one more example of the church hurting our most vulnerable.

    This blog consistently points out issues with the church and child abuse. This situation shows one more area that we can fail in. Since you didn’t read the post, look at the end of the post. It says “never, ever again.”

    I was so disturbed by the suicide that I had trouble sleeping that night which was witnessed to by Deb. Before this post was written, I did communicate with someone close to the family who gave me the go ahead on the post.

    Finally, you have no idea what has gone on behind the scenes. I am not at liberty to discuss some things but I can assure you that I have had more discussions than you can imagine.

  102. @ Ken:
    Ken, I’m not debating whether it’s possible to keep kids off Twitter and Facebook. Even if you have all kind of monitoring in place, you will get beat by a determined teenager.

    But that’s not my point: The point is that notastepfordsheep (a commenter with whom I often agree) is saying that Braxton should expect to be bullied, simply because he was on social media under age 18. That’s simply blame-the-victim thinking, and it doesn’t make sense.

  103. Janey wrote:

    saying that Braxton should expect to be bullied, simply because he was on social media under age 18.

    For me it is quite simple. A child should not expect to be bullied by a Christian pastor. However, this blog exists because christian leaders do stuff like this and it needs to be discussed.

  104. @ Lydia:

    I wasn’t referencing JA’s behavior but the other commenter’s. I agree that she handled the thread just fine.

  105. @ Nancy:

    Nancy, I often think of Dick Tracy talking to his watch. :o) It is here.

    Beentheredonethat,

    I have a similar type brother who travels all over the world selling IT systems. Same deal. He knows as he has teens, too. And if anything should scare us on this point, as it does him, is hacking our private info. He has told me of big whigs in the industry who would not think of banking online. Privacy.

    Unless one wants to totally deny their teens the devices that are going to be a major part of their career world, what is the answer? For me, it is focus on character formation and critical thinking. Love and Logic parenting is a great source. It is a new day and what worked for us is not working today unless you join some of the fundy movements that isolate them.

  106. @ Janey:
    I agree with your comment. I remember being quite judgmental of parents until I had teens. Then I began to understand. Even good kids with good parents can work around the system because they are teens-a time in which emotional development and impulse control is lagging behind an adult body. I was one mom who thought I could control it. I learned quickly that I couldn’t unless I wanted to go down the road of patriarchy nuttiness and totally keep my teens attached at the hip, overseeing every last conversation.

    There was this guy I knew. He was a pastor and had all the answers, writing material which just about guaranteed your kids would grow up to be incredible Christians. he wrote it when his kids were young. He applied it. He had one kid who was totally rebellious and another who did well.

    As I love to say: Even God, the perfect Father, raised two people who rebelled.

  107. dee wrote:

    Janey wrote:

    saying that Braxton should expect to be bullied, simply because he was on social media under age 18.

    For me it is quite simple. A child should not expect to be bullied by a Christian pastor. blockquote>

    Bingo. THAT is the issue. Period.

  108. @ Hester:
    The claims that so and so “murdered” Caner are way out of line. As you know, that is not anything we said on this blog. There is an underlying thread through this whole thing that needs to be exposed.

    There are some non-Calvinists who hate the Calvinists and vice versa. It is equally bad on both sides. That, unfortunately, is what is behind some of the exchanges and that gets me mad. This is about how adults intervene in the lives of kids and when such an intervention can be toxic.

    The theological dispute crowd is driving the discussion away from that theme.

  109. @ Hester:

    Oh good! I was concerned because she is very into free speech and it can backfire on her. I was hoping it would not.

  110. @ Ken:

    One of the things that has helped us is that we were never a TV family. Not because of some theological reason but because we are just not TV people. We have one we drag out of the closet when there is a crisis weather thing or some event in real time. I have even been known to drag it out when there is a good Masterpiece Theatre on.

    Of course, we have to find the antenna, too. I think this has really helped when it comes to games, etc on computers and not being addicted to that sort of thing. I did not do it that way on purpose I just thought having a kid babysat by a TV was not a good thing. But then they would go over the grams house and watch Disney Channel on cable. So what can one do? But it was STILL a treat and not every day so they learned they could live without it. A funny thing though, they could not get used to “laugh tracks”. They thought it weird that the show told them when to laugh. Something to think about. :o)

  111. Janey, Lydia and Dee – there was, I hope you noticed, a touch of tongue-in-cheek in my post above. Monitoring computer usage can be resented by teenagers as showing a lack of trust, but they don’t always get it that trust has to be earned. They also don’t get just how addictive it can be – a good servant but a poor master. We’ve been to sessions run by the police at the local schools giving some advice on children and the internet, very sobering stuff.

