There is a lot that could be said about this clip.
1. I've met Chris on a number of occasions. I've visited his church several times, attended business meetings with him, and have known men shaped by his preaching. I've always come away thoroughly unimpressed.
2. You'll notice that we never heard his trembling voice at the microphone when the infamous scandals in his own backyard were unfolding. For example, when URCNA pastors were:
-Secretly paying others to write their sermons.
-Brutally abusing their wives.
-Caught masturbating in their church offices.
-Abusing young Reformed families in their congregations.
-Driving a pastor out of the denomination for rejecting R2K theology.
-Exploiting loopholes in the church order to punish innocent pastors while shielding guilty ones.
I never heard Chris stand up and whine into a microphone over the quiet divorce of Michael Horton and his wife, nor the fact that Horton has continued in ministry to this day despite the disqualifying destruction of his household.
3. No, you won't find videos of him publicly wringing his hands over any of those scandals. The urgency and outrage are reserved for something else: pressuring NAPARC to issue a statement condemning
@PerfInjust so it can be used as a bludgeon against members of his own congregation who attended the
@New_Christendom conference. Because... racism.
4. Many have pointed out the age of the men in this room. While I generally expect elders and pastors to be older, I think the observation raises a legitimate point. I've noticed that, much like dispensationalism, R2K theology and the URCNA as a whole seem to have very little appeal among people under 40.
If your church ends up embracing gay liberalism, libertarianism, and R2K theology, what's the point? Why should it exist? I can hear the same talking points from Boomer commentators on network television.
5. You hear Folkerts crying about the "CREC churches" spreading like "wild fire" across our nation. I think that this reveals his incredible ignorance on this subject:
-Stephen Wolfe is not CREC.
-The Ogden Church/Conference are not CREC.
-The CREC is actually closer to Folkerts' view on race
-If these guys think that the CREC is a problem....they honestly have no idea what is coming.
6. I've thought back to the first time I met Folkerts. I visited his church the Sunday after he became a U.S. citizen, when it was still meeting in a funeral home.
That moment has stayed with me as somewhat emblematic of how I view the broader NAPARC movement, and particularly the URCNA. It felt like foreign-born leaders lecturing American men about “racism” while gathered in a building surrounded by the dead.
7. These 3 families may very well be in for a struggle session when they return to Idaho. I would encourage them to reach out to
@riemersonck. He is a faithful Pastor in their area, and can help them.