We watched this documentary also in the last week.

I’ve seen some on social media say things along the lines of, “this was just some people unable to come to terms with changes in their church”

I think it goes well beyond that. Just from memory alone:

– Repeatedly refusing to answer questions about the church’s affiliation with the SBC
When Jeremiah Burke was told the church was affiliated by an SBC official, they attempted to suppress his voice at a members’ meeting
– Following this, David Platt emailed the official and gave him a point by point response that he needed to email to the MBC elder board (the gall to suggest that the SBC is not a “denomination” is brave to say the least)
– Refusal to accept the results of the first elder vote and delaying announcing the results
– Removing people off the members’ role to massage the second vote
– Named ballots to apply pressure for people to vote in a certain way
– Allegations that a detailed sexual abuse allegation were ignored by Platt and his cohorts; it was implied the abuse was against, perhaps among others, an autistic child which is particularly appalling
– Using template letters lacking specific allegations in Matthew 18 inspired church discipline was disgusting. As an aside, Matthew 18 says per RSV/ESV “if your brother sins against you” so given that translation, is not appropriate for use in broader church discipline
– David Platt literally ran away from confrontation with the truth
– His chair of the elder board subsequently did the same

I thought that it was a really strong case made by some Christians who set a wonderful example of how to stand up to wolves in their leadership.

If it’s not true, I’d expect a defamation lawsuit to be landing very soon. I imagine it is true, which will lead to the typical SBC response: silence.

I watched it. Definitely shows how Platt took over the church and reoriented the donations from supporting a lot of local in-house member run ministries to the SBC and Platt’s own organization, Radical.

I don’t think the SBC staff or the Executive Committee planned this. But once Platt started making the arrangements, people inside the SBC staff became allies because the SBC would also benefit.

Redoing an election is the strongest indicator that there’s fraud and theft.

Here’s my take. Platt becomes the new pastor with the design to reorient MacLean’s giving patterns. Platt is also super woke, so he wants to bring diversity to the staff and bring in people trained in SBC seminaries. Platt is able to remake the staff but not the elder board because new elders requires a congregational vote. When the vote doesn’t go his way, they strike a lot of people from the voter roles, and they devote.

Platt would ultimately like to see someone else pastor the church on a day to day basis. He can get funded by radical, which will by funded by the church.

Dont trust Platt at all.

Max: They firmly believe they have come into the world for such a time as this

So did the Young Communist League, Chairman Mao’s Red Guards, and the Taliban.

Church changes is the supreme value without value.

Great commission: teach all that “I” have taught. Not “another” gospel.

Staleness = move quick and break everything.

Freshness: move slow and mend everything.

When people who believe in a theology that teaches that God exercises meticulous control over every detail of life behave badly, even wickedly, we should not be surprised. It is entirely predictable. Yet, still…people of good faith are shocked when John Piper’s family implodes, RC Sproul’s son, John McCarthurs son, RW Glenn is a serial adulterer, Ravi Zacharias leads a double life, James Macdonald explodes in scandal, Mark Driscoll is a flaming dumpster fire. And recently, Steve Lawson, perhaps the dean of Reformed circles, is in adultery with someone younger than his granddaughter. So, color me UNSURPRISED that David Platt is the equivalent of a corporate raider. Except, the Jesus business is all tax free.

I should add that although I’m 100% anti-Calvinist, I could accept a “lordship salvation” Calvinist like MacArthur or Washer taking over MBC even though I would have disliked it, but leftist/woke and obviously financially corrupt Calvinists taking over without even a pastor search or honest congregational vote was a nonstarter for me.

I’m Salvador Cordova and I was in the documentary.

Thank you for raising awareness of the documentary and our testimonies. Court records indicate on October 3, 2021 I was confronted by MBC armed security while I sat QUIETLY in my chair in the sanctuary during a worship service. I was then threatened with arrest and jail (in 5 counties) if I ever set foot on MBC properties. No reason was given at the time they made those threats against me, and they still haven’t been forthcoming as to why they did that to me.

I suspect it was the fact I made 2 youtube videos highlighting that Platt’s associate Mike Kelsey said “It’s difficult for me not to torch all white people, particularly white evangelicals and Christians” and then I mocked them in another video (nicknamed the “Platt Splatt”) for Platt telling the congregation that MBC was prospering under Platt when in fact it took him only 4 years to wipe out half of the congregation which took 55 years to build from 25 people to 13,500 people. Clips from both the aforementioned videos were shown in the documentary.

Thanks again for bringing attention to the documentary and giving us a chance to tell our story and rebuke Platt publicly according to 1 Tim 5:20 and Prov 27:5 where it says, “open rebuke is better than secret love”.

