191. The Future of Fundamentalism - Paul Chappell

Well, welcome back to the For Freedom podcast. Thankful that you're here today. Man, it's October. It's fallout. The winter chill is starting to fall air starting to hit us. The leaves are starting to fall off the trees. Whenever it gets about this time, people in my church, they get to thinking about the mountains and they hit that fall break and they start going out and then here comes the hunting season and things like that. And so this is that time of year. We've got a trunk retreat coming up in a couple of weeks here at our church, which is a fall festival. We do a chili cook-off. We do a bluegrass band. And so we have a great time. And man, we have been having a couple of things going on in our church in the past couple of weeks, but we are glad fall is here. What about you, James? Do you like the fall weather? Oh, I love the fall weather. It's probably my favorite season of all. When it gets cold and I get to snuggle up with my beautiful bride and we get to hang out. Oh, I love it. I love the fall time. I love the winter time. I love when the weather changes into this cold weather, snow. It is my absolute favorite time. Yeah. August or October is crazy busy for us. We've had something every Sunday. We've got something every Sunday after this. I've got John coming in in two weeks. He's going to be doing a revival for us. We're calling it the fall restore revival. And we're talking about how we can restore our marriage, how we can restore our worship and how we can restore our, there's a third one and it just lost me. Um, but he sent me the, the titles that he's going to be doing and I'm excited about it. I think it's going to be great. He's going to get to hang out with me for a couple of days. Um, and that in and of itself is going to restore me, uh, just to be able to hang out and have fellowship. Um, and so I'm excited about that, excited about, um, what we're going to be talking about today. Um, excited about our fall festival, our trunk or treat as well. Uh, we've got our homecoming the first Sunday of November. Uh, we're doing a every door direct mailer, uh, postcard to every home in our zip code. And, uh, so we just sent that out today. Um, it'll be hitting the mail, um, here this week to the, uh, the other, all the, all the places in the area, uh, just to, to get people aware that we're here. And, uh, we've got our homecoming 172 years, uh, the church has been here. And so just trying to bring awareness, bring some new faces in some old faces that maybe just, uh, from COVID had forgotten the church was existence and, uh, maybe thought the church, all churches shut down. Um, and so just trying to get them back into church, back into, uh, their walk with Christ or even beginning their relationship with Christ. And so we're excited about that coming up in just a couple of weeks, uh, with our homecoming and, uh, Brett, for me, I've got our, our convention coming up the second week of November. Uh, and then we start play practice and everything for the, for the Christmas play. Um, uh, but then, Brett, I mean, we're like 30 days away from some, some big fun stuff coming up. 30 days away for some, sorry, 90 days, three months. Okay. I threw me off with the 30. I'm like, what's coming up in a month? Uh, but yeah, we've got, we do have some stuff coming up. And, uh, before we get into that, let me say something about our fall fest that we're trying, um, since we're throwing out ideas, you've got the mailers. One of the things that we're doing is we're having all these people in, but we're not having people want to register. And cause we were trying to collect their names and address so we can go visit them. So we're, we're giving away four $25 Walmart gift cards. And, uh, you know, we're going to sign up to, uh, to, you know, get in the drawing for it. And then another issue that I had is getting everybody in the auditorium. Cause I like to bring them in the auditorium and give a short gospel presentation and then let them go out and to the, to do the trunk retreat. So we're doing a candy throw to get people interested in coming into the auditorium to hear the gospel. And then we're going to have, cause they hang out at their cars until that's over. And then they go to the trunk retreat and we're going to do that. I'm doing the wordless book this year. I've decided. And so I got one and it doesn't come in time. I'll just make one of my own. It's not that hard to make. Uh, but we are looking forward to that. Now I will tell you that what we do have coming up in 90 days is our trip. Hey, real quick. Have you ever seen the wordless box? I've not. The wordless box is really cool. Um, and so it's like a cube and you fold it. And each time you fold it, a different color pops out. And so you walk through the book like you would, but as you're talking, you unfold like this Rubik's cube almost from a square to a rectangle, you fold it the other way. And every time you do that, a different color, it's, it's really cool. If you've never done it with, with the box like that. Um, and then at the end, you