The Sin of Revilement

We Christians talk a lot about sin; it’s an integral aspect of how we view the world. Without the fall, and man’s state of sin, we would have no need of a Savior, so it’s a regular topic of conversation, and controversy. Not all sin is equal, something that Jesus confirmed to Pontius Pilate (John 19:11), and the Apostle Paul gives us a list of sins that, when committed unrepentantly, preclude people who claim to be Christian from inheriting the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). These sins act as a sign that someone is not a genuine believer.

Unsurprisingly, far more attention is given by conservative evangelicals to the four sexual sins listed in this verse than the six others, including the sin of revilement (verbal abuse). Jesus tells us to remove the log from our own eye before worrying about the mote of dust in another’s (Matthew 7:4-5), and there is no log one is more likely to encounter among the most reactionary evangelicals in Christian media than the sin of revilement. This was proven yesterday, when pastor Tom Ascol, President of Founders Ministries and the runner-up for Southern Baptist Convention President in 2022, called the Director of Media for Christianity Today, Mike Cosper, μαλακοὶ (malakoi). This word, one of the ten listed sins, means effeminate, a man who dresses in soft/womanly clothes, or a passive homosexual partner. It appears only once in the exact adjective form Ascol used, to convey that last meaning, as listed in 1 Corinthians 6:9. Though Paul did not use it as a slur, Ascol deployed the language of the New Testament to call Cosper the equivalent of a slur that starts with the letter F.

This slur was met with the approval of Eric Conn, who, ironically, is the Pastor of Counseling and Leadership Development at Refuge Church in Utah. Conn is not only known for his consistent reviling behavior online (of which I have been the target of several times), but for his laundering of neo-Nazi tropes into reactionary Christian discourse. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that Conn would approve of Ascol’s disqualifying sin; just two days ago he despicably reviled Kirk E. Miller, a theologian who works for the popular Bible software company, Logos.

Both Ascol and Conn are displaying a sin with copious Scriptural proof that, when committed without remorse, is a sign that someone is a false convert, most notably as a major theme of the Apostle John’s first letter.

Everyone who hates his fellow Christian is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
—1 John 3:15

If anyone says “I love God” and yet hates his fellow Christian, he is a liar, because the one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
—1 John 4:20

The one who says he is in the light but still hates his fellow Christian is still in the darkness.
—1 John 2:9

If the SBC was a healthy organization, Ascol’s public sin would be met with public rebuke by his peers, but, alas, it is not. I would also be amazed to see a single person whom Ascol has done business with publicly condemn what needs to be publicly condemned, especially within the Reformed Baptist world. Founders Ministries is a notable publisher of Calvinist Baptist material, and Ascol has announced that he is starting his own, independent seminary, which will surely need teaching staff. I feign to be so cynical, but I have come to see this as the truth of how the Christian media industry operates, especially at its reactionary ends. The result is that people who are honestly seeking to follow Christ continue to have their theology and doctrine shaped by men who commit egregious sin, while pointing the finger at others.