Examining Erin M. Harding

I went on Twitter today and was looking through my Twitter feed, when I came across a Tweet that mentioned Mrs. Erin M. Harding. Not familiar with who she was I went to her Twitter page and soon discovered quite a bit about her. For instance, she recently completed the courses for (with a 4.0 she says) and was presented with a B.A. degree in Pastoral Ministry at South Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

For those of you who are not familiar with this degree, it equips the student to be a pastor, something God does not permit a woman to be. From the comments she has made, she is an egalitarian, stating she is her husbands equal, and looking to egalitarian scholars to support her desire for women to be pastors

Thus she is in rebellion against God who very clearly says that a woman is subject to, not equal to, her husband, and who very clearly and unequivocally states He does not permit a woman to be in authority over a man.

This command is not simply for the first century Christian woman, but for all women in all places, and in all times. What part of “the husband of one wife” does she not understand? (1 Timothy 3:2). Again, she is rejecting those portions of God’s Word she disagrees with and is therefore in open and unrepentant rebellion against God.

Mrs. Harding has adorned herself with nose piercings and tattoos, which God has said not to do (1 Timothy 2:9; Leviticus 19:28; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 1 Corinthians 3:17).

I have also learned that Mrs. Harding uses society rather than the Bible to gauge God’s Church, apparently thinking the Church should be more like the world than Christlike.

Because of this it comes as no surprise to me that she also supports abortion,

(Bart Barber supports abortion)

(Ketanji Brown-Jackson supports abortion)

(apparently opposing a Black person who supports abortion makes you a racist, and Mrs. Harding somehow can read your minds people)

and she has no problem swearing,

And yes, that “F” word is simply a replacement for the other “F” word and is just as bad. This is known as using “minced oaths,” and a minced oath is just as bad as the original profanity.

“Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for building up what is needed, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” (Ephesians 4:29 LSB). This also includes slander and malicious gossip, lies and otherwise bearing false witness – all things Mrs.  Harding seems to do with wild abandon, as we will soon see.

It is also therefore no surprise that her profanity extends to blaspheming our Sovereign Lord God Almighty.

Allow me to translate for those not familiar with writing in acronyms. “Laughing Out Loud, Oh My (His holy name), for real, for real.” The use of OMG is equal to taking the Lord’s name in vain. It is using His name as an exclamation rather than with reverence and awe as He is duly owed. It is blasphemy. And not only does Mrs. Harding have no problem blaspheming the Lord, but her Twitter fans apparently approve wholeheartedly of this.

Her total disregard for God and His Word, and instead choosing to be in open rebellion against Him, has also led to her openly slandering, spreading malicious gossip and lies, and otherwise bearing false witness against Elders in the Church. For example, the time she slandered Josh Buice because he pointed out what President Biden had already publicly said, that Ketanji Brown-Jackson was ushered in as a Supreme Court Justice simply because she is a Black woman. She is supporter of torturing and murdering unborn children (as is Erin Harding), and she is soft on crime. But because Pastor Buice pointed this out, Mrs. Harding not only publicly slandered him by calling him a racist (which he is not), but she devoted an entire podcast to slandering him and spreading malicious lies and bearing false witness against him.

She also slanders, lies about, bears false witness against and otherwise bashes Pastor John MacArthur,

as well as slandering Pastor Tom Buck, calling him the “Steven Anderson of Lindale, Texas” and falsely accusing him of lying, cheating, and manipulating:

For those of you who don’t know who Steven Anderson is, I have done a 15-part article series on Anderson, which can be found on this blog. The short version, however, is this: Steven Anderson, a pastor in Arizona, is the founder of the New IFB movement. He and his clone pastors routinely call for people to commit suicide, verbally bash homosexuals and encourage their deaths (including celebrating when they are killed). Anderson has even gone so far as to call for someone to assassinate the President of the United States.

All of this aside, however, Anderson is not a Christian. His views of God demonstrate that. Initially he was a staunch Modalist, teaching that heresy from his pulpit for years. Then he changed to a type of tri-theist. He claims the Trinity is divided into three separated persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (he is King James Only and won’t say Holy Spirit). He claims each has their own separate body, their own separate seat of consciousness, their own separate will.

He claims that Jesus did not pay the penalty for our sins on the cross, but rather He had to die and go to hell where He was burned alive as a burnt offering, and that is what paid for our sins. He claims that Jesus has always been human, and that when He died the Trinity ceased to exist and was a biunity until the resurrection. He claims that the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost all look exactly alike, like they were identical triplets. Clearly, Steven Anderson (as well as his clone New IFB pastors) teach a different god, a different Jesus, and a different gospel.

By comparing Pastor Tom Buck to the heretic hatemonger Steven Anderson, Mrs. Harding is applying all of these heresies to Pastor Ascol. The very definition of bearing false witness, and a willful violation of the 9th commandment.

Recently, Mrs. Harding has amped up her attacks on Pastor Tom Buck,

The crux of her argument against Pastor Buck is his “abuse” and potential (according to Erin Harding and no one else) sexual abuse committed by Pastor Buck 30-some years ago. Erin Harding presents these accusations as if Pastor Buck has been engaging in these things continually for the past 30-plus years.