open up the whole thing and then there's the, the, the gold and there's a crown. Um, and so it's, it's just really cool evangelism tool. Nice. Nice. Yeah. I'll have to check that out. Uh, one of the things we do have coming up in the next, uh, 90 days is our trip to Israel and we are looking forward to this. And I'll tell you, we've got now that the war is over in Gaza and Trump has brought peace to the Middle East. Um, people have a renewed interest in going. It was always safe to go, but now now that the war is over and more people are contacting us, wanting to go, we've got spots open on this trip and, uh, man, it's going to be a great time. Don't miss out. If you want to go to Israel now was a perfect time to go. Now that things are settled over there, it's over, it's safe, it's peaceful and, uh, kind of let's, let's go to the Holy land, man. Come with us. Yeah. Join us. Uh, you, you said Hitler brought peace to the Middle East, correct? I said Trump. Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah. I really said Hitler. I'm like, did I make that mistake? Everyone calls him Hitler. And so I'm, I'm glad that Hitler was able to bring peace to the Middle East. Um, yeah, it's good stuff. Hope you can join us. It's going to be a great time. Reach out to us. We're at the brink of where, uh, just a matter of a couple of weeks, they're going to be purchasing the final tickets. And so if you're interested in going, you need to reach out to us. Uh, you can go to our website and the link is there as well of how to register and pay that first deposit. Um, that's all you need to get started. Once they have that deposit, they can begin buying tickets and securing that slot of who's going to be there. We've got coming, Brett, our trip is like five spots, three spots left, uh, to be full. Um, so we want you to go. If you've ever thought about going, now's a great time to jump with us and go and hang out and, uh, just experience the Holy land in an amazing way. Um, as we always talk about, if you would feel free to reach out and, uh, purchase some of our, uh, cigar lines, that would be a great help to our, uh, efforts that we do here. Um, we, we've got our experience box with our four samplers, our coffee and our soap, uh, with the holiday season coming up with Thanksgiving, Christmas gifts coming up. Um, that'd be a great gift to give a father, a brother, a son, um, that would, you know, just as, as loving what that is about, uh, it's a great manly gift, uh, with the cigars, the coffee and the soap. Um, you're not going to find better quality of any of that. And I want you to avail yourself to that. Uh, we'll be running some specials right now. It's already down about 45, $50, uh, for what the retail prices of that. Um, and some sure we'll run some more seven specials as we get closer. Uh, but now would be a great time to go and stock up on some of those things. And, uh, we're excited about the opportunity that we have with that. Brett, anything else? I pretty much covers everything. Uh, we've got a few of them. We're excited about the box that we have coming up, but we put our heads together on that. I do think it would be a great gift for someone for the holidays. Um, but that pretty much covers everything we've got going on. Yeah. I wanted to share two things. Um, one was from, um, Michael Thomas. He was with the hips family. If you guys were at the meetup last two meetups there in hope church in Asheville and hope church there in Georgia. Uh, he messaged me back in September. Uh, we haven't recorded necessarily in person since then we've put out a lot of content, but he said, Hey, I wanted to tell you guys, I love the attitude that you and Brett are maintaining through the podcast series. Uh, you've been very matter of the fact about the good, the bad, the hitting of actions, uh, when needed and not necessarily the people. And, uh, he just wanted to thank us, uh, for that. And so I appreciate that. Uh, last couple of episodes have been some great episodes, uh, of just feedback and, uh, the interview with Eric and his two part episode there, Brett's interview with, uh, about Charlie Kirk and just the independent fundamental Baptist. And, uh, remind me of the name again. Uh, Alex McFarlane, if you, yeah, Alex McFarlane, great interview there. I love listening to that. I hate, I couldn't have been on that interview and, uh, being able to be a part of that, but what a great time you had there with the, with the revival that y'all had the crusade, as well as the interview there you had. Um, I've gotten probably five or six messages just like that. Um, uh, people just thanking us for what we're doing, what we're talking about. And, uh, so we want to share that, uh, as people give us those feedback, uh, lots of comments on social media. And, uh, we just want to encourage you through that. And as always, if our episodes have helped, feel free to reach out, uh, to us, ourself, my cell phone numbers out there, multiple different times and places. And, uh, we're just excited about what we are talking about today. Uh, Brett, anything else before we jump in? No, I