How to Do Controversy Well

And how the internet pushes us to extremes

A couple weeks ago, G3 Ministries issued a press release stating that its president, Josh Buice, had resigned at the request of the organization’s board after it came to light that he had been operating anonymous social media accounts for several years. Reportedly, he used these accounts to stir up controversy and slander other Christian leaders, including fellow elders of his church and then repeatedly lied about it. Strangely, he even at times used these accounts to criticize himself.

Many have weighed in on this situation and drawn appropriate lessons from it. I’m not close enough to G3 or those involved to offer any kind of acute analysis. I am interested, however, in one aspect of it—the question of motivation. What would motivate a person to jeopardize his entire ministry on something as silly as internet trolling? How have we arrived at a value system that rewards controversy and slander so much that a prominent Christian leader is willing to sacrifice his good name in pursuit of the reward?

G3 Ministries formed out of Buice’s church, Prays Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia. It’s website states that Buice wanted “to start a theology conference that would focus on God’s Word as opposed to the pragmatism and techniques that are so often the focus of evangelical conferences.” The first conference was held in 2013 at Prays Mill, but G3 eventually grew to one of the largest evangelical conferences in the United States, from 750 people in 2013 to 6,500 in 2021.

While I never attended, it initially seemed to follow the same formula as other popular Reformed evangelical conferences like T4G and The Gospel Coalition—invite as many big names as possible to speak on important topics relevant to the continuing faithfulness of the church. However, like so many other movements, G3’s identity began to shift around 2020 in lockstep with the political polarization happening more broadly throughout American culture. Tim Challies insightfully documents that turn here.

Unrelated to the G3 controversy, Jeremiah Johnson recently examined the ascension of Mr. Beast in attempting to decipher the formula for online success. In Johnson’s words, “The biggest and probably most knowledgeable content creator on the planet has one philosophy—if you want people to watch, push things to the extreme. And this rule doesn’t just govern YouTube videos. It governs everything we do online.” According to Johnson, the algorithms “incentivize conflict. Fighting with the other side generates clicks and attention, and the nastier the fight the more people will be watching.”

From my vantage point, this dynamic at least partly explains the digression of G3 Ministries from its lofty ideals to its current degraded state. Beginning around 2020, the hyper-online leaders of the movement embraced the algorithmic formula by regularly attacking anyone they perceived to be to their left theologically or culturally, and over that time, their ministry grew rapidly. It’s ironic that Buice wanted to start a conference opposed to cultural compromise and pragmatism given G3’s eventual embrace of the divisive spirit of the age. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised that Buice was operating these anonymous accounts. When your platform comes to rely on controversy, you must break through the inevitable stagnation somehow.

If you write for online readers, you most likely understand the incentivization of controversy. In my years of writing online, my most popular posts—the ones people are most eager to read and share—are usually either critiques or articles on controversial topics. I usually know before I hit “post” if an article is going to generate a lot of attention. If the goal is to be read, then the formula seems obvious—push extremes and focus on controversy. But at what point does the pragmatic end to be read begin to interfere with the Christ-commissioned goal of speaking the truth in love?

Of course, controversy is sometimes necessary, and the convictional leader must not run from the call to lovingly and truthfully engage in public disagreement. But how do we ensure that our commitment to truth and righteousness is pushing our engagement instead of the desire for more clicks? How do we engage in public dispute with pure motives?

As a historical model for engaging controversy, I invite you to consider a frequent guest to this Substack—Andrew Fuller (1754–1815), the “Elephant of Kettering.” Fuller was a controversialist at a time in history with a similar incentivization structure. Controversial books sold better then, too. As Michael Haykin has written, “A host of errors confronted Christians in the eighteenth century, and Fuller tackled most of them, ranging from the dire heresies of Deism and Socinianism to the problems generated by Sandemanianism and Arminianism.”[1]

However, Fuller was always hesitant about his controversial writings. His diaries reveal him searching his own heart to make sure his motives were godly. Controversy, for Fuller, was not a means for attention or a way to earn a buck or build a platform.

From Fuller’s diaries, we can extract three wise questions to ask ourselves as we contemplate engaging in controversy in our own day.

