Redeemed Zoomer, the online persona of Presbyterian apologist Richard Ackerman, claims that his recent comments on church splits have been misinterpreted.
In his debate with Baptist apologist Gavin Ortlund, Redeemed Zoomer argued that conservative Christians should stay loyal to mainline congregations, even if that means tolerating heresy in certain rare scenarios. Specifically, if a believer was forced to choose between either attending a liberal mainline congregation or a conservative non-mainline congregation, that believer should attend the liberal mainline one, Redeemed Zoomer posited.
The Presbyterian’s claims cannot be isolated from his broader goal of reclaiming the mainline Protestant denominations for theologically conservative Christians. With over 564,000 YouTube subscribers, Redeemed Zoomer is prominent in Operation Reconquista, an interdenominational movement to retake mainline Protestant institutions for Bible-believing Christians.
The aspiring seminarian leans on “kingdom theology” to bolster his argument for staunch denominational loyalty. In an April 2024 video, Redeemed Zoomer explained that kingdom theology emphasizes that Christianity is about heaven “colonizing” earth rather than individual Christians escaping earth to enter heaven. Fighting for heaven on earth requires Christians to be institutionally organized, even if the warfare is primarily spiritual rather than physical. Under this paradigm, institutional loyalty is central, and conservative Christians who break formation are “retreatist” and “cowardly.”
Redeemed Zoomer’s harsh branding of conservative breakaway denominations is not new to his face-off with Ortlund. In March 2024, Institute on Religion and Democracy president Mark Tooley interviewed Redeemed Zoomer about Operation Reconquista. Redeemed Zoomer criticized conservative Christians for their “retreatist mindset” when the Global Methodist Church (GMC) and Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) were formed as conservative alternatives to mainline denominations.
Since then, the influential reconquistador has only doubled down on his opposition to conservative breakaways. In the wake of the split between the GMC and the United Methodist Church, Redeemed Zoomer tweeted, “Welp the United Methodists officially sealed their liberal fate. This only happened because the COWARDLY GLOBAL METHODIST CONSERVATIVES RAN AWAY!!!”
In the lead-up to his debate with Ortlund, Redeemed Zoomer appeared on noteworthy Catholic YouTube channels where he laid the blame for the mainlines’ liberal drift on conservative breakaway groups, including evangelicals and non-denominational churches.
“The fundamentalist Protestants … were cowards and just ran away once liberalism showed up in their churches. … Evangelicals and fundamentalists kind of just ran away from the historic Protestant churches and let them go more liberal,” Redeemed Zoomer stated.
Redeemed Zoomer’s insistence on mainline loyalty circles back to his aversion to church splits. In his view, radical individualism has weakened American Protestants’ commitment to institutions undergoing attacks from heretics. In his dialogue with Catholic Answers contributor Trent Horn, Redeemed Zoomer argued, “Even if your church gets taken over by heretics, that is not a valid reason to schism.”
In addition to his lengthy record on this issue, Redeemed Zoomer posted a follow-up video clarifying the remarks he made on Ortlund’s channel. The Presbyterian distinguished between the theology of a local congregation and the theology of a church. This distinction enables Redeemed Zoomer to argue that attending a heretical congregation is not equivalent to attending a heretical church, since mainline Protestant churches are bound to affirm certain confessions.
Redeemed Zoomer emphasized that the hypothetical scenario Ortlund pressed him on was unlikely to occur in reality.
“[My organization] does not support you going to congregations that are led by heretical pastors and elders unless that is literally the only option for you to stay in the mainline. In most cases, it’s not,” Redeemed Zoomer explained.
Despite the clarification, the points Redeemed Zoomer raised continue to spawn controversy. The discussion sparked by the online apologist demonstrates the growing interest in church tradition among the younger demographic. Still, it remains to be seen whether enough momentum exists to recapture mainline Protestant denominations.
More from IRD:
Redeemed Zoomer and Gavin Ortlund Debate Church Splits, Merits of Evangelicalism
Reconquering Mainline Protestantism?
