Chris Rosebrough—Pirate Christian or Pirate?

Chris Rosebrough is popular "discernment" minister and creator of the Pirate Christian website and the YouTube channel Fighting for the Faith, in which he produces video after video trashing Word of Faith and hyper-Charismania. But I wonder if this so-called discernment minister has ever applied any of this discernment to himself?

The following image shows Rosebrough's pimped out pirate mobile. Think about the word pirate for a minute. What is a pirate? It's an armed criminal who steals and murders. Jesus said the thief (false teacher) comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). I wonder if Jesus were on the earth today if He'd cruise around in something like this. Notice the black pirate flag emblazoned with the Chi Rho symbol.

The man leaning on the car is the infamous J. D. Hall who was removed as pastor of his church for failure to submit to authority and embezzling funds. He's also been arrested for driving under the influence. Most recently a police report was filed alleging Hall assaulted his wife and young daughter with a knife and strangulation. He's now in the wind. Yes, Chris Rosebrough and J. D. Hall are good pals.

What about all the spiritual and doctrinal irregularities Rosebrough accuses others of; has he not examined his own house? This image shows Rosebrough dressed up in full costume at his church preaching before a Jesus idol.

Not necessarily a Jesus idol, and although pirates are historically associated with illegal business, there were points of history where societies of merchants existed that rejected taxation laws imposed on them that they collectively deemed unwarranted. Pirates in pop culture are often depicted as independently operating anarchists, but that wasn't necessarily true in every case. Part of the American identity is the rejection of foreign control and taxation that was deemed unwarranted. Does the American identity fit into the same shade and distain that is categorically held for pirates?

Sure, sinners were at the helm for the image (we're all sinners here), but the imagery itself isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself.

I suspect the pirate bit is more of a playful metaphor pertaining to "finding hidden treasure". And there is something to be said about the balance between giving Caesar what is Caesar and giving God what is God's. If a government denied you from congregating (by taxation or laws, etc.) at what point is your time and the local congregations assets (needed to run a church, etc) crossing into the territory of what is God's? There's not necessarily a straightforward answer to that. If we examine the extreme: if Christianity were outlawed, would a Christian be required to observe that law?

Everyone will have to make their own personal choices about how they personally feel about a thing. And to some degree we all collectively balance each other out. If the imagery and message is unclean to you, that's true for you. But it won't necessarily be the case that it is unclean for everyone.

I think this is a very good discussion piece. Kudos ResidentAlien

Here's a definition of "pirate radio" I looked up with a very quick search online.

pirate radio: (noun) Broadcasting without having the necessary license that covers the territory where the signals are received.

So pirate Christian radio is basically the same thing, but with a Christian emphasis. (Since when does government own the rights to the airwaves (or anything else). Even in the days of the "pirates", these were usually people who wanted to trade without paying government's extortionate taxes. Some killed people, yes - but governments killed far more. Who gave governments the right to tax trade? There certainly was no referendum on the issue).

Remember, Bill Gates, mass murderer of millions, calls people who refuse to pay for his rubbish and inferior software "software pirates". Yet, if everyone had "pirated" his monopolistic software from the start, he wouldn't have had the funds to carry out his mass-murder. I think it's weak and pathetic argument for one to blame a fellow Christian for the name of "Pirate Christian Radio". Similar to those Democrats who couldn't stand Trump for mean tweets, and now we are looking at nuclear war under their preferred kindly-spoken statesman.

It's true a man is known by the friends he keeps, but Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors. It's possible the charges against J. D. Hall were false, but even if not, if the best one has against Chris Rosebrough is one of his friends, it must mean the guy lives a pretty impeccable life.

I doubt Rosebrough worships the image, and I'd argue it therefore doesn't constitute an idol anymore than a cross symbol at a church, or a fish symbol on a car, a WWJD symbol on a T-shift or a purity ring on a finger.

If you have something against Chris Rosebrough, or are offended by something he has said, perhaps it would be best to bring this up, instead of trying to find flaws with the guy's personal life? I'd argue the claims stated are pretty weak.

I don't know what you're looking at but it's the very definition of an idol.

Except the metaphor doesn't work. Pirates didn't seek hidden treasure; they terrorized, murdered and took it. There are two possibilities: 1) Rosebrough is totally oblivious to the implications of associating his ministry with pirates. What does this say about his so-called discernment? 2) He does know and wants to be seen as pirate. Pirates are dangerous, like wolves. Sheep are harmless. Either way he doesn't come out looking too good.

From what I have seen of tge guy, he holds to an unbiblical cessationists stance, which seems to feature prominently in a lot of his videos.

I did not know that Lutherans used graven images to depict Jesus.

Trivialization and justification. Typical.

I don't believe in effeminate Christianity.

So, let me get this straight. We have thousands of people headed to a lost eternity and this guys "ministry" is taking down other ministers. Instead of going out and reaching teens that don't know whether they are a boy, girl or a cat, he's chasing down other ministers. We have Marxism on our doorstep and drag queens reading to our little ones in school but this guy is rolling around looking for boogymen. Are we even serious about winning the lost anymore?!

Luk 6:40
The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.

I would be departing from this person.......

Something is only an idol if it is idolized. The reverence is for the thing that the statue represents (Christ) and not the statue itself.

It would be like trying to call a stainglass window an idol, or a children's visual Bible an idol. I assume most people understand that these things are artistic renderings that point to a sacred thing rather than something worthy of its own worship.

