NAB Research page

Hello church family. During our last quarterly family meeting (7/30/23) we (elders) gave a brief update about the state of the NAB and the influence of worldly ideologies we believe have infiltrated the camp. However, the main reason for the update was to bring up the issue again and ask you, the body, to look into it on your own. The elders strongly believe that this is, and should be, a decision that we make as a church family. As I stated during the meeting, this doesn't mean we'll all be in complete agreement with the end result, but we must be unified and on the same page with one another. I, Pastor Rob, was asked during the meeting to provide some avenue for the Hillside family to find some of the information that was referenced so members would be equipped to investigate.


This is a big decision for our church, as we have been part of the NAB since the inception of Hillside. Please pray about this. Make time for fasting as you look. Spend intentional time in the Word, searching these things out. You may find the requested links below.


Love you, Family.

Links

Expand and read some information and descriptions, and/or click the links to go to the actual content.

  • Regional Minister Randy Jaspers periodically sends out emails to the pastors in his region. These emails typically include prayer requests from around our North Central Association, churches that are in need of pastors, invitations to training or Zoom conversations, and other announcements. I received one such email on May 3rd, 2023 in which item number two states:


    "Several churches received an email letter this week from Pastor Levi Secord of Christ Bible Church, St. Paul, MN. Please give me a call, if you desire to talk about it. Dr. Harry Kelm, NAB Executive Director, also communicated his openness to visit: “If you have a church or pastor that is asking questions or is wanting more information, please have them contact me.”


    While it was merely speculation, I had suspicions as to the content of the "email letter" and reached out to Dr. Secord to look into it. We had a conversation that lasted over an hour and I learned that the situation was actually further reaching than we knew. When we met with NAB leaders in 2021, we asked if other churches were taking issue with this and the overwhelming interpretation of the elders, upon hearing their response was that there were a few isolated churches that were struggling with it. While the scope of the situation isn't 50% of NAB churches being upset, it was certainly downplayed. 


    Dr. Secord is a pastor in St. Paul, MN. He is in leadership of an NAB church plant whose mother church is also in the St. Paul area. I will let him speak for himself from this point. Check out the link in the colored bar above for further information.

  • The NAB reading list has been a sore point from the beginning and one of the major pieces of evidence regarding the influence of CRT in the NAB. In a video conversation between a few of the elders in 2021, I, Pastor Rob, raised this issue. I made it clear that the reading list seemed rather one sided. It only deals with one side of the issue. It is decidedly bias on these issues. I'll be the first to state that even our own reading list on our website is bias. However, its bias is, we believe, based on biblical lenses. Our reading list reflects the overall beliefs of most of our congregation, all of our elders, and reflects the teaching you'll hear preached on a weekly basis on the Lord's Day. Reading lists aren't accidents. That's the point. 


    Dr. Secord, in the video on the above linked webpage, cited from the book Colorblind. That book has since been taken down. Now, we could take that in good faith that change is happening. However, that logic doesn't track with reality. For instance, if it were discovered that I had placed a book on our church's reading list that detailed the pro's of pedophilia, and if I took it off the website subsequently to it being discovered, that wouldn't take away the question in the minds of the congregation. I would be accountable to answer for why it was on there in the first place. The people would wonder what was in my heart and mind that I would see that as an appropriate book for our people to read. The same is true in the case of the NAB reading list. Books that get taken down from the list, were nonetheless part of it on purpose at one point and those issues have not been addressed.


    When I brought up the list back in 2021 I was told that the "NAB doesn't make statements about things like this." My immediate reply was that when an organization puts out a reading list that agrees with one side of an issue and refuses to balance that list with all sides, they have made a statement. That is a statement. 


    Also, during a one on one conversation with an NAB leader, in the spring of this year, I noted the lack of discernment and wisdom observed among the leadership to state emphatically that they do not believe the NAB is "going woke", while at the very same time recommending Woke Church as a book that will "stimulate thought" on these matters. Please Click the Link in the colored bar above and scroll down the page to get to the current NAB list.

    For a more robust (and we, the elders, believe, a correct biblical lens) please see the titles below:

    • That Hideous Strength: How the West was Lost by Melvin Tinker
    • White Guilt by Shelby Steele
    • Fault Lines by Voddie Baucham
    • Just Thinking: about the state by Darrell Harrison & Virgil Walker
    • Social Justice and the Christian Church by Ronald Nash
    • By What Standard, edited by Jared Longshore
    • Christianity and Wokeness by Owen Strachan
    • Christianity and Social Justice: Religions in Conflict by Jon Harris
    • Social Justice Goes to Church by Jon Harris

A helpful interview

For any of you who are new to some of the issues of Social Justice, Wokeness, or Critical Race Theory, this may be a helpful interview to check out. This is the President of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Sam Waldron interviewing Dr. Tom Ascol (who teaches a course on the subject at CBTS). It might be good to get your feet wet if you haven't thought through these things yet.

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Contact and Ask

Please feel free and encouraged to reach out to any of the elders regarding this to hear first-hand our understanding, experience on calls and in meetings, and to ask any other question you might have on the subject. Also, please feel free to ask for further links that you think might be helpful as you prayerfully look into this with us.