How the Evangelical Elite Abandoned Their Flock | Bethel McGrew

SSometimes a book comes out that shows irreconcilable differences between sociopolitical camps. Other times a book comes out that diagnoses these differences. Megan Basham’s German Shepherds for sale is the second kind of book. According to its critics, it is a shrill, right-wing propaganda pamphlet designed to foment civil war within the evangelical church. But for anyone who hasn’t spent the last decade in a certain kind of echo chamber, Basham’s thesis will ring true: Civil war has long been within evangelicals, whether they welcome it or not.

To say the book struck a nerve would be an understatement. That it received a heated reception was inevitable given its boldly broad range of topics; chapter topics include anti-racism, the #ChurchToo movement, Covid, LGBT issues, and more. Much of the material was not new to me, for I have been chronicling these fissures independently and in real time, not only among evangelicals but also within my own Anglican tradition. (Parts of the LGBT chapter follow my The most important Article about the many mistakes of the “Side B” movement.)

Despite the juicy title, not every one of the book’s numerous evangelical characters will turn out to be a pure heretical traitor. This is a common criticism, but Basham herself preempts it in the introduction, where she acknowledges that people’s motives can be complex and their level of willingness to compromise can vary. As she has documented, a lot of left-wing money has certainly changed hands, but not every commentator will follow David French and campaign for Kamala Harris, and not every pastor will follow Andy Stanley and lead his flock over a cliff into obvious heresy. Nevertheless, there are still plenty of opportunities for a “shepherd” to be stubbornly blind.

Basham’s most high-profile rebuttal to date came from megachurch pastor JD Greear, who appears in several chapters. The chapter on “critical race prophets” details how he participated in a witch hunt against members of the First Baptist Church Naples who opposed a black pastor candidate. Their swift and ruthless excommunication as racists, cheered on by several prominent Southern Baptist voices like Greear, is the most shocking injustice Basham documents in her book. Greear pleads ignorance in his lengthy complaint, claiming he accepted the church leaders’ account “in good faith.” In a lengthy rejoinder, Basham replied, “No. You cannot publicly label ordinary members of a church as racist in good faith without clear evidence.” Their exchange vividly illustrates why the loss of institutional trust among rank-and-file evangelicals is so profound and most likely irreversible.

Basham’s thesis can be summarized as follows: For far too long, certain “elite” evangelicals have seen themselves as a kind of Protestant magisterium, imparting wisdom to the rank and file but refraining from internal criticism of one another. At the same time, they have uncritically subordinated themselves to people who claim “expert authority,” whether on behalf of an “oppressed” group (immigrants, women, blacks, gays) or on behalf of science (environmental science, epidemiology). Not every member of the new magisterium was equally vulnerable on all issues, but all sought the approval of their preferred experts, and all subscribed in some form to the leftist logic that if you don’t support a particular solution, you must not care about the problem it is supposed to solve. Whether as dupes or willing collaborators, they have opened all sorts of doors that should have been firmly shut, and ordinary churchgoers have felt the consequences—from the excommunicated members of First Baptist Church Naples, to the families whose teenagers were abandoned or misled over issues of sexual orthodoxy, to the numerous people forced out of shame to social distance, wear masks, or get vaccinated out of “love of neighbor.” And when confronted, many shepherds have either downplayed their mistakes or tried to banish them from memory altogether, rather than fully confessing and repenting.

But the Internet is forever and Basham has kept the receipts.

The book’s wealth of detail is both a strength and a weakness. The hard-hitting accuracy is a welcome contrast to the vague, boilerplate rants against “white Christian nationalism.” But with so much accuracy, errors are virtually inevitable. Various critics have carefully compiled some of them. The chapter on climate change attributes some alarmist comments to a conference talk by Alister McGrath, but he seems to have been confused with another speaker. The chapter on immigration reports that the religious NGO World Relief received $215.3 million in taxpayer money “in 2018 alone,” but that amount was actually a cumulative total for 2008 to 2018. These and various other errors, while not serious, still distracted people from a serious debate about the book’s actual thesis, and the editorial process should have uncovered them.