    Still, the best infallible advice I can give is to call on the services of a maiden aunt. In my case that is in fact possible, and just occasionally she lets slip the odd comment as to how she in effect would do better in what she would or would not allow, and I always think (but dare not say) ‘yes, if only it were that easy’. I’d have written the book and retired on the proceeds by now.

    ‘Would you mind logging off and clearing up your bombsite of a bedroom please’. ‘OK, dad, I’ll do it right away’. What actually happens is they log off when they are far too tired to do anything, and the clearing up, if it gets done at all, has to wait until the end of next week.

  112. @ Lydia:

    I was concerned because she is very into free speech and it can backfire on her.

    I think it might have if she hadn’t called said other commenter on distinguishing between opinion and fact last night. Publicly accusing somebody of a crime is serious. Said other commenter wanted it not to be but it is. Even Todd Starnes didn’t actually claim outright that Hall bullied Braxton to death, even if he implied it very strongly (which I think he did).

  113. @ dee:

    The claims that so and so “murdered” Caner are way out of line. As you know, that is not anything we said on this blog.

    It’s something basically nobody has said because it’s so far off the mark legally. I think you’ll be pleased to know I defended your no-murder policy. 🙂

    There are some non-Calvinists who hate the Calvinists and vice versa. It is equally bad on both sides. That, unfortunately, is what is behind some of the exchanges and that gets me mad. This is about how adults intervene in the lives of kids and when such an intervention can be toxic.

    Agree totally. I’m very disappointed in how this incident has been handled on the internet in general. It devolved almost immediately into two party lines throwing identical accusations at each other (“You’re the bully!” “No, you are!” “You are!” “You are!” etc. ad infinitum ad nauseam in saecula saeculorum world without end). Almost nobody came out smelling like a rose on this one. I was going to just bow out entirely until I saw that a few folks were accusing Hall of murder. That crossed the line for me.

  114. This kind of nonsense is what drives many people from the Christian faith. For one man to use his personal judgement and opinion to condemn anyone, let alone a 15 year old boy, is contrary to everything that Jesus’ life and ministry was about. I think I recall the story of the woman taken in sin who was about to be stoned… Jesus had one simple reply, “Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.” Hall and White are our modern Pharisees… I am a disciple of Christ…

  115. @ Ken:
    Ken, I get your point. I raised professional computer geeks, so I know how hard it is to keep the online stuff under control. Back when mine were young, I put all game consoles and hand-held gizmos in my trunk every morning before I went to work. But eventually when the kids hit their late teens and got more electronics, it was hopeless.

    We spent a lot of time talking about the cyber-world: The porn, the time drain, Internet addictions, social media bullies, creeps, etc. My kids turned out just fine. They are solid citizens and all those hours of gaming did more good than evil.

  116. Hester wrote:

    I had an extended, serious argument yesterday with someone at another blog about whether Hall murdered Braxton. Some people are taking this way too far. I am SO GLAD Dee took the measures she did in this instance.

    Hester,

    Moderating is a tough job. Sometimes it’s just not fun. A couple of things to consider when comparing TWW and SSB.

    1) Dee rocks at moderating. She’s taught me a lot.

    2) This current article went viral and likely has brought many new people to TWW, some unfamiliar with the way things roll here. Dee was inundated with well over 500 comments on the first day. It was important for her to lay the ground rules.

    3) My article discussing Hall was not a big one – it was mainly a post to keep people abreast of what was going on, and it was mostly the regulars commenting, except for a few from the #pulpiteer group.

    4) I greatly value freedom of expression. I’m careful about what I allow and don’t allow and I think about my lawsuit quite a bit when determining whether comments remain or not.

    5) If you think back on the thread, there were 2 issues going on: one was Ed discussing “hate in your heart = murder” in connection with Hall’s behavior, the other was on the legal aspect of cyber bullying. I dealt with each issue differently based on my legal experience.

    6) In the first hate = murder issue, Ed was looking at Hall’s behavior and judging his behavior to be hateful and then using Jesus’ words about someone who has hatred in his heart is like a murderer. I haven’t gone back, but I don’t think I told Ed to cool it down on that topic even though it is very strong wording.

    Ed was challenging us to think of how Jesus would respond to Hall’s behavior which he judged to be hateful. He’s coming from the spiritual side of things, not the legal side of “murder.”

    6) I did, however, jump into the conversation when it was said as a matter of fact that Hall’s behavior was cyber bullying. I challenged him on that and said that he couldn’t legitimately say that because he is not one who gets to interpret law, our court system does that.