1. What is my true motive for writing?

As Fuller contemplated publishing The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation in 1784, he agonized over the decision in his diary. He feared injuring the cause of Christ by his own ignorance, on the one hand, and impure motives of self-love and self-aggrandizement, on the other. For months he reflected on these questions in his diary and engaged in conversation with his closest friends before deciding to publish.

On August 21, he wrote, “O that I might be led into divine truth! Christ and his cross be all my theme! Surely I love his name, and wish to make it the centre, in which all the lines of my ministry should meet!” Five days later, he wrote, “I feel a solid satisfaction, that the cause in which I am about to engage, is the cause of truth and righteousness.” In October, Fuller wrote, “Had I not a satisfaction that it is the cause of God and truth, I would drop all thoughts of printing.”[2] In November, he finally dropped the manuscript off at the printer.

The internet is celebrated for its ability to grant instant access to an engaging public, but that gift is also one of its greatest dangers. The protective barriers that have safeguarded writers throughout history are missing from the medium. Anyone can start a blog or a Substack or make a post on social media without appeal to any higher authority. There’s no peer review process. Our arguments never have to run the gauntlet of fact checkers and editors. If you don’t seek outside help personally, no one will likely ask you about your motives.

Fuller provides a good model. As a rule, perhaps it’s wise to sit on controversial writings for a time before posting and to enlist friends who are unafraid to ask hard questions and provide honest feedback. Make sure that you are motivated more by the cause of truth and righteousness than by chasing the intoxicating experience of going viral.

2. Am I willing to humbly receive critique of my published work?

Shortly after Fuller published The Gospel Worthy, the expected controversy materialized. One opponent advertised that he would reduce Fuller’s publication to dust, to which Fuller replied in his diary, “Doubtless I may be wrong in some things; I wish I may all along be open to conviction. I have found some desires go up to heaven for such a spirit.” A letter from an aged minister about his publication had “some effect on [his] heart, in a way of tender grief and fear.”[3]

Because the internet is so often a means for personal promotion, it does not encourage humility in the face of critique. Have you ever participated in the kind of rapid-fire back-and-forth exchange online where each antagonist feverishly types out responses before even considering the other’s argument? When the cause is self-promotion, the aim of seeking the truth gets easily lost. However, the search for truth ought to open us to the possibility that we might be wrong. Never post content online unless you’re willing to be proven wrong. In fact, Fuller’s dependence on his friends is a good model. Seek out the criticism before you go public with your thoughts.

3. Do I fear success as much as failure?

Who doesn’t love vindication? It feels good when others agree with us. We post and then check back every few minutes to see if anyone has responded positively with likes and shares and other forms of virtual pats on the back.

Fuller understood, however, that this kind of praise was dangerous. By the time he wrote his treatise on Socianism in 1793, he was dealing with a different kind of public response: “But, of late, trials have been of another kind: having printed Letters on Socianism, they have procured an unusual tide of respect and applause. Some years ago, I endured a portion of reproach, on account of what I had written against False Calvinism; now I am likely to be tried with the contrary: and, perhaps, good report, though more agreeable, may prove not less trying than evil report. I am apprehensive that God sees my heart to be too much elated already, and therefore withholds his blessing from my ordinary ministrations.”[4]

So often our love of praise feeds our eagerness to engage in controversy. We don’t mind making people mad as long as it’s the right people. Like a baseball player arriving home to the mob of teammates after a game-winning home run, we love the cheers that arise from our dugout upon the perceived defeat of the other team. Be careful. The applause of man is not the same thing as the vindication of our Lord. Ministries like G3 claim to prioritize the glory of God, but in public spheres its always tempting to use God’s glory as a mask for the pursuit of our own.

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[1] Michael A. G. Haykin, ed., ‘At the Pure Fountain of Thy Word’: Andrew Fuller as an Apologist, Studies in Baptist History and Thought 6 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2004), xix.

[2] C. Ryan Griffith, ed., The Life of Andrew Fuller: A Critical Edition of John Ryland’s Biography, The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller 17 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022), 203.

[3] Griffith, ed., Life of Andrew Fuller, 205.

[4] Griffith, ed., Life of Andrew Fuller, 209.