Comment by Dan W on June 11, 2025 at 7:12 am
Why is Redeemed Zoomer rehashing all this now? Conservative Methodists are long gone. The UMC isn’t even in their rear view mirror. They would need a telescope to glimpse the rainbow flags and glitter now. The fight for the UMC lasted for decades, although most Methodists had no idea it was even happening. We were happy in our ignorance, welcoming all, singing Kumbaya and holding hands. The covenants began to shatter when the Liberals knew they were losing at General Conference. On paper the conservatives/traditionalists won, but the liberals/progressives changed the locks and burned the Book of Discipline. It was an attack from the inside by a secret “fifth column.” The war was over before we knew it. Cowards? No, brave happy warriors who trusted their leadership too much. There are many lessons to be learned from the UMC split. I hope Methodists don’t forget to hold hands and sing Kumbaya.
Comment by Tim Mc on June 11, 2025 at 7:44 am
1 Corinthians 5:9-11 9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
Comment by Tim Mc on June 11, 2025 at 7:51 am
One other thought….My UMC church that averaged 350 people at church on Sunday morning in the 1970’s and 250 people at church in the 1990’s and today averages around 80 people and did not disaffliate, so are you telling me all those that left are wrong?
My guess is the Holy Spirit told them to leave.
My guess is the Holy Spirit is telling Richard Ackerman to stay and be a John the Baptist in todays society.
Comment by Chris Nauta on June 11, 2025 at 11:30 am
Telling people that they should stay in an apostate church/denomination is akin to telling a domestic abuse victim to stay in their relationship just in case they can make the other person stop.
I know I’m just about at the ‘old man yelling at clouds’ age, but this strikes me as something a young man would say who hasn’t experience much in their short life and lacks empathy for the situations of others.
Comment by Gary Bebop on June 11, 2025 at 12:22 pm
The Confessing Movement within United Methodism sought to reassert orthodoxy in a denomination being subverted by sexual novelty. Though the effort was sincere, it always had the faint odor of a second hand parlor. Conservatives found exits more inviting. The Global Methodist Church is no longer shackled to the burlesque that the UMC has become. That’s healthier for all. Unshackled means the GMC is free to nurture a faithful Wesleyan-holiness community, no fixation on a ruined past.
Comment by Tim Ware on June 11, 2025 at 10:55 pm
Oh my, the little boy got his feelings hurt because people didn’t agree with what he said in the last article…
Now go have a good cry….”waah…waah…waah! Mommy, they don’t agree with me…waah…waah…waah”
Comment by Tim Ware on June 12, 2025 at 12:33 am
This guy really galls me. Some of us have been in the trenches for 40, 50, 60 years. We were there in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, seeing all that was going on, trying our best but unable to stop it. We were there fighting during the declines, during the church implosions, during the declining memberships, doing what we could but being overwhelmed by the tide from the various denominational headquarters. We were the ones who gave the money and volunteered the hours and did the work to keep churches afloat in the face of the s**t coming from the denominations.
And now some privileged wimp comes along, and from in front of a screen is full of criticism of us and imagines himself to be some sort of conqueror.
It is disgusting.
Walk the path that we walked for the past 50 years, and then maybe you might earn the right to condemn us from in front of your screen.
Comment by Corvus Corax on June 12, 2025 at 1:17 pm
Hey maybe instead of retreating to the PCUSA, he should be struggling to reform the Roman Catholic Church towards his preferred flavor of Calvinism.
Comment by David Stewart on June 12, 2025 at 9:15 pm
This article demonstrates why I no longer follow, and especially, his wholesale ignorance regarding the governance distinctives between each of the major denomination(al) traditions, and how theological liberals exploited the weaknesses of those distinctives, especially in the UMC, to tgeir advantage.
Comment by Texas Leigh on June 13, 2025 at 4:08 pm
Redeemed Zoomer needs to prepare and think through topics before commenting on them. Recently he embarrassed himself by putting out a response to a podcast without listening to it. He just assumed he knew what the podcaster was saying and he responded based on his erroneous assumption. I feel a bit sorry for him, though. He sees himself as bringing back the glory days of the Mainline. It’s going to be a hard fall when he finally realizes he’s decades too late.
Comment by Tim Ware on June 15, 2025 at 12:24 am
I guess Redeemer Zoomed is crying to his Mommy again. Yet another article and not one comment in support of this obviously “special” priveleged wimp.