think that that pretty much covers it. I will, like James said, we're always thankful for feedback of any kind, but it is a great to hear that so many people have, you know, been encouraging us in this, uh, you know, we try to be fair and it's like, said, matter of fact, and it's like good, bad, ugly, you know, we don't want to spin anything. We just want to present the facts and that's what we try to do. Present the facts, present people's experiences, how they experienced it. And, uh, we're glad to be able to do that for you. Yeah. And, uh, I do want to read one more back in the first September, JC text me and you, and he said, since I know my texts will get read and possibly even read on the episode, he believes that, and this, again, this was an old post Florida state. They, they are, they're not chopping the way they were chopping at the beginning. Uh, he, again, I'm just going to read it. As I said, FSU is the best football team in college football. And after destroying Bama in week one of the 2025 college football season, it's not only playoff in the playoffs, but win the national championship. Uh, a man that'll preach right there. Uh, Brett, I don't know if that text messages has held up to JC's thought of Florida state university. I will tell you, you know, he posts that meme of me doing the chop. I hadn't seen that in a couple of weeks. I'm, I'm missing seeing that. And I think they're number 16. Now they've fallen a little bit. Um, yeah, they're not, they're not the, the caliber team that he thought they were at the beginning there. Um, they're going to come back though. Yeah. Well, actually I think they've, uh, they, they've went down in their ranking. They're not even ranked anymore. So tough stuff for the Florida state Seminoles. They're going to rally JC. Let us know your thoughts on that. Let us know how, how you're loving it. Hey, as a, as a fellow Florida fan of the Miami dolphins, we are sucking it up right now. We're one in five. We can't win a game. If the game was given to us, as it's been given to us the last two weeks, man, we had a 17 point lead on the Panthers. The Carolina Panthers came back and beat us after we had the lead twice. Uh, we had the lead against, uh, the, the last team we played. Uh, I, I just, I'm so embarrassed to be a Panther, a dolphins fan right now because we can't win a game. Um, and so I feel you, JC, I know what it's like to pull for the Florida team and them to disappoint us. I think you've been sharing a lot of Indianapolis Colts lately. And so I guess you've, you've changed your team alliance over the last couple of weeks. So good stuff. Absolutely. Let's jump into today's episode for freedom. You set me free, not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee grace, lit the flame. Now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory justified, released. Welcome to the for freedom podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. I ain't saved by dress codes, not by what I eat. I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head to feet. No tally of tradition, no man made code. Blood bought my freedom. Now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise, but my praise still ascends past the legalist cries. Christ plus nothing. That's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path. He sat with sinners. I'm sitting with saints, sipping grace from the bottle. No room for fakes. I like one for liberty. Toast to the king. Every ash a sermon. Death has lost its sting. For freedom. You set me free, not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee grace, lit the flame. Now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory justified, Now here are your hosts, James Saifert and Brett Martin. So Brett, the last couple of weeks that we've been talking through this new series of the future of fundamentalism. We started it, we kicked it off with Eric Capace there at Champion Christian College and Gospel Like Baptist Church where I attended for four years of my life and just had memories and met my wife and still go back often to see friends and family. Actually just was off the phone yesterday with a friend of mine there in Hot Springs. Mark Cantrell's son, Larry, was talking to him a little bit. And so me and Larry, we go way back as well. Spent a lot of time together. He was in my wedding and just a great, great friend there. That episode sort of gave us the look of the leader who built institutions. And then importantly here, we looked at the movement from the IFB orbit into the SBC arena. What an interesting trajectory that looked like as Eric shared his testimony and how he went through that. A lot of interesting tidbits to take and learn from as well. Exactly. It's kind of a hybrid path here. You've got faithful, conservative theology kind of stepping into the cooperative structure of the cooperative program, SBC. It kind of sets a provocative tone of what's to come and what we're going through as we explore the future of fundamentalism. I'm really interested to see where we go with this moving forward. And so, why don't you tell us what