A pastor embraces a view of sanctification that undercuts personal holiness, then a few years later it turns out he was having an affair. Of course in hindsight it seems so obvious. That should be very sobering-ideas have consequences, and in the case of bad theology, those consequences can be damning. It appears, based upon the timelines that have been released in lawsuits that Byron’s affair happened after his embrace of Tullian’s views. Over the years I’ve received questions from people about why we and Byron parted ways, and I have usually answered them by pointing people to that review I wrote of J + N = E. Several people made appeals directly to him to reject Tullian’s teachings, but he didn’t, so he stopped blogging here. He began to embrace Tullian’s arguments against sanctification. But around 2012 or so his theology started to drift. Back then, he was a supporter of Master’s and an ally in the ministry. Long time readers of The Cripplegate will remember that Byron helped start this blog, and wrote regularly here for a few years. I mention all this because this week it came out that a former pastor in Nashville, Byron Yawn, had been having an affair with someone in his congregation. It seemed to finally bring the needed attention to the evilness of Tullian’s book.Īnd if MacArthur’s warnings and DeYoung’s response didn’t wake you up to what was really going on in J + N = E, then certainly Tullian’s affair(s) should have. That’s why I was so thankful for Kevin DeYoung’s book arguing against Tullian’s approach to sanctification, The Hole in our Holiness. But this was during the same time period as The Gospel Coalition’s embrace of Mark Driscoll and James MacDonald, and so many people excused criticism of J + N = E as the Grace Church world being overly critical of yet another Gospel Coalition pastor. Some, like John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, and even here at The Cripplegate, warned people loudly about J + N = E. ![]() But this is the kind of book that preyed on the weak-willed and the undiscerning. He goes to war against the standard biblical appeals for sanctification, and tears down the Bible’s teaching on the mandates and motives for holiness.Īll of this was clear at the time, back in 2011 when the book was first released. Again, don’t get me wrong: at no point does Tullian come out and say “so therefore, sin away!” But what he does is almost more dangerous. Underneath it all is a justification for sin. ![]() “It’s not about you committing adultery or not committing adultery-it’s all about Jesus!” Of course the book makes a more substantial theological argument than that ( here is my review of J + N = E from 2013), but that is the main point. Then along comes J + N = E, which basically tells you that you are thinking about sanctification all wrong. You love Jesus, of course, so you are saying no, but honestly it is challenging sometimes. Imagine being a guy tempted to adultery it is hard work to say “no,” and the temptation doesn’t go away. And why wouldn’t it? It was an argument that the best way to increase your sanctification was to stop trying to increase your sanctification. In other words, it gave a theological justification to the erroneous notion that our sanctification actually isn’t that important. What the so-called “no-Lordship” view of salvation was to dispensationalism, this book was to covenantalism. James Kennedy’s former church in Florida-released a book as influential as it was terrible: Jesus + Nothing = Everything. ![]() Back in 2011, Tullian Tchividjian-Billy Graham’s grandson and at the time pastor of D.
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