I am currently reading Megan Basham’s recently released book Shepherds For Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. She goes after folks who I have identified as mainstream evangelical leaders (to one degree or another), such as: Russell Moore, Ed Stetzer, JD Greear, Gavin Ortlund, and many others. I have only made it through chapter 1, on climate change. But I know the basic thesis of the book, and that there is leftist money intentionally being funneled into the evangelical environs in order to soften evangelicals to progressive themes; such as: climate change, the LGBTQI+ agenda, abortion, immigration, critical theories, so on and so forth. Indeed, the names I mentioned above, with so many more, have been forwarding these types of progressive themes, even if soft-peddled, to the evangelical masses for more than a decade (and longer). Russell Moore, currently as Managing Editor of the magazine Christianity Today (which I have written and consulted for back in 2013 and 14), is using that mantle as a way to ingress progressivism into the mainstream of the undiscerning evangelical world. Prior to that, and my contact there back in the day, Mark Galli (the previous managing editor) started this type of drift himself; albeit, not in the type of flaming ways that Moore and Tim Dalrymple (President of CT) currently are.
The above noted, predictably, those who Basham has highlighted in her book, and many who she didn’t, but who her typologies represent, are pushing back at Basham with a ferociousness. Almost all of this noise is taking place, where else?, but on X/Twitter. The primary claim being made against Basham’s book is that it is factually errant, and that she misrepresents those she is engaging with throughout her book. Ultimately, whether or not Basham’s “receipts” (for some reason I hate the way that word has become trendy) are fully accurate; if Basham is concretely proving the ostensible money-trails that lead back to her examples and the progressive money-machines; this doesn’t defeat the basic premise of her book. Her basic premise is surmised in the subtitle of the book: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. Basham’s book isn’t even needed to prove that point. These guys and gals, in mainstream evangelicalism, are ubiquitous online in their promotion of critical theory, critical race theory, affirmation of LGBTQI+ inclusion in the evangelical churches, climate change agenda, and other aberrant and secular themes that pervade our culture writ large.
I simply wanted to register my support for what Basham is attempting to do with her book. Do I agree with Basham theologically? No, not per se. But at a social level she is right on the money in her critique of the evangelical collapse into the secular age. I don’t even see how or why this is a remarkable thing to recognize; it is clear for all to see. Basham is catching heck right now, and so I thought I would throw my hat into the ring in support of what her broader project is attempting to do. She, in my opinion, is exposing the darkness with the light. As we know from Scripture the darkness hates the light precisely because it loves the darkness. A scurrying is underway as Basham’s book places a sunlit magnifying glass on the deeds of the hirelings in our midst. I should qualify and say: that some of these hirelings are conscious hirelings, and others are not, per se. But either way they are promoting a social agenda that contradicts the premises of the holiness of the Gospel, and they need to be called out; just as Peter needed to be by Paul.