During the campaign year of 2020, David Platt’s move into Wokevangelicalism became clear to thousands of those attending McLean Bible Church and it sparked a mass exodus of Christians to other churches around McLean.
This is from a confidential letter to the McLean Board of Elders dated June 16, 2021, from Mark Gottlieb. Gottlieb was an elder serving 1996-2020:
7 Things to Consider Before you Vote
Not much later–David had the bright idea that he needs to help us seasoned Washingtonians learn how to vote. So, a few months before the election he gave the elders a draft copy of the book. At least 3 elders (Tom, Craig and me) were shocked at the book and told David to absolutely NOT publish the book. The booked was titled ‘7 Things to Consider Before you Vote’. It became known as ‘7 Ways to Vote Democratic and Not Feel Guilty’. Again, David ignored the stern advice of more than half his board–and went ahead and distributed his book all around the church and to the congregation. That started the next mass exodus. One of my friends felt so strongly against the book–she burned it. And the elders did nothing. (Ok–you made him pay for the copies himself–but the damage was done).
Let’s look at the key points we can verify and that you need to know to understand what went wrong at McLean Bible Church.
The elders identified by Gottlieb are Tom McMahon and Craig Proulx. Gottlieb asserts that a majority of the board was opposed to David publishing the book; however, once again Platt ignored the advice of his elders. What does this say about megachurch government and the ability to hold rogue pastors accountable?
One interesting point here is that the elders forced Platt to pay for the books. We know that Platt attempted to bill the church for the books given away to members. Is Gottlieb talking about these books, or did Platt attempt to have the church cover the entire publishing expense? These and more questions about how much money the church gave to Radical (and what that money was used for) are important items to examine both when looking at the discovery documents as they are released and for any future action to hold Platt accountable for the fiasco at McLean Bible Church. Discovery showed that about $650,000 was given by McLean Bible Church to David’s Radical,[1] which prompts us to ask, does David Platt exist to serve the church or does McLean Bible Church exist to fund David Platt’s Lifestyle of the Rich & Radical?
7 Things to Consider before you Vote or 7 Ways to Vote Democratic and Not Feel Guilty
A key charge made by the longtime McLean Bible Church elder Mark Gottlieb was that Platt’s book amounted to an apology for Christians voting Democrat. This is, of course, accurate. The entire point of Platt’s book 7 Things to Consider Before You Vote is to justify Christian liberty in making political choices. This would be fine if there were no clear biblical command; however, on topics like abortion, there is a clear biblical teaching and Christians must approach politics with that in mind. Platt prioritizes unity in his book over truth as we pointed out in our September 30, 2020, analysis of the book.
Platt knows that abortion is going to be a tough issue to explain away, but he tries.
Platt writes, “Yes, abortion is abhorrent. That’s clear in the Bible (which we’ll see in a moment). But is that the only issue at stake in an election? What about the scores of Christians, including overwhelming percentages of African-American Christians, who consistently vote for Democrats because of the party’s record on other issues that they also deem biblically important? Can you really conclude that they lack faith in Jesus and are on a road that leads to everlasting suffering because of how they weigh those other issues? Will you really exclude them from the church because they voted for a Democrat?”
Would David Platt exclude slaveholders or those who vote in favor of slavery? Of course, he would. Why not those who vote for abortion?
Why not? Because that wouldn’t advance David Platt’s Woke agenda.
And that Woke agenda combined with this obvious theological junk used to justify the sin of voting for the pro-unrestricted abortion party, accelerated the exodus of conservative evangelicals from McLean Bible Church.
Why? Because as we said, Donald Trump’s visit didn’t cause division; it exposed the bitter fruit of Wokeness growing in Evangelical churches.
[1] This was a number for 2021 revealed in an internal email found in discovery. It is hard to tell exactly how much as Radical in total. We do know that Radical received $200,000 in 2020 alone.