I’ve been watching this situation develop over the past 6-12 months, but was waiting for the right time and the right example to write a post like this. Yesterday this video popped up in my YouTube feed and I knew this was the right one. It’s short and it so clearly illustrates what is showing up all over YouTube, social media, websites, etc.
There are a lot of facets to what I’ve been observing and this video only gets at one of them. It will take me a few posts to tackle the different issues so know that this is just a first post in what will need to be a few. I mentioned in some recent podcasts and posts that I could see this problem coming and I have an obligation to speak up because it is shaping up to be a trainwreck just like Vision Forum and the patriocentricity movement of the early 2000s. Lots of younger people today weren’t around to see it. They might not even know about it. I was. I saw how many families and lives it destroyed. That’s not hyperbole. It was a disaster on an epic scale.
I took down a lot of the posts I wrote about these kinds of topics when I moved my website in a different direction. But I’ve started pulling them out of my unpublished archives. I specifically put three older posts about Vision Forum back up, but there are many more still unpublished that I need to find again. We need to keep a public record of the history of these issues because those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Most of the people who tackled these issues have either deleted their websites or removed the content when they moved in another direction. I can still find them in the WayBack Machine, but that’s only because I know which websites to look for or I have old bookmarks still saved. Most of it has been lost which is tragic.
There is a movement of younger and young-ish middle-aged men and pastors who were not around for the disaster that overtook conservative homeschooling circles and the family-integrated church movement. But they are displaying the same attitudes, mouthing the same ideas, and showing the same posture today. It actually makes my stomach hurt to listen to them at times because I do not wish to watch Vision Forum 2.0 play out again. I know there is nothing new under the sun, but I will not hesitate to speak out this time and call it out. I was cautious the first time which you can tell in my posts from 2006 and so on. I’m not hesitating this time.
The problem with Vision Forum, in particular, is that they got quite a bit right and addressed with firmness issues no one else in the church was really discussing with any kind of clarity and conviction. This drew people in for the good that they offered. They were a couple of decades ahead of their time in some of the errors they pointed out. They were all over the Marxism-Feminism connection, for example, which most Christians did not understand at the time. But there was just enough wrong with their teachings that when it was combined with the unhealthy tendencies of some in their leadership it created a total and complete disaster that shipwrecked many families.
Here’s a short video clip by Joel Webbon at Right Response Ministries. In sharing this, I’m not saying that he is Doug Phillips 2.0. Not at all. I want to make that very clear. And I’m not trying to make him the face of the problem. His video was simply the first video that encapsulated what I have been observing and so it’s what motivated me to finally write this post. But listen to this clip and tell me if this does not sound disturbingly familiar to what was preached and pushed leading up to those dark days.
For the record, I do agree with some of what he says. I agree that Beth Moore and Jen Wilkin should be avoided. I do agree that women’s Bible studies create many problems in many churches. But he goes too far in terms of what he says about men leading their wives, in my opinion.
Look at the comments underneath the YouTube video as well. This kind of teaching is severe and confusing. It will breed all kinds of problem. Overbearing men will take this as permission to crush their wives even further. This is not conjecture on my part. We know it happens because we’ve seen this play out already.
(And, no, I did not go to him privately about my concerns because this is a public video which he put out there himself as part of his video ministry. I’m going to cut that tired objection out of the conversation before anyone even makes it. If a pastor or teacher publishes their own content in a public forum, it is open to public critique. Period.)
I’ll make some other observations in my own comment section below. What stands out to you, especially if you lived through the entire Patriocentricity, Vision Forum, etc. debacle that destroyed homes and churches?
He took the original video private after a boatload of pushback. I finally found a copy of a portion I could save and embed. It’s right after the private video.
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I lived through Vision Forum and their whole downfall and Patriocentricity in the homeschool movement. In fact, I would go so far as to say there is some still there today. I won’t go into my personal life here on this thread, therefore, this video totally turns me off and what he says can be taken way too far by husbands and definitely breeds all kinds of issues. I agree with the Beth Moore and Jenn Wilkin issue. Of course, I haven’t seen more of Joel Webbon videos, but don’t think I would.
Thanks for sharing this important issue!
