“I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral conduct as he is of outward appearances.”
-Confucius
“There comes a point where a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his conscience.”
– Ann Tusa, The Nuremberg Trial
Wednesday Dee wrote an article titled Matt Queen and His “Integrity” Is the Reason I No Longer Trust the SBC to Protect Abuse Victims. You can view the article here.
Queen had been placed on leave of absence from his job as Senior Pastor of Friendly Avenue Baptist Church once they became aware of the indictment by the Department of Justice. Below is the statement published by Queen’s church once he changed his plea from “not guilty” to “guilty.”
As you can see, Queen will be sentenced on February 2025. I am predicting Queen will receive a light sentence. Why do I predict this? Because the Department of Justice, in the opinion of some legal experts is likely interested in going after bigger fish.
In an article by the Baptist News Global titled “Former Southwestern professor charged in FBI probe claims God told him in a dream to change his testimony” published on July 23, 2024 David Bumgardner wrote:
Two months after this article was published Queen changed his plea from “not guilty” to “guilty.” According to the above article, Queen could now be considered “cooperative.” What was the purpose of this? Most likely to obtain a lighter sentence by turning state’s evidence.
Note: “Turn state’s evidence means the defendant chose to reveal valuable evidence to the prosecutor, in exchange for a reduction of the charge or the dismissal of some charges. When the defendant “flips” they are said to have “turned state’s evidence.” This is common in instances of organized crime when a defendant provides information on a co-defendant or other members’ crimes. The defendant tries to flip for a better sentence, but it should be agreed by the judge.”
Source
In the above article, Queen’s Attorney, Sam A. Schmidt stated “there are only two or three potential subjects of this investigation, and each of them are very aware that they are potential subjects.”
Who are these subjects? Obviously Matt Queen is one. Heath Woolman appears likely to be a second subject of the investigation, and perhaps the bigger fish the Department of Justice is interested in going after. In the article below, David Dockery, the president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, named Chief of Staff Heath Woolman “employee 2” in the indictment.
The video below is from May 14, 2023. Heath Woolman was preaching at Fruit Cove Baptist Church prior to being offered the job as the senior pastor. He has some skeletons in his closet, even though he said he doesn’t and he appears quite relieved that the pastoral search team didn’t uncover the burgeoning scandal he was involved in at SWBTS.
Take a look at the endorsements or “Words of Affirmation” Heath Woolman obtained in a successful bid to obtain the job of Senior Pastor at Fruit Cove church.
People should realize by now that, unfortunately, Christian leaders who obtain high positions in the Evangelical Industrial Complex have each other’s backs. “Words of Affirmation” from their colleagues are worthless. It’s hard to imagine that David Dockery didn’t know that Woolman was lying to him when he told him that he never told Women’s Dean Stovall to make her report go away, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Once the scandal became public Dockery did say he regretted endorsing Woolman for his senior pastor’s job and wouldn’t have done so now.
Notice anything missing in this recent screenshot from Heath Woolman’s Facebook account? If you noted that Woolman failed to list his 15 month stint at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary serving as the Chief of Staff, you are an observant person. I would like to hear from Woolman his reason for not listing that influential job.
Below is a screenshot taken from the Federal indictment of Matthew Queen. Employee 2 is Heath Woolman, employee 1 is Terri Stovall. She did nothing wrong and is actually the hero of this story.
My advice to Heath Woolman is tell the truth to the members of Fruit Cove Baptist Church. He owes them that, he has deceived them long enough. Then he should resign and find a good attorney. I have a feeling he will be needing one.
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“My advice to Heath Woolman is tell the truth to the members of Fruit Cove Baptist Church.”
Good advice but color me skeptical it will happen.
Everyone loves to talk about king David but I think most completely miss why he was said to be a man after Gods own heart. It wasn’t because David was a warrior or a strong leader. Or even that he wrote and sang spiritual songs. Lots of people do those things.
I think it was because when confronted with his sin involving Bathsheba & Uriah he admitted he was wrong and signed his name to that admission for all of eternity in Psalm 51. Humility via complete ownership publicly of one’s wrongdoing without hedging. Truly rare to find.
Can anyone name a single Theo-dude in recent memory who has admitted and owned their sin publicly and completely? [crickets]. Yeah, I can’t either.
