Seth Gruber is a pro-life activist behind the 1916 Project film. On Sunday, he called out YouTube apologist Sean McDowell after apparent back channel attempts. Now, Gruber goes scorched earth labeling McDowell a coward unwilling to contend for the faith in his own backyard particularly as it relates to his boss, Ed Stetzer.
The rest of this article is adapted from Seth Gruber’s thread, with receipts linked.
I’ve waited for a long time before deciding to do this, but it’s long overdue… Sean McDowell is a COWARD and a hireling who only speaks as much truth as the man who signs his checks allows him to. That would be Ed Stetzer of course.
I used to idolize Sean in college, befriended him after graduation, got coffee with him a few times a year while starting my pro-life speaking ministry, was supported by him for a while, and enjoyed our friendship.
I saw him play softball with CRT in 2021, but didn’t think too much of it. Then in 2022, he kindly criticized me for not being “winsome” enough in my speaking and in my new ministry. In retrospect, I see he meant to be soft.
Then, Biola hired Ed Stetzer in 2023 as the dean of Talbot Theology – I asked Sean if we could talk about this, given the evil man that Stetzer is – and his response was “NO, and please take my endorsement of you off your website.” All because I asked if we could discuss Biola’s hiring decision.
I was totally flabbergasted and shocked. I realized that I would not be allowed to ask questions of his employer’s direction or their hiring decisions. I carefully detailed Stetzer’s HORRIFIC record to Sean, none of which Stetzer has repented of. Sean refused to address or reply to a SINGLE concern and has ignored every text and invitation to debate on my show ever since.
Stetzer platformed, praised, and defended Francis Collins as a Christian brother whilst the former NIH Director was FUNDING chopping off minor’s breasts, chemically castrating kids, scalping full term aborted babies to make humanized rats, creating an app to track minors’ anal sex experiences, and giving record level funding to fetal organ harvesting. Basically, Josef Mengele.
Let me repeat: Stetzer has NEVER repented for or apologized for his fanboy platforming and praising of Collins as a “Christian” and his insistence that all Christians listen to and trust Collins.
This is not to mention Stetzer‘s attacking of Christians who did not want the jab, his insistence that refusing to get the jab meant you hated your neighbor and must not understand the gospel, his advisory role in crafting the HE GETS US 2024 Super Bowl ad, and his platforming of CRT. Remember, Stetzer is Dean of Biola’s seminary and Sean’s BOSS.
Every professor at Biola and Talbot should have been up in arms and throwing a fit over their employer’s decision to hire a man utterly unfit for ministry, a man who should be under church discipline, not the dean of a seminary.
Since that interaction almost 2 years ago, I’ve slowly watched Sean become more and more of a coward. His multiple platforming of Side-B advocate Preston Sprinkle and his refusal to even challenge Sprinkle’s use of legion pronouns was very telling.
When Sprinkle said on Biola’s “Thinking Biblically” podcast regarding his use of pronouns, “that’s complicated on multiple levels,” Sean’s response to this was “sure, that’s great, that’s helpful.” Apparently, lying is now complicated and can be helpful for Talbot professors.
Upton Sinclair once said “It is impossible to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on him not understanding it.” I just never thought that would be true of this Christian apologist hero of mine. But courage is best examined up close.
I mean that the measure of a man’s courage is best seen and tested in his family, his friends, and in his 9 to 5. Anyone can boldly decry the evils of our age from YouTube, or proclaim Christ to an audience you’ve never met. Real courage comes when you do the right thing even when it may or will cost you personally. And if a Christian leader can’t stand against EVIL in his own “backyard,” I have no interest in hearing him discuss Christian Truths in public, and neither should you.
This will be twisted by Sean’s defenders and he will certainly have his own take about “unity” and “divisiveness” and “big tent Christianity” and something about how Stetzer doesn’t deny any core doctrines of the gospel… but this misses the whole point. Stetzer, the Dean of Talbot University has cooperated with and advanced some of the most satanic EVILS in our society, and greatly damaged the witness of the Church and hurt many individual believers. One gal reached out to me and told me she got the JAB because Stetzer insisted it was the Christian thing to do and was totally safe and is now very, very sick because of it.
Stetzer now oversees one of the most “respected” seminaries in America, educating the next generation of pastors, theologians, and Christian thinkers. And you know what’s crazy? Anytime I share this story with normal believers trying to follow and honor Jesus, they are HORRIFIED. When I share it with pastors that are not part of BigEva but actually love and protect their flock, they are HORRIFIED. But Sean is not horrified. Because he knows where his bread is buttered.
Sean McDowell is not a Christian leader. He is an institutional manager. This slow creep can happen to anyone, and we must all pray for daily courage and look for opportunities to be courageous. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.” Meaning, all the virtues mean nothing if you don’t have courage.
Hear me – I’m not saying Sean needs to be like me and become a prophetic iconoclast. His ministry has had a lot of fruit, and Christian apologetics is so helpful for the Church, and, particularly, the next generation. But the testing point of every man and leader is when evil shows up in their backyard. Will he fight it and throw that evil out, or will he placate it and welcome it into his home?
Biola could have been saved and fought for by Sean, but when the testing point came, he flinched and has been flinching ever since. It reminds me of a line from Tommy Lasells in The Crown series:
“It’s in the small things that the rot starts. Do the wrong thing once, it’s easy to do it again.”
Our actions have consequences, but those consequences are increased tenfold when we’re leaders with platforms. Biola will continue getting weaker and woker until the people there who know better speak up!! Sean’s silence and self-censorship has consequences for the university, the students who will attend there, but worst of all, for his soul.
Just as physical atrophy occurs through not using your muscles, moral atrophy occurs through not using your voice… to speak truth, defend the good, fight evil. Czeslaw Milosz, a Polish anti-communist dissident and author wrote about this when describing how people ideologically opposed to communism pretended to be okay with it in order to stay out of trouble and not experience persecution.
He called their strategy of silent dissent – “Ketman.” Ketman is a Persian word for practicing the appearance of Islamic orthodoxy and faith while inwardly dissenting.
The problem with such silent dissent (cowardice?): is that it fundamentally changes who you are. Having to “be on” all the time, ensuring you don’t speak the truth that’s really on your mind, changes you at a core level. You eventually become the actor you play. It’s worse than hypocrisy because the longer you portray the “silently dissenting” actor, the more your character is corrupted, and as more and more people do that, society slowly decays as well.
Pray for Sean to find his courage again and speak out against his boss, Ed Stetzer, and the sad direction of Biola and Talbot. He’s a gifted man, and we need the courageous Sean back in the Kingdom fight!
