By J.B. Durham
Originally published in June 2021. Revised & Updated 12/16/21
Introduction
I’d like to address a series of accusations and concerns raised against me on Facebook, in June of 2021 as well as a screenshot, which made the rounds, of one of my social media posts. This “mean tweet” controversy caused quite a stir in Freeport, and eventually made its way to the Destin In The News Facebook page, with a following of 30,000. A few threats were made, and an on-line mob with pitch-forks demanded my head on a platter. Mind you, all of this has unfolded after just 3 months in my new pastorate. You might recall that John the Baptist’s public ministry lasted about 3 months before he lost his head, and that, for calling out Herod’s glaring sexual sin. Perhaps this is what happens when you start pointing out elephants in…small towns.
Firstly, it’s true, I did make an ill-advised tweet which has given Freeport’s Busybodies Anonymous (FBA) something to fuss about. Secondly, the primary spokesperson for FBA, Leslie Barr, has published three patently false accusations, which amount to libel and defamation of character. As Proverbs 18:17 says, “The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him.”
What I want to do, as clearly as possible here, are three things: 1) Own any wrong doing on my part. 2) Make plain what is patently false and slanderous in Leslie Barr’s original post which took Freeport by storm. 3) Tell you what is at stake in all of this.
My main focus and concern here is to speak for myself regarding the controversy; taking full responsibility for any and all real faults, while refusing to give an inch to cry-bullies. Therefore, I want to begin and end this response on a note of apology & clarification.
My ill-advised tweet was not done maliciously, and it was not false. Nonetheless, I am sorry for not being more careful and I’m truly saddened for how my enemies have wielded my tweet to cause hurt & pain to a particular family, to my church family, and to the greater community. I have since deleted that comment, and I will not republish it to cause further undo hurt, though I will address the contents of that tweet momentarily, to provide context.
Once this controversy went public, I called and talked to the father of the family involved, and have apologized to him and his family for not being more careful. Despite understandable feelings of hurt and anger, he extended grace to me and told me he forgave me. I am grateful. I have likewise stood before my church family and made a public apology for not being more discrete. They, too, have extended grace, and stood by me.
Due Process & The Lack Thereof
Our church leadership met twice and put in long hours to get to the bottom of this dust up. I was asked to give my account and answer questions, as were others. I remained in full cooperation with the deacon board during this entire debacle. Our deacons followed due process, under difficult circumstances, on a sensitive issue. Despite loud public outcry, all but one deacon (majority) have determined that my comment did not merit suspension, dismissal (firing), or any form of penalty. They asked me to learn from my error and to exercise better judgment moving forward.
Leslie Barr has claimed she gave our leadership time to follow due process before publishing her grievances on Facebook. Yet, according to her own published words (see below), Leslie went public, concerning my tweet, less than 24 hours after she herself had learned of it. In fact, she initially published her accusations, directly to our church Facebook page, on Sunday night, which is to say, immediately. We deleted her post, twice, but she was determined to go public and circumvent due process.
Keep in mind, our entire leadership council are near or well into their 80’s and, not surprisingly, unfamiliar with social media. They gave their very best to handle this hard situation in a timely manner. These are men who have lived and served in this community for longer than most of us have been alive. They’ve served our nation, in fox holes, in times of war. And yet, they’ve been slandered, name-called, threatened on the phone, and torpedoed during this entire process.
In fact, some person(s) leaked information from the inside, feeding the controversy on the outside. Much of the business discussed in these closed meetings somehow became common knowledge on Facebook within an hour of those closed meetings. Nonetheless, these men stood strong.
As the dust settles, with the exception of my infamous mean tweet, I’ve been cleared of any wrong-doing, by church leadership. I want to briefly make available to the public the same information I made available to our leadership (and church) as they decided this case.
