Jake Mentzel

Father of 8. Pastor of Church of the King (Evansville, IN).

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

7 signs you’ve exchanged Young, Restless and Reformed for Young, Restless, and Redacted:

1. You went from someone who cringebrags on his smoking hot wife, to someone who cringebrags on his submissive tradwife

2. You went from a 6’2 former jock who bought some glasses to cosplay as a nerd, to a 5’6 former fantasy nerd who discovered barbells and cosplays as a jock

3. You went from a suburbanite who cosplays as an urban city boy to a suburbanite who cosplays as an agrarian hunter-gatherer

4. You went from unsingable sad soyboy hipster music to unsingable old music (in 4 parts!)

5. You went from a coward who hides behind nuance to a coward who hides behind controversy

6. You went from someone who, as a matter of principle, aspires to 10K+ followers on Twitter and a church of 500+ to someone who, as a matter of principle, aspires to 10K+ followers on Twitter and a church of <120

7. You traded the power of narrative for…the power of…story? Yeah, that part never changed

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

“Before you die, let the world see the best you that you knew how to become. Give that gift to your wife and kids and grandkids.”

From an interview I just did where we talked about godly ambition. Give it a listen: https://t.co/0cphCulxtd

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

“The process is the punishment.”

[Michael Foster @thisisfoster]

I’m not the only one who has been warning about this kind of lawfare being deployed in the PCA, but these recent cases are exactly what many of us have been talking about.

Consider two examples: Burke Parsons and @ZacharyGarris.

I would be surprised if either suspension ultimately stands if appealed all the way through the process. But that is exactly the problem.

The process is long. In the meantime, these men are suspended from office. They are sidelined from pastoral ministry. Their churches are disrupted. Their people are left without their shepherd. Even if the suspension is eventually overturned, the process itself becomes the punishment.

That creates a dangerous incentive structure. Men can use the courts of the church to temporarily remove pastors over charges they likely know will not hold up under final review. The accusations are often tied to elastic applications of ninth commandment violations, claims of “harshness,” or other highly subjective standards.

Take Garris. He was suspended for poking fun at Dr. Anthony Bradley by saying there are some things so complex that even a PhD cannot understand them. Frankly, that is funny. Dr. Bradley regularly invokes his credentials in ways that invite that kind of jab. To have a church lose its pastor, even temporarily, over something like that is absurd.

This kind of judicial maneuvering does real damage.

It chills ordinary pastoral speech. It rewards strategic accusations. It destabilizes local churches. And it sends a clear message to younger men: enter this denomination, and you may find yourself sidelined for months over charges that will eventually be overturned.

If the older conservatives in the PCA do not step up and use their authority to stop this sort of procedural abuse, younger men are going to ask a very reasonable question:

Why would I come into, or remain in, a denomination where the process itself can be weaponized against faithful pastors?

This is not mainly about whether these particular men win on appeal.

It is about whether constitutional process in the PCA will be used to secure justice or to exercise ideological control by other means.

#SavethePCA

[J. Chase Davis @jchasedavis]

The rise of the “church planter” can be explained by this.

Most churches are managerial. Many men who aspire to lead have no future in these churches.

Therefore, they start a new church where it’s success or failure is very much dependent on his charisma and leadership.

[Ryan Denton @TexasPreacher]

I'm not a charismatic. You're just a hyper-cessationist.

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

@jsimon1212 Listen I’m happy for y’all but I had Nebraska in my F4. So you have to beat Houston if Illinois doesn’t. What can’t happen is this be Sampson’s year.

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

Can the SEC beat non-SEC teams in anything? Wait wait wait I get it. They spend all season beating each other up that they don’t have any gas in the tank for the post season right? 😆😆😆

Or maybe it’s just the era of Big Ten supremacy.

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

@jsimon1212 Also I lowkey wanted McCollum… 🤷🏼‍♂️

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

@jsimon1212 Hawkeye and Ducks are my friends after how they backed IUFB this postseason.

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

@jsimon1212 Bro I rock with the Hawkeyes all day.

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

@JoshDaws Third grade me loved that slop and 42 year old me is still glad I had it to love.

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

When my kids turn 13, they get a fun trip of their choice with mom or dad.

Abe picked Spring Training in Arizona. So we spent a few days in Scottsdale.

His top three highlights:

1. Watching Cal Raleigh, J Rod, and Randy Arozarena take BP for 30 minutes while Ichiro shagged balls at second.

2. Blake Snell stopping to sign every kid’s ball — including his. (Still hate the Dodgers. Snell for life.)

3. Real Men with @PastorMark and the guys at Trinity Church.

When your Tuesday night men’s ministry cracks the top three Spring Training moments of a 13-year-old baseball addict, you’re doing something right.

