A Warning to Southern Baptists Against Diluting or Adding to the Gospel, Part 1

Whenever you add a negative conjunction (i.e.: but) to the word God, or for that matter, even a positive conjunction, (i.e.: and), you have just blown it.
—Dr. David Garland (1921-2004), professor of Old Testament at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, speaking about the First of the Ten Commandments—

What I’m here to say is what I’m being taught, how I’m being encouraged to teach, doesn’t line up with the Bible.…We’re very sensitive nowadays about calling people out. I’m not the apostle Paul, but I can compare things with Scripture, and compare things with what he said, and go, “OK, this is not acceptable.”…Grab hold of the gospel! Preach that! You want to see change in this country? You want to see revival happen? Preach the gospel. You lead a church [and] you want to see things change? Disciple your people! Equip them to preach the gospel!…There’s the life before, there’s the life after, and what happens in between is Jesus. He changes everything! You want to talk about complete transformation? You want to talk about restoration? That’s how it happens! It happens by Christ! Only by Christ!
—Kyle Whitt—

Key points: The social justice movement ruins everything it touches, because it is false, divisive, and yet very enticing. It even distorts the gospel itself with noble-sounding yet unbiblical claims that must be both exposed and opposed. As painful as it might be to do both, Kyle Whitt is doing both, and he is honoring God and genuinely assisting Southern Baptists in the process.

All of the articles in this series are available on this page.

Would you be surprised to hear someone say that Jesus did not come into the world to promote social justice? Unfortunately, many Christians would. Their surprise indicates they lack a true understanding of Jesus’ mission and the gospel. Why, then, did Jesus come? Hear speaker, author, and Stand to Reason president and founder Greg Koukl answer this important question. This 2-minute clip comes from a presentation titled “The Story of Reality.”

Here are two additional videos by Mr. Koukl in which he expounds on social justice and the true purpose for which Jesus came.

The Downgrade at the North American Mission Board

Against the backdrop of these insights, I want to discuss a new video made by Kyle Whitt, an upcoming Christian leader who has been involved with the North American Mission Board (NAMB) as a church planter in Washington State. Mr. Whitt posted his video on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. Its title is “Downgrade at the North American Mission Board.” As ominous as the title is, Southern Baptists can be thankful Mr. Whitt is speaking out and calling out leaders at NAMB.

Any Departure from the Biblical Gospel Is Unacceptable

Kyle begins his video by citing Paul’s words in Philippians 1:15-18. The apostle wrote,

¹⁵Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: ¹⁶The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; ¹⁷but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. ¹⁸What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.

Does this mean that regardless of the motivations and messages of those who preach the gospel, or purport to preach it, we should only rejoice that people learn about Christ without ever challenging the messages conveyed or the preachers declaring them? No. Indeed, we must call out those who fail to declare the clear truth about who Christ is and why He came. In Philippians 3 just a little later in this same letter, Paul himself called out the preachers who were adding to the gospel by claiming that circumcision also was necessary for salvation. He warned the Christians in Philippi, “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”

Kyle’s point is important. We rejoice when people learn about Christ, but we can never be content for them to learn about Him and His mission on earth when or if they’re also being told that something more than repenting of one’s sin and placing one’s faith in Christ is necessary for salvation. The basis for divine forgiveness is the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross — nothing more and nothing else.

The basis for divine forgiveness is the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross — nothing more and nothing else.

Yet, at the North American Mission Board, church planters and the people they are endeavoring to reach are learning that something more than faith in Christ is required. This is a false gospel, and Kyle is right to say so.

Going Public

On Facebook, Kyle posted his video and wrote,

For the past two years I’ve been working with NAMB to plant a church in Washington state. After hours of research and conversations, I came to the conclusion that NAMB’s church planting arm, the Send Network, is pushing us to teach a false gospel. There are many other serious issues at Send and NAMB, but this video only covers the biggest and most important (since it deals with the gospel). I get that this is a big accusation, and believe me this is not something done lightly or without a lot of prayer. I ask that you watch the whole thing, look into what I’ve pointed out, and use this as a starting point to answer this question.…

This is not an attack on NAMB or Send, as there are a lot of good people doing good things. This is a calling to account in an error that a segment is pushing.

Kyle yearns to see the Southern Baptist Convention “turning this country upside down with the gospel [and] turning this world upside down with the gospel.” For that to happen, he knows the good news about Christ can “never be muddled, or confused, or hidden.” Yet sadly, Kyle has seen distractions minimize clarity and decrease the effectiveness of “the largest force for missions in the entire world.”

