Lakepointe Church is one of many Dallas-Fort Worth megachurches, overseeing the six campuses and boasting 20,000 collective attendees. They are helmed by Josh Howerton. Lakepointe is very much a megachurch in its website presentation, featuring a very rudimentary faith statement, if it could be called one.
The sermon entitled, “Men Must Fight for Their Families” is the first part of a four-part series about family in which he begins with the men. Feminists expressed outrage over an illustration he used in his August 4th sermon in which he made an illustration about sexual temptation. Sheila Gregoire largely spearheaded the ragebait while familiar names like Kristen du Mez and Rachel Denhollander can be seen in agreement.
36 minutes into the sermon, Howerton’s illustration can be seen:
Here’s how much you need to fight—this is really interesting, the book of Ephesians says to you men that if the devil literally physically appears to you, it says what you need to do is stand firm against the fiery darts of the evil one. But then the same book says to flee sexual immorality. You know what that means? If you go out of one of our campuses, get to your car and the literal physical devil…you need to stand up and bow up, and the Bible’s going fight.
But if you go out there and its like some shady little girl in a mini skirt, run Forest run!
Gregoire attacks Howerton and insinuates that the “shady little girl” comment is about minors and children and that men should not be tempted by children. His comments are not helped by the fact that twenty-seven minutes into the sermon, he made a joke in which he covered his infant son’s chest for censorship. The haters are insinuating that the comment blames “little girls” for tempting men.
If his comments were read charitably, then even if his word choice was poor, the descriptor of little girl was supposed to contrast with the presumed prowess of the devil earlier in the illustration, that one should stand mighty against the devil but run away from a physically unimposing girl. Throughout Scripture, brave and mighty men often stood up to physically imposing threats only to be at their lowliest due to sins involving women, such as David or Samson. A better expositor of Scripture would rely on these examples rather than the convoluted image he conjured. The use of the word “girl” is common vernacular whether for adult or minors, just as “boy” is used to described full grown men or “kid” used to describe college athletes. Given the prominence of anime, Howerton’s illustration might be quite relatable to his audience.
The feminists would despise his sermon regardless of the “shady little girl” comment. The sermon is a message directed primarily towards men in which he espoused male headship as prescribed by God, not without responsibility or as a license to abuse as these so-called abuse advocates suggest. He advocated marriage and childrearing, even suggesting that the church should be a dating pool since Christians should marry other Christians. He confronted sexual sins that were more common to men, including lust and fornication. Prior to the illustration, he emphasized marriage as being the only circle of intimacy a man should have. This backdrop was removed from the context of the quote.
In full context, the sermon illustration, while unwisely worded, is not a means to justify the sexual predation of children. Had he just said “girl in a mini-skirt,” their critiques would largely be unchanged since it infers blame unto women for tempting men with how they dress, which is their core objection. Instead, they interpret his words to depict a man blaming children for tempting adults because they project their grievances against the church onto the ragebait. In the most feminist fashion, they perceive exceptions like Robert Morris as normative across the church, and they use this to justify unbelief or false teaching.
However, there are legitimate criticisms to be had of Josh Howerton, who truly embodies a megachurch persona. In a sermon on masculinity, he presented the content of a Mark Driscol but with a delivery that combines Andy Stanley, Matt Chandler, and David Platt. It is hard to build men up as a causally dressed pastor whose presentation is rather effeminate. He has a stage with a transparent pulpit and a screen he can point to for his illustrations, just like the other effeminate pastors. The other problem with his preaching is that he tries too hard to be a comedian, which means his sermons invoke absurd or edgy illustrations to explain Scripture. At the beginning of this sermon, he sang Genesis 2:23 because Adam is “sang” this verse, which is really just a formatting that denotes poetry, not prose. His sermons are rife with jokes and humor, so the “shady little girls” comment could simply be a bad joke just like the illustration using his son. This is breast milk, not solid food, which will hardly build up the men he seeks to help.
In a sermon on masculinity, Josh Howerton is anything but masculine, which is a feature, not a bug, of megachurch Christianity. Josh Howerton has long catered to feminism only for these forces to ankle bite him in return.
One Response
Worrying about how the lost view a sermon meant for the children of God is ridiculous. They will ALWAYS find fault with what we say as it’s their father the devil that pushed them to sling those darts to begin with, ignore the haters.