we're dealing with today? Yeah, absolutely. Today, we're going to shift gears a little bit. We're going to talk with someone who I'm intimately familiar with as well. I spent five years, the church I was at in Idaho was highly invested in West Coast and Paul Chapel. And we'd have their tour groups come in every year there in Idaho. And they would present their ministry. We went down every year for the Spiritual Leadership Conference. My first year here in North Carolina as a pastor in Head Night, me and my pastor and a couple of pastors from the local area. We flew out to California and we went to the Spiritual Leadership Conference, SBC churches. We registered and went out there as delegates and we spent some time out there. And so, the interesting thing about Paul Chapel is he firmly landed in the IFB lane and he hasn't abandoned it. He's actually doubled down in that institutional side of it. He would not call himself, if you've read after him, an independent guy. He calls himself unaffiliated. This term came out around the 2010s, 2005, 10 area. In some of his writings, he began to say we're unaffiliated Baptist because the denomination of the IFB was such a derogatory term, was such a hard term. And guys even began abandoning him because he started using this unaffiliated term. And so, Paul Chapel, West Coast, as the college became a college, a publishing empire, they put out books all the time, a thriving church that the Lord has used to bless. And a way we're going to sort of balance this is if Capaci was the institutional entrepreneur that sort of turned SBC and now is the SBC church, Chapel would be the institutional builder. He would be the pastor who's leaning fully into the IFB model and doubling down on that concept. Right. And I'll tell you, my knowledge of Paul Chapel has, I mean, I've known about Paul Chapel. I've read and have several of his books have been recommended to me. I've never had really a problem with him. I know, like I said, I've got the music from the tour groups and I know that he makes a lot of IFB pastors angry when you bring up Paul Chapel because of his stance and he doesn't seem to care. And, you know, I can respect that to a degree. So we need to get into, I'm going to dive into who this man really is. So I'm going to present you with the question so you can kick us off, James. Who is Paul Chapel? Yeah, we'll jump into it. And I want to say one thing before we even answer that question, Paul Chapel and this, I'm not going to mention names, but Paul Chapel is one of these figures that a lot of people don't know that he's reached across IFB lines per se to John MacArthur. Some of that he shared on Facebook. And so I can say that, but there's some other people that I know pretty well as well that John MacArthur, that Paul Chapel has reached out to and just got counsel and got help from in times where he was stressing himself out to the brink's edge of, of almost a mental breakdown where he was able to seek counsel and get help. And most people, if they knew who he was reaching out to would, would definitely abandon him. But, but he was okay with saying, Hey, we believe the gospel. We love Jesus. Let's partner and work together. And I do appreciate that about him and about what he's done. So we'll start at the beginning, the biography, if you know anything about Paul Chapel and the foundation story of Lancaster Baptist church. When Paul Chapel came there in 1986, he was going on vacation with him and his family. And he pulled into this little church and, uh, he, they, he walked into the main floor. There was no one there and walked around to the side. And there was a side staircase that went up to a classroom and someone motioned him up there. I think he had been asked to come and preach while he was on vacation. Um, and just trying to make some money while he was driving through California. As he came in, uh, he went up to the stairs and he preached to 12 people and they said, Hey, would you step outside for a moment? And, uh, he stepped outside and, uh, the, the guy came back out and said, Hey, I just want to let you know, uh, we really enjoyed your sermon. We went ahead and voted and we voted you in as our next pastor of 12 people. We can't pay you. Um, but we want you to come be our pastor. He wasn't candidating for the pastor. He wasn't candidating for this church. Uh, he was just driving through and preaching to make a little money as he was traveling through. And, uh, I think his wife was pregnant. Maybe he had a newborn in the car with him. Uh, the story goes that, uh, he said, well, I'm going to go on vacation. I'll pray about it, but I'm already an associate pastor at a church and I'm not looking to move. And he said the whole week while he was on vacation, the Lord just kept dealing with him and dealing with him about coming and being the pastor of this small church, this struggling, really dead church that was non-existent. Um, and so on the way back, he, he cut his vacation a day short, drove through Lancaster, prayed through the city. And he said, he felt the Lord just tugging to move his family. And so