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The Worst Christian of 2022

Seth Dunn

News

The Worst Christian of 2022

This entry is part 3 of 11 in the series Worst Christian of the Year

Who is the worst Christian of 2022?

On the surface, this seems like a foolish or even pharisaical question. The fact of the matter is that there are none worthy to stand righteous before God except his perfect son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Every believer struggles with sin every day and will continue to do so until the Lord returns and raises us anew in glory. None of us are really better than another. Yet, we can still fairly ask and answer, “Who is the worst Christian of 2022?” if we consider the question in terms of an individual’s influence on the visible church at large. Who out there, among the professing, has had the most deleterious effect on the health of the body of Christ in the year 2022? Using a number of criteria and identifying candidates from a pool of nominees (obvious charlatans and the theologically heterodox were not included for consideration), I have come up with one professing Christian who can fairly be considered “The Worst Christian of 2022.”

Who is the worst Christian of 2022? The Nominees were as follows:

After careful consideration of the use of power, influence, responsibility, and the expression of theology, I hereby bestow the title of “Worst Christian of 2022” to Johnny Hunt.

Mr. Hunt,

You are the worst Christian of 2022.  

First off, let me tell you two reasons you didn’t “win” this award.  You didn’t win it for sexual abuse.  I don’t believe you sexually abused the woman with whom you engaged in an adulterous act.  I think she was a grown woman who knew better to invite you over to her condo.  I don’t know for sure but I think she knew exactly what was about to happen.  So, don’t let anyone think the woke crowd is out to besmirch a conservative, Bible-believing pastor.  Pulpit & Pen is not a part of the woke crowd.  Pulpit & Pen is conservative and Bible-believing.  The accusation of “sexual abuse” isn’t even a consideration.   Like you, I reject the notion.  You also didn’t win the award for going to second base on another man’s wife after telling her you’d “have sex with her three times a day” if you were her husband.  You aren’t the first Christian man to sexually sin.   Simply put, I doubt any of the male readers of this article (and certainly not its writer) have a record of 100% purity when it comes to the opposite sex.  No one here is casting the first stone at the man caught in adultery.

What you did after you committed adultery in the pastorate is what makes you the worst Christian of 2022.  You disqualified yourself from the pastoral office by doing what you did with another man’s wife in Panama City.  Your sin showed that you are not a one woman man who is above reproach.  Yet, you just kept on pastoring without telling the body of your church what you did.  You just kept on taking your salary (and how much was it,  Johnny, $300k per year?  $400k?  $500k)?  You took a sabbatical and came back acting like you had just worn your self out in the Lord’s service.  Where other pastors in the employ of First Baptist Woodstock (such as Bill Kelly, Ken Smith, Eric Fuller) were fired for affairs, you kept your job.  Where others bore their shame publicly, you kept yours a secret.  Your accountability was to whom, Roy Blankenship?  Not only was this so-called “senior counseling pastor” your subordinate (i.e. you could fire him), he turned out to be a homosexual who abandoned the faith and “married” another man.  This was the man you hired to counsel yourself and others for incidents of sexual immorality! 

And what was your theological justification for keeping your lucrative, high-profile megapastor job?  You were like King David and he kept the crown?  Pastors aren’t kings but you were certainly treated like one at First Baptist Woodstock.  Staff retreats with massages at the Breakers in Florida, big meals on the church credit card, travel on your bus to speaking engagements, and God knows what else were the perks of your job.  Frankly, you acted more like a king or CEO than a pastor.  You hired other men to actually meet with and shepherd thousands of church members.  You dropped in on Sundays like a celebrity.  You preached and met with people in the “pastors reception” room and then were off to your next event.  When were you ever at a bedside, funeral, hospital room, or the like?  I have to think it was a lot less than when you were flying around the country working your Timothy-Barnabas and conference-speaking side jobs.  If anything, your adultery disqualified you from a pastoral office you hadn’t truly filled in years.

And to make matters worse you made a ministry out of “restoring” other disqualified men to the pastorate.  You called it “City of Refuge“.  You actually took men who had no business pastoring anymore, gave them your endorsement, and helped them find new churches.  All of these men, of course, owed you their careers.  You were quite the kingmaker.  You were even on the board of Liberty University (which was eventually run by a swinger).  Other churches called Woodstock to get your recommendations for who should be their pastors.  You were yourself unqualified and you were recommending pastors to other churches!  You were “restoring” other cheaters to ministry, without a shred of biblical warrant.  You even commended the vile charlatan Ergun Caner to a local college.  It was just another day in the Kingdom that is Johnny Hunt, Inc.  Immorality surrounds you.

I speak from personal experience, here.  I have lived your pastorate.  I can tell you this, there is now way I would have ever joined your church if I knew you’d gone to second base on another pastor’s wife.  There is just no way!  And I think you knew other people would feel the same.  That’s why your disqualifying sin was never made public with the church.  When it eventually caught up with you, you were rightly suspended from the pastorate (pastor emeritus) at First Baptist Woodstock.  You even lost your cushy job as a Vice President of the North American Mission Board (which you, no doubt, would have never gotten if the truth about you had been known).   Even when your sin came to light, you were not forthcoming with investigators.  You were supposedly repentant a decade ago after coming onto another man’s wife but Guidepost Solutions said you were not “credible” after interviewing you.   I think that’s a roundabout way of saying you lied to them…hardly the actions of a repentant man.

But it gets worse!  This year, instead of just retiring with any dignity you had left, you left First Baptist Woodstock to be “restored” at another church by a team of your megapastor friends.  You’re already back trying to preach at conferences!  You, sir, clearly have no fear of God and no respect for Christ’s church.  Frankly, I think you are a dirtbag.  I can’t say that of every man and woman who has ever received the “Worst Christian of the Year” award.  I can say it of you.  You will, of course, receive the same little goat trophy that I send out to each year’s recipient of “Worst Christian of the Year,” but I can’t help thinking about another gift you once received.  At your 25th anniversary celebration at First Baptist Woodstock, you received a special-commissioned hand-carved wooden sculpture of a hand reaching down to another.  It was supposed to represent your career of reaching down and helping others. If they really wanted to represent you correctly with two hands, I think that sculpture would be one hand reaching up a shirt and another reaching into a pocketbook.

Johnny Hunt, you are the worst Christian of 2022.

*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.  

 

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