That said, it could be an idol to some people, but idolatry comes from the heart, not the physical things themselves.

I don't know much about Rosebrough, but it could be the case that a Christian associates with an identity or caricature without the intention of associating with negative connotations. For all I know they could have been inspired by the Vegitales episode about "the pirates that don't do anything".

I agree that there is a caution to be had about taking on the appearance of something that is evil.

I'd say that any Christian's discernment is specific to their mission in life. Maybe he pulled someone in in a very specific way that leads to a chain reaction of different things. And that hypothetical person that was called in by his message may not even agree with the vehicle of his message but it may have been just the correct push to bring them to Christ anyway.

I think the pirate message is worthy of critique and discussion, but I just wouldn't go so far to say that the form of someone's outwardly expressed beliefs would necessarily be an accurate representation of the substance of their beliefs.

If a pastor was jailed because they refused to follow the covid laws that require them to stop hosting mass, is that pastor unGodly for not following government authority or are they Godly for following their conscience in deciding to keep their church doors open?

They might seem like an outlaw from the perspective of the state (therefore have an evil appearance) but were they actually doing the wrong thing?

It can be a complicated subject.

It's possible that Chris believes that if people are deceived by what is taught by WoF, NAR, ARC, etc. preachers and teachers, that they will be deceived by secular ideas as well.

I've watched many of his videos and to my knowledge he has never gone after doctrinally sound preachers and teachers. Even if he disagrees with them on certain issues. The ones he generally addresses are:

Kenneth Copeland
Heidi Baker
Kat Kerr
Jesse Duplantis
Jentezen Franklin
Steven Furtick
Patricia King
Paula White Cain
Joyce Meyer
Bill Johnson
Chris Vallaton
Todd White
David Crank
Robert Morris
Sid Roth
Joel Osteen
Frederick K. C. Price
Michael Todd

and others like them.

So far, I haven't seen or heard of Chris attacking people such as:

Leighton Flowers
John MacArthur
Mike Winger
Paul Washer
Jeff Durbin
Joel Webbon
Braxton Hunter
William Lane Craig
Tim Stratton
David Allen
Adrian Rogers
Adam Harwood
Eric Hernandez
Greg Koukl
Frank Turek
Steven Kozar
Daniel Long

and others like them.

$0.02

I agree, the ones he goes after need to be gone after. But who's going to go after him? Of course he's not going to go after anyone he agrees with or his friends, even if they're wrong. Why is this? It's called showing partiality.

I've only scratched the surface because I didn't want to overload people with information. I just wanted to give a heads-up; people can look into it if they so desire.

It's not just Rosebrough: It's John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Justin Peters, Todd Friel; all the celebrity "discernment" ministries. They love calling out others, but everything is not as it seems in discernment land.

Who are all these names you guys are mentioning and why are they worth mentioning?
There’s millions of people like this who do their own “thing”.

Who has the time to listen to all these people and pick what’s right or wrong about them?

Sure, shoot the messenger. What do you have to lose by this information getting out?

I mean I have nothing to lose with this but I have nothing to gain either.

I’d never heard of him before was an interesting read thanks for sharing

J. D. Hall was a big name in the discernment camp and was pals with all the big names. He ran the blog Pulpit and Pen for a long time until he started to unravel. He changed the name to Protestia in an attempt to duck and cover. All his pals in the discernment camp knew what he was about, that he was a loose canon, yet said absolutely nothing. Why? Because they're all friends and they're as hypocritical as Hall. Birds of a feather flock together.

I'm not super familiar with Rosebrough but I used to listen to some of the episodes of his "Fighting for the Faith" podcast and a few sermons from him as well. I don't think I disagreed with him about anything truly essential, but I suppose his style and general approach may not be for everyone. Unless I'm mistaken, he had what he now considers bad experiences with "Pop Evangelicalism" at an earlier point in his life before finding his way into the Lutheran church. One could think that he's a bit too focused on exposing the excessess and oddities within Christianity in his podcast "Fighting for the Faith", but then again, perhaps it's good to have a few specialized podcast like that. And it's not as if that's all he does in his life even if that's what he mostly does in his podcast.

I see nothing wrong with the "pirate" imagery as a fun, light-hearted gimmick to give his radio and podcast projects a distinctive identity that makes it stand out from the rest. Obviously it doesn't imply accepting the sinful and unlawful nature of the actual pirates' life and "vocation". Some further explanation can be found here: http://www.piratechristian.com/about-our-ship

I have no idea if he's good pals with J. D. Hall (and I have almost no knowledge of who J. D. Hall even is) but just a quick Google search returned this video where Rosebrough seems to be in agreement with two other men that Hall should not return to pastoral ministry. So if he is in fact good pals with Hall, at least he doesn't seem to let that cloud his judgmenent to the direction of being too lenient.

I'm sure he has his theological disagreements with many people from this list (in just the ways one would expect from a confessional Lutheran with regard to the views held by Baptists and Evangelicals). But I would agree that I also don't remember anything that would constitute "attacking" them.

That video makes me want to throw up. Where's the sarcasm; where's the proof scriptures; where the outrage. The whole thing is a "poor J. D." fest. They act like poor J. D. is the victim here. Where's the sympathy for poor Mrs. Hall and their daughter who he attacked with a knife and strangled? I'll tell why it's not there: They're all friends and staggering hypocrites. They're also trying to cover their own butts because they all knew what was going on with Hall and said nothing.