One of my favorite pastimes while on the interwebs is to hate-watch debates among followers of Christ and heathens until I cannot take the cringe anymore. Debates have long been an extremely lazy form of ministry and usually they are more often than not, grifting operations. Now do not get me wrong, apologetics is important to the body of Christ, especially in regard when it comes to ministering to Muslims, Jews, and cults such as the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, the common theme among all four of those groups is that they have respect for, or at the very least, believe Jesus Christ was a real person. Most apologetics wind up doing fruitless debates with so-called atheists or other pagans who don’t matter, have no interest in learning the truth, and are only there to stomp on pearls.
However, this one debate I witnessed on Apologia Studio’s YouTube account piqued my interest. Apologia Studios is usually hosted by Dr. James White and Pastor Jeff Durbin, both reformed ministers. Durbin and White are both famous (or infamous depending on your perspective) for their debates among atheists, Mormons, Muslims, and every strange flesh in-between. Both of them are not important to this story, who is important is their guest, the so-called “Reverend” Brandon Robertson.
Brandon Robertson is an author, activist, and so-called theologian, most famous for his activities on TikTok. According to his website, Robertson has a reach of over 215k followers and 5.5 million views based on his digital content. Robertson is most infamous for being a false teacher, preaching sexual perversions such as homosexuality, transsexuality, and most LGBT activities are a good thing and ordained by God. Because of his influence, especially among the Zoomers, and himself being a young man with charisma, he is often the target of many discernment ministries.
Now what is interesting about this debate, is not so much the debate itself, it is what Robertson said when arguing with Durbin over the Bible starting at 29:00
According to Robertson, he spent the last decade and $100k Balaam-Bucks in student loans to get training on sexuality in the Bible. In layman’s terms, he spent six figures to get a seminary degree to push his ministry career. According to his wiki page, Robertson received a bachelor’s from the Moody Bible Institute as well as degrees from the Iliff School of Theology, and Eastern Illinois University. He is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Religion at Drew University. In all, the student loans he has accumulated could be anywhere from $200k to $500k.
So, why do I point this out? The student loan crisis will have the most profound effects in the coming decades as Gen Z come into their own. There will be, and already has been, a generation of debt slaves who will never be able to pay the debt off nor can this type of loan be bankrupted away. This is because American society worships the college degree as the ultimate “meal ticket” to a better life. Countless media portrayals and indoctrination programs push the college degree as a must-have to get any sniff of the American dream. It is either the bachelor’s degree or a lifetime of lifting boxes at your local Walmart.
Now, this would have been true decades ago when a college degree meant something and it was significantly harder to get in these schools with professors that know how to teach their students how to learn. However, as businesses and firms evolved and more and more people are getting into college thanks to these student loans, the value of the college degree has diminished drastically. So much so that it is becoming the equivalent of the high school diploma or GED. This would not be a huge problem if college were paid for. But because America worships the college degree, and how corrupt the college system is, and because HR harpies are generally lazy most entry-level employment requires you to receive at least a Bachelor’s just to get your foot in the door. Being a coffee gofer at your local bank now requires a bachelor’s degree and five years of experience.
This problem is especially bad in full-time ministry. Most pastors and ministers, just to get “in the game” at a church, have to go through the BS that is seminary. Most of the preachers and pastors coming out of seminary owe more than $50,000 in student loan debt. This is an astronomical amount for a profession that is low-income to begin with and has little to no benefits provided by the church body compared to a secular firm that offers typical benefits one would expect from a corporation. The fact is that a ton of elders, some of whom shouldn’t be elders in the first place, value a seminary degree more than any tangible experience such as knowing how to lead grown-ass men, having a stable household (as in no debt, and the wife and kids are behaving themselves), have an upstanding moral character or being a man of prayer.
So, how does this relate to Robertson? First of all, when are these schools going to be held accountable for the so-called ministers who graduate from their schools? To have blatant false prophets coming out of their schools preaching what is evil is good and what is good is evil makes you wonder just how effective these schools are at making faithful ministers of the word. It seems every year, the so-called ministers and preachers coming out of seminary are getting more heretical, more blasphemous, more outrageous, and more apostate. The pastors coming out of these schools have never fasted a day in their lives, and their knees have never been blistered or bruised due to praying. But they do know all the marketing tricks of the trade. Instead of studying the prophet Isaiah, they study Rick Warren. Instead of studying the Bible, they are taught how to twist and pervert the scriptures. That is if they ever study the scriptures at all.
Now, that is not to say all seminaries are evil. If you want to be a faithful minister in the kingdom, you must always be humble of heart and be willing to learn at all times, in every phase of your ministry. I am sure there are still sound, Bible-affirming colleges that are vigilant towards the gospel and training men to get into ministries. But these are becoming more and more rare as the most God-hating reprobates get into professorships at these seminaries and start teaching nonsense. If reprobates infected the secular college so they can teach how porn is good for your brain, you can change genders by cutting your peepee off and putting on a wig, and twerking your behind on Twitch is a great business plan, why do we think it cannot happen to these seminaries? In fact, it is worse at seminaries because the default thought people have entering these institutions is all the professors are Charles Spurgeon-types, faithfully training men in ministry. Instead, they are in for a rude awakening when half the professors don’t believe the Bible or Jesus Christ in the first place, and the other half are women who unironically teach grown-ass men the wonders of so-called Christian feminism.