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Fisher,
The King David thing really gets old.
It’s as worn out as the bald tires on a big rig.
Every time I hear some Bible ‘teacher’ prattle on about it again, I can’t decide whether to laugh, cry, fart, or cuss.
Probably all four, but I can’t predict in what order.
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Fisher,
Excellent observations
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And it seems that church leaders are the last to confess up.
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“People should realize by now that, unfortunately, Christian leaders who obtain high positions in the Evangelical Industrial Complex have each other’s backs.”
And there is a really bad case of that in the New Calvinist movement. The dudebros cover for each other until the potato becomes too hot to handle … then they protect their own skin by distancing themselves from the bad-boys with “Driscoll who? … “MacDonald who?” … “Patterson who?” … “Woolman who?” etc. etc.
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“no skeletons in his closet”
Now they are on the internet.
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Video clip: “Heath Woolman Preaching about Hypocrisy”
There is an interesting dynamic in the American church. Some preachers preach the hardest about the sins they themselves are living. It’s meant to distract, to put the focus on the pew instead of the pulpit.
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These reports are one of the reasons I no longer have any faith. I’m a cultural Christian in so far as adhering to some of the basic tenets but I can find those tenets without being Christian.
Ultimately it’s a mess that Christians have to clean up. They keep following these clowns.
Every so often I take a hiatus from reading here, and I think I’ll be going on a longer than usual one this time.
As I’ve said before quoting St Smokey “only you can prevent forest fires”
All the best, peace out.
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Fact.
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People of Faith who follow Jesus filled with the Holy Spirit place their faith in God never man; Jesus was a man but also uniquely the Son of God.
The religious people of Jesus’s day executed the Son of God. Trusting humans for holiness is a distraction at best and an execution at worst. The religious leaders, the elite, and the civic leaders orchestrated Jesus’s execution. The regular folk in the mob then voted for the criminal Barabbas to live and Jesus to be executed.
Faith in people culminated in the execution of the most perfect One to ever walk on Earth.
Eventually, Jesus’s disciples figured this out. Jesus’s disciples today are still figuring this out.
Beware of and aware of faith in people versus faith in God. Beware of church, always.
Churches are comprised of people. Are they people who are Faithful to Jesus or to themselves? The question.
“The voice of God is a higher voice, a higher calling … A discerning person filters out God from the cacophony of voices … Do I follow the Ego Drama where I or another man is the writer, the producer, the director, and oh, yes, the Star, too? Or, do I follow the Theo Drama of the God Who created me and the God Who has meaningful things for me to do …?” – Bishop Barron speaking at the Naval Academy about 3 years ago.
Some churches are clearly run by a leader who is all about the Ego Drama, not the Theo Drama. That leader is the writer, the producer, the director, and oh, yes, he is the star, too.
The Wartburg Watch is a place to sort out the Ego Dramas going on in churches from the Followers of Jesus. In other words, throw out the junk mail but keep the meaningful. Keep God and His people. Throw out the junk.
It’s as simple as shucking corn on the cob for a summer BBQ. Get to the good stuff. We don’t throw out ears of corn; we throw out the discards to enjoy a delicious feast.
“Oh taste and see that the Lord is good, and blessed is the man who trusts in Him,” wrote the Psalmist.
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Ava–great comment! And I wish I had a dollar for every time I see or hear the idea that Christians must attend church so they can have Christian fellowship or prevent backsliding.
Bah! Christian fellowship abounds outside the doors of the church, and backsliding abounds within!
I have friends who were missionaries for 50 years on the Navajo rez. About 45 of those they served within churches. Finally they realized what was happening within the walls was not church and they began serving people outside the walls. Now they say they cannot “go to church” since believers ARE the church and there is no where they need to “go” to be “in church.” And their ministry now that they are retired is reaching more people, and reaching them more deeply than ever.
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When I came to Christ decades ago, I put my faith in Him alone … not in any minister, ministry, method, or message. Staying focused on Jesus has helped me keep my spiritual sanity during my journey through the American church. Indeed, I’ve found Him working more outside of the organized church than within it. The Christian Industrial Complex with its multiple flavors of “gospel” hype, celebrities, cheap grace, and mega-mania has darn near eliminated ‘the’ Gospel from Sunday morning worship. But Jesus is alive and well in the hearts of those who believe, which is the essence of Christianity.