Paul was threatened with arrest and jail, and he appealed to Caesar. We were also threatened with arrest and jail and we appealed to Caesar. Our legal action unfortunately is colloquially called a “lawsuit”, but on the sense of 1 Cor 6, where there are monetary damages demanded. Our legal action wanted “equitable relief” which means no monetary damages, only demands that MBC follow its sworn obligation to disclose it’s financial activities to the public.

Monetary lawsuits are permissible between believer and unbeliever, and when people professing to be believers flagrantly do not act as believers, after they are confronted, they can be treated as unbelievers.

Jerome,
From gift to grift. Grift posing as gift.

(18 gifts of the Holy Spirit comprise the church as the Body of Christ: Romans 12, 1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4)

Shepherds are gifted by the Holy Spirit, as thus a GIFT to the Church. Who pays for a gift? No one. NT shepherds who traveled were given room and board for a couple of days only, in each town where they shared their message.

Vs.

Grift. When false shepherds run a business they call church, building dynasties and amassing fortunes.

Ava Aaronson: Calvin? Calvin is just there for name dropping. It’s all about the business, the business of church. Successful.

Agreed. The higher-uppers have used/deceived millions of young, restless and reformed with Calvin-mania to finance their new venture (conferences, books, speaking engagements, and other gimmicks). This time, they didn’t even have to use the name “Jesus” to fool them into the Pied Piper line … they just dropped “Calvin” and the gullibles joined the movement (lots of them have already bailed out confused and disillusioned, they may never try church again).

Ava Aaronson: Shepherds are gifted by the Holy Spirit, as thus a GIFT to the Church. Who pays for a gift? No one.

Simon tried to buy the Holy Spirit, but it didn’t end well for him:

“When Simon saw how the Spirit was given through the apostles’ laying their hands upon people he offered them money with the words, “Give me this power too” … But Peter said to him, “To hell with you and your money! How dare you think you could buy the gift of God!” (Acts 8:9-25 Phillips)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to what is going on in today’s Christian Industrial Complex as “cheap grace”:

“Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares … Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

Millions across America run to the message of cheap grace, while putting millions in the offering plate to hear it so they can remain unconvicted of their sin. They don’t have Jesus to worry about, since they are not challenged to be Christlike. The NeoCal theo-dudes preach grace-this and grace-that, but know very little about Grace.

Randy Cordes: I must say that I was astonished at how people who seemed solid and conservative turned 180 degrees and backed obvious deceit and financial abuse/fraud

The problem with deception is that you don’t know you are deceived because you are deceived.

Believer: John Piper’s family implodes, RC Sproul’s son, John McCarthur’s son, RW Glenn is a serial adulterer, Ravi Zacharias leads a double life, James Macdonald explodes in scandal, Mark Driscoll is a flaming dumpster fire. And recently, Steve Lawson, perhaps the dean of Reformed circles, is in adultery with someone younger than his granddaughter. So, color me UNSURPRISED that David Platt is the equivalent of a corporate raider

etc. etc. etc.

With a multitude of characters and scandals their ranks, I keep thinking New Calvinism will soon fade into obscurity. Church history is littered with such aberrations of faith and the damage they caused.

Bob M: This is the end for David Platt. He will not survive this.

What’s the point in capturing a flagship church for the NeoCal movement, if you sacrifice yourself in the process? Does he get some sort of brownie points from the NeoCal kingpins for mastering stealth and deception in taking over MBC? These folks certainly have a passion, but it’s a misplaced passion.

Please watch your children for signs of trauma from these kinds of messes.
I still have vivid memories of church deacons fighting during a meeting 58 years ago. It finally got so bad that my parents recognized the damage it was causing to my siblings and me that we left the church.
Bless you for trying, and i know there is validity in trying to save a church body, but not at the expense of the kids. There is not much good that can come out of them watching it all.

Max: A lot of folks have been deceived over the years by Platt’s emotional sermons … but if you look closely, he cries without tears.

And on cue?

Muff Potter: Bob M: This is the end for David Platt. He will not survive this.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
Cockroaches can crawl up the toilet bowl to the rim, dry off their wings and fly off to better pickins’.

You said what I was thinking much better than I could’ve, Muff Potter…. 🙂

In John 21 Jesus told Peter that if he loved Him, Peter should feed His sheep. Not fleece His sheep.

Muff Potter,

You do have to wonder… Just listen to MacArthur preach… he sure does not sound “Christ like” to me…. Driscoll the same…

Jeffrey J Chalmers: it is obvious that so many “Churches”, both past and current, seem to miss the idea that “being a Christian” is being “Christ like”

Depends on which Christ you follow … the one recorded in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), the one you get by twisting the words of Paul, or the one you manufacture in your pet theology. Being “Christlike” to some does not necessarily mean the same thing that most of Christendom see in Scripture.

