New York Times columnist David French has been canceled by the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), a denomination rather like our own PCA, the Presbyterian Church of Australia. A seminar featuring French has been dropped from their PCA General assembly, well, because it featured David French.
The PCA’s Administrative Committee announced it had decided “That the General Assembly Plenary Seminar, ‘Supporting Your Pastor and Church Leaders in a Polarized Political Year’ not be offered.”
The AC said a prayer session will replace the seminar. It said, “The concerns that have been raised about the seminar and its topic are so significant that it seems wisest for the peace and unity of the church not to proceed in this way.“
The irony of cancelling a session about dealing with polarisation because the response to it was itself polarising is possibly reflected in a comment by Bryan Chapell, the PCA “Stated Clerk,” that made it clear French was the issue. “Concern about a panel participant have caused some brothers to be concerned about the witness of our church and other brothers to be concerned for how our church processes different views while protecting reputations.” Chapell made it clear that concerns about comments by French in the past were behind the cancellation.
French is a conservative voice and avowed evangelical at The New York Times, which is generally regarded as a left-of-centre paper. He previously was a staff writer at National Review, one of the more serious conservative magazines in the US, but like French, the magazine is sceptical of Trump. French is a long-time anti-abortion activist and volunteered to serve in the Iraq war as an Army lawyer in a JAG Corps.
The PCA is entitled to choose who speaks at its General Assembly and even to drop someone at the last minute. But it is instructive to read some of the criticisms levelled at French and look at the evidence proffered. It reveals a disturbing pattern. The examples I quote have the same problem: They don’t link to what French said but rather what someone attacking what French said. Red flag.
On “The American Reformer,” PCA minister, Ben C. Dunson, a former Reformed Theological Seminary teacher, wrote that he was dismayed to see French on the panel.
“Consider the following. French has written and spoken defending “drag-queen story hour” as a “blessing of liberty.” He has done the same in support of the legalization of so-called gay marriage.”
These references take us back to a significant debate after Sohrab Ahmari, the opinion editor of the New York Post wrote a piece in the conservative catholic magazine First Things (highly regarded by many protestants ) called “Against David French–ism.”
Both French and Ahmari oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, and drag queen story hours. They sparked a serious debate between conservatives and actually debated in person at the Catholic University of America, moderated by Ross Douthat – another key conservative writer at the NYT.
But Dunson’s summary of French’s views as seeing drag queen story hour, gay marriage as a “Blessing of liberty” is tendentious. French is simply advocating a classical liberal view that some things Christians do not like or resolutely oppose will receive a popular vote.
Protestia website went further with the headline “PCA Invites David French, Supporter of Child Castration, ‘Gay Marriage’ and ‘Drag Queen Story Hour,’ To Speak at General Assembly.
To be clear, French, who has written about how he has changed his mind on same-sex marriage, opposes same-sex marriage in church but accepts civil marriage. Now, that’s probably a minority view among evangelicals, but to summarise it as him being a supporter of same-sex marriage is unfair.
The Aquila Report alleged French maintained that “Evangelicals (specifically white ones) who were hesitant about getting the rushed and mandated Covid jab were actually “reluctant to consider the health of their community” and had a “spiritual problem.”
This might be the spiritual problem:
Yes, French drew the link in a Despatch piece: “The bad news is that vaccine hesitancy breaks down sharply along partisan and religious lines, and that hesitancy is so profound in white Evangelical communities that it could disrupt the quest for herd immunity.” But the Aquila report does not make it clear what French was, in fact, saying. That’s not a fair account.
Spinning the views of someone you disagree with and exaggerating what they say is wrong. Yes, it is Trumpy (and Bideny). Especially in a church debate. As Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen once (or likely more than once) advised, being able to articulate your opponent’s view as strongly and as accurately as you can is something Christians should practice in our debates. (And outside, too). If nothing else, it makes us more convincing.
A seminar on polarisation would have seen arguments for various reactions by Christians, ranging from a Benedict solution of “thicker” Christian institutions to political activity. It would have been a good debate.
Image: David French, Source: Yale Divinity School