Kyle lives in Washington State and for the past two years has been involved with the SEND Network, the church planting arm of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. The application process to become a church planter, and his work as a church planter, also have put him in connection with the Northwest Baptist Church Planting staff. The experience has been enriching and fulfilling, but it has raised some serious concerns as well. In Kyle’s words, “there have…been some cracks, some cracks that I started to notice, to the point where they weren’t just little cracks that you had to step over, but pits that you could fall into. That’s a very unfortunate thing.”

Cracks…and Pits

What pits did Kyle see, and how did he deal with them? Hear and read Kyle’s own words.

I was seeing some of these [indications, emphasizing] more social gospel, more “it’s about our works more than it is about our preaching.” So, me being who I am, I decided to cut through the fat and just go and talk to the head of Church Planting, Dhati Lewis at the SEND Network. For anyone who doesn’t know, the SEND Network is the church planting arm of the North American Missions Board. They handle the church planting. So I just emailed them, like: “Look, I want some clarity on this.” And the responses I got were more concerning than they were alleviating.

I was being told that I was preaching a half-gospel if I was preaching a gospel of salvation of someone’s soul. That that’s not the whole story. Now I thought at the time, “OK, obviously he’s talking about I’m only giving part of the picture of the gospel. Him saying half-gospel means we need to talk about things like sin, why we need a Savior, what Jesus did, how we come to Him, and we need to talk about future things. We need to talk about, you know, the glorified state of believers, the restoration of all things in the end — the new heaven and the new earth — the full beginning-to-end gospel. Where the story begins, where it ends, and how the gospel makes that transformation. It’s all about Christ restoring mankind.

No! The element of the gospel apparently that’s being missed is the economic, social, the different pillars of society that have been broken and how we need to restore them. We need to engage in holistic restoration. That isn’t a work of those who have been saved by the gospel; that is the gospel.

I tried to give a little bit of pushback. Was he just emphasizing it differently? Was he just being a little bit sloppy with his wording? You know, just talking a little bit too quick and simplifying what he was saying instead of saying, you know, “This is a commandment given by Jesus; this is something that we who have been transformed by the gospel should be doing”?

James talks about the works of the believer. He makes it very clear that “How can we who have been transformed by Christ, how can we who’ve experienced the mercy of Christ not be merciful? How can we who’ve experienced this transformation not reflect it in our lives?” It’s important. It’s vitally important.

But no! It was being attached to the gospel itself; it’s a part of it. [They were saying] it’s necessary for the gospel to be true, for the gospel to be what it is. The gospel isn’t just about the salvation of men’s souls. Eventually, we will see full restoration. We will be raised back to life. These bodies will not just fade away. We will not just be bodiless souls for all of existence. This body’s going to be restored! There will be a resurrection. Christ is the firstfruits of that. He’s the proof that we will be raised from the dead.

But again, what was being taught was that the gospel, this work of restoration is something that we — me and you, all of us — do right here, right now in this earth.

Who Has Bewitched You?

Of course, the charge that NAMB and the SEND Network are advocating a false gospel by adding requirements to faith in Christ’s work on the cross is quite serious. Galatians 3:1-4 comes to mind, where Paul chastised the Galatian Christians who’d been duped by the idea that works were required in addition to faith for salvation. Paul wrote in part, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?”

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
—Paul to the Galatian Christians in Galatians 3:1—

Kyle understands just how serious this matter is, and he doesn’t make the charge lightly. In fact, he went out of his way to get clarification, to make sure that he understood exactly what NAMB and its church planting staff expected of him as a church planter. Further, it is exactly the serious nature of this matter that compels him to speak out now.

After his initial correspondence with Dhati Lewis, Kyle was approached by the local missionary representing NAMB. The missionary essentially made the case that Kyle’s questions were inappropriate, that he was the only church planter asking them, and that NAMB “had no responsibility to be transparent.” Yet Kyle’s contention that he was asking “good questions” and that “we need to know…what our leaders believe” is self-evident.

There’s much more to this story. In fact, you may be shocked at what you read and hear in part 2. For now we’ll have to take a break. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, pray for Kyle, NAMB, the SBC, and the cause of Christ in America and around the world.

Also, watch Kyle’s video.

Part 2 is available here.

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