Sent out a tweet a couple days ago in response to an interview Matt Chandler got HBO’s Vice to do with him. He’d told them he was the guy they should interview because he’s the guy who has things figured out and he’s the guy who is building one of the fastest growing churches in the country where “de-churched” people can get back in touch with genuine and authentic Christianity.
Stuff like that oozes from the man. He’s cocky, suave, glib, and gay (lacking the male principle). He can’t seem to help speaking in a self-ingratiating way, ending his sentences with this grating up-swing while gesticulating with his hyperprestidigitatious hands. Sort of a Scott Sauls/Tim Keller hybrid.
But aside from his presentation, his rhetoric and content are evil (if we still believe in it). This was my tweet:
Are we Christians really so far gone we think anyone should listen 2 Matt Chandler? He says this abt homosexuality: “I am not going to disagree that I I I would think from Scripture that it is not ultimately what God intends.” This guy claims 2 speak for God? #wakeupsleepers
That connivingly dishonest statement about the sinfulness of homosexuality is only the beginning of Chandler’s betrayal of Christ and His Church. He’s so eager to please his comely young interviewer that he tosses his fellow believers under the bus. Again and again. We are afraid. We are fearful. We’ve given up our souls. We think gays have no souls. We don’t even think gays are human…
Now then, a question: how should elders and pastors deal with Chandler? Should we merely say we “disagree” with him, or should we warn our people not to listen to him because he’s a false shepherd? Is there anything serious at stake with Chandler shepherding souls, including the souls of our congregations under our watch-care? Are the words coming out of Chandler’s mouth innocuous, slightly dangerous, or lethal to Christ’s sheep?
Increasingly, I am concerned with the approach taken by pastors and elders to fellow church officers who lay claim to national leadership while betraying God’s truth and God’s people. Chandler does this so obviously in this interview. It doesn’t much bother me that Chandler despises President Trump and says President Obama is “great.” I get it that Chandler needs to flatter his pretty interviewer’s political ideology if she or her colleagues are going to continue to invite him to be their go-to interpreter off all things $churchianity$.
But when it comes to God and His people and sin, righteousness, and judgment, to blow false notes is evil. It destroys souls. Pastors who fear God and love their sheep should condemn Matt Chandler. He saves his life rather than losing it for the sake of Christ and His Church.
Here’s an excellent deconstruction of Chandler’s interview by our brother Keith Darrell, a preacher of the Whitefield Fellowship whose calling is campus evangelism. Listen to it carefully. He starts in on Chandler directly at 7′, but don’t skip over the first six minutes. My only tweak would be that I think Keith toned himself down too much and would have been more helpful had he been blunt in warning against Chandler’s leadership.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5JcUk9XLEA&w=560&h=315]