he picked up his family from where they were at, moved down to Lancaster and took over the church with 12 members, uh, that the church was in foreclosure and they couldn't pay him a penny. Right. I mean, he came into this thing. He proposed that they strive together to build something that was going to last. And man, he got to work, hit the ground running, started walking the halls. Literally, um, they said he would knocked on about 500 doors per week, personally inviting people to the church. And then on top of that, you've got the verse by verse expository preaching that became a hallmark, which by the way, in the IFB is incredibly rare to see. Yeah, absolutely. I've got, uh, all of his, um, striving together study Bible library. I've got one right here, uh, through Philippians, um, uh, rejoicing in Christ has expanded outlines and commentaries, uh, that Paul child puts out. That's one thing that, you know, me and John had talked about often was, you know, we don't see a lot of IFB guys or forefathers that we know that are IFB that ever put out commentaries, much less verse by verse commentaries. Um, and so Paul chapel was one of these anomalies that put these things out. Uh, he also, Brett was proactively invested in training the next generation. Uh, in 1995, he founded West coast Baptist Bible college. Um, and this became a ministry arm of the church. Good IFB, right. You've been there almost 10 years. Hey, it's time to start a Bible college. We've got a school going in a Bible college. And so, uh, you know, Eric's about the same way, about 10 years in, uh, he started a Bible college. And so following this model, that is what everybody was doing. And, you know, his education kind of influenced his method because he's got a bachelor from Pacific coast Baptist Bible college. He's got a master's from Louisiana Baptist university. And he's got an honorary doctor of divinity from Trinity Baptist college. Yeah. You know, for years, Brett, I thought that Paul chapel came out of house Anderson. Um, for some reason, someone maybe said that while I was in Bible college or, uh, had said that somewhere. And I just thought for years, that's where he came out of, uh, and going through this research, uh, I couldn't find anything on house. I know he spoke a lot at house and would go up there and speak during pastors conferences while, uh, Jack Scott was there and Jack house was there. Um, but I never, um, I always just assumed that he was, but he came out of Pacific coast, um, uh, Bible college there as well. So Lancaster's growth and style, uh, Lancaster, uh, they had this notable turnaround. If you've never been to the campus campus, man, I've never seen a more beautiful facility for IFB. I mean, it is, uh, it's an oasis in the desert is what they call it. Um, from foreclosure to a multimillion, probably multi-billion dollar properties. Now, um, today they own 96 acres and entire campus of this massive square block, um, where there's just desert and then parking lots and buildings, uh, bus barns and college dormitories and school classrooms. There's solar farms. I mean, they've just doubled down in a lot of that, uh, multiple buildings. Their, their mission program is massive. They've got a bus ministry. That's prolific. Um, I mean, they just, they have done all the IFB things and they've done it well and they've done it top notch. Uh, and I think that's one of the things that you see about them when you go out there. Exactly. And, you know, forget about his radio ministry. It's called daily, daily in the word. I've listened to this. I, in fact, I think I follow the podcast. Um, it's heard on a hundred plus stations. It was originally called truth for today. I do remember that as well, but, uh, starting. It has a Sunday program in 1989. And then it was daily by 1992. And I've heard daily in the word of a lot. I've listened to Paul chapel online podcast. Um, I have, you know, got a lot from his preaching. Cause I used to listen to it all the time. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, I get his email every single morning daily in the word. Uh, he's got a devotional email that comes to my email. Um, typically five o'clock in the morning. It's one of the first things I read today's was on God's patience and how God hates sin and how he wants us to continue to grow in our love for him. Um, and just great, great material, great devotional things that I've used over the years. Um, and I just keep a folder of every single one of those daily in the words, uh, they're great little five minute devotions that you can pull out. Uh, you know, there there'll be times, uh, two weeks ago I was, uh, asked and I forgot, but the, the ladies came for a, uh, uh, a tennis meeting. And when they came in, they were like, Hey, we want you to give a quick devotion. I was like, Oh man, I totally forgot about this. So I pulled out one of those devotions that had read that morning and I gave it to him. So it's, it's great stuff. Um, he also was active publicly. Um, he guests on Fox news commentary. He helped set up Samaritan's purse field hospitals during COVID with