Mclean Bible Church members did not know Pastor Platt had moved their church to SBC affiliation … Summit Church members did not know Pastor Greear had signed their church onto SBC until he ran for President of the denomination … NeoCal church planters have planted SBC churches across America without members knowing they are SBC … NeoCal “pastors” have lied to pastor search committees about their theological persuasion to capture non-Calvinist SBC churches for the reformed movement … stealth and deception are modus operandi of New Calvinists.

Max,

With them, Paul is the whole enchilada, Jesus is little more than a mascot.

Max: They preach primarily about “God”,

So did spinmeister Josef Goebbels before the 1933-34 takeover.
(Found this out while searching to reference his “Effective Propaganda” quote.)

Max: “Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares … Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

These days there seems an obsession with “being saved” as a criterion. In my day we were glad to just be redeemed!

MJ Dawson: I wish someone would reach out and try to get a statement from him.

Villains love to be centre stage, after all bad is the new good. Perhaps LS contributed and “somehow” he got edited out? One of my old situations was very like that albeit that one was not in the media. Or else he was so dumbfounded like nearly all the people I knew from the situation that was in the media.

Bill: it has always been Baptist

Southern Baptist?

Jeffrey J Chalmers: I just saw a post on Facebook of Driscoll meeting “45”…..

I sure hope “47” doesn’t give him a D.C. position 🙂

Michael in UK: These days there seems an obsession with “being saved” as a criterion.

And the accompanying obsession with “I’m Saved AND YOU’RE NOT!”
The Wretched Urgency (supercharged by Rapture Ready Any Minute Now) to Be SAVED and Get Them SAVED — OR ELSE!

And what’s Saved(TM) is some abstract thing called a “Soul”.
NOT the complete Person, with all their thoughts, dreams, hopes, and flaws.

Headless Unicorn Guy: And what’s Saved(TM) is some abstract thing called a “Soul”.

I have long believed that body and soul are an integral unit and that there is no such thing as a separate ethereal entity called a ‘soul’.
You (generic you) cannot have one without the other.

Headless Unicorn Guy,

You are exactly correct.. I have a academic colleague of acient near eastern countries and cultue with a specialty in Hebrew, and his perspective on the OT, and current and orthodox Christianity understanding, or lack thereof is sometimes just breath taking…. Apparently, the early Church tired very hard to separate it self from Judism, and cost of losing so much deep understanding of the OT, and the significence of NT teaching when you really understand what a Jew at the time of the NT understood..

well here a little book on the subject :
The Judaizing Calvin Paperback – September 21, 2012. by Aegidius Hunnius (Author), Paul A. Rydecki (Translator), & 1 more .Worth reading.
For Calvin there is no new Covenant.
Ruth Magnuson Davis has articles about it. Here the title of one : Christ “Manifest” vs. Christ Incarnate: Where John Calvin’s Treatment of the Incarnation Fell Short; But Who, Since the Early Lutherans, Has Noticed?
https://www.academia.edu/44924471/Christ_Manifest_vs_Christ_Incarnate_Where_John_Calvin_s_Treatment_of_the_Incarnation_Fell_Short_But_Who_Since_the_Early_Lutherans_Has_Noticed?email_work_card=view-paper
Contents of this paper:
1. Calvin on the New Covenant. (Not new except as to the form of teaching. Christ was part of a whole new external way of teaching and confirming the Abrahamic Covenant.) … 3
2. The early pedagogic meaning of “manifest. (How Calvin could say that Christ “manifested” the Abrahamic covenant.) … 6
3. Martin Luther on the New Covenant. (Fully new, and Christ’s covenant with us for our salvation. Christ died to ratify his covenant, not another.) Ten points of difference with Calvin. … 8
4. How Calvin robbed the Incarnation in his Institutes. … 11
5. “Manifest” in the Geneva Bible and later versions . (Jeremiah 31; 1John 3:5, 1:2, 3:8) … 15
6. The robbery of other verses. (Hebrews 9:8, 10:20; Romans 8:3) … 20
7. Conclusion: Certain false appearances. … 22
(Note to reader: This paper was becoming too long, because the more I dug, the more I
found. So I shortened it, and in due course hope to make it a book, perhaps called “Christ
Manifest vs. Christ Incarnate: How Calvin’s Pedagogic Messiah Robbed the Incarnation and Every Confession that Depends on It.” This paper focuses mainly on the Incarnation.)
1. Calvin on the New Covenant
Calvin’s treatment of the Incarnation is bound up with his doctrine of the New Covenant,
so it is best to begin there. He repeatedly spoke of the New Covenant as a confirmation of that which went before. https://www.academia.edu/44924471/Christ_Manifest_vs_Christ_Incarnate_Where_John_Calvin_s_Treatment_of_the_Incarnation_Fell_Short_But_Who_Since_the_Early_Lutherans_Has_Noticed?email_work_card=view-paper

John: They improperly used their positions of authority to oust long standing members to rig a minority. Then the new majority of squatters declares victory and accuses the victims of unbiblical behavior.

