When Refusal Becomes a Confession: Gary DeMar

Roughly three years ago, a group of men sent Gary DeMar a private letter containing three very simple and carefully worded questions. They asked whether he affirmed a future bodily and glorious return of Christ, a future physical and general resurrection of the dead, and whether history will culminate in the final judgment of all men.¹

The need for this clarification did not arise because the men sending the letter were confused or uninformed. It arose because of a pattern. At a conference, and repeatedly on Facebook, Gary had made statements that strongly suggested a denial of these doctrines. At the same time, the Statement of Faith² published on his own website affirms that Jesus will return personally and bodily at the consummation of history and that all the dead will be raised for final judgment. Notably, and ironically, that statement of faith provides no Scripture references for any of these affirmations, which only heightened the concern that the public confession and Gary’s actual teaching were not aligned.

Gary offered a series of excuses for not answering the letter. Months passed without a response. During that same period, he launched a new eschatology podcast series alongside hyper-preterist Kim Burgess. At that point, and only after it became clear that Gary had no intention of answering privately, the letter was made public.

Personally, I did not need Gary to answer the letter. I had already seen enough of his buried Facebook comments to know that he denied these doctrines. Others had not seen those comments, however, and wanted a clear, public answer to straightforward questions that go to the heart of Christian orthodoxy.

In his year end podcast for 2025, Gary again justified his refusal to answer, claiming, “I refused to answer questions because they did not include attached Scripture passages.”³ He had made essentially the same claim back in 2023 immediately after the letter was made public. In a written response from that time, he excused himself by saying, “A large part of the issue is how the questions are worded. The heart of the matter is what does the Bible teach, not what does Gary believe.”⁴ In a podcast episode from that same period, he stated, “Okay, so the question is what I believe. But the answer should be, what does the Bible say about that question? And the letter that I received does not deal with the Bible at all.”⁵

This sounds pious. It is not. It is a smokescreen.

It is a smokescreen because shortly after the letter was made public, the same group of men, along with several additional signers, released a formal Statement on Unorthodox Eschatology.⁶ That statement explicitly affirmed the very same three doctrines Gary had been asked about, and it did so while also providing Scripture references in support of each one. In other words, the alleged defect Gary appealed to was directly and thoroughly addressed.

The statement was signed by men from a range of Reformed and confessional backgrounds. Gentry signed it. Frost signed it. Sandlin signed it. Kayser signed it. Durbin signed it. I signed it, along with others.

Did Gary then proceed to answer the three questions once Scripture was supplied? He did not. Instead, he did exactly what I expected him to do.

He addressed the statement with a podcast episode introduced with these words: “Gary responds by looking at a few of the Bible verses used in the ‘Unorthodox Eschatology’ statement. They use 2 Peter 3, 1 Thessalonians 4, and 2 Thessalonians 1 as ‘end of the world’ proof passages, but problems arise when you (1) read them in context, and (2) look at how some of the signers have interpreted these passages in contradictory ways.”⁷

Rather than answering whether he affirms the doctrines themselves, Gary argued that the cited passages do not teach those doctrines. He then appealed to minor differences among some of the signers as justification for dismissing the entire statement. This maneuver allowed him to avoid giving a direct answer while appearing to engage Scripture seriously.

This is why the appeal to “Scripture, not belief” functions as a smokescreen. When asked plainly what he affirms concerning foundational doctrines, Gary refuses to answer. When Scripture is supplied, he shifts the discussion to whether those passages teach the doctrines in question. When broad agreement on the doctrines themselves is demonstrated, he retreats into disputes over secondary interpretive differences. At every stage, the goalposts move, and the original questions remain unanswered.

This pattern is not accidental. It is one of the most common tactics of false teachers. Scripture consistently warns that those who depart from the truth rarely do so through open denial at the outset. Instead, they obscure, evade, and redirect. Paul warns Timothy to avoid irreverent babble, noting that such talk leads people into more and more ungodliness and that some “have swerved from the truth” and “are upsetting the faith of some” (2 Timothy 2:16-18 ESV). These men do not begin by denying doctrine outright. They bury their denials under qualifications, contextual objections, and appeals to interpretive complexity.

Another hallmark of false teaching is the refusal to give direct answers to direct questions. Jesus himself exposes this tactic when the religious leaders evade his question about authority while demanding answers from him (Matthew 21:23-27 ESV). Their refusal was not due to a lack of information but to a desire to avoid self disclosure. The same dynamic is at work here. Simple yes or no questions about the future return of Christ, the bodily resurrection, and final judgment are treated as illegitimate, not because they are unclear, but because answering them would expose an unorthodox position.

False teachers also frequently cloak themselves in the language of fidelity to Scripture while undermining its clear teaching. Peter warns that some twist the Scriptures to their own destruction while presenting themselves as teachers of the Word (2 Peter 3:16 ESV). The issue is not whether Scripture is cited, but how it is handled. By insisting that every question be framed only in his preferred exegetical terms, Gary places himself beyond accountability. He positions his interpretation as the standard and treats doctrinal conclusions as secondary or even suspect.

Finally, Scripture warns that false teachers often exploit disagreements among orthodox believers to justify their own deviations. Paul condemns this tactic when he rebukes the Corinthian tendency to fracture over personalities and secondary matters (1 Corinthians 1:10-13 ESV). Differences over how a passage is argued do not negate shared doctrinal commitments. To suggest otherwise is to confuse unity of faith with uniformity of method, and that confusion serves only one purpose: evasion.

Taken together, these tactics form a recognizable pattern. Evasion replaces confession. Complexity replaces clarity. Secondary disagreements are weaponized to undermine primary truths. All of it is wrapped in the rhetoric of biblical faithfulness. Scripture warns the church to be alert to such behavior, not because every theological disagreement constitutes false teaching, but because persistent refusal to answer direct questions about the core of Christian hope is never neutral. When someone consistently will not say what he believes about doctrines Scripture places at the center of the gospel, the problem is not the questions being asked. The problem is the teaching being concealed.

But in the end, the teaching is not really concealed at all, is it? It is revealed precisely in the refusal to confess, in the evasions themselves, and in the consistent unwillingness to affirm what Scripture and the church have always held to be essential.

1. An Open Letter to Gary DeMar

2. https://americanvision.org/about/statement-of-faith/

3. https://americanvision.org/posts/2025-american-visions-year-in-review/

4. https://americanvision.org/posts/what-does-the-bible-teach/

5. From The Gary DeMar Podcast: What Does the Bible Teach?, Mar 6, 2023

6. https://hyperpreterism.com

7. https://americanvision.org/posts/but-it-s-all-so-simple/