Franklin Graham. I mean, he's got a forward front facing. He's not afraid to be in the news and be part of the network of what's going on in the world and around. Okay. So let's now let's talk about West coast Baptist college. We're going to go into their academics, their accreditation. So the college began, like you said earlier in 1995 with chapel. John gochick and Mark Rasmussen. Sorry if I mispronounced those, but these are the men who are leading the charge for it. Yeah. John, John getch and Mark Rasmussen, I believe is his name. Um, yeah, they're, they're great guys as well. I've heard both of them. Um, you know, the, the college has grown steady, uh, not just for local discipleship, but they've, they've attracted their students from all 50 States. They've sent students to all 50 States, um, and about 17 countries from the best I can tell. Uh, that they have, uh, brought in students for. Right. And, you know, uh, accreditation is key. Uh, they entered candidacy with tracks in 2015. They gained accreditation 2019. And it just recently had a 10 year reaffirmation in October, 2023, which is effective through 20. They received it in October, 2023. And it's effective through 2033. Yeah. Tracks accreditation signals this push towards credibility that not a lot of Bible colleges, IFP colleges have a desire to do. And a lot of the outside institutions have, uh, rejected it and rejected what they're doing. Uh, but I believe it's a big step for them, especially an IFP rooted college to say, Hey, we're, we're serious about this. We're serious about what we're doing. And, uh, we want to show everyone else that we're serious as well. Exactly. Um, I, Trinity did that where I got my bachelor, uh, my accredited bachelor. They went the accreditation route. Of course we know, you know, Pensacola. That's why most everybody hated Pensacola because they were a accreditation. It was the devil. Um, but, but that, that's a good sign for things. So we're going to go into the next part, which is their theology, leadership and influence. And, you know, theologically chapel embodies like traditional IFP convictions. Uh, you know, you've got an errancy separation, soul winning, but he adds, if you want to call it an institutional sophistication into the mix. I mean, he's building a school, a church network, he's got a publishing arm, a media ministry, which, you know, we've talked about striving together publications. And then also the spiritual leadership conferences that he has the podcast, which is, you know, how I know most of about him is through the podcast and his media arm. Yep. You know, when I was doing a lot of this study, Paul chapel was like a more polished, more professional, um, Clarence Sexton in my fault. He was a West coast Clarence Sexton guy. He did everything with, with, uh, upwardness, like first class top notch. Um, you know, when I went to a spiritual leadership conference, man, they rolled up the red carpet for us. Um, it was great. His daily, the word broadcast is professional. Um, his striving together publications. They, they extend his reach into what he's doing. Um, and then he, he even served recently. Now he's on the serving on the board of the, the Baptist international mission incorporation BIMI. And so he's got a lot of, of outside stuff that he is, he's working on to broaden his, uh, expanse. Uh, you know, he's also been recognized locally. You know, he's been named citizen of the year, uh, by Lancaster's mayor in 2009. And, and, and, and that's a lot of, that's something else that a lot of IFB churches is missing. Like we've had, we've had several conversations on this podcast where a guy goes into a city, he makes this big work, builds this big work, but nobody in the church is from the city. They're all implants. Remember what we talked about, um, in Texas, you know, we've, with, uh, uh, can't call his name right now. Bob Brady. Right. Yeah. So that's an insane thing at first Baptist, you know, you have these implants first Baptist Hammond. You've got this big work, but it's all implants and you're not, you don't have any reach into the city. And so it's good to see that, you know, he's involved in his, his, you know, his local, he didn't import his work. He built his work there from the ground up. Yeah. He reached the ones that were there. He stayed local. Um, and I, this didn't make it as our notes, but I believe it was in 20, uh, 20 17, 2018, maybe it may have been right before that, but the, the mayor of the town there gave him the keys to the city, um, and said, you've reached the city. You've changed the city. You've changed, uh, our dynamic of what we're doing. And we want to give you a key to the city, uh, which is huge for a pastor of a town, you know, just thinking that was 25 years prior and, uh, the church was in foreclosure and there were 12 people. And then 25 years later, the mayor of the city, this massive city, that's got an air force base and many other things are going on. He's getting the keys to the city. Like he he's that influential and the people in the public are respecting that about him. And so that's, that's