Since the podcast episode aired, denominational members have made multiple formal requests for investigation into Chapell’s Christian character on the grounds that his list may violate the Ninth Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16).

Bryan Chapell, the chief administrative officer of the Presbyterian Church in America, gestured to the camera with a Post-it note.

“Those are the names of the scandalizers, the people who have invested hours every day attacking others for their supposed lack of faithfulness, for their compromise … whose identity comes from scandalizing others,” he said. “And every name on that list has either left his family, left the faith, or taken his life—every name on that list.”

Chapell, the PCA’s stated clerk, made this statement on an episode of The Gospel Coalition’s Gospelbound podcast last week that focused on the challenges modern churches face with generational divides. The conversation took a turn when host Collin Hansen brought up the subject of men who “spend so much time performing for the applause of their peers by trying to scandalize others.” He asked Chapell what the church could do to discourage such behavior. That was when Chapell held up the list.

While the list was only on camera briefly, viewers were able to pause the video, take screenshots, and read most of the names on it. Since the May 20 release of that episode of the podcast, Chapell’s “scandalizers list” has gone viral on social media, triggered multiple formal ethics complaints against the denomination’s stated clerk, and drawn official letters of concern from sister Presbyterian bodies—an unprecedented rupture in PCA interchurch relations.

Some of the men on Chapell’s list are pastors in good standing with the PCA or with other Presbyterian denominations with which the PCA has fraternal relationships. A number of the men, along with their supporters, dispute Chapell’s characterization of them as “scandalizers.”

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