Logical Belief Ministries

After prayerful consideration and consulting with my wife and a fellow brother (a deacon at my church) the Logical Belief Ministries Podcast is disassociating with the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network. All content will be moved back to LogicalBelief.org and the Logical Belief YouTube channel.

We believe that Christian apologetics, evangelism and discernment ministries should hold as the highest priority to represent other points of view whether, Christian or non-Christian, with utmost truthfulness about what others actually believe and do. Our Lord is the embodiment of Truth itself and a hallmark of all Christians is to be like their Lord. Our Lord and his Apostles always represented others with truthfulness. Christian ministries should also be very careful and show extreme care when criticizing and critiquing other Christian ministries that are preaching the true Gospel. The Bible Thumping Wingnut Network has taken a direction which is not supported by Logical Belief Ministries and has misrepresented another Christian ministry which consistently preaches the Gospel.

The charges made and content in the first two videos linked below are so plainly false that no fair minded person can deny it. I do not understand what the motives could even be to do this. If the standard that Tim lays out were applied to the Apostles’ and Evangelists’ presentations in the Book of Acts then they didn’t preach the Gospel either. Tim is arguing that if you don’t preach the Gospel in exactly the same way that he does, within an arbitrarily selected period of time, then you are not preaching the Gospel, or you are at least not clear on the Gospel. We are to preach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27) therefore our messages are not always focused on a narrow range of soteriology, nor should they be.

Videos by Tim Hurd on Jeff Durbin preaching the Gospel:

I Think I Was Wrong About Jeff Durbin

Jeff Durbin’s Attempts To Preach The Gospel

Apologia has responded with a montage of Jeff preaching the Gospel that clearly refutes the accusation made above:  Montage of Jeff Durbin preaching the Gospel

Modern traditions of evangelism have conditioned Christians that the Gospel and the Word of God needs to be shared using the same formula every time. The New Testament record shows us that Jesus and the Apostles spoke differently depending on the audiences and the situations. The way the truth was communicated to the rich young ruler, the Pharisees, the Pentecost audience, Stephen before the Sanhedrin, the Areopagus members, the Ethiopian eunuch, Cornelius’ household, and the Philippian jailer are all different. Christian’s should not judge other ministries or Christians on the basis of a tradition. Almost none of these encounters would meet the conditions Tim has established for Jeff Durbin.

I do want to state that I believe that Tim was fair in his assessment of Jeff ‘s performance on the Tin Foil Podcast episode where he was a guest (BTWN Episode: “A Tin Foil Gospel“). I am not contending the content of that episode. I believe many of his critiques were valid. My problems are with the follow-up episodes of “I think I was wrong about Jeff Durbin” and “Jeff Durbin’s Attempts to Preach the Gospel”. At the end of Tim’s Podcast “A Tin Foil Gospel” he states that we all have failed to share the Gospel when we ought to have, and Tim is correct. I have failed in this, Tim has failed in this and so has Jeff Durbin. Just as Jeff’s failure on the Tin Foil Hat podcast is not a reflection on the rest of his ministry, Tim’s failures to share the Gospel are not a reflection on his entire ministry. Let us be gracious with one another as the Lord has been gracious with us.

I want to briefly comment on Jeff Durbin’s releasing of a recorded private conversation with Tim Hurd back in 2017. In the recording Tim apologized and repented of this same type of behavior. First Tim is not a member of Jeff’s church and Jeff is not his pastor. To Apologia, Tim is a guy on the internet that misrepresents their ministry frequently. The conversation was recorded legally within the state of Arizona which is a one party consent state for conversation recordings. While I understand why they would have recorded the conversation in the first place and believe that it was justified, I do not believe the public releasing of the audio was wise. This however is a discussion that can be had. The audio does show however that Tim has engaged in misrepresenting Apologia in the past, repented of the activity, and now has resumed the same behavior. This is not about just resuming criticism but resuming misrepresentation.

I have made repeated attempts (a phone call and Facebook messages) to work with Tim to remove the two episodes above and release a public retraction and apology, however all Tim has done is double down.

I am left with no other choice but to separate ways. I believe that both Apologia and the Bible Thumping WingNut Network preach the Gospel. Were it not for my association with the Bible Thumping WingNut Network I would not be addressing this issue between these two ministries but would be leaving it between them. This statement also should not be considered an endorsement of everything that Apologia has said and done during this controversy. This statement also is not saying that the Bible Thumping WingNut does not produce great content which can be edifying to the Church.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jason Mullett