Evangelicals of the Gospel Coalition Respond to Ferguson

Last month Thabiti Anyabwile wrote a blog post titled The Ferguson Grand Jury Has Given Us Our Marching Orders. In it he condemned the grand jury decision as unjust, wrote passionately about police brutality and race, and laid out a plan for bringing change. This may seem unremarkable—one more blog post amidst a multitude—but what makes it remarkable is that it was posted on The Gospel Coalition. Anyabwile is a black evangelical paster who is a member of the conservative evangelical group’s council. (It was The Gospel Coalition, if you remember, that posted Doug Wilson’s description of marital sex as the man conquering and the woman surrendering.) Given the general response of conservatives to Ferguson, I was impressed by both Anyabwile and The Gospel Coalition’s willingness to post his article.

But then I noticed that the article’s comment section was closed. Knowing that the Gospel Coalition usually allows comments, my heart sank. I knew immediately what this meant. I went to the Gospel Coalition’s facebook page and scrolled down to see if Anyabwile’s piece had been posted to the page. It had, and the comments—oh, the comments. I scrolled down and down, and the more I read the more horrified I became.

There were calls to sack Anyabwile:

I have some serious questions about this guy’s profile picture choice:

Apparently, discussing race is divisive and irrelevant:

Also, Communists:

Two commenters compared Darren Wilson to Jesus:

And then there were these gems:

The most common criticism was that Anyabwile’s topic had nothing to do with the gospel:

Because we all know Jesus didn’t say anything at all about the poor or oppressed. How these evangelicals can go on and on about racial injustice being unrelated to the gospel and yet claim they don’t have a race problem I have no idea.

If you’re interested in reading more, The Gospel Coalition also posted a rather awful article by Voddie Baucham, titled Thoughts on Ferguson. Voddie didn’t have to close his comments, and, not surprisingly, his article received only accolades on The Gospel Coalition’s facebook page. After his original article, Anyabwile posted a followup article on The Gospel Coalition, Four Common but Misleading Themes in Ferguson-Like Times. It is also an excellent piece. I’m not sure if The Gospel Coalition was trying to be equal opportunity in its response to Ferguson, but I know one thing for sure: Their readers are of one opinion, and it’s not a pretty one.