Kylee Griswold

Presbyterian Church In America Invites Professional Polarizer David French To Lecture Christians On Getting Along

I emailed the PCA General Assembly and its Administrative Committee’s head Bryan Chapell that very question and received no response. An email obtained by The Federalist that was apparently sent to many people who complained about the French pick, however, said the PCA is “currently seeking to discern the accuracy of concerns that have been expressed to this office since the [French] announcement,” and a PCA spokesman has “asked those who have expressed concerns about Mr. French taking unbiblical positions to provide documentation.”

One month from today, Presbyterian leaders will gather in Richmond, Virginia, for the Presbyterian Church in America’s annual General Assembly to discuss and debate church issues and decide on matters of importance. One attendee, nay speaker, however, is decidedly not Presbyterian.
That little ray of sunshine is David French — the Army JAG (in case you didn’t know)-turned-religious liberty litigator-turned-writer whose brain has been so corrupted by Trump derangement that he sold out to The New York Times and The Atlantic, where his columns are indistinguishable from the dishonest drivel of the legacy press’s anti-religious religion reporters. In a phrase, he’s a regular accuser of the brethren.
French makes political polarization his personal brand, so it’s curious that the PCA has invited him to be a panelist at an assembly-wide seminar called “How to Be Supportive of Your Pastor and Church Leaders in a Polarized Political Year.” Is the denomination unaware that French’s family publicly left the PCA because it’s a “hostile” congregation of “neo-Confederates“?
If the PCA knew this and invited him anyway, shame on them. And if they somehow didn’t know because their heads are buried that far in the sand — unlikely, especially considering the PCA’s leftward decline, but I repeat myself — double shame.
So I emailed the PCA General Assembly and its Administrative Committee’s head Bryan Chapell that very question and received no response. An email obtained by The Federalist that was apparently sent to many people who complained about the French pick, however, said the PCA is “currently seeking to discern the accuracy of concerns that have been expressed to this office since the [French] announcement,” and a PCA spokesman has “asked those who have expressed concerns about Mr. French taking unbiblical positions to provide documentation.”
Long before French became a willing participant in atheist Rob Reiner’s anti-Trump “documentary” “God & Country” earlier this year, he was invoking white guilt to toss a cohort of Christians who vote differently than he does into the “Christian nationalism” basket. Evangelicals (specifically white ones) who were hesitant about getting the rushed and mandated Covid jab were actually “reluctant to consider the health of their community” and had a “spiritual problem.”
Less than two weeks after radical pro-abortion and pro-transgender candidate Joe Biden became the presumptive Democrat nominee in 2020, French said those who favored Trump were of low character and competence — even though, as Nathaniel Blake wrote in these pages, French was previously “behind ‘Evangelicals for Mitt’ and spent years arguing that our political leaders need not be avatars for our beliefs.”
Then there’s French’s evolution on so-called “gay marriage” in federal law. He says his views on traditional, biblical marriage have not changed. But during the fight over the misnamed Respect for Marriage Act — which requires every state and the federal government to recognize homosexual “marriages” and was signed into law by French-endorsed President Biden.
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Courage Is a Christian’s Only Path Forward from the Legal Hell the ‘Winsome’ Gospel Wrought

There’s a glaring problem with the “winsome” worldview: It ultimately measures a Christian’s fidelity to the gospel based on how he is perceived by God’s enemies — and in the process, it implies Christians who aren’t adored by their unregenerate neighbors are unloving. This version of Christianity doesn’t work. What you end up with on the one hand are craven Christians who pat themselves on the back for their likeability while being largely untethered from all principles save the approval of man.

303 Creative has finally been decided, and Christians — and all Americans — won. In a 6-3 landmark decision on Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that graphic designer Lorie Smith can’t be compelled to affirm values that conflict with her deeply held religious beliefs about marriage by designing wedding websites for same-sex couples.
As we celebrate this victory — and we all should because, as the majority rightly stated, “The First Amendment’s protections belong to all, not just to speakers whose motives the government finds worthy” — it’s worth reflecting on how we got here. Smith isn’t the only one to have fought this battle, and she won’t be the last. Life-destroying left-wing lawfare came for cake artist Jack Phillips and florist Barronelle Stutzman all the same.
Of course, a major piece to the puzzle is that we live in what Aaron Renn astutely terms the “negative world.” This era of Christian living began around 2014, just after Phillips first declined to design a cake celebrating a homosexual union and just before the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision cemented Christians in what Renn called a “new low status.” In this negative world, church attendance has plunged, intolerance of traditional religious values has skyrocketed, and Christians have been dragged into court for their faithfulness — many into the court of public opinion, if not an actual courtroom.
We’d be foolish to ignore the other contributing factor, however, and it’s not one that can be wrapped up into a nice little bow called Obergefell and draped around the necks of our political foes. No, this other factor comes straight from within the church.
Go Forth and Be Charming?
It’s called “winsomeness.” Being winsome is not a novel idea, obviously, nor even a Christian one. To be winsome is to be charming, attractive, or appealing with one’s demeanor or character — an admirable goal, to be sure, and one that should apply to Christians.
But in coopting the idea into a veritable doctrine, Christian leaders morphed winsomeness from a desirable trait into a hermeneutic through which they judge all Christian conviction and conduct. Thus as America hurtled toward the negative world, and Christian leaders were suddenly faced with the prospect of a Trump presidency, winsomeness became a trump card in matters of spiritual significance. Religious and thought leaders, such as Russell Moore and David French among many others, became victims of the mind virus and infected hordes of others.
It might have started as an understandable — if short-sighted — response to Donald Trump. Just be nice. But then it spread vindictively, and with each mutation, it looked a little more like worldliness and a little less like godliness. The gist of the “winsome” ethos is that for Christians to be faithful, they must be perceived as kind and likable by the unbelieving world they hope to evangelize. And the symptoms are easy to identify.
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