Public Smears Demand Public Apologies

Two present negative examples from church leaders

It’s common sense. And it’s Bible, as my fellow Texans might say.

If you wrong someone, you repent, you apologize to the one(s) you wronged, and as much as it is in your power to do so, you make it right.

So if you publicly smear someone in a harmful way without justification, you not only repent; you better make an unequivocal apology that is also public. As much as you reasonably can, you need to tell those who heard your smears that you were the one in the wrong, not the people you smeared or slandered.

This common sense principle is important enough that a layperson who is willful and refuses to repent and apologize in this area disqualifies himself from receiving Holy Communion, and a church leader would disqualify himself from leadership at least until they do repent and make efforts to publicly right their public wrong. For to destroy someone’s reputation without justification is not only a serious 8th Commandment violation; it is akin to murder. (Matthew 5:21, 22)

In short, you publicly slander someone? You publicly apologize.

What prompts my observation is I have just been reminded of the First Baptist Church Naples (FBCN) debacle of 2019. The powers that be at that church and elsewhere in the Southern Baptist Convention attempted to foist the woke Marcus Hayes upon them as pastor. And he was woke, even endorsing Eric Mason’s Woke Church. But some members of FBCN weren’t having it. The result was that Hayes failed to meet the 85% threshold for approval.

Immediately there was a public campaign to smear those who voted no as racists (Hayes is a black man.) and to drive them away. Many of them were kicked off the membership roll and sent cease and desist letters. An open letter was sent out from FBCN leadership accusing those who voted no of “racial prejudices” that were a “cancer” within the church. J. D. Greear, Russell Moore echoed and amplified the slanders of supposed racism. So did Dwight McKissic, of course, who cheered the excommunications.

Not just the faithful church but we as a society now see that such woke cancelling and slander is wrong. But have any of those church leaders who smeared and/or cast out faithful members of FBCN, have any of them repented and publicly apologized for their grievous public sin? They’ve now had six years to do so. If any have, I am unaware, with the exception of J. D. Greear. In 2024, after Megan Basham’s excellent Shepherds for Sale called him out for his role in the FBCN mess along with other messes, he wrote this partial apology deep down in a post:

…when people began to raise questions about what actually happened, I regret not acknowledging publicly that I didn’t know all that happened, given how far removed I was from the situation. I still can’t say with certainty all that went down, so I should have refrained from commenting.

I am sorry that a member of that church apparently wrote to me and did not receive a response. I cannot locate that letter now and must be honest that today I do not remember it, but I know that many people reached out back then and it was a challenge to keep track of and answer them all. If anyone was falsely accused, I’m sorry I contributed to that.

A more complete and earlier apology would have been better - for one thing, people were falsely and maliciously accused - but credit where credit is due. That is much more repentance than has come from others in this matter.

If you wish to take a deeper dive into the First Baptist Naples purge, there is this at the Center for Baptist Leadership, this at (Are you sitting down?) the Roys Report (Yes. A good article that punches left at the Roys Report!), a pointed documentary from Enemies Within the Church, and Shepherds for Sale addresses it on pp. 142-149.

Oh, what reminds and prompts me to bring all this up six years after the fact? Jon Harris about an hour and five minutes into this video mentions one John David Edie.

He was the Executive Pastor at FBCN who signed the “cancer” open letter slandering those who voted no to Marcus Hayes as racists. He has by all indications failed to apologize. Oh, in the open letter he apologized for other people’s grievous sin of daring to vote against Hayes. But he in the years since refuses to apologize for his own very real sin in the matter. It is downright Episcopalian. Heck, if he would baptize babies, wear vestments, and drink booze, he might fit right in.

To be fair, there are a number of actors who need to apologize for the FBCN episode. But now after the great harm he did to First Baptist Naples, he has presented his services to another Baptist Church, Stonegate in Odessa, Texas. The above video has J. D. (those initials again) being a good ‘ol boy as he is presented to the congregation.

If anyone from Stonegate reads this, do not be fooled. J. D. Edie helped wreck a church and slander good Christians six years ago. Unless I and many others completely missed it, he has failed to apologize publicly. The implications for his fitness for church leadership are obvious.

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But far be it from me to throw stones at my Baptist friends. For my Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) also has a prominent example of a failure to apologize in public for a public sin against brothers and their reputations. And that example for us comes from the Archbishop himself, Steve Wood.

Back in May, surely after he listened to harpies screeching about REC Presiding Bishop Ray Sutton granting Calvin Robinson temporary oversight, Archbishop Wood interfered by issuing a public statement that smeared Robinson. I wrote of that and begged Wood to apologize the next day. (And, yes, I contacted his office at the time.)

In addition to smearing Robinson, he disrespected Bishop Sutton and the Reformed Episcopal Church, and indirectly implied that people of like mind with Robinson, like me, cannot be “good representative(s) of the Anglican Church in North America” either. It was awful and exceedingly unwise.

Yet since then, there has been no public apology. Nor has there been a public rebuke of Wood from any bishop of the Anglican Church in North America.

That silence in ACNA says a lot, and it is not good.

Look, all Christian leaders are going to make mistakes, sometimes serious mistakes. Most missteps do not demand a leader step down. Most require private apologies and corrections. And the flip side is that, on our good days, us Christians are a forgiving people, as Christ commands us to be.

But when an error by a Christian leader is public and does harm to others, particularly to their reputations, then a public apology is necessary. It is required.

Anyone who isn’t man enough to say “I’m sorry” under such circumstances, and to say it clearly and well, is not man enough to be a leader in God’s Holy Church.