Pulpit & Pen is a Christian blog that seeks to restore its reputation as the “Rolex of Watchblogs” and preserve for posterity its extensive catalogue of the theological downgrade within the Southern Baptist Convention and greater American Evangelicalism. This website was founded by former Montana pastor Jordan Hall as a companion to his once-popular Pulpit & Pen podcast. For nearly a decade, Hall and an ever-revolving team of writers warned readers about charlatan preachers, false teachers, and denominational corruption. After a series of disqualifying events in the year 2022, Jordan Hall left vocational ministry. This website has been left in the hands of its longest-tenured contributors. Although Pulpit and Pen is no longer formally associated with or owned by Jordan Hall, his written contributions to the site remain.
Over the years, there have been a number of changes to Pulpit & Pen, some for the better and some for the worse. With a transition in management, more have come.
Curated News
Jordan Hall is a phenomenal writer but he was a busy man and blog articles do not write themselves. Pulpit & Pen has always been managed by contributors and authors with day jobs. As the website grew in traffic and prominence the work of providing daily fresh content became too much for Hall the contributors to handle. The decision was made to post “curated news” posts which were nothing more than copy-pasted portions of articles (with links to the original source) from other Christian websites. All such articles have been removed. Less will have to be more. Pulpit & Pen will be for Pulpit & Pen articles. “Curated News” articles dilute the catalogue and theological identity of Pulpit & Pen.
Politics
Pulpit & Pen is a Christian discernment blog. Politics, while important, are distraction from its primary focus. While political articles draw more hits, rarely do they edify the church. All articles assigned to the category of “politics” have been summarily removed from the site. Articles with political overtones are not, however, banned as there is often a is a relevant intersection of theology and politics. For example, if a pastor tells Christians to vote Democrat that’s political but it’s also relevant because Christians should not vote for pro-abortion candidates.
Ads
The existence and content of past pop-up ads and mid-article ads were detrimental to the reputation of the website and the effectiveness of its articles. This website is not intended as a money-making enterprise but as a resource for discerning Christians. There are currently no ads at Pulpit & Pen. Hosting services are donated by Reformed Hosting.
Clickbait Headlines
The terms “Bombshell” and “Shocking”, have been removed from article titles. Clickbait headlines drew traffic at the cost of the site’s reputation for integrity, honesty, and seriousness. With the focus away from traffic and ad revenue, clickbait headlines are anathema. The term “Breaking” has also been removed from article titles. To be certain Pulpit & Pen has been a journalistic source for multiple important stories. However most articles with the “breaking” term were simply links to news “broken” by other parties. Click-baiting will no longer be a practice of Pulpit & Pen.
Unnecessarily Incendiary Language
Christians are well within reason to be angry and upset about the many theological atrocities of the type criticized at Pulpit & Pen. Without fear of the “tone police,” Christians should be free to speak their minds and make harsh condemnations of heresy and heterodoxy. Pulpit & Pen does not desire to pull its punches. Nevertheless, a lot of the language used at Pulpit & Pen has been unnecessarily inflammatory. Sinful lifestyles and theological stupidity can be decried without the use of epithets. Let the focus be that the writers at Pulpit & Pen are over the right target, not on the terminology or tone employed. As they are noticed (there are hundreds of articles at this site), articles with unnecessarily inflammatory language will be removed or edited.
Statement of Faith
Pulpit & Pen is a website and not a local New Testament Church. As such it does not have a statement of faith to which members must covenant to adhere. The founder of Pulpit & Pen, Jordan Hall, subscribes to the 1689 London Baptist Confession. Pulpit & Pen has had numerous contributors over the years, all of which could be fairly described as Calvinistic Baptists. Pulpit & Pen does not hide that it is a monergist website. While it does not serve as an official statement of faith, readers should not expect the articles published at Pulpit & Pen to diverge from the Theology Proper, Ecclesiology, and Soteriology in the statement of faith linked here.
The Modern Day Downgrade
Jordan Hall is one of my best friends a man for whom we should all be thankful. Don’t leave this site without giving his classic Modern Day downgrade a listen…
