Thread by @JoshDaws

Big Eva (for lack of a better term) tells our pastors how they are supposed to think about their own church members. Instead of encouraging them to humbly listen to the concerns of their congregation, they poison their minds against us. 🧵 1/

The @megbasham article and the response it has generated have really clarified what my grievances against Big Eva are. By "Big Eva", I mean the parachurch organizations like TGC and their leaders that have outsized influence in many of our churches. 2/

I believe many of these organizations started with good intentions. They have produced some wonderful content and still do. I shared a couple of TGC articles this week. 3/

Over time, however, these organizations have gotten into the business of producing ammunition for pastors to use against their congregations. 4/

Even this was well-intentioned I believe. It's certainly helpful to have an article pastors can reference when someone in their church starts denying the virgin birth or espousing the curse of Ham to name a couple examples. 5/

This becomes a problem when Big Eva leaders start publishing content on debatable issues with the same sense of authority they use when writing about historic orthodox Christianity. 6/

Pastors have been conditioned to reach for prepackaged arguments off the @TGC, @9Marks, or @desiringGod shelves any time they need help with problems in their congregation. 7/

The past few years have seen these organizations move far afield of their founding purposes as they regularly address issues of the day with a borrowed authority they had previously earned through their sound biblical teaching on the gospel and other doctrines. 8/

Pastors unsure of how to respond to growing calls for racial and social justice turned reflexively to these organizations to learn what they should think. 9/

Rather than being encouraged to humbly listen to ALL of the concerns of the people in their congregation, they were told which side was right and which side was wrong on entirely debatable matters; telling pastors how they should think about their own church members. 10/

Big Eva has become a platform for laundering the opinions of its elite-adjacent leaders straight into our churches' pulpits and elders' meetings. This was never more evident than in the early days of Covid. 11/

Instead of recognizing their lack of authority to speak definitively into an unfolding situation, we were greeted with a stream of authoritative content telling us the right way to think about covid mandates and accusing the wrong-thinkers of not loving their neighbor. 12/

The wrong-thinkers in the pews were shut down any time they tried to offer another perspective or question the validity of certain covid responses. 13/

Distraught Church members facing vaccine mandates at their work were hit with Big Eva articles on why they shouldn't be granted a religious exemption when they went to their pastor for advice. 14/

Social Media is the only platform we have for counteracting the enormous influence Big Eva has in our churches and with our pastors. @megbasham has done tremendous work exposing how that influence has been exploited or abused. 15/

Now they want her to apologize while they lament the tone of the debate on social media. You want to know why there is such ire directed at Big Eva? They're trying to silence us on the only platform we have to air our grievances. 16/

"This is not the correct forum for these conversations." This is the ONLY forum for these conversations that the little guys have and we're fed up. 17/

I'm an advocate for civil discussion, but that's not going to happen until Big Eva shows some humility and take our critiques seriously. They bend over backward to read Du Mez or Tisby in the most charitable light but are quick to dismiss us as trolls. /18

Please, Big Eva leaders. I'm begging you to reconsider how you've abused the trust you've accrued. Stop using those platforms as your own personal soapbox and own your mistakes. You're sowing division in our churches. Please stop. 19/19

Addendum: it's unfair to single out pastors. Plenty of church members use Big Eva content as ammunition against their faithful pastors. Either way, Big Eva is providing ammunition and sowing division in our churches by speaking authoritatively on things they shouldn't be.