= New Calvinist modus operandi … it’s happening all over the SBC as the NeoCals take over non-Calvinist churches via stealth and deception.

I attended MBC for four years, but it got too big for me. I liked Lon as a pastor. After Platt came in, everyone I knew there left. I didn’t have time yet to watch the videos, but from what I heard from friends and read in the paper, there definitely seemed to be a takeover of leadership. And the church definitely has a lot of resources.

As for all the concern about “wokeness”, I can’t speak to that, although that whole topic generally makes me laugh. But I am a firm believer in not mixing politics and religion.

Max: they put little emphasis on the person and message of Christ. They preach primarily about “God”, with little mention of Jesus, and hardly a word about the Holy Spirit.

Frances: Calvin’s Pedagogic Messiah Robbed the Incarnation

Max: was involved with the emergent church movement (Rob Bell, Brian McLaren) … he then reinvented himself, to join the resurgent (New Calvinist) movement … reinventing himself again in Phoenix as a Charismatic Calvinist …

Religion has become very heideggerian and rubbery (without genuine personality). I knew finger-wagging fake existentialists, myself.

Before light and time, there was person. You can’t do any science or knowledge without personality.

Headless Unicorn Guy,

Do some want to join the same churches as the Palestinians? (As a random anthropological case, in case it is political.) Would our fellow congregants want to emulate that somehow?

senecagriggs:
Dee, isn’t this an age old story?There is a change in leadership/direction.The majority apparently approved, a minority dis-approved.The minority is unhappy, probably leave.

To quote Solomon, “there is nothing new under the sun.”

An interesting side note about the change of leadership at First Baptist Atlanta decades ago.Young Charles Stanley was give the pastoral role against huge opposition by the older leadership.It was so bad that he was actually punched by the head deacon on a Wednesday night.Ultimately that worked in his favor because if you’re the head deacon and you punch the pastor during Wednesday night prayer meeting,you have lost.And that’s what happened.Those who hated Charles left and the rest is history.

Later, though, when his wife was planning to divorce him, Stanley begged the deacons to let him stay and work through his marital issues, with the promise that if he could not, he would step down.

They divorced. He broke his promise and forced a congregational vote. Of course, being popular, he won.

Mark R: They’re still going strong.

Everything has its season, I suppose. God gives us what we want in church, if we choose not to accept what He offers.

John: But the majority didn’t approve, at least a majority sufficient to approve the hostile takeover. They improperly used their positions of authority to oust long standing members to rig a minority. Then the new majority of squatters declares victory and accuses the victims of unbiblical behavior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=humVU3QGkuk

Mark R: What’s that old saying? Be careful what you wish, you might get it?

Israel cried out for a King; God let them have what they wanted. They could have rescued Jesus their Messiah, but cried out for Barabbas the thief. Same thing going on in much of the American church. We would rather have what ‘we’ want, than Jesus … so we get mega-mania with all its bells and whistles, celebrity pastors who are more entertainers than preachers of the Gospel, watered down soothing messages, etc. etc.

Mark R,

I was in Stanley’s church in the spring of 2000 when he announced the divorce at the end of his sermon. He received a standing ovation. I stood up too, but 10 years later I resigned my Southern Baptist membership.

Max: watered down soothing messages, etc. etc.

More like Both Extremes, depending on the church:
“Watered down soothing messages” or in-your-face Culture War Hate Rants dripping with SMITE SM(TE SMITE HELL HELL HELL and justified by Prophecy and Visions. Or a third alternative of It’s All Gonna Burn (any minute now) Christian Nihilism.

Troy: I was in Stanley’s church in the spring of 2000 when he announced the divorce at the end of his sermon. He received a standing ovation.

That says a LOT about the condition of the American church. TWW has reported a multitude of standing ovations given to wayward pastors … instead of weeping over the confession of sin, modern worshipers now applaud. We’ve lost our way.

https://capstonereport.com/2023/12/17/david-platts-prosperity-gospel-platt-buys-1-1-million-home/42532/

The problem with this narrative is that Lon wanted Platt to take over. Lon had grown more friendly to reformed theology in his later years and saw Platt as a great fit to take over and continue growing the church. Platt screwed up terribly in how he treated Lon from then on out and lost what could have been a key ally in the process. I’m not a huge fan of Platt, but the origins story of this whole debacle is way off.

Also, Lon did not start this church. It was a church plant of a local presbyterian church. When Lon took over, he installed all his own yes men as elders and controlled it with a strong hand until he decided to retire. So some of his elders who are bitter here are unhappy they lost power.

But this is not the conspiracy these guys are trying to make it.