The Gospel Coalition Announces The Carson Center for Theological Renewal; Here are the Problems

The Gospel Coalition announced a center that is dedicated to D.A. Carson on September 26, 2023. The Carson Center for Theological Renewal is designed to provide guidance, teachings and material for the evangelical church. What it shows instead is that it pays to be corrupt. What Carson shows The Gospel Coalition and the EFCA is that it pays to lash out and attack an alleged sexual assault victim.

“When you don’t take a stand against corruption you tacitly support it.”

Kamal Haasan

Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.

Proverbs 29:25

Truth be told I got sick when I read the following and knew it needed to be written about this evening. First I apologize for not getting a post up sooner.  I have been busy and I also am now on the hook for writing a newsletter for my model train club in the area. So its been nuts, but let’s look into this development and analyze the flaws in honoring D.A. Carson

The Carson Center for Theological Renewal is Announced

On September 26, 2023 over at The Gospel Coalition Collin Hanson announced what is going to be known as the Carson Theological Center for Theological Renewal. The center which is designed to honor D.A. Carson and teach Biblical renewal. Here is how it describes itself.

“Around the world today, biblical illiteracy inhibits spiritual depth—not just in the shrinking church of the West but even in the growing churches of the South and East. But there’s no spiritual renewal without returning to Scripture. And while the internet offers unprecedented access to the Bible, many of the most widely used resources for studying God’s Word are unhelpful at best or heretical at worst.

That’s why TGC has started The Carson Center for Theological Renewal, named in honor of TGC cofounder Don Carson. As we see in Scripture and church history, spiritual renewal follows theological renewal when the ancient gospel of Jesus Christ recaptures our hearts and minds.

This new initiative fosters spiritual renewal around the world by providing excellent theological resources for the whole church—for anyone called to teach and anyone who wants to study the Bible.”

According to what Hanson wrote in, “TGC Announces The Carson Center for Theological Renewal” the center will be doing the following in the next few years.

1. Create and produce books and then distribute them to church leaders around the world. The center will create commentary on every book within the Bible. Also to be created are theological dictionaries and a hemeneutics handbooks.
2. The Carson Center will curate and distribute sermons and have free courses on hundreds of theological topics and practical ministry issues, as well as reviews and a compilation of D.A. Carson’s work. That will include 600 sermons, conference messages, free ebooks, and countless articles.
3. Finally the center will cultivate a group of fellows and top Biblical scholars and theologians from around the world. They will provide online cohort-style training to Bible teachers, students, and anyone who wants to know God’s word better.

That is the center in a nutshell. Now let’s look at the problems with this new organization form The Gospel Coalition.

Is The Carson Center Going to Teach Pastors to Attack Rape Victims Like D.A. Carson did in Sovereign Grace?

In the Sovereign Grace Ministry sex abuse scandal D.A. Carson used his platform at The Gospel Coalition to go after a female who was allegedly raped. That article that Carson was involved in publishing can be read at, “Why We Have Been Silent about the SGM Lawsuit.” While the blog SGM Survivors is gone you can see the story that I preserved in the following article. Plus you can read the link here. A person wrote about how she was raped at 13, and Carson allegedly used that Gospel Coalition statement to go after her. In the process he was about defending C.J. Mahaney. I wrote about it again, not long ago when looking at the sex abuse crisis inside the Southern Baptists. You can read that post in, “A Starting Point to Discuss the EFCA and Sex Abuse. D.A. Carson’s Attacking a Sex Abuse Survivor in the SGM Sex Abuse Scandal is No Different Than What Frank Page Did in the Southern Baptists.”

So here is the question that is burning in my brain. And its become much more important especially if a center is being launched in the process of honoring D.A. Carson.

Is the center going to teach pastors and people of the faith to attack rape victims? Are they going to encourage tribalism in the name of the Gospel? D.A. Carson did all that in the SGM sex abuse scandal? And what dividends were given in the end? Well in the end it when it comes to evangelical Christianity it pays to be corrupt. Carson never apologized for his behavior. He never repented for attacking a rape victim. Carson can’t even practice the basics of the Christian faith, and yet look at what is happening. He’s getting a center that will allow for the duplication of his corrupt behavior. Is it the Gospel to attack the least of these? To attack a rape victim?

Apparently it is…

Closing Thoughts…

When I saw this announcement at The Gospel Coalition I wish one could say they were shocked. But honestly I am not. Why pastors and staff in the EFCA and The Gospel Coalition respect D.A. Carson is beyond me. Carson doesn’t know the basic theology of Christianity and in the process I think he would embody why Jesus preferred to hang around the prostitutes and the broken. So in this center that is announced the problems of D.A. Carson are going to be magnified. In my view this is like serial killer  Ted Bundy starting an internet dating service, or sadistic murderer Jeffrey Dahmer starting a cooking show on the Food Network. Carson doesn’t deserve to be honored. Actually after his behavior in the SGM sex abuse crisis he showed that he also deserves no respect. And yet the Gospel Coalition and many evangelical pastors think they will reach people like me. Who is really lost? The person who walked away from faith and god? Or the person who defends and supports the corrupt industrial complex?