{"id":1307189,"date":"2022-02-17T11:16:18","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T16:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1307189"},"modified":"2022-02-17T16:22:53","modified_gmt":"2022-02-17T21:22:53","slug":"major-pastors-rebuke-david-french-over-his-repeated-criticism-of-churches-and-white-evangelicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/major-pastors-rebuke-david-french-over-his-repeated-criticism-of-churches-and-white-evangelicals\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Pastors Rebuke David French Over His Repeated Criticism of Churches and \u2018White Evangelicals\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmajor-pastors-rebuke-david-french-over-his-repeated-criticism-of-churches-and-white-evangelicals%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1307189&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/GettyImages-157610088-scaled-1-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>For years, decades even, political pundit David French has been a well-respected and frequently cited voice in Protestant circles. This was especially true when he was on staff at the conservative journal, National Review. Recently though, his frequent criticism of his fellow believers over their support of Donald Trump, skepticism of government COVID-19 policies, and rejection of racial ideologies derived from Critical Race Theory has more and more well-known pastors cautioning that French\u2019s writing lacks discernment and Christian charity.<\/p>\n<p>In dozens of essays over the last two years, French has routinely decried what he views as the sins of white evangelicals. While some of this writing has appeared in large, mainstream publications like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2021\/12\/the-new-rights-strange-and-dangerous-cult-of-toughness\/620861\/\">The Atlantic<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/6071909\/covid-19-vaccine-culture-war\/\">Time Magazine<\/a>, most of his criticism is delivered in his \u201cSunday Essays\u201d\u2014 a weekly op-ed that French publishes via <a href=\"https:\/\/frenchpress.thedispatch.com\/\">The Dispatch<\/a> on the day Christians set aside for worship and fellowshipping as local church communities. The tendency of the articles to spark dissension and arguments between Christians on what is known as \u201cthe Lord\u2019s day\u201d has even become something of a running joke on social media. As pastor Steven Wedgeworth, a columnist for the Evangelical outlet World Magazine, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wedgetweets\/status\/1480510620277559297?s=11\">quipped<\/a>, \u201cThe 4th Commandment [to remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy] was given in part to spare you from bad Sunday columns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easy to see why French\u2019s views of his brethren receive such a fierce reaction, given that he often charges them with Covid conspiracy-mongering, racism, and being motivated by a desire to defend their white supremacist power.<\/p>\n<p>Promoting his most-recent <a href=\"https:\/\/frenchpress.thedispatch.com\/p\/the-seeds-of-political-violence-are\">piece,<\/a> in which he warned against small, fringe Christian groups who believe the 2020 election was stolen, French <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DavidAFrench\/status\/1492890181988458500?s=20&amp;t=GUN-Gem4Wkt-gJg3J0cm5w\">asked<\/a>, \u201cWhere are America\u2019s most dangerous political radicals?\u201d His answer wasn\u2019t found in Black Lives Matter, Antifa, or Islamic splinter cells. Rather, he said, they are, \u201crallying in churches, by the thousands, in city after city. In church after church.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is opining like this that led Rev. Kevin DeYoung, who has praised French in the past, to <a href=\"https:\/\/wng.org\/opinions\/deyoung-on-white-evangelicalism-1639659990\">charge<\/a> him with indulging in a sustained \u201cwhite evangelical jeremiad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DeYoung is a well-respected Protestant figure thanks not only to his leadership of a large Presbyterian church in Charlotte, North Carolina, but also due to a number of books he has authored and his role on the council of the popular reformed publication, The Gospel Coalition.<\/p>\n<p>In an opinion piece addressing the frequency of French\u2019s attacks on white American Christians, in particular, DeYoung noted, \u201c[French\u2019s essays have] the same head-shaking \u2018you people\u2019 vibe that prompted the \u2018deplorables\u2019 to embrace Trump in the first place. It\u2019s one thing to object to an idea or to a set of propositions,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s another to object to a class of people. Even if French is right, and evangelicals should not have supported (voted for?) Trump and evangelicals should not be skeptical about many of the Covid protocols, there is little sympathy for trying to understand why evangelicals might have behaved in these ways. There is no persuasion, only pique and annoyance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>French did not take the rebuke well. In a fiery <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DavidAFrench\/status\/1471572757548838918?s=20&amp;t=YyiSiSNfQNTMB9Nqn1T1Tw\">Twitter thread<\/a>, he dismissed pastors as not possessing \u201cpolicy expertise.