That brings me back again to Robertson and I had a thought experiment: I often wonder, if we agree to pay off the debts of these false prophets, would they quietly change careers and do something else? Robertson allegedly authored, edited, and contributed to twenty books. So Robertson can easily change his career into an author and write about SJW nonsense without the god shtick. But the fact is that because of the student loan debt, many of these false preachers have no choice but to continue forward into their “ministry” career because there is no going back after signing their life away and getting chained to a massive loan that will never go away. Much like being a doctor, or lawyer, there is no going back once you sign on that paper and get a student loan.
Having a debt of that magnitude is a burden on anyone. This puts many ministers in a peculiar situation where they will have to put careers first instead of the church. So, if sin creeps into their life, such as an affair, instead of doing the right thing and confessing and stepping down from their position, they are forced to hide that fact because they have to have a job to pay off this massive debt hovering above them.
Then, there is the temptation to compromise, forsaking hard preaching and sound doctrine for teachings that were fabricated by demons. Instead of giving the full counsel of God, like what Paul did in Romans, pastors are tempted to bring an inoffensive and watered-down version of the gospel to draw as many people to the church as possible. You see this a lot with “seeker-sensitive” churches. Charismatics will try to con the elect with signs and wonders instead of calling the children of God to repentance. Others will try to bust out the smoke machines, and laser lights, and put on a dog and pony show for heathens. Instead of worshiping the Lord in truth, they will worship him by playing bubblegum pop songs to Jesus. Even worse are the so-called progressive churches that Robertson is a part of that preach LGBT butt stuff filth because the LGBT crowd has money as well and it’s an untapped market to be exploited.
This is simply not a progressive Christian problem either. Many, yes many, will have ministries dedicated to low-hanging fruit such as abortion and pro-family causes. These are two types of ministries that already have built-in “bad guys” and they are narratives people already know and are familiar with. It is an easy cash cow to rile people up with the abortion issue instead of calling people out for their sins or addressing real heart issues up in the pulpit.
I don’t want to just pick on Robertson who should be prayed for. He is just a symptom of a deeper issue. I am sure Robertson began his journey wanting to preach about Christ. But as he wrestled with his sexuality and sins, instead of becoming a powerful voice for God despite the cross he bares, he is just another in a line of false prophets that will tickle the ears of many by promoting LGBT butt stuff instead of freedom from broken sexuality through the blood of Jesus Christ. I am sure being six figures in debt did not help Robertson with his decisions. Instead of finding a new career, which would be more respectable if he went down that path, he now has to double down on LGBT doctrine to draw crowds and draw money because the student loan is such a weight.
So again I ask, would paying off these student loans for ministers help in this matter? I suppose it would, I suppose it would not. The problem with false prophets is that they do not know they are false prophets until God reveals that to them, and even then, most believe the lie and continue forward with perverse thinking. Despite paying off these debts, there will always be false prophets, as Jesus Christ first warned us. Still, money is the root of all sorts of evil. And everyone in debt is a slave to the lender. The fact is, ministers with student loans are at a massive disadvantage right out of the gate and can be more easily compromised to teach about how Freddy can have two daddies and attending your daughter’s gay wedding is wholesome and pure.
Now, there are plenty of preachers out there who do not believe in Christ and who preach only for money. Paul comments how he does not care about these types of ministers as long as they are preaching the right doctrine. And indeed, they are out there. But increasingly it is getting harder and harder to preach the full gospel of truth in a world that completely rejects truth and crafts it for themselves. As people reject the gospel, the money of these churches dries up, and as the money dries up, those in full-time ministry will start to starve, and that’s when the real tests begin.
But here is the thing: The more the money dries up, the more these ministers rely on God, and the more you rely on God, the more you can see his miracles. God takes care of all His children, especially those who are anointed. God took care of the Israelites in the desert. Elijah starved in the drought, but God provided for him, thanks to a widow. There are also countless stories of faithful churches, who are about to go belly-up, and are miraculously saved by a last-minute donation from out of nowhere.
That is not to say that we should let ministries starve just to see God’s glory. What I am saying is that this student loan issue is more complicated, and more dire than people realize. God’s anointed should not have to be six figures in debt just to get in the door of ministry. Even 20k is too much. They should enter ministry debt-free, without a massive chain around their neck and the temptation to preach what the world wants to hear instead of feeding the sheep with God’s word. Unfortunately, so-called Elders are hellbent on making sure the pastor is “properly trained” by getting into student loan debt and effectively setting them up for failure if it does not work out.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we have to reanalyze how we view seminary degrees and we need a long conversation about what the benefits are of getting into debt that you can’t bankrupt out and sticks with you, with interest. So-called conservative christians also need to put down the Milton Friedman book and really think about this situation. Ben Shapiro-acolytes will just boorishly say to pay off the debt. But do you really want the shepherd of your church to have this albatross always over his head when Satan is prowling the land like a lion and wolves surround the church at all times? Could the Robertsons of the world choose a different path in life if that debt was paid off? Could the temptations that many pastors, elders, preachers, and general ministers face in ministry be toned down if they did not have the student loan? Maybe the time has come to repent on this issue.
Jesus Christ Red Pill 