For those unfamiliar with the abuse committed by Pastor Buck, it entailed his anger flare ups in the early years of his marriage, before he became a pastor, and a single incident when his wife placed her hand on him and he grabbed her hand and slapped her wrist. A single solitary incident. I will let you, Dear Reader, decide if that is abuse or not. Personally, although I believe it was (operative word being "was") an abusive act, it was nonetheless a single act. Publicly calling for Pastor Buck to be investigated for sexual abuse, coercion, and manipulation is tantamount to publicly accusing him of these heinous sins, and doing so without a shred of evidence, hearsay or otherwise, to support such accusations. Mrs. Harding is lying. She is bearing false witness against Pastor Buck.

Since that time, Pastor Buck has repented of this, and his wife has forgiven him completely. According to both of them their marriage is strong and vibrant, and the two of them are just as in love with one another as they were when they first married. If not more in love with one another.

This incident became an issue when Mrs. Buck wrote about the incident for a potential blog post, and emailed a copy of it to SEBTS professor, Karen Swallow Prior, asking her to please edit it and send it back. Professor Prior is, after all, an English professor, and it was assumed she was a friend of the Buck’s. As it turned out, she was anything but a friend, as she took the rough draft and gave it to others who did not like Pastor Buck, and who, in turn, leaked it to an online National Enquirer style “news organization” linked to the Southern Baptist Convention. I would like to point out that Mrs. Buck did not send the rough draft to Karen Swallow Prior and ask her to shop it around in the hope of getting some sort of book deal as some of Pastor Buck’s detractors have claimed. She only also Prior to proof read it and suggest corrections. That’s it.

As I questioned the unChristlike behavior of Mrs. Harding, several of her Twitter fans decided to digitally dog pile on me, and begin lying about me and falsely accusing me of all manner of vileness such as allegedly supporting abuse and pedophilia as shown in the above tweet. Both are obvious lies, and as a surviving victim of pedophilia, extremely offensive. Another good example of this is:

Where Mrs. Harding’s Twitter fan is accusing me of impugning my “sister in Christ with vile tribalistic attacks” and sowing discord among the brethren. I have simply pointed out that Mrs. Harding is behaving like an unbeliever. Which she is.

Before I had finally had enough of their unbiblical behavior and unChristlikeness, Mrs. Harding’s husband jumped in to the fray,

taking the opportunity to bash on Pastor Buck and myself, acting decidedly like an unbeliever,

(Writing that the SATF (Sexual Abuse Task Force) should investigate Pastor Buck just to make sure he wasn't involved in "sexual abuse, manipulation, or coercion" is strongly implying, in a public forum, that he is guilty of all three, when in fact, he isn't)

In one of those Tweets by Mr. Harding, Mrs. Harding quickly follows up with a Tweet of her own wherein she emphatically states that she is not a liar and not a hypocrite. Yet that is exactly what she is. As I have shown, using her own words, Mrs. Harding has lied on numerous occasions. And the simple fact is that for whatever reason she believes Pastor Buck to be an abuser, and yet repeatedly abuses him. Condemning someone for something while you yourself are doing the very thing you are accusing them of, is the very definition of hypocrisy.

In one of Mr. Harding’s Tweets he stated that I and others where engaging in wolf-like behavior:

This is actually known as “DARVO.” DARVO is an acronym for “Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.” It is a well known characteristic of psychological abusers which they use to manipulate others. The thread that accompanied Mr. Harding’s Tweet, included several examples of this, where Mrs. Harding and her Twitter fan base all exclaimed that she was not abusing anyone, but that it was Pastor Buck and myself who were abusing her by exposing her unChristlike behavior. This is a classic DARVO move, wherein she (and they) attempt to paint us as the ones in sin and her as the innocent victim.

I would also like to point out that the “sister in Christ” defense has been used repeatedly by her Twitter fan base; but, I have to ask if she truly is a sister in Christ. Is Mrs. Harding, who supports the torture and murder of unborn children; who allows unwholesome words to proceed from her mouth, and who withholds words that are good for building up and extending grace, but instead engages in wholesale slander, lies, bearing false witness, hypocrisy, and otherwise bashing on people; as well as openly advocates for the rejection of certain portions of God’s Word and is herself in open rebellion against God, is Mrs. Harding a believer in Christ, a follower of Jesus Christ? Is Mrs. Harding a Christian?

Well, based on her own words as contained in her many Tweets on Twitter, I have to conclude that no, she is not a Christian. How can someone be a Christian while simultaneously behaving so convincingly as an unbeliever? I submit to you that one cannot. Jesus said that we cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Either we serve God, or the world. Either we serve God, or we serve Satan. There is no middle ground. No other option. Mrs. Harding has given no evidence that she serves God, and Christians would do well to mark and avoid her as Scripture commands (Romans 16:17-18).

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UPDATE

Since this article was released, I have been contacted by Pastor Buck, who corrected me on two points. First, it was Pastor Buck and not Pastor Ascol who was slanderously compared with Steven Anderson; and second, Pastor Buck stated he did not simply slap his wifes hand away, but rather he grabbed her hand and slapped her wrist. Pastor Buck stated, "I want to own my sin." This shows Pastor Buck to not only be repentant, but far more responsible than Mrs. Harding who refuses to acknowledge her sin.

Appropriate corrections have been made.