Todd Pruitt, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church has publicly retracted his endorsement of controversial speaker and podcaster, Aimee Byrd, after she preached a sermon this past Sunday at Covenant Church in Shepherdstown, WV. Pruitt is a popular podcaster and author at the Reformation21 blog which is associated with the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.
Byrd, who used to co-host the popular Presbyterian podcast The Mortification of Spin along with Pruitt and Carl Trueman, has since been disbanded by her fellows for her clear and unmistakeable doctrinal drift. Simply put, Byrd has abandoned the biblical doctrine of Complementarianism—a clear must for conservative and Reformed Christianity—and exchanged it for full-on Egalitarianism.
Yet, in 2019, Pruitt found himself endorsing Byrd’s book, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. The book, itself, was essentially a denunciation of what it states in the title: biblical manhood and womanhood. Except, in the eyes of Byrd, these complementary gender roles were only manmade traditions cloaked in the garb of biblical speak and were not actually true. A clear and literal interpretation of passages such as 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:12 is nothing more than men’s attempt at hanging onto their power structure.
Byrd’s shift into Marxism aside, Pruitt made the endorsement on his podcast. “Almost two years ago, on an episode of Mortification of Spin, I offered a verbal endorsement of the book Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood by my friend and cohost Aimee Byrd,” Pruitt writes in his Mea Culpa.
“Many people were understandably confused by my positive, critique-free words of commendation. Since then I have been asked more times than I can calculate why I chose to endorse a book which, for many, contains significant points of concern for those who hold to the biblical pattern of male headship as I do. The questions are entirely justified.”
Pruitt goes on to offer an unadulterated apology for his endorsement.
“The question I get most often these days is, ‘Do you regret endorsing Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood?’ In order to avoid any confusion,” Pruitt continues, “I will respond directly without any nuance – Yes, I regret it.”
Pruitt goes on to apologize for the confusion he caused for his brothers and sisters, adding that “I offer this retraction publicly, since my error was public.”
How many pastors, Bible teachers, and church leaders out there are willing to offer such a clear and unambiguous, sincere retraction when a clear mistake in judgment has been made? We offer the utmost appreciation to Pruitt for this clear and concise retraction and clarification.