Strong, masculine Kingdom culture. Open-handed. Hospitable. Just good men who love Jesus and build each other up.

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

This was a fun interview: https://t.co/5NgELynbRP

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

@jpar1983 Exactly

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

This is the way.

[Benjamin Ryan @benryanwriter]

BREAKING: 1st Detransitioner to Take a Medical-Malpractice Lawsuit to Trial Wins $2 Million Judgement

Fox Varian sued her Westchester, NY, area psychologist and plastic surgeon for the gender-transition mastectomy she got at 16.

I was the only reporter to attend the entire 3-week, historic trial. Subscribe to my Substack to receive an alert about the feature article I have coming out next week in a major publication out about the trial: https://t.co/dQRHZHqWHn. I cover pediatric gender medicine as a specialty on my Substack.

Sorry to just give just a teaser for now about the case! But I wanted to get the word out about the verdict promptly, the slower pace of feature-article publishing notwithstanding.

The entire case file was put under seal when the trial started (although I obtained all those documents before they was sealed), and all the transcripts from the trial are also under seal. The riveting trial was sparsely attended and there was only one other reporter at the trial; and he only attended for part of it and, as I observed, took few notes. So my own hundreds of pages of notes from the trial will likely remain the only way for the public to learn about the all finer details of what transpired, possibly ever (or until an appeal, should that happen).

In addition to my article coming out in the media outlet soon, I intend to write a lot about what I observed and learned on my Substack over the coming weeks. Stay tuned…

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

@BowTiedOx @Cernovich That’s because you’ve not been on social media often enough to see the strongly worded tweets.

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

I’d love to be able to do something like this for my kids and/or grandkids.

[Peter B @realpeteyb123]

I came up with an idea.

A “Legacy Loan.”

Parents could buy a home for their kids while they’re young, or build a tax-free housing fund, like a 529 plan but for real estate.

The home transfers when the kid marries or turns 30.

We have 529s for college.
Why not for housing?

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

@cameroonstarr Lol okay that’s pretty great too

[Jake Mentzel @jacobmentzel]

Probably the best one so far?

[Jeremy Visser @JeremyMVisser]

Calvin's spirit towards Luther: honor the Reformer, forgive the man, preserve the Gospel.

John Calvin's private letter to Heinrich Bullinger (November 25, 1544)

"I hear that Luther has at length broken forth in fierce invective, not so much against you as against the whole of us. On the present occasion, I dare scarce venture to ask you to keep silence, because it is neither just that innocent persons should thus be harassed, nor that they should be denied the opportunity of clearing themselves; neither, on the other hand, is it easy to determine whether it would be prudent for them to do so.

But of this I do earnestly desire to put you in mind, in the first place, that you would consider how eminent a man Luther is, and the excellent endowments wherewith he is gifted, with what strength of mind and resolute constancy, with how great skill, with what efficiency and power of doctrinal statement, he hath hitherto devoted his whole energy to overthrow the reign of Antichrist, and at the same time to diffuse far and near the doctrine of salvation.

Often have I been wont to declare, that even although he were to call me a devil, I should still not the less hold him in such honour that I must acknowledge him to be an illustrious servant of God.

But while he is endued with rare and excellent virtues, he labours at the same time under serious faults. Would that he had rather studied to curb this restless, uneasy temperament which is so apt to boil over in every direction.

I wish, moreover, that he had always bestowed the fruits of that vehemence of natural temperament upon the enemies of the truth, and that he had not flash his lightning sometimes also upon the servants of the Lord. Would that he had been more observant and careful in the acknowledgement of his own vices.

Flatterers have done him much mischief, since he is naturally too prone to be over-indulgent to himself.

It is our part, however, so to reprove whatsoever evil qualities may beset him, as that we may make some allowance for him at the same time on the score of these remarkable endowments with which he has been gifted.

This, therefore, I would beseech you to consider first of all, along with your colleagues, that you have to do with a most distinguished servant of Christ, to whom we are all of us largely indebted.

Besides, you will do yourselves no good by quarrelling, except that you may afford some sport to the wicked, so that they may triumph not so much over us as over the Evangel. If they see us rending each other asunder, they then give full credit to what we say, but when with one consent and with one voice we preach Christ, they avail themselves unwarrantably of our inherent weakness to cast reproach upon our faith.

I wish, therefore, that you would consider and reflect on these things rather than on what Luther has deserved by his violence, lest that happen to you which Paul threatens, that by biting and devouring one another, ye be consumed one of another.

Even should he have provoked us, we ought rather to decline the contest, than to increase the wound by the general shipwreck of the Church."

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

MAKE SURE YOU SAY THANK YOU.