Ligon Duncan Defends Endorsing Woke Church

Recently, Ligon Duncan went on a podcast where he denied the existence of Big Eva and gaffed on Jesus calling Herod a fox. Ligon Duncan, the head of Reformed Theological Seminary, returned for a round two interview on Room For Nuance, after getting a lot of attention the first time. This time he defended his decision to endorse Eric Mason’s book Woke Church. He would also expose Neil Shenvi in the process.

Duncan’s defense can be summarized as follows:

1. Appeal to authority fallacy (Neil Shenvi is not an authority on criticisms of wokeness)
2. Ad Hominem fallacy
3. Anecdote of a woke student

Duncan states that Woke Church is a solid book based on the review written by Neil Shenvi. Both Room For Nuance and Duncan argue that Neil Shenvi is no fan of wokeness. Neil Shenvi is a member of JD Greear’s church and supported Resolution 9 which endorsed Critical Race Theory at the 2019 Annual Southern Baptist Convention. He believes there are salvageable elements to Critical Race Theory. All of this hypocrisy is why Shenvi is not credible. It is also the reason Big Eva elevated him to make the criticisms of CRT. Ligon Duncan’s appeal to Shenvi highlights how Shenvi is controlled opposition to wokeness.

Next, he attacked the people critical of Woke Church as “neo-confederates who are podcasting from their mother’s spare bedroom.” This was possibly a thinly veiled attack on Jon Harris of Conversations The Matter. He followed this attack by stating that they had no real influence, despite Room For Nuance posing this topic as his most asked question. 

Meanwhile, Ligon Duncan is on an astroturfed Big Eva podcast with no organic following on social media. The irony is potent as Jon Harris and discernment bloggers et al. successfully branded Ligon Duncan as woke.

He finishes by relaying the story of a Black student thanking him for writing the forward to Woke Church making him feel that Reformed Theological Seminary was safe for him.

Ligon Duncan and his interviewer show that wokeness is not going away, instead being institutionalized by Big Eva.