April 3, 2020 – Michelle Lesley

If you are considering commenting or sending me an e-mail objecting to the fact that I warn against certain teachers, please click here and read this article first. Your objection is most likely answered here. I won’t be publishing comments or answering emails that are answered by this article.

This article is kept continuously updated as needed.

I get lots of questions about particular authors, pastors, and Bible teachers, and whether or not I recommend them. Some of the best known can be found above at my Popular False Teachers tab. The teacher below is someone I’ve been asked about recently, so I’ve done a quick check (this is brief research, not exhaustive) on her.

Generally speaking, in order for me to recommend a teacher, speaker, or author, he or she has to meet three criteria:

a) A female teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly preach to or teach men in violation of 1 Timothy 2:12. A male teacher or pastor cannot allow women to carry out this violation of Scripture in his ministry. The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be living in any other sin (for example, cohabiting with her boyfriend or living as a homosexual).

b) The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be partnering with or frequently appearing with false teachers. This is a violation of Scripture.

c) The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be teaching false doctrine.

I am not very familiar with most of the teachers I’m asked about (there are so many out there!) and have not had the opportunity to examine their writings or hear them speak, so most of the “quick checking” I do involves items a and b (although in order to partner with false teachers (b) it is reasonable to assume their doctrine is acceptable to the false teacher and that they are not teaching anything that would conflict with the false teacher’s doctrine). Partnering with false teachers and women preaching to men are each sufficient biblical reasons not to follow a pastor, teacher, or author, or use his/her materials.

Just to be clear, “not recommended” is a spectrum. On one end of this spectrum are people like Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuth and Kay Arthur. These are people I would not label as false teachers because their doctrine is generally sound, but because of some red flags I’m seeing with them, you won’t find me proactively endorsing them or suggesting them as a good resource, either. There are better people you could be listening to. On the other end of the spectrum are people like Joyce Meyer and Rachel Held Evans- complete heretics whose teachings, if believed, might lead you to an eternity in Hell. Most of the teachers I review fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum (leaning toward the latter).

If you’d like to check out some pastors and teachers I heartily recommend, click the Recommended Bible Teachers tab at the top of this page.

Jackie Hill Perry
Not Recommended

“Jackie Hill-Perry is a writer, speaker, and artist…[she shares] the light of gospel truth through teaching, writing, poetry, and music as authentically as she can.” Jackie is a Christian hip hop and spoken word artist who has released two albums, and two books. She first began to gain a following with her debut book, Gay Girl, Good God, her personal testimony of God saving her out of a life of rebellion and homosexuality.

Jackie’s initial foray into public ministry had her associating with well known Reformed (or, Reformed-ish) organizations with a reputation for doctrinal soundness such as Desiring God and The Gospel Coalition. She was even featured in the film American Gospel: Christ Alone, a documentary which presented the biblical gospel juxtaposed against the prosperity gospel. And, indeed, she still maintains many of these types of ties. For example, she is a featured speaker at the upcoming 2020 TGC Women’s Conference, and she recently announced that she will be pursuing her Master’s of Divinity degree at RTS (Reformed Theological Seminary).

Over the past several years, Jackie has publicly associated herself and/or yoked in ministry with a plethora of false teachers. I believe part of this stems from the fact that Jackie, like Jen Wikin, has has been added to LifeWay Women’s stable of women’s “Bible” study authors which, through LifeWay ministry events, has affiliated her with a number of false and problematic teachers. In addition to my normal concerns about someone yoking with false teachers (i.e. the Bible says not to, and disobeying God’s Word is a sin), I am concerned that LifeWay is using Jackie (for her reputation for being doctrinally sound) to lend credibility to the false teachers they promote, and I’m also concerned that Jackie’s previously doctrinally sound reputation is now suffering by being associated with these false teachers.

Since 2017, Jackie has partnered in ministry with Beth Moore, Priscilla Shirer, Christine Caine, Lysa TerKeurst, Lisa Harper, Lauren Chandler, and Amanda Bible Williams at various LifeWay Abundance and LifeWay Women Live conferences.

Jackie has partnered with Jennie Allen and Jamie Ivey in an IF: Equip (an arm of IF:Gathering) study, The Good Gospel.

In 2019, Jackie appeared at Rebekah and Gabe Lyons’ Q-ideas Conference, (see also):

Jackie has been partnering with Christine Cane for a few years now in her Propel Women’s Activate conferences. Activate 2018 had her sharing a stage with Lisa Harper, Lisa Bevere, female “pastor” Dianna Nepstad, and Jenn Johnson of Bethel Music. Activate 2019, partnered Jackie in ministry with Lisa Harper (again), Sarah Jakes Roberts (daughter of modalist and prosperity heretic, T.D. Jakes, and co-“pastor” of two of his “churches”), female “pastors” Nona Jones and Oneka McClellan, and, once again, Jenn Johnson of Bethel Music.

In August 2019, largely due to the fact that Jackie posted this picture calling Bethel’s Jenn Johnson her “friend”…

…many of Jackie’s followers were awakened, for the first time, to the fact that she has been sinfully yoking in ministry with false teachers for some time. She was rebuked by many of her followers and was even disinvited from speaking at Answers in Genesis‘ 2020 women’s conference (at which she had previously been invited to speak) when this news came to their attention. Unfortunately, instead of heeding these biblical warnings and rebukes, Jackie dug her heels in and defended both her actions and the false teachers in this Instagram post…

…and in this Twitter post…

…disdainfully characterizing those who were biblically right to call her to account as judgmental, arrogant, slanderous, loveless, critical, etc.

You might notice that while Jackie does cite a few Scriptures in these posts, she provides none which support her yoking with false teachers (because there aren’t any). She defends her actions and perspective only with her personal opinions and experiences (note how many times she says “I think,” “to me,” etc.). “…How are we deciding where the lines are drawn?” Jackie asks. The answer should be clear to any Christian and was certainly clear to those rebuking her: the Bible. God decides where the lines are drawn between doctrinally sound and false teacher, not Jackie or anyone else, and He makes that very clear in His written Word.

Jackie repeatedly says that she believes people like Jenn Johnson are just misguided and in need of correction, which would require us to ask, “Jackie, did you correct Jenn and the others you’ve been associating with who hold to unbiblical doctrine? If they did not repent and correct their doctrine (as appears to be the case) do you now consider them false teachers? And if you now consider them false teachers, why are you still partnering with them in ministry?”.

My friend Constance over at the Truth+Fire blog wrote a thoughtful, compassionate, and Scripture-filled article responding to this incident entitled Bye…Jackie?, which I would encourage you to read, as well as Elizabeth Prata’s excellent article (in the “Additional Resources” section below).

In addition to multiple partnerships with false teachers, Jackie, unfortunately, also preaches to men. Just a few of the copious examples:

Preaching the Sunday morning sermon (June 2019) at Progressive Baptist Church:

Preaching at the (co-ed) 2017 Urban Youth Workers Institute National Conference:

Preaching at the (co-ed) Jubilee 2020 conference:

Preaching at the (co-ed) 2019 Legacy ATL conference:

In addition to the concerns about Jackie yoking with false teachers and preaching to men (either of which, as I stated in the preface to this article are sufficient biblical reason to avoid a particular teacher), Jackie’s remarks and associations (particularly on Twitter) indicate that she is increasingly identifying with the social justice/critical race theory/intersectionality movement. A couple of brief examples:

In the video So…About Racism on the With the Perrys YouTube channel, Jackie and her husband discuss Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, white power, and de-funding the police, among other things. (In case it later gets scrubbed from YouTube, as often happens, you can find excerpts of the original video here and here.)