Eric Mason's Pelagian "Spiritual Father"

I want to address this subject with an enormous amount of care, as we are dealing with someone who is facing a serious illness that carries with it the possibility of the end of life. Tony Evan's wife, Lois has cancer, and it has returned. This is a family of people who are made in the image of God and, like all people, are sinners in need of a savior. So, I would like to preface this article with the understanding that Lois Evans and her family, especially her husband, are being prayed for.

However, because someone is sick is no reason to withhold the gospel and the truth. In fact, it is a reason for the urgency of mission -- to see to it that sin is exposed to the truth of God's word and that Christ is the only hope. We are called to always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that lies within us (1 Peter 3:15). That is the focus of this article.

On April 3, Eric Mason, author of the book Woke Church tweeted this,

This is troublesome, not because Mason desires prayer and healing for other people, but because it exposes something about Eric Mason that we've been reporting on for quite some time. Eric Mason is a man who places his identity first in his ethnicity rather than in Christ. What do I mean by that? Eric Mason is a strong advocate of identity politics and has imported a secular racial ideology into his theological framework -- and he has used the Church as a launching pad to promote his ideology.

Mason's book, Woke Church, is a divisive, anti-White anti-gospel work that seeks to cause division in the Church by placing the blame of an entire ethnic group -- white people -- for the moral and economic failures of the black community. Further, he has called on the Church to support a movement that seeks government-sanctioned reparations for black Americans -- to be paid by white Americans -- based solely on the color of one's skin. Along with other advocates of this movement, including Thabiti Anyabwile, Jemar Tisby, Matt Chandler, Kyle Howard, and a number of others, this movement has made quite a bit of headway in the Church. Further, this movement teaches that in order to "atone" for the sins of "white privilege" and "white guilt," one must embrace the idea of government-sanctioned reparations.

So, what does this have to do with Tony Evans? Tony Evans is a Pelagian (the denial of original sin), an inclusivist (you don’t have to be a Christian to be saved), and holds to Limited Theism (the denial of God’s omnipotence). That means Tony Evans is a heretic. Evans' theology places him outside of the camp of Christian orthodoxy.

In an interview with Glenn Plumber at the NRB Convention in 2004, Evans affirms a Pelagian view of Christ’s death and resurrection, stating,

But the thing that the death of Christ did was cover and overrule original sin so that no man is condemned because they are born in Adam, but men are condemned because they consciously reject salvation.

Evans also holds to inclusivism, that is, you don’t have to actually know Christ personally to be saved. In this same interview, Evans says,

If a person believes somebody’s up there that created this… I don’t know who He is but I want to know Him… if that person were to have a heart attack at that moment, God could not condemn him and be just because God says he who seeks shall find, so since God makes that promise, if God doesn’t give him the Gospel or give him a direct revelation then He has to judge him out of another dispensation.

I say all this to say that it is clear that Eric Mason placed his ethnic identity above a Christian identity. Tony Evans, to my knowledge, has never repented of this belief and, sadly, this belief is damning. Yet, Mason chooses Evans as a "spiritual father" not because he is an exegetically and biblically solid teacher of the faith, but because he is a black man that promotes the same racialist ideology that he does. This is their common cause -- not the true biblical Christ.

Again, I want to say that while we pray for the healing and restoration of Lois, we seek first and foremost to glorify God by speaking the truth at all time -- even in urgent times of need. We pray that Mrs. Evans would not only be healed but that if she holds to the same beliefs as her husband, that she would repent and believe the true gospel -- that is that all men are born into sin and stand guilty before a Holy God. No man has the capacity to be righteous before God. That God, being merciful and just, sent His Son Jesus to live a perfect life and to die on the cross bearing the full wrath of God as a vicarious substitute for sinners like us. That he would rise again three days later, defeating sin and death, and now sits at the right hand of the father forever making intercession for those who would repent and believe the gospel.

Let's pray that the Evans would embrace this truth and that Eric Mason would forsake his secular ideology and identify with Christ first and foremost.