    Ok, so why did I not come down on the “murderer” part even though those words were stronger? Because he was discussing specific scripture. I know from my lawsuit that discussions about interpreting scripture, spirituality, religious practices are all part of the religious autonomy rule and the courts won’t touch it. Now someone could hand pick a phrase from Ed’s comment and file a defamation lawsuit (as my pastor did), but any decent attorney would look at the context and it is clear that he was discussing the issue based on a Biblical passage. The courts will not touch Biblical interpretation and settle spiritual disputes.

    However, when he was talking about Hall being a cyber bullying, it crossed over into civil law, not spiritual law. That’s why I told him to drop it a few notches (and he did).

    So, it may have appeared that I was not holding a tight ship, however, I was allowing discussion based on my personal experience of being in a defamation lawsuit and knowing what courts are looking at and will throw out.

    FYI, This was part of my Special Motion to Strike court document written by my attorney and might help when looking at how the court looks at lawsuits involving religious disputes:

    While it is true that Pastor is a member of the clergy and that is his “profession,” he cannot sue lay persons for remarks he finds offensive about his pastoral techniques or teachings which intrude on religious beliefs of the speaker. Clergy cannot sue attendees or congregants for spiritual disagreements or critiques relating to performance of clerical/pastoral duties. Such matters are within the church autonomy doctrine.

    Subjecting lay members liable for freely speaking about their confessor/counselor would interfere with their protected rights of religious conviction. No matter how offensive or heated the religious dispute or subjective the criticism of the pastoral conduct.

    MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF
    SPECIAL MOTIONS TO STRIKE
    FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT
    SUPPLEMENTAL TO THE SMITH
    DEFENDANTS’ MEMORANDUM IN
    SUPPORT OF THE SPECIAL
    MOTIONS TO STRIKE (ORIGINAL)
    COMPLAINT

    http://www.dmlp.org/sites/citmedialaw.org/files/2012-05-01-Smith%20Memo%20in%20Support%20of%20Special%20Motions%20to%20Strike%20regarding%20Amended%20Complaint.pdf

  117. Shelly wrote:

    This kind of nonsense is what drives many people from the Christian faith. For one man to use his personal judgement and opinion to condemn anyone, let alone a 15 year old boy, is contrary to everything that Jesus’ life and ministry was about. I think I recall the story of the woman taken in sin who was about to be stoned… Jesus had one simple reply, “Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.” Hall and White are our modern Pharisees… I am a disciple of Christ…

    Yes. This.

    Also, I like Billy Graham’s comment: “It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge, and my job to love.”

  118. Daisy wrote:

    Feleina Rain wrote:

    The point is, he uses his minions, I mean, Pulpiteers, to do the work of the Holy Spirit, to force repentance upon people by harassing them. It’s creepy and it’s wrong.

    That is unreal. They sound like a Christianized version of the mafia.

    If it walks like a duck,etc, etc, etc….

  119. Paul (quoted by atheist blog Paul) wrote:

    Rhology continued his deranged opinion today on twitter by suggesting anyone who has not called Caner to repentance does not truly care about the death of his child and has no right to pray for the Caners.

    You know what, my immediate reaction was to say, right out loud (with only the cats to hear me), “Buster, I’ll pray for whom I damn well please.”

    Yeah, yeah….probably going to moderation now. But it’s the truth.

  120. I had the pleasure of having Braxton’s grandparents, mom, brother and other family and friends at our home over the weekend. We fished, rode in the boat, had some laughs and cried a bit. We ate catfish and ribs. Worshiped together and got through another few days.
    It’s so interesting to see the response, actually, the lack of responses when I asked for any of those associated with Mr Hall, to contact me regarding ALL the continued fighting and accusations that continue on other blogs, tweets and post.
    I did not get one response.
    On the other hand, I also tweeted about praying for Mr Halls child that was reportedly hospitalized and encouraging others to do so as well. That tweet, received minimal response.
    Perhaps people on social media are more interested in proving a point and just like to prove something or someone is right or wrong on a particular subject. And, miss the opportunity to demonstrate sincere love for another. The only way anyone will receive true healing is to pray for at least a desire to give and receive forgiveness and promote the gospel to a lost world. The body of Christ has many parts. Each part has a different function or ability. If we, as followers, teachers and ministers continue to attack and discredit other parts of the body, I wonder how that body looks to the lost? Like Frankenstein? Or a fully functional bride that others would like to be involved in becoming .
    Anger is part of grieving. Hate is not.
    I believe Mr Hall is praying for the Caner’s I believe my God can change hearts, through conviction by The Holy Spirit. I don’t believe continual attacks out of either camp against the other will cause anyone to repent of anything. In fact it causes disfunction of the entire Body.
    A physician can’t force a person to have heart surgery without that persons consent to be healed. Even if the physician knows it can save the patients life. God is the same with us. Without our desire to have our hearts changed, he can’t go against our free will. Even though He knows the plans He has for us.
    I simply ask for people to pray for new hearts, give God consent. And if you can’t even fathom the idea. Pray for a desire to have the desire to have the heart God wants you to have. We all have sinned and fallen short. It’s gonna take time and some surgery perhaps. The woman at the well …. The accusations… The accusers … The stones laying on the ground, ready to be used as weapons … She didn’t have a chance. But Jesus was her only chance. He is our only chance as well. There are plenty of accusations, evidence, weapons to be used to prove our various perspectives. But Jesus gave us the example. Both sides of the issue were convicted at that moment of sin in their individual and collective lives. Let’s follow Jesus. Otherwise, I think He looks us all in the eye and then to the ground as he draws in the dirt… (Excuse typos and grammar, it’s difficult on phone to type) Ty. Gary.