Refuting Libelous Claims
Let me refute Leslie’s three libelous claims, which she made publicly to defame my character, as well as our church, by association. (see pic below) She claimed: 1) That I don’t believe in higher education for women 2) That I believe women only belong in the kitchen or pregnant 3) that I believe “children” should be married by age 15 and pregnant shortly after. She claims (see below) that she got all of that from my “preaching.” Entirely False. In fact, Leslie has never been to our church to hear me preach, and all but my first three messages (before we could record) are online. (See for yourself. Here & Here). We have nothing to hide. We’ve not taken any sermons down or offline. (*Update: the YouTube sermon channel was taken down in late 2023, upon request from the new pastor)
Contrary to Leslie’s libelous claims, I strongly believe that both men & women should be well educated, principally, so we can know and love God through the study of his Word & World. I’m an ardent proponent of Christian Education & Christian Higher Education. My wife, from Brazil, has a higher level of education than I do. I hold child-bearing and motherhood in the highest esteem, and I thank God, with all my heart, for my wife who loves to bless our household with her delicious work in the kitchen, among other things. (Don’t faint, but sometimes I cook and do the dishes, too!) The fact is, Leslie has accused me of preaching a truncated view of womanhood that I simply don’t hold. If you want a Biblical picture of a woman’s role in relation to work and the home that more closely represents what I believe, here you go.
Lastly, Leslie sought to incite anger against me by painting me as a monster who wants to marry off “children” by age 15. Her basis for that? She evidently dug up an interview promoting a project I’m working on; a Christian dating site built on Biblical principles of marriage & sexuality. She took a single sound bite, completely out of context, from that interview, to falsely malign me. She got that sound bite from a previous outrage mob who used the same tactic several months prior.
In the interview, Eric Conn and I briefly contrasted previous generations (like our Grandparents!) that married much earlier, and our modern era that delays marriage and family. I made a straightforward comment that age 18 is arbitrary, and I said, “I know someone who married at 15.” (Actually, I know tons of people who married before age 18. So do you! Hello Grandma! Hello Mary, mother of Jesus!) I made no endorsement of anyone marrying at 15. (See for yourself. Episode # 20) The fact is, like every other Christian dating site, you must be 18, at minimum, to even join our site, and our target audience is in their mid 20’s & 30’s. My wife and I met on such a site. I was 36. She was 33. Our vision for this project is a marriage reformation, to the glory of God. We want to see our generation re-enchanted by God’s good design for marriage in Gen. 1:28 “to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and take dominion.” Marriage is an exciting mission of fruitful dominion-taking, as a man and woman join their two lives together, becoming “one flesh” on the same mission, together. (learn more: www.dominiondating.com) Imagine hating someone this badly for trying to help solve the marriage crisis, that you’d stoop to destroying their reputation with bold-face lies. I guess folks in Freeport will do whatever they can get away with these days!
I don’t think Leslie, or you the reader, would want to be treated the way she and these busybodies are treating me. If I was playing the same shady game as these ladies, I’d have a field day with Leslie’s tweet below:
What This Is Really About
All the evidence we have suggests that a small, disgruntled, influential group in Freeport, both inside and outside the Lord’s church, have conspired behind the scenes, for at least a month now, to build a case and get me fired; all for preaching the Bible.
I’ve never met Leslie Barr, but according to her own words, (see pic below), she has harbored a serious grievance against my preaching for at least three full weeks before my infamous tweet was unearthed. Again, In her words, (see below) she is “completely disgusted,” by my preaching.
In fact, it appears her disgust over my preaching the Bible is what’s driving this entire campaign against our church.
This is nothing new. In Acts 22, some people took serious issue with the Apostle Paul preaching the truth of God’s Word, so they set about to silence his preaching by spreading false accusations and stirring up outrage against the preacher: “Then they (the crowd) raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!” (Acts 22:22)
I’m not the first preacher to put my foot in my mouth. In Acts 22 & 23 the Apostle Paul made a misstep when he publicly reviled their High Priest saying, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall!” For the “outrage mob,” this was an egregious misstep. But then again, they were already looking for any reason to “rid the earth” of Paul, for the things he preached! Some things never change.