It’s frustrating for those trying to keep up with the discourse that for every genuine error one discovers, one must sift through numerous claims of “errors” that are simply based on disagreements or misinterpretations by the critic. For example, one critic claimed that Basham misread and unfairly criticized a 2022 article by Karen Swallow Prior on pandemic protocols. The article doesn’t even attempt to disguise its thesis that pro-lifers lose their credibility as pro-lifers if they don’t comply. This insistence on overlooking the clear rhetorical thrust of a text only underscores Basham’s point for her.

That is not to say that Basham could not have been more precise, even though she made fair arguments. For example, her much-discussed criticism of YouTube apologist Gavin Ortlund might rightly diagnose a kind of condescension toward evangelicals who are hesitant to trust “experts” on climate change. His one-sided presentation of the facts in the name of “charity,” his complaints about conservative political bias, and his urgent insistence that Christians must “get to the books” and “take the lead” all create a certain cumulative rhetorical impression. But Contra Basham’s summary: Ortlund never explicitly says that one must agree with him to be “responsible.” Such lapses in accuracy provide malicious critics with unnecessary excuses for missing the forest while fixating on a few leaves on a tree.

Still, there is no denying the double standard when reviewers obsessively pick apart these kinds of inaccuracies while turning a blind eye to truly egregious misrepresentations by a “respected” figure like Russell Moore. The loss of our religionMoore implicitly twists James Wood’s fair criticism of Tim Keller and accuses Wood of being a “fundamentalist Calvinist.” A similar double standard is at work in the sardonic promotion of Kevin Williamson’s unreviewed “review” of Basham’s book at ShippingWilliamson’s brash rhetoric would not be tolerated for a moment if it were directed against an evangelical author.

Even ShippingWarren Cole Smith’s review misses the mark, insisting that the book is really about (who else?) Donald Trump. Basham gives Trump credit for repealing roeand she does criticize leaders like Tim Keller who have made the level of support for Trump the litmus test of evangelical credibility (see, for example, this paper, the inclusion of which would have bolstered Basham’s quotes). But the book is obviously much bigger than Trump. A more nuanced critique would be that Basham’s optimistic view fails to capture the true tragedy of the evangelical voter’s dilemma. She praises Christians who tried to exercise the power of their vote “for the right reasons,” and yet those same Christians were again overwhelmed when Trump rewrote the Republican platform by decree. roe was defeated, yes, but at what cost? Voters who voted for Trump may have nothing to apologize for, but neither do voters who abstained. The tragic vision lies somewhere between Basham’s optimism and David French’s dark, all-corrupting obsession.

Of course, the Christian right has no shortage of MAGA shills, con artists, or disgraced “shepherds” like Mark Driscoll who are happy to recommend this book to distract from their own corruption. The book’s victims, in turn, will smugly point to these recommendations and pretend Basham didn’t catch them in the act. The reactions from both sides reveal far more about themselves than about the book. The challenge for Basham herself is to maintain her own distinctive voice without being co-opted.

Strangely, most reviews lack any discussion of Basham’s final statement, which she presents as the key to understanding the entire book. After the humiliation of her “dreary years,” a casual reading of The search for the Holy Grail finally pierced her profligate heart. When the hermit justly rebuked the adulterous Lancelot, she too was condemned. She was then nourished and instructed by simple preaching of the gospel. To more “missionary” evangelicals, her church may have seemed too fundamentalist. But perhaps today’s evangelicalism could use a little less missiology and a little more fundamentalism.

Ultimately, Basham’s goal is not to tear down the church, but to build it up. She wants the pure truth of the gospel that saved her soul to be embraced and preached without compromise and without apology. It is this saving gospel, undiluted by political pandering and corporate duplicity, that “still brings dead girls back to life.”

Bethel McGrew is an essayist and social critic.

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Image by Cesare Maccari, provided by Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Image cropped.