  121. @ Gary Cheek:
    Thank you, Gary, for sharing. I’m glad you are there for the Caner family.

    Perhaps in this situation, the words of Christ fit perfectly: “Father forgiven them for they know not what they do.”

  122. Janey wrote:

    notastepfordsheep wrote:

    if you want to help insure your kid isn’t a victim of cyber-bullying, then keep him off social media until he’s 18

    I’m guessing you don’t have teenagers — or haven’t had teenagers in many years. Keep today’s 15-year-old off social media? How do you propose to do that? Lock him in a box? Keep him from owning a computer? Isolate him from friends with social media access? That’s not the answer. Plus, does cyber-bullying automatically become okay at 18? To me this is blaming the victim.

    If you’re going to critique my comment, at least don’t pluck it out of context, please. This was the entire quote, advice that is backed up by someone who just successfully navigated the teen years with three children in the age of social media. That person advised keeping them away from it to the extent possible for as long as possible but admitted they can always find ways around it. It’s not easy, but you do what you can. You don’t just throw up your hands and say, “Well, they’re going to do it anyway. They’re a lot more tech-savvy than I, so there’s nothing I can do.”

    My quote in context:

    “So I’m labeled a “wack-a-doodle” because I dared agree with a previous commenter that if you want to help insure your kid isn’t a victim of cyber-bullying, then keep him off social media until he’s 18. I should have added that if you’re going to allow them to be on social media (the choice is the parents’) insist they set their accounts to private and allow you, the parent, access (to be used extremely rarely and only if there’s strong evidence of a problem, not to snoop).”

    Where do y’all get the impression I think or ever stated someone harassing or “cyber-bullying” anyone, minor or not, is okay? It’s NOT. But it happens. People shouldn’t burglarize houses or steal cars either, but it happens, so we lock our doors, install security systems, and secure our cars. Why should our online life, especially that of our underage children, be any different? It’s called common sense.

  123. Lydia wrote:

    @ notastepfordsheep:

    Do you have teens? I am always leary of listening to lectures or advice from folks who have not been there done that.

    Lydia,

    You know who you’re addressing. I would welcome the opportunity to reconnect with you as I’ve missed our conversations. If you don’t still have my contact information you can e-mail me at the address on my blog. I’m not sure the address I have for you is still good as you haven’t replied in over two years. I hope you recognize that we can agree to disagree on anything without jeopardizing what I always thought was a cordial relationship. Funny thing, we’ve always agreed on just about everything! I consider you my friend and sister in Christ. Whatever you may have gone through or may be going through now, just know that you have remained in my prayers all this time.