Paul’s blunder prompted an over-the-top Greta Thunberg response: “HOW DARE YOU insult God’s high priest!” To which Paul responded, ““Brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest; for it is written: ‘Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people.’ Paul owned his fault, not because he feared man, but because he feared God, and he recognized his clear violation of Scripture. He owned his blunder, but he did not allow his accusers to use his blunder as an overblown distraction from the real issue. He cut through the noise, and refocused the issue, by declaring, “I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.”
That’s what this is about. Every Sunday, I preach straight from God’s Word about the hope of the resurrection of the dead. This good news is polarizing because it calls us to faith & repentance. There are many, in our day, including here in Freeport, who love their sin, and refuse to give it up. They’ve been looking for a reason to “rid the earth” of yours truly. They’re willing to make a mountain out of a mole hill, if need be.
Like Paul, I’ve blundered a comment in public. And like Paul, I want to own it. I was wrong, not because the cry-bullies say I am, but because I violated God’s Word, eg. (I Corinthians 13:7); “love…always protects…” I failed to protect the privacy of a family on social media. I was careless. I’m truly sorry.
“Mean Tweet” Context
My infamous tweet, in full: “I met a very flamboyant & prissy little boy at VBS today. I asked about his family, and he proudly stated that his sister is in the U.S. Marines. Transgenderism was raised in the shadow of his older sister, feminism.”
Admittedly, that statement appears, on its face, a bit out of step with our PC culture, but then again, so is smiling, if it’s done by Nick Sandman, or in a woke church without a mask. If you don’t believe Christ has risen from the dead, then I don’t expect to win you to my argument here, but I’d like to, at least, offer some context for folks on the fence.
Every June, “Christian Twitter,” as it’s sometimes called, trends on at least two threads of topic: 1) cracking good-natured inside jokes about Vacation Bible School (VBS) and 2) speaking plainly & boldly on the cultural rebellion of “Gay Pride” aka “Sexual Sin” month. I contributed numerous tweets on both threads, and in this case, I’m guilty of being an over-achiever as I tried to tackle both topics in a single tweet!
It’s plain as day that I was speaking anecdotally, to illustrate a point. My comment was not a malicious attack on anyone, as my enemies would have you believe (both on social media, and around town, as they spread their juicy gossip). I didn’t use anyone’s name, nor did I reference my location. My Twitter audience had no reference to my new pastorate in Freeport, or even of my living in Florida. (More on that in a minute.) In NO WAY did I attack anyone’s identity. I simply described a case of misguided effeminate behavior. (I say misguided, because effeminacy is listed in Scripture as a sinful deviation from God’s good design for men, and we must shepherd/father boys to grow-up in a God-honoring way.) The effeminate behavior in question was, in fact, disruptive and over-the-top demonstrative; as evidenced by the fact that everyone knew at once who I was talking about, despite no names given.
My blunder of a tweet was intended to provide commentary on two behaviors which are undeniably connected. Effeminacy & feminism are two sides of the same coin, as they both invert God’s good design for sexuality; men behaving as women, and women behaving as men. Christian tolerance for the slow creep of feminism (read “pastors and husbands afraid of women”) has only paved the way for other sexual perversion to overtake our once Christian nation. It started with “no-fault” divorce and the subversion of the Christian home, and it’s progressed to abortion-on-demand & the total abolition of “gender normativity.”
We now have the U.S. Department of Education proudly flying the rainbow flag on social media, with “gender-inclusive” bathrooms/showers popping up in schools around the nation, and TedTalks openly esteeming the virtues of pedophilia. In my effort to critique culture on the glaring issues of our day, I displayed a lapse in judgment in the example I chose to share.
What my enemies won’t tell you is that during VBS I went out of my way to show care and kindness to this boy. I spent time talking to him, and kept an eye on him, to make sure he didn’t attract negative attention for his pronounced, misguided behavior. (In fact, my entire life testifies to that fact that I’ve stood up for the vulnerable, against mistreatment, including for the unborn, against abortion.)