\u201d French then added:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>&nbsp;Sadly, when I see pastors wade in on matters of law\/policy, it is rare to see superior insight. And when I do it\u2019s because of a degree of committed study that is highly unusual. Otherwise, pastors risk their credibility by speaking about things they don\u2019t truly understand. Those of us who know law and policy, on the other hand, know where ideas come from and transparently, obviously know that many (not all!) of the political positions that characterize white evangelicals don\u2019t have any meaningful Evangelical theological origin at all.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>DeYoung then <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RevKevDeYoung\/status\/1471614941958389764?s=20&amp;t=YyiSiSNfQNTMB9Nqn1T1Tw\">pointed out<\/a> that however low a view French may have of pastoral expertise, they, not pundits, are the people the Bible has given the role of feeding, leading, and protecting their flocks. \u201cMy church is filled with white evangelicals,\u201d the pastor <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RevKevDeYoung\/status\/1471617116948287494?s=20&amp;t=zYK09k28wo-4mKxX_5RnNA\">replied<\/a>, \u201cand they don\u2019t deserve to be castigated every week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But DeYoung is hardly alone in being a pastoral voice with a reputation for gentleness now calling French to account.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Leeman, pastor, author, and leader of the international church-equipping ministry <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9marks.org\/\">9Marks<\/a>, took French to task for an <a href=\"https:\/\/frenchpress.thedispatch.com\/p\/a-nation-of-christians-is-not-necessarily\">essay<\/a> in which he argued that the loss of Christian power and influence in the U.S. has led it to become a <em>more<\/em> Christian nation in many ways. With a gentle, collegial tone, Leeman asked French, \u201cMay I offer one challenge to what feels like the general thrust of your article?\u201d He then went on:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>The pastoral burden for my push back is: it doesn\u2019t serve the church member who shows up in the pastor\u2019s office with their job on the line for refusing to put their pronoun in their email signature to say, \u201cYou\u2019re freer than you\u2019ve ever been!\u201d\u2026 Rather, because Christ\u2019s kingdom is upside down, as you say, I believe it\u2019s better to say, \u201cI\u2019m so sorry. I find it\u2019s helpful to remember that Jesus predicted trouble in this world for following him.\u201d \u2026 Jesus\u2019s pastoral burden was to prepare Christians for persecution, not tell us we don\u2019t have it that bad \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I agree with your saying to believers, \u201cHey, the past wasn\u2019t always as Christian as we might think. There was a whole lot of hypocrisy and nominalism that led to terrible injustices against minorities, Catholics, etc.\u201d<\/em> <em>Yet my suggestion is not to pit this affirmation against the very real losses people are feeling and experiencing AS CHRISTIANS.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>French did not reply.<\/p>\n<p>But he did reply to Josh Daws, a layman whose Dietrich Bonhoeffer <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SkinnerBNation\/status\/1493983386985136128?s=20&amp;t=GUN-Gem4Wkt-gJg3J0cm5w\">quote<\/a> was widely circulated among evangelicals on Twitter who felt it accurately described French.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial,\u201d Daws quoted Bonhoeffer. \u201cGod hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idolized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands set up by their own law, and judge one another and God accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of pastors and church leaders were among the hundreds who retweeted it and more than one thousand who liked it. French did not deal with the spiritual thrust of the quote, but rather <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DavidAFrench\/status\/1493663015882969094?s=20&amp;t=GUN-Gem4Wkt-gJg3J0cm5w\">stuck<\/a> to the thesis of his most recent op-ed on churches as breeding grounds for religious radicals. This, despite the fact Daws made it clear he was addressing the totality of French\u2019s Sunday essays.<\/p>\n<p>While the majority of French\u2019s writing on white Christians has reproached them as groups, he has occasionally gone after specific evangelical leaders, and that, too, has earned him some pushback.<\/p>\n<p>After Southern Seminary President Albert Mohler, a highly influential figure in Protestant circles, revealed in 2020 that he was supporting Donald Trump in the presidential election despite his disapproval of some of Trump\u2019s behavior, French <a href=\"https:\/\/frenchpress.thedispatch.com\/p\/evangelicals-have-abandoned-the-character\">accused<\/a> Mohler of failing a Christian \u201ccharacter test.