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Max,
While I do not disagree with Max, the sad thing is that we humans are also “social beings”. As I get older, I am realizing how I can be content with what Max wrote, partially because I lived long enough to see the bankrupcy of so much of American Christianity, yet realize there are nuggets/jewels that you need to dig for. What is sad, as I listed above, is for all of the young people mislead by all the clowns… It is easy for me to call them clowns, much harder when you are young…
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just as we all have to dig our own spiritual wells … I long for the faith community I once knew in church, where there was unity and every believer (regardless of race, class or gender) was free to exercise their unique spiritual gifting … but a new generation of authoritarian church leaders have messed that up
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Speaking of skeletons in the closet, on another front:
Gateway Church removes 4 church elders who knew about Morris’ sexual misconduct and did nothing about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deqykNKMjWg
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This is an interesting conversation. It’s great that Christians have made peace with being Christians but here’s some reality. I’m no longer Christian, since COVID, my wife has been a Christian mostly by going to church on line. My 16 year old son has decided to be Christian. His friends are mostly claiming to be atheist, his family is not connected to a church, a lot of folks here say beware of church.
Where does that leave him? As a parent, I don’t trust church so I’m the worst “Christian” role model.
This is a serious question, if he feels a calling, how can he answer? Maybe the question will answer itself when he becomes an adult but it’s more likely he’ll become a cultural Christian rather than a person of deep faith.
Many people here started faith in a church, including myself. We were schooled (or indoctrinated if your a Richard Dawkins), so without Jesus showing up in a golden chariot, he won’t magically become Christian.
Just food for thought, it’s easy to say “chuck church”, don’t need it, but how do new Christians connect otherwise?
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Jack–I became a Christian in my teens. My folks sporadically attended church when I was a child, and more in my early teens. Then they quit going without losing their faith. When I came to faith in Christ I spent about 1 1/2 years reading the gospels before I set foot back in church.
I encourage everyone, believers, non believers, seasoned saints, whoever to spend a year reading a chapter of the gospels a day, and hanging out with Jesus.
Then and only then are you even remotely ready for “Christianity.”
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Now, if the elders want to continue to “do the right thing”, they will contact that woman who was “removed by security” for wanting to know what was going on financially, formally and publicly apologize to her, and invite her to return, no strings attached.
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Eds. note:I would be caeful with anecdotal evidence as observed by “Seneca.”They teach the problem with that in most schools today.
It would appear that the majority of TWW regulars no longer attend church on a regular basis?
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That’s the key, isn’t it.
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Linda, lovely story.
Hudson Taylor, missionary in China, also split from his org back home in England. Then George Müller, who also disagreed with the institutional church, supported Hudson Taylor as he, Taylor, flourished in England. Both Taylor and George Müller dissented re: church org protocols while following their conscience. Both flourished. God honored their faithfulness.
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Oops … correction:
Then George Müller, who also disagreed with the institutional church, supported Hudson Taylor in China, as he, George Müller, flourished in England.
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Jack,
Your best as role model is to be a good agnostic. Agnostic is what is now declared practically illegal by “theist” and “atheist” heavies alike. My top ambition has come to be, to share my spiritual gifts to help agnostics be better agnostics, and to help followers of subtractive religion to become believers in more meanings that organisations don’t own.
In my young day agnostics were very kindly towards believing children: I got some of my best RE from them first, showing they accorded high value without going through the hoops of the outward wedge drivers.
(I think that without feeling a need to “bother with theology” they would see a MLJ type as having their feet more on the ground vis a vis the people around him, and a Stott type as being “up to something”.)
(Those who are “Christ Alone” are by definition dual-action Holy Spirit affirming as well, unless they are dishonest to their definition; see Frances’ recent comment on Incarnation.)
The insights we have won by cold sweats at night, precious to your empathy, you can offer them to your son and he’ll strengthen a perspective that “conventional christianity” fogeys of all current generations have never had.
Most of my life, I felt I fitted in precisely by not fitting in and wished more of the others would too.