Sallie you and I are close to the same age so I too remember this whole debacle.The video above is so similar it’s eerie. The above man is nothing but a prideful dictator.He seems to have no respect for the fact that his wife may have a brain and God may work in her heart.It’s almost as if these men think they can function as the Holy Spirit in the lives of their family. I do see the pattern of the Vision Forum debacle may indeed repeat.Very heartbreaking.By the way,I consider myself completely conservative and would be considered a complementarian in my philosophy of respecting that a man should lead in a marriage.Lead in humility -NOT dictate.
I noticed last night that he took this video private. I’m not removing this post. What I wrote is true and the removal of the video doesn’t change that.
I’m glad he felt enough pressure from the overwhelmingly negative feedback to remove it. If there had been more pressure applied in the early days of the other mess, perhaps it wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand.
I have not been following with what’s been going on with Beth Moore–what is the issue there? I enjoyed doing her Bible studies years ago. Also, I’m certainly a fan of Classical Education (which Doug Wilson promotes) but I just went on a little rabbit trail and I do see some red flags with Wilson. Not with Classical Ed itself, but with some of Wilson’s beliefs about marriage, women, and patriarchy, as well as instances of plagiarism in his Omnibus curriculum (https://rachelgreenmiller.com/2016/05/05/plagiarism-wilson-and-the-omnibus/). It appears that he’s said some icky things to and about women, and acted very unwisely in a couple of situations with known sex offenders who were under his leadership…and doesn’t seem to take responsibility for his wrongs in those instances.
Anyway, all that to say he might be someone to be cautious about, and I hope the Classical movement will consider how they can distance themselves from him in the future. Since he’s been so influential in the movement, it could certainly damage the reputation of classical education, the ACCS or Classical Conversations if he doesn’t change his trajectory.
Hi Elsie,
For the Doug Wilson stuff, I would refer you to this page on his website where he addresses all of them. I’m very familiar with him, warts and all. I still find his ministry valuable although I know there are others who would disagree with me on that. He was also one of the only Christian leaders with a national platform who stood up to the covid tyranny in 2020-2021. Both he and John MacArthur went up in my estimation during that time because of how they handled that.
https://dougwils.com/controversy
For Beth Moore, I would refer you to this website. She has written extensively about Beth Moore. Moore seemed to jump the final shark with the election of Trump (TDS) and is very pro social justice.
https://the-end-time.org/2017/12/03/all-beth-moore-critiques-here-in-one-place-newest/
I hope that helps.
Sallie
Thank you, Sallie, I appreciate that and will check those out! Just at a quick glance, it looks like Beth Moore is no longer affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention and has joined an Anglican church. I can imagine a number of her former followers who are still Baptist would have reservations about that. (None here, as I’m also Anglican, ha!)
Beth Moore was a real problem for the SBC for a number of years. I think they put up with her as long as they did because she brought in boatloads of money to LifeWay (the SBC publishing arm) due to her Bible studies. She also got away with a lot because she took advantage of the Me Too and social justice movements to the fullest.
I think she’s a troubled woman who shouldn’t be teaching women at all, but I’m not in charge of the world so that’s for others to deal with.
Sallie
Joel Webbon took down the video which you can see. I wish I had kept a copy of it. He followed up with this long video explaining what he really said if we knew his family. (My comments continue in the next comment.) I’m not recommending this entire video. Just reporting that he did respond to the backlash.
https://www.youtube.com/live/foQB1PhFnTo?feature=share
Here is the comment I left. Note that he didn’t respond to me and the men who did respond to me told me that I didn’t have the biblical right to reprove a man. This will come up in another post I’m working on.
Here is the conversation that took place under my comment. I’m screenshotting these things for my own records.
So note the concern isn’t the content of what I shared. They don’t care that I’m concerned for the well-being of other believers who could have their faith shipwrecked by poorly worded or executed teaching.
No, the problem is that I’m a woman in a public arena telling a man who chose to create a public platform that there is a reason people were upset with what he said. I don’t have the authority to speak the truth in a public arena to a man who has chosen to speak in a public arena.
We’ve been down this path before and it ruined so many lives.
Agreed! I have had this experience myself in the public arena on platforms.
Found a clip from the deleted video on Twitter while surfing tonight
https://twitter.com/AndrewNWoodard/status/1678944596674375680
https://twitter.com/slyoung687/status/1679274820796809217
https://twitter.com/AndrewNWoodard/status/1679108888749039617
“You’re not going to outpace me.”
That is such a revealing and disturbing line.
I shudder to hear that clip…
Been there, done that.