The Apostasy of Tyler Vela
Updated: Jan 20
TYLER VELA RENOUNCES CHRIST Recently, Calvinist YouTuber and Podcaster, Tyler Vela of @TheFreedThinkerPodcast publicly renounced his faith in Christ. As regular viewers of this channel are aware, Warren and Tyler have often disagreed and locked horns online and in formal debate. To be crystal clear, in no way should this video be seen as dunking on Tyler or celebrating his walking away from Christianity. Rather, this is somewhat of a sympathetic rebuke and encouragement for him. This video is NOT calling Tyler to return to the god of neo-Platonism... he’s clearly still following him. This is NOT calling Tyler to return to god as he understood Him in Calvinism. Rather, this video is calling Tyler to consider the reason he cried out to God for comfort in the first place; that this innate need for a transcendent comfort points to a transcendent Comforter. Tyler's need for transcendent love points to a transcendent Lover, not a static, unfeeling, un-relational concept as he's experienced as a Philosophical Theist. Tyler’s admitted need for comfort shows he was looking in the wrong place; not that it was wrong to look, not that it was wrong to realize that place was empty. So let this serve as an encouragement for him to keep looking.
Tyler called the God presented in the Bible, absent neo-Platonism, a "Hebraic Mega-Zeus" and that may be a cute or effective form of rhetoric for some, but this video is an invitation for Tyler to ponder how comforted David was by this God when he lost his child… How Jesus came because of God’s love for the world… to consider the care with which God clothed Adam and Eve after they introduced sin, suffering and death by their rebellion… to consider the early martyrs who sang while being burned alive and devoured by lions… to consider the Living and relational God of the Bible does indeed comfort, unlike the god he found wanting. I love you Tyler… I disagree with you now, as I have previously… but God is better than the both of us… and I pray you come to know Him in a truly profound way. Ya’ll lift this man up in prayer. God bless.