During VBS, I taught a lesson from Genesis 1 on biblical gender—“God made them male and female.” In the middle of my teaching, one of the adult workers cut me off in the middle of my lesson, and introduced a line of questioning aimed at undermining my message. She was entirely out of order, and showed complete disregard for my role as pastor. She clearly had an agenda. Additionally, there were multiple reports made during VBS which corroborate this point. There’s a lot of details I’m not disclosing, but one thing is for sure, I’m not the threat to Freeport’s children. I’m the one trying to address that threat, and for that they’re trying to silence me.
Brief Back Story
A couple of months before this controversy hit, a separate, but related turn-of-events necessitated that I move my social media identity “under ground” to evade yet another outrage mob. Out of nowhere, my homemade (bootleg) promotional video for my Christian Marriage project went viral. I subsequently made the NY Post, and suddenly folks were coming out of the woodworks trying to dox and ruin me.
For this reason, when I made what is apparently the only mean tweet in Freeport’s history, I wasn’t even using my first name, and my twitter account had zero links to First Baptist Freeport, (or even to Florida, for that matter). I had just accepted a new pastorate, so I was doing my best to lay low while this initial firestorm blew over.
I can’t stress this enough—the only way anyone in Freeport would have found me hiding out on twitter during this time, is if they were looking really, really hard! Which is to say, super motivated! (Almost, as if they already had an axe to grind.) Now, my obscure comment has been unearthed & brought, by Freeport’s Busy-bodies Anonymous (FBA), to the forefront of a local controversy. It has caused hurt. For that, I am sorry.
Cancel Culture
The folks driving this controversy are trying to make it entirely about my “mean tweet,” but that’s really not what this is about, at least not for them. This is Cancel Culture. The church is facing an onslaught of crybullies; men & women who foment rebellion while feigning victimhood. When cry-bullies decide you must be silenced, they comb through your life with a fine-tooth comb, digging for any words or deeds that can be used against you. Then they take what little they’ve got, twist it up real good, and try to turn you into a monster, so they can feed you to the perpetual outrage machine. Every single faithful Christian & church should be paying attention, because you may be next!
The real reason they’ve been plotting against me, at least three full weeks before digging up this tweet, (and in truth, for much longer), is because I have, on occasion, called out beloved sins (I am a preacher, after all!). Jesus said, “the world hates me because I testify that their deeds are evil.” (John 7).
I don’t wish any ill-will to the Busy-bodies Anonymous. My greatest desire is that they truly come to know Christ, find forgiveness and eternal life, and walk in obedience to his commands.
At our church, we unapologetically preach HARD on sin, but that’s so we can preach BIG on grace! To quote John Newton, repentant slave-ship captain, and author of Amazing Grace; “I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.”
Until next time, expect the digging for “dirt” and slinging of “mud” to continue. If you have a question, you can always reach out and ask.
Thank you for letting me bend your ear…hopefully, in the other direction!
Sincerely,
Brandon Durham
*As a related aside, for another time, if you want to know my views on women in combat, go here and here. I’m confident, you’ll find they’re in line with the clear & compelling truth of Scripture. We live in a sexually-confused & rebellious time. Yet, God’s Word is clear & coherent on the matter. Letting the world pressure us to “get in line” with their sexual rebellion is ONE way to be “ashamed of the gospel.” Now is the time to speak the truth in love, and to fear God, not man; now is the time for courage. Stand with, and encourage your pastors to stand strong against the fiery darts of our present, evil age.
Update (12/16/21): The Destin In The News Facebook page initially shared Leslie Barr’s false & libelous post with their viewership of more than 30,000, hoping to ruin my reputation and run me out of town. After I posted this response online, they immediately took down their post. To date, Leslie Barr, Lisbeth Jackson, Tim Ard and the online mob they incited have not apologized or admitted wrong doing. I’ll leave that between them and God Almighty.