Husband | Father | Pastor | Writer | Historian. Church of the Good Shepherd, Winston Salem, NC. Author of “Spurgeon: A Life” (@RHB_Books, 2024).
Winston-Salem, NC
Joined March 2012
- Tweets4.7K
- Following512
- Followers2.3K
- Likes6K
The third paragraph in this post is very well-stated. I see it happen all the time. It’s sophomoric and amateurish and should be regarded as an historical fallacy.
What is being done to Elisabeth Elliott post-mortem is part of a larger trend/movement to revise the biographies of famous Christians to make them gay. It's been attempted with Jonathan and David (they weren't just friends), with Calvin, Theodore Beza, and Machen among others. I've responded to two of these cases. See the next post.
Notice that Stell is described as a historian. This is an appeal to authority. This is one move. The fact that Stell is a historian means little. Historians get things wrong regularly. They make mistakes and sometimes they just misrepresent things.
Another move is to string together otherwise innocent statements or events and to re-contextualize and sexualize them. Ambiguity is key to this type of revisionism. Statements that weren't originally understood to refer to latent homosexual desire are re-interpreted/re-framed to be sexual in nature. Anyone who objects is denounced as naive or a prude.
In the current case the agenda seems rather obvious when Elliott's biographer asks why anyone should care that she allegedly had Lesbian inclinations or affairs? Why? Those of us who read or listened to Elliott know that she's being accused of gross sin and hypocrisy. Unlike her biographer, apparently, we know what God's Word says about male and female homosexuality and we agree with Scripture. These are effectively post-mortem charges that cannot be properly tried.
This is tabloid stuff at best. A professionally run secular newspaper wouldn't run this sort of story. The evidence is less than thin. That CT ran this story at all says much more about them than it does about Elliott.
Dr. Alan Redpath wrote these words to D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in the year of his retirement from the ministry at Westminster Chapel in 1968, "I have marveled at the grace of God and the anointing of the Spirit constantly maintained upon you over thirty years of ministry. This can only be the outcome of the building of a secret history with God in your own life which has been a tremendous challenge and example to hundreds of others, including myself, who would have fared better if we had followed it in such a disciplined way."
I only watched the first session by @mike_reeves on a theology of writing. Very good. Looking forward to accessing the other talks.
"Christian writing starts with knowing God. You must know God to make him known."
Watch every session from our 2026 Writers' Retreat for free on YouTube now!
Featuring teaching from contributors including @mike_reeves, @danhames, Rebecca Rine, Alex Reindl, @chancefaulkner and Anthony Gosling, these sessions will help you think about how God can use your writing for his glory.
[1/2]
I was talking to a veteran pastor-theologian recently about some of the younger theologians who have tried to cancel John Frame. His response: “some boys never grow up.”
Contra those who think there’s no way to be Baptist while affirming some forms of Christian nationalism, Charles Spurgeon was undoubtedly a Christian nationalist, and of a fairly stout sort (stout in more ways than one!). There’s a thesis here for a thoughtful PhD student.
My wife Jenna and her friend Lydia host a great podcast called "All Things Bright and Beautiful" where they discuss life, literature, and theology. Just two wise and godly women making sense. I commend it to the women (and men) of your church!
open.spotify.com/show/2zppQA…
Alex DiPrima retweeted
Start your prayers with praise. Then you put your worries in the light of his glory.
This biography is tremendous! Everybody go buy a copy and read it to celebrate the 500 year anniversary of the publication of Tyndale’s New Testament. Also the cover matches the verdure of my North Carolina front yard, which is lovely.
It's always a bit comical to me when people try to suggest that Christianity is the invention of modern western white men. Of course, the most basic awareness of actual history defeats this thesis. Atheism, on the other hand, IS largely the invention of modern western white men. Atheism, for the most part, been a marginal viewpoint historically. It only began to enjoy any popularity to speak of in the context of the enlightenment and the scientific revolution. It was initially only popular among cultural elites and educated white men of European descent. Still, atheism has failed to capture major followings in Asia, Africa, and South America, unlike Christianity, which thrives in those continents. The Christian faith is far more diverse globally than the world of atheism. And the contrast is actually becoming more stark in our own time.
Hey @daneortlund, I wanted to share quick word of encouragement with you on here. I’ve been in the UK for the past week and a half for research on my next book and I decided to pay a quick visit to the village of Dedham in Essex. I stopped by the parish church where the Puritan John “Roaring” Rogers preached in the early 17th century. I noticed the church had a very small bookstore near the back of the church. Featured prominently was your excellent book, “Gentle and Lowly.” I was quite encouraged by this for two reasons:
First, it made me hope that perhaps some in that parish value the wonderful truths about Christ that you helpfully bring forth in that book.
Second, as you may know, a young Thomas Goodwin, who you quote liberally in G&L, famously visited that church in Dedham from Cambridge to hear Rogers’s famed preaching. Reportedly, Goodwin was so moved by the preaching that he hung weeping on the neck of his horse for a full fifteen minutes before he had strength enough to mount. Goodwin published his classic “The Heart of Christ” some thirty years later. How special to find a contemporary book written in the same spirit some four centuries later being sold in that church’s bookstore!
Anyway, I hope this encourages you. I’ve profited personally from your book and have given it out literally to hundreds of people.
Astounding that the man who took this way to church every Sunday for 35 years left us the greatest work ever written on spiritual warfare.
I refer to the Puritan, William Gurnall and his book, The Christian in Complete Armour, a 1,200 page meditation on Ephesians 6:10-20.
Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Founded by Sir Walter Mildmay in 1584 to be a training ground for Puritan pastors.
Mildmay said, “I have set an acorn, which when it becomes an oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof.”
“For England’s the one land, I know,
Where men with Splendid Hearts may go;
And Cambridgeshire, of all England,
The shire for Men who Understand.”
- Rupert Brooke