Comment by Betsy on June 16, 2025 at 1:09 pm
As a rank-and-file longtime member of a local UMC that is now GMC, I am not seeing much of a difference. The local church is still traditionalist leaning, but it is in the aftermath of a string of UMC pastors that left me being a member of a church I never joined; I have been at odds with ever since. I knew enough about the UMC debacle that I voted for them to leave and join the GMC because I had already experienced the damage the UMC had already inflicted. I also knew, after spending a significant time on the internet observing the meltdown, that UMC leadership would never let a traditionalist position stand.
The local church is no longer a laity-run church but rather is controlled by two former UMC pastors and a pair of retired UMC lay church workers. Around town, it is now known as the Pumpkin Church because the community loves its annual Pumpkin Patch. What was once a gracious space with over 400 in attendance at worship–the vast majority being in one service– is now, at best, 200 people compartmentalized into 3 distinct worshiping communities. The current lead pastor has noted that people do not necessarily see liturgical worship in the sanctuary and contemporary worship in the fellowship hall as interchangeable but has made no effort to understand why. Worship in the sanctuary is still the nondescript thing it became while still under the UMC.
In short, the GMC is free to set a new course, but I am not seeing any changes at this level. I have spent a fair amount of time with John Wesley and am very much hooked on what he did; but so far nothing of the sort is surfacing here. The thing most talked about during the discernment process to leave the UMC was the disobedience of the leadership. As another commenter stated, most of the membership was totally unaware of the protracted battle over theology and what it is the church should be doing that had been in play since the UMC was launched. What finally caught their attention was leadership’s refusal to abide by the outcome of GC2019.
It just does not feel like there is an understanding that, although things came to an end over disobedience of leadership, there were much bigger issues in play that lead to what went down at GC2019
Comment by David on June 16, 2025 at 1:21 pm
RZ is very young and does not yet have children. If parents find themselves in congregations that are gradually losing touch with the gospel, they will naturally go elsewhere to find the gospel preached with greater purity and integrity. Far from being cowardly, such Christians have generally made difficult choices for the sake of their own children. They are to be applauded.
Another factor to consider is that, even when Christians decide to stay within a largely apostate denomination for the sake of reclaiming it, the people with whom they associate may tend to influence them in their direction. I’ve seen young Christians go to a mainline seminary with good intentions, only to find themselves becoming what they earlier sought to transform. Perhaps RZ think it won’t happen to him, but he’s not yet seen very much of the larger world.
Nevertheless, I wish the very best to the reconquistadores. I hope there will be some positive fruits to their efforts, even if they fall short of their larger ambitions.
Comment by David Gingrich on June 18, 2025 at 7:57 am
“Redeemed Zoomer argued that conservative Christians should stay loyal to mainline congregations, even if that means tolerating heresy in certain rare scenarios.”
If only they were “rare”.
Comment by Donald R Bryant on June 18, 2025 at 9:23 am
When I was choosing a seminary to attend in the late 70s, one of the reason I chose not to go to Gordon Conwell was because of the burgeoning focus on reclaiming the mainlines. Richard Lovelace was ground zero for this. Too many bought that line and had their ministries blown up. A tragedy. Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship staff who then went on to study at GCTS by and large bought into this as well. What actually happened was wasted ministry years. One thing we can say is that the mainlines are no better off for Evangelicals joining in. The current President of GCTW is an ordained PCUSA minister. So the trend continues. I am so glad that I never bought into this mantra and had the glad experience of full fellowship and evangelistic outreach and not waiting around until my pension from the liberal denomination would cut in. How many times have I heard this through the years!!!
Comment by Joe M on June 18, 2025 at 3:29 pm
I watched families remain in the UMC for 30+ years as orthodox faith was marginalized and scrubbed. The is not running away. It is enduring until it is time to follow new paths under the Lord’s leading.
God bless Zoomer’s youthful zeal. And overlook his youthful rhetorical indiscretions.
Comment by Thomas on June 19, 2025 at 9:33 pm
Pray that God will put more sense on Redeemed Zoomer`s head, so he will realize he is totally wrong.