\u201d He also chided the theologian for asserting that, based on party platforms, he\u2019ll likely vote Republican for the rest of his life. French cited Mohler\u2019s unwillingness to vote for a Democrat as a lack of spiritual integrity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cListen to Mohler\u2019s announcement,\u201d he said, \u201cand you\u2019ll hear a narrow political philosophy \u2014 one that\u2019s limited to evaluating a party platform on a few, discrete issues\u2026The role of the people of God in political life is so much more difficult and challenging than merely listing a discrete subset of issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Months later, Mohler <a href=\"https:\/\/wng.org\/opinions\/saving-evangelicalism-1644238634\">highlighted<\/a> the fact that French is among a group of conservatives that \u201cregularly castigate evangelicals to their right,\u201d noting that, \u201cThere is cultural favor to be found in putting distance between yourself and the unwashed evangelical horde.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This notion that French is benefitting professionally from secular leftists who are pleased with his bashing of other Christians was echoed by Justin Redemer, chief data officer for the reformed study center, The Davenant Institute. Redemer <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/j_redemer\/status\/1493828241739567105?s=20&amp;t=zTWiJxj4wQLtH1jXJp1JnA\">note<\/a>d, \u201cAll non-Christians seem to love David French\u2019s solutions to the Church\u2019s problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps no other prominent Christian intellectual has better encapsulated growing frustration with French better than pastor, professor, and best-selling author Carl Trueman. On a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/protestors-activists-and-culture-warriors\/id613483893?i=1000549738625\">episode<\/a> of his podcast \u201cThe Mortification of Spin,\u201d he and co-host Pastor Todd Pruitt engaged in a discussion of the pundit that centered on French\u2019s minimization of Christian concerns over transgender activism in schools, as well as his dismissal of worries about cultural trends like \u201cdrag queen story hours\u201d for children at libraries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s what makes it so annoying to me when you have these Christians constantly bashing other Christians,\u201d Trueman said. \u201cThere are Christian culture warriors who deserve to be bashed, but when it becomes bashing anything that conservatives traditionally stand for, I think at that point, you think, these people don\u2019t care about children. If somebody criticizes the LGBTQ movement and all you can say is, \u2018Oh conservatives just obsess over that,\u2019 then I\u2019m going to say you just don\u2019t care about children. That\u2019s a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A moment later, Trueman revealed he was referring to \u201cpeople like David French\u201d and appeared to reference French\u2019s earlier disparaging of pastors as not possessing the same expertise he does. \u201cHe\u2019s a lawyer,\u201d the professor joked, \u201che\u2019s also an expert on higher education apparently. He\u2019s also an expert on pastoral ministry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pruitt agreed that French is \u201cthe perfect example of some conservatives, particularly during the Trump era, who became so embarrassed by their fellow conservatives that they now only know how to punch right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pruitt finished with a sincere plea:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>You know I would want to sit down with David French and say let me tell you about the several families in my church whose daughters now refuse to drink anything in the morning on school days, so that they can get through school all day without using the restrooms. Because, number one, now the school allows biological males into the girls restrooms, and, number two, drugs are being openly used\u2026I\u2019d like to have David French sit down with those parents to see what its like when Christians basically give up and stop resisting.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire\u2019s first original film, Shut In, has made its cinematic debut, being met with rave reviews. The Daily Wire is building an alternative to the leftist entertainment industry, one gripping movie at a time. Join us in this mission and stream Shut In today by becoming a Daily Wire <a class=\"in-cell-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">member<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For years, decades even, political pundit David French has been a well-respected and frequently cited voice in Protestant circles. This was especially true when he was on staff at the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1307189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1307189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1307189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1307189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1307189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}