  124. Gary Cheek wrote:

    I had the pleasure of having Braxton’s grandparents, mom, brother and other family and friends at our home over the weekend. We fished, rode in the boat, had some laughs and cried a bit. We ate catfish and ribs. Worshiped together and got through another few days.
    It’s so interesting to see the response, actually, the lack of responses when I asked for any of those associated with Mr Hall, to contact me regarding ALL the continued fighting and accusations that continue on other blogs, tweets and post.
    I did not get one response.
    On the other hand, I also tweeted about praying for Mr Halls child that was reportedly hospitalized and encouraging others to do so as well. That tweet, received minimal response.
    Perhaps people on social media are more interested in proving a point and just like to prove something or someone is right or wrong on a particular subject. And, miss the opportunity to demonstrate sincere love for another. The only way anyone will receive true healing is to pray for at least a desire to give and receive forgiveness and promote the gospel to a lost world. The body of Christ has many parts. Each part has a different function or ability. If we, as followers, teachers and ministers continue to attack and discredit other parts of the body, I wonder how that body looks to the lost? Like Frankenstein? Or a fully functional bride that others would like to be involved in becoming .
    Anger is part of grieving. Hate is not.
    I believe Mr Hall is praying for the Caner’s I believe my God can change hearts, through conviction by The Holy Spirit. I don’t believe continual attacks out of either camp against the other will cause anyone to repent of anything. In fact it causes disfunction of the entire Body.
    A physician can’t force a person to have heart surgery without that persons consent to be healed. Even if the physician knows it can save the patients life. God is the same with us. Without our desire to have our hearts changed, he can’t go against our free will. Even though He knows the plans He has for us.
    I simply ask for people to pray for new hearts, give God consent. And if you can’t even fathom the idea. Pray for a desire to have the desire to have the heart God wants you to have. We all have sinned and fallen short. It’s gonna take time and some surgery perhaps. The woman at the well …. The accusations… The accusers … The stones laying on the ground, ready to be used as weapons … She didn’t have a chance. But Jesus was her only chance. He is our only chance as well. There are plenty of accusations, evidence, weapons to be used to prove our various perspectives. But Jesus gave us the example. Both sides of the issue were convicted at that moment of sin in their individual and collective lives. Let’s follow Jesus. Otherwise, I think He looks us all in the eye and then to the ground as he draws in the dirt… (Excuse typos and grammar, it’s difficult on phone to type) Ty. Gary.

    Beautiful.

  125. “In my zeal, there has been a disconnect between my theology and my methodology,” Hall said. “I do know God is sovereign — and yet, I’ve relied too much on my own strength and not solely on the Spirit in my earnest desire to see justice prevail. That’s sin, even if the cause is right. I confess it.”

    I appreciated this. May this impact the pulpiteers in a healthy way. Glad to see this response.

  126. @ Gary Cheek:

    Thank you for your comment.  Please know that The Wartburg Watch community is praying for the Caner family.

    May they feel God's love during this difficult time.

  127. Melody wrote:

    “In my zeal, there has been a disconnect between my theology and my methodology,” Hall said. “I do know God is sovereign — and yet, I’ve relied too much on my own strength and not solely on the Spirit in my earnest desire to see justice prevail. That’s sin, even if the cause is right. I confess it.”
    I appreciated this. May this impact the pulpiteers in a healthy way. Glad to see this response.

    I hope his apology is sincere, however, it sounds very much like the apology of another Christian leader who stepped out of power, and then ended up forming another group of churches similar to the one he left. (I’m a former member of the Crossroads Movement of the Churches of Christ, which morphed into the International Churches of Christ. Kip McKean, leader of the ICOC, resigned, apologized . . . and then, a few years ago, formed the International Christian Churches and is back to doing what he was doing at the head of the ICOC.)

  128. Kay wrote:

    This link has the JD Hall transcript for today’s audio release.
    http://www.abpnews.com/ministry/people/item/29066-pastor-repents-for-interaction-with-suicidal-teen

    Thank you for sharing that. I confess that I still find it hard to be charitable towards him, but I will say he at least is aware of the complexity and has given perhaps the best that can be expected or possible from him. I regret that I find it hard to be charitable towards him, because in at least one thing we shared a similar passion of outrage over a thing. There is a quote I have that perhaps may help Mr. Hall:

    “You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.”

    I get that the man is motivated powerfully by wanting to see the world change for the better, at least his vision of it. I can respect the passion, if I can’t respect the vision. I appreciate him directing all attention and sympathy to the proper place, the family.

  129. @ notastepfordsheep:

    Thank you for those kind words. Would you consider refraining from your comments concerning Braxton? At least for a while? I had something very similar done to mine from “Christian” leaders and I cannot tell you the distress it causes in a family.

  130. Albuquerque Blue and All Readers

    I will be getting up a post shortly(either late tonight or early AM) that will discuss JD Hall’s statement. I think you may be surprised about what has been going on behind the scenes. 

  131. I hope you guys revisit this subject. When JD Hall publicly repented, I believed, after hearing the emotion in his voice, that he genuinely was sorry. And so, I did what the Bible tells us to do, I forgave, and preached forgiveness, even losing some online friends because of that stance.
    I have to wonder now, as we see JD’s associates continue to trash the Caner family on the Pulpit and Pen blog, if he really has changed after all. JD himself is not blogging these days, but, he is still the name associated with that blog, and unless he publicly distances himself from the blog and its writers, he is complicit in what they write and post.
    The ongoing harassment of the Caner family is astounding and particularly distasteful in this season of their lives when they are barely even starting to come to terms with their loss.

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