Bryan Chapell, the Stated Clerk of the PCA, recently had a moment that was a really weird variation on the hot mic problem. He was being interviewed by Collin Hansen for a podcast, and he was talking about “scandalizers” in the church—men whose reason for living was apparently to attack and disparage others.. He said he had a list of their names on his desk, and he held up a handwritten note with names written on it. He held it up only momentarily, because he perhaps realized what he had done, and lowered his hand pretty darn quick. But screen shots are forever, and somebody out there took one. And so it became possible to make out most of the names on the list. Tim Bayly, Peter Leithart, Jeff Meyers, Carl Trueman, et al.
The problem was his accompanying commentary about the names on the list. He said that all of them, as in, all of them, had either left the faith, left their family, or taken their own life. The difficulty was that a number of the men on there had not done any of those three things. They had not left the faith, or their family, or this life by their own hand. What they had done, apparently, was that at some point, they had seriously annoyed Bryan Chapell.
Then the problem, already Really Serious, was compounded and made even ickier by an apology that had apparently been scrubbed and sanitized by three PR firms, and two white shoe law firms. Bryan Chapell apologized for “not taking care to protect the reputations of others . . .” He said this with the apparent expectation that we could stand back now and let the healing begin.
But no, that is not even close to being it. He lied about a number of the men on that list. Are there men on that list who have not left the faith, or their families? Or who have not taken their own lives? That is the issue. When he did not “take care” to protect the “reputations of others,” from what direction was the threat to their reputations coming? Was it coming from the falsehoods that Bryan Chapell let slip? Yes, that was it.
He said this: “And every name on that list has either left his family, left the faith, or taken his life. Every name on that list . . .” There is nothing ambiguous about those sentences, and there is absolutely nothing ambiguous about how false those sentences are. Bryan Chapell has written a book entitled Christ-Centered Preaching. What we apparently need is a book called Christ-Centered Apologies.
This is in the same league as what Josh Buice did. It is not the same thing, but it is in the same league. And we will soon see if the Baptists take this kind of thing more seriously than Presbyterians do.
And because we did not have enough layered ironies going on in this situation, Chapell was quoted here as saying this: “’You cannot segregate your life that way,’ said Chapell, referring to church leaders who are ‘tender’ toward their churches and people they love in their personal lives while mocking others publicly.” This situation is apparently the reverse though. A carefully curated public image for being winsome, and nice, and oh-so-balanced . . . but behind the scenes, bare knuckles, hard ball, and a shiv under the fifth rib.
And no apparent need for a real apology