huge. Um, so, so what we want to do is in, in this series, because these are live flesh movie moments. Uh, we, we wanted to look at maybe the controversies or criticisms that have been given toward West coast and Paul chapel as well. Uh, we, we looked for hard scandals. Uh, we looked into, uh, lots of different things and nothing criminal came to surface, uh, that tied directly to chapel or West coast. Um, there are cultural critiques. There are sector wide challenges. There are some things that people had preferential differences about. Um, but, but nothing criminal that came to mark for the ministry there. Right. I mean, there are IFB watchdogs out there, like the way of life they've criticized, you know, occasional music or worship pragmatism at Lancaster accusations of softening, strict separation norms, you know, has come up, but that's pretty much the all, all you found. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I, one of the things that I was thought was comical was, uh, West coast, if you've ever seen, they do some great video publications. They've got a great video ministry there. Um, and they use their desert climate to, to shoot some really cool videos. Um, and they did a, a casting crown song that their college choir did and they slowed it down a little bit, made it sort of sound like a hymn. Um, and a lot of people were sharing it, but then all of a sudden someone realized, oh, this is a casting crown song. And then all the IFB pastors started ripping them because, oh, they're just doing contemporary music. They're just slowing it down a little bit, making it like at one point it was getting all these views. And then now all of a sudden people realize who actually put it out. And now they've got a problem with it because they're not separated enough. You know, if, if you call yourself an independent Baptist church, why do you care what another church is doing? Right. I never understood that. Yeah. And then, you know, there's the broader IFB abuse crisis that we looked at each and every one of these ministries, uh, the investigation reporting of the star telegraph, uh, 412 allegations, 187 IFB churches were mentioned. Chapel wasn't one of those ones that were mentioned. He wasn't incomplete implicated personally. Uh, but this is one thing that I thought was refreshing. He did write a blog and, you know, if you know anything about, uh, Paul chapel, he's, he's a big writer. He's, he's very articulate, very wise man. Uh, but he wrote a blog condemning abuse in the church and publicly calling for the repentance of abuse in the church. And so I thought that was very acrimal and, uh, amicable for him to do that. Right. So while, while not personal scandal, the larger reputational context matters. Chapel has tried to address it, you know, theologically pastorally. Um, so he's tried to approach it that way, but you know, no personal scandal. Yeah. Now there was one thing that we did come to light as we looked at this. There was a, uh, a sharper critique that came about from a blog post that he had made. And he was mocking remarks on women who had been premaritally, uh, engaged in sex. Uh, and he called them dirty dish rags. Uh, this reflects sort of how strongly worded his stance on purity can be perceived culturally, uh, for him to use this terminology. Now, uh, again, I don't know if he was referencing something else in this blog, um, or maybe a sermon that he had preached or he had to preach, but, um, he, he was using that as a way to demean them. And, uh, you know, I'm sure that someone would have heard that and, and taken offense or, or been hurt by it. Exactly. Exactly. So in this series, this section, we're talking about the future of fundamentalism. What does this tell us about the future of fundamentalism? So what do we learn from the chapel model? Well, a few things we wanted to bring to light and talk about is we want to talk about institutional durability. Look, he's out here. He's building a college school, uh, media platform conferences, uh, a multi-pronged empire influence. You know, he's got these things going on. And, uh, so, you know, these things are, are durable. Um, they, they stand up. Um, we's also, uh, another thing we wanted to bring up was accreditation without compromise. You know, he's trying to merge doctrinal conservatism with academic legitimacy. And there's nothing wrong with that. And to be honest, I've seen, he really doesn't care what other people think of him. And, you know, if you're going to be in this space, you got to have some tough skin. And I think Paul chapel's got some tough skin. I think he, he, he is what he is. And he really doesn't care what, you know, what other churches think of him. Anytime you want to jump in, if you got something to say, James, jump in. But, you know, he is, you know, he really doesn't care what other people think of him from what we can see. Um, we also learned the scale and reach. I mean, he is influenced extends globally. I mean, he's got graduates all over the country, all over the world. He's got media. He's got publications. I've got these, these bookshelves