What your son already has and what you give him are his passport, though the “security force” on the door may deny it. (I’ve encountered the unwitting and witting “security force” in people’s heads and propaganda wars.)
The serendipitous eponym of the church in the story, “Fruit Cove”, is God’s witty reminder about values.
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So much of what goes on in church is not ‘the’ Church at all.
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Jack,
I wish I had a easy answer to you.. On the other hand, if I had a easy, “canned” answer, I would probably part of the “problem”. One thought I do have is discussing the conept of “world view”. Whether one thinks about it our not, they do have a “world view”.. What I think is realvent further is that many of the “abuses” discussed here on TWW are from people that profess one thing, but live a life that is governed by a different “world view”
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These guys always pull out the David card. David was in the military, not the ministry. David was a king, not a pastor.
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Yes, the references to justifying everything and anything on David’s life and “short comings” is really wearing thin. Jesus, his identity, life and teaching about the nature of God and His will for humanity, is the only narrative for anyone who claims to be a Christian. If that bar seems too high, be thankful, it’s what reconciled us to God and gives us blessed hope.
Regarding the conversations around the “short comings” of the church. Yes, it is disturbing, and it does seem, at least within the Western World, that people within pastoral leadership roles today are shameless and utilize the churches they are affiliated with as stalking horses. But as some have already mentioned, there isn’t anything new under the sun and that there are “churches” and there is the body of Christ with members of all shapes and sizes.
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Fisher,
“Everyone loves to talk about king David but I think most completely miss why he was said to be a man after Gods own heart. It wasn’t because David was a warrior or a strong leader. Or even that he wrote and sang spiritual songs. Lots of people do those things.
I think it was because when confronted with his sin involving Bathsheba & Uriah he admitted he was wrong and signed his name to that admission for all of eternity in Psalm 51. Humility via complete ownership publicly of one’s wrongdoing without hedging. Truly rare to find.”
++++++++++++++++++
I find David not all that exciting, let alone exemplary.
The Goliath story is cool. But aside from that…?
Samuel thought he was a man after God’s own heart (who knows what means, really).
it’s an observation of what he perceived; doesn’t necessarily mean it’s empirically true. we don’t necessarily have to agree 100%.
I’d be impressed with David if he refused to act on his attraction to Bathsheba and honored her marriage with Uriah.
If not than, then if David came clean and confessed on his own without being prompted by the confrontation.
low expectations all ’round.
David is not a pass on above reproach.
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IMO, too much emphasis is placed on David, not God, in that story.
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And the only angle to that story is “DAVID GOT AWAY WITH IT! SO MUST I!”
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As Entropy sets in, “Christ Alone” drifts into (and ends up as) “Lone Ranger Christians” with no connection to anyone or anything else — “Us Four, No More, AMEN” minus three.
Same with “Sola Scriptura” (“Bible Alone”), but that ends up with duckspeaking single verses to chapters without activiating any higher brain function. And a view of the Bible more like a Wahabi to the Koran.
There’s a word in Hopi (which I’m not going to even try to pronounce) that translates as “Life Out of Balance”.
Chesterton wrote that Christianity was a dynamic balance between contradicting doctrines, “any one of which in isolation could lay waste to a world”. And the above are just two of the ways to go Out of Balance.
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SECULAR schools, you mean.
Anecdotal Evidence DOMINATES Christianese Culture; look at all the anecdotal justifications you find in Sermons, books, Dreams, Visions, Prophecies, etc.
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senecagriggs,
I can’t find the piece about what they teach in schools or hence why something being “anecdotal” or not may be relevant (everything is anecdotal at first). Did this begin on another thread?
As for commenters some of us don’t go to churches you would call churches, that’s all. Even my reformed church wouldn’t fit your bill.
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Jack,
Jack, the best your son can do, as whatever sort of believer he defines himself to be, and honouring truly respectful agnosticism over baggage, is to add his prayers for protection to all our general situation. It would be wrong of anyone to demand he await church organisational permission to do that.
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Thanks to everyone who responded. There’s no easy answers but your perspective is appreciated.
Take care.
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Read the red! If you don’t, you may easily fall for a gospel which is not ‘the’ Gospel at all.
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Like the Gospel of Hal Lindsay and Jack Chick?
(Which was near-universal when I was in-country in the mid-Seventies.)