Academics and philosophers imagine that the modern world inevitably secularizes. As the secular spirit descends on churches, fewer people believe in the ancient faith and church doctrines are watered down to conform to the modern spirit. The spirit of the age does not simply descend and demystify traditional churches, however. It works through people willing to kneecap orthodoxy to conform to the age.
The Social Gospel movement of the early 20th Century, for example, emphasized social salvation through labor reform at the expense of eternal salvation. Through liberal Protestant ministers like Washington Gladden, adopting the teachings of Charles Monroe Sheldon (author of In His Steps [1896]), churches and denominations adopted socialism, and died slow deaths. During the same period, powerful foundations outside churches, like the Carnegie Foundation, offered Christian college professors free pensions if colleges would but drop their denominational affiliations and compromise their faith statements. Many complied. Similarly, later in the 20th Century, liberal churches voted to ordain gay ministers or bless same-sex marriage at the behest of powerful interests and many shepherds left orthodox faith.
Shepherds of Christian flocks must always choose between God and mammon, paid either crudely in money or, more subtly, in respectability. The only question is who are the agents of mammon and how are they operating at any particular time. Megan Basham, reporter at the Daily Wire and author of Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda, audaciously names Christian sellouts who are willing to dance to the tune of today’s political class on immigration, climate change, abortion, the gays and more.
Several critics have risen to complain, but they either ignore or concede Basham’s central claims—that there are outside interests hoping to liberalize Christian teachings on a host of issues; that some Christians carry water for them; and that many prominent “shepherds” follow and platform those carrying water.
Basham’s paradigm case on how LGBTQ groups leverage churches away from traditional Christian sexual ethics illustrates the whole. (Strangely, one critic who acknowledges the power of Basham’s reporting on COVID, immigration, and sex abuse scandals ignores the gay issue.)
First, there are outside interests. Basham shows that the very pro-gay Arcus Foundation funds a Reconciling Ministries Network (which seeks “full participation of all LGBTQ+ people throughout the life and leadership of the Church”) and Reformation Project (which seeks to advance “LGBTQ Inclusion in the Church”). Arcus provides funding, as Basham relates, to “reform church teaching on sexual orientation and gender identity among conservative and evangelical communities” and rid the church of “narrow and hateful interpretations of religious doctrine.”
Second, there are Christians willing to carry water for these outside interests. Reformation Project hired and funded Matthew Vines, whose God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case for Same-Sex Relationships blesses gay rights with Scripture. Basham provides other receipts on this score as well.
Third, pastors and seminary faculty are willing to listen. In liberal churches, shepherds bring in gay rights directly in the name of progress and the spirit of the age. Bringing gay rights to conservative churches proves trickier given their belief in Scriptural integrity, so creative leaders play a long game of tweaking tradition instead of selling out. Sometimes this involves platforming gay-affirming, Christian parents, who can found organizations like Embracing the Journey (backed by Vines and Arcus, as Basham shows). Such parents, after careful coaching, give speeches at breakfast meetings, church conventions, and Sunday schools with the imprimatur of influential pastors like Rick Warren in order to persuade parents to affirm new sexual orientations and gender identities.
Sometimes tweaking tradition means embracing a new Scriptural interpretation, as occurred in the “Side A” and “Side B” controversy. Side A is an open celebration of gay rights, as in the liberal churches. Side B is for Christians who claim to be committed to honoring, as Basham writes, “the letter of the Bible’s prohibition against homosexual acts while they violate its spirit by embracing the trappings of gay culture.” For Side B-ers, for instance, the Bible only condemns non-marital man-to-man sodomy or orgies, but it blesses same-sex attraction, spiritual friendships and physically affectionate, same-sex “cuddling, kissing and holding hands” (as Gregory Coles, author of Single, Gay Christian, writes). Side B has been institutionalized in Revoice—and Revoice has won praise from many evangelical church leaders including, ambiguously, the late Tim Keller, Basham shows. Once these points are gained, a notch is in place for the next roll in the revolution as well.
As a result of this concerted effort over a generation or more, as David Ayers demonstrates, acceptance of gay rights, same-sex attraction and same-sex marriage have been rising among evangelical Christians.
Basham documents patterns of influence in several policy areas. On matters of Christian freedom like global warming, Basham depicts a well-funded environmental activists (The Evangelical Environmental Network teaching Creation Care) seeking to politicize the church with the aid from clever pastors who want to start a one-sided conversation where climate skeptics must learn to accept the supposed scientific consensus. Same with immigration.
Sometimes activist groups simply seek a moral monopoly that shames churches into accepting contemporary standards of justice, as when the Southern Baptist Convention bought into the worst excesses of the #churchtoo movement that subtly accepted the idea that women do not lie or sin or when Campus Crusade integrated critical race theory into its leadership training.
Sometimes government officials teach congregations and synods how to “love your neighbor,” as when Francis Collins of the National Institute of Health preached government lockdowns, mask-wearing, and vaccine mandates with the imprimatur of Russell Moore and Keller.
Secular authorities are seeking to transform American Christianity from within. No Christian church is immune from these attacks. Shepherds are always for sale—and secular respectability is the coin of the realm. Broad are the roads that lead to destruction and apostacy, and many churches have entered into it, while the way that leads to life and maintains orthodoxy is narrow. The shepherds for sale will call this narrow road, “fundamentalism,” a path too narrow for respectable company today. Basham’s book points to orthodox belief as much as it shuns the paths of destruction. Churches will be greatly aided in following the narrow path today if parishioners internalize Basham’s invaluable reporting in Shepherds for Sale.
Scott Yenor is a professor of political science at Boise State University and the Director of State Coalitions at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life. He is author of The Recovery of Family Life, now out in paperback.