behind me has got Paul chapel books in them. And so he's got a immense scale and reach for his ministry. And then tensions intact. And this is criticisms about worship style, handling of abuse issues, underscore the push and pull between purity and pragmatism. And, uh, so, you know, just some things that we noticed, some observations about his ministry that we wanted to bring out. Yeah, I agree with all that. I, one of the things I want to say, I said this when Eric was on here, um, and I said this before the one thing that I appreciate about the Bible colleges that we went to and being able to go to West coast, it gave me a vision for what the Lord could do for men who love the Lord. Um, this massive ministry, massive ministers, not for everybody. Uh, you throw me into a Paul chapel arena with 96 acres, college dormitory students, Christian school, athletics, pastoring principal, busman. You throw me in all that. I fail. I fail every time. Um, I don't have the bandwidth or the capacity to do that. I believe God builds men for certain reasons in certain areas of life. Um, now it gives me a vision for a small replica of what God can do, uh, and be able to build that. I, I just see that, you know, being faithful and, and that large ministry is not for everybody, uh, but it does give us this massive vision and his vision was solid. You know, he had this vision to strive together. And now almost 30 years, 40 years later, next year will be 40 years. He strived together with the community, with the people, with the place that he's at, he's reached his community. He's knocking on the doors. He's doing what he thinks he needs to do. Um, his methods are very strategic. Uh, but then the backside of that there's criticism that comes with a large platform. Uh, there's those that are inside of that, the classic IFB separatism that begins to clash with the modern methods of, um, you know, we can do some of these other things a little different way, but you know, we've got to keep doing it because this is how we built the church. But one thing that he illustrates is the one strand of the future of fundamentalism is the institutional strength added to the uncompromising theology. He, he sort of brings these two together where, you know, we look at some of these others of the past of fundamentalism. They had the institutional strength, but they didn't have the theology, or maybe they have the theology, but they were so preferential. There was no institutional following. Um, and so he was able to balance these two and currently is balancing these two in a, in a practical way. Right. So Paul Chappell stands as kind of the, as the other face of growth from the inside, you know, he's building an IFB dynasty of, of sorts from, from what we can see. Yeah. You know, while, while Eric Capace took the hybrid route, chapel began to double down on the IFB. Uh, but both show that institutional building can shape the trajectory of where they go. Next time we talk, we're going to be talking about Charlie Kirk and vision Baptist college. We're hoping to line up an interview between now and then. And, uh, so we hope that you can come in for that and, uh, just been talking to him and trying to get him lined up. Uh, and so we'll, we'll, if you ever have any questions about where we got our information and resources, uh, please let us know, reach out to us. Um, and, uh, you know, Brad, I would love to, uh, have some more of that feedback where people send in some questions and, and we can begin to talk back and forth of those things. And, uh, the comments, we, we definitely appreciate that as well. Right. And I want to add, if there's something you want us to talk about, if there's a subject that interests you, that man, I wish they do an episode on this, or wish they do a couple episodes on this. We love that type of stuff. So hit us up, uh, with your questions, comments, concerns. Well, we love it when you contact us. I want to thank you for joining us today. Uh, in the show notes, we'll link all the references. Tracks accreditation, abuse context, his posts, all this stuff and research that we went through to put this together. And, you know, and if you have any questions, send them in, uh, you know, you know, we, we may, you know, James, we may even do a listener Q and a segment down the road. I don't think that'd be out of the realm of possibility. If we got the questions, we would give the answers, whether they're right or wrong answers, we'd give them. We, Hey, we, we can do it like, like a little mailbox segment. We can even make some music. You know, love it. I think it's great. So, all right. Well, Hey, I hope you've enjoyed the content as always. If you'd like to give us a rating and a review, share it on all the social media platforms. And until next time to God, be the glory. Great things. He has done. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. That has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. Found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. For Freedom Podcast. For Freedom Podcast.

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