Knock Me Down With A Feather

Some Thoughts On Megan Basham's Shepherds For Sale

[I’m making this post free as a special treat. Normally my paid posts are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with free ones on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, but it’s good to have a little leaven in the lump sometimes.]

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As I mentioned yesterday in my brief introduction to how much I hate the bad music blasting in every single store—save Aldi—in this blighted civilization, it has long been my intention to write about Megan Basham’s Shepherds For Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded The Truth For A Leftist Agenda. I listened to the book in a rush as soon as it came out and then bought a Kindle version to meander through at my leisure. Only then did I allow myself to read some of the many reviews that have appeared over the weeks since it climbed onto the New York Times bestseller list. Then this review appeared yesterday and was tweeted out in batches by Kristin du Mez.

I’m not going to summarize the book, nor review it in the traditional sense. Rather, I want to go point by point through this tweet thread, and then, at the very end, set forth what I liked best about Basham’s analysis of our current cultural and spiritual situation.

The review is by Daniel K Williams and du Mez saved me a lot of trouble by pulling out the crucial bits:

Basham has made a fundamental category mistake: She has confused traditionally moderate evangelical social justice concerns with the platform of the Democratic left. Contrary to her claims, most of the allegedly left-leaning evangelical leaders...she has selected for excoriation did not acquire their social ethics from the Dem Party; they..inherited it from mainstream Am evangelical theology. The people whom Basham, a politically conservative Southern Baptist, accuses of being closet leftists are not theological liberals.

Here is a neat and tidy example of the trouble we are in. For, though they may not exactly be “theological” liberals, they have swallowed the assumptions of the Left with relish not because they were trying to be bad, but because they were trying to be good. The compass demarcating goodness has been recalibrated according to post-sexual revolution values and anyone, even evangelical thought leaders, not intellectually shaped by the scriptures are becoming confused and losing their way.

That is precisely the point. Liberal theology has crept into the church because as the whole culture tilted to the left, progressive theological assumptions became the obvious thing. Christians kept saying, “Jesus is my Lord and Savior,” but the words “Jesus,” “Lord,” and “Savior” all took on a tenor they had not previously had. Basham, because of her incisive intellect, her journalistic instincts, and her actual Christian faith was able to assign various phenomona to their proper categories. And we can know that she was successful because everyone got so very angry with her.

As I said before, du Mez tried to do this with Jesus and John Wayne but was not successful because, being a theological liberal, she was not able to properly articulate what it is, exactly, that faithful conservative evangelicals actually believe. In this review, Williams admits that Basham has observed the true reality that many so called evangelicals are mincing happily to the Left, but, as she observed online herself, he just thinks that its good that they’re doing it.

Here is the next bit:

For the most part, they’re not even progressive evangelicals like Shane Claiborne or the editors of Sojourners magazine. Instead, most of them are biblical inerrantists, &many of them are gender complementarians. Few have publicly endorsed Dems, and none of them are pro-choice.

I feel like “for the most part” has to carry a lot of water here. Of course “none” of them are pro-choice—they just expanded the pro-life position to include everything and the kitchen sink.

Basham argues that these evangelical leaders and organizations have betrayed the cause by embracing left-leaning ideas about climate change, racial justice, immigration, and even homosexuality and abortion.

I read the book and the word “cause” is not the proper word. There is no cause. That is the problem. Many people began to take up various causes like climate change and racial justice, nay even homosexuality, pronoun hospitality, and a vague sadness over the end of Roe and tried to say that caring about them was an essential part of the evangelical gospel witness. And many, if not most, evanelicals just couldn’t be persuaded that that was so, and so much money began to roll down like water into the coffers of those who had even a little bit of spiritual influence. Its not about betraying “the cause” it is about sticking doggedly to the scriptures and refusing to let a lot of Biblical words be emptied of their meanings and their husks being used as skin suits for progressivism.

And the first way this happens is by taking the words “love” and “kindness” and making them about feeling happy about personal identity instead of the astonishing mercy and grace of Christ.

Anyway, apparently all of these biblical inerrantists are also traditional centrists:

But on closer inspection, on every one of these issues the people Basham targets are closer to the longstanding positions of traditional centrist evangelicalism than Basham is.

That’s so funny since what was in the center just twenty-five years ago was far more akin to the orthodox and traditional theological beliefs of those of us now considered “far right.” The center has moved so very far to the left that those who helped make the move—decrying the idiocy of faithful Southern Baptists, Anglicans, Methodists, and Presbyterians—are now wishing they could have “cultural” Christianity back. They feel sad that no one sings the hymns or understands about the liturgy.

Let me just say it one more time before I go on. Twenty-five years ago, only the very far left espoused any of the list of “issues” named in this review. Very left leaning Episcopalians and Unitarians were the ones hotted up about the Millenium Development Goals. When TEC formally apostasized a lot of people were shocked because they didn’t realize that acceptance of same-sex marriage had crept that far into the pews and bowels of so many churches and clergy. Now that it is happening to the SBC, the PCA, the Methodists, and everyone else, it seems old hat, nay even centrist, but it is not.

It is not the evangelical leaders who have allowed their political ideology to warp their understanding of evangelical theology; it is, rather, Basham herself who has done so....In fact, on nearly every issue covered in this book, both the last half-century of evangelical articles in magazines such as CT and the last few decades of denominational and NAE resolutions line up closely with the views that Basham labels a “leftist agenda,” while her own views closely echo those presented on FOX News and the Republican Party in the Trump era.

I don’t want to be pedantic, but FOX News and the Republican party are not bastions of conservatism anymore than Trump is. Mr. Trump is basically fine with abortion, though he is at least willing to attend to those who are not. He finds his friends all over the place, which is fine with me. But he’s not a conservative Christian and neither is Brett Baer—is he still on Fox? I haven’t watched that in a long time.

The political landscape in America—I heard someone say this week but I can’t remember where—is becoming unrecognizable. Liberals and Conservatives are finding common cause with each other around free speech. Capitalists and Corporatists are waking up to the fact that the Democratic Process isn’t working as they once thought. All kinds of realignments are taking place. In fact, though it may shock you very much to hear this, CT is not a conservative news outlet. Everyone knew that before Basham’s book knocked us all down as with a feather.

Basham has made the mistake of thinking that the contemporary Republican Party’s positions on immigration, race, and climate change are grounded in scripture, but she makes almost no effort to prove it.

Did you read the book, though? Because she doesn’t do that. She doesn’t bring the contemporary Republican Party positions into it. She does offer very reasonable explanations for why evangelicals voted for Mr. Trump for those who are still confused on the matter, but she by no means shills for the GOP.

Instead, aside from a few brief verses used as chapter headings and as calls to action in the conclusion, Basham’s book is almost entirely devoid of scripture, and it does not present any theological arguments in favor of its position.

Did you notice that the book wasn’t a Bible Study? It was a work of journalism. And one of the things I loved best is how she watched the entire After Party curriculum and discovered that the only Bible verse they used was Micah 6:8. The After Party, though, was supposed to be a Bible Study.

It’s true, there isn’t a lot of scripture in the book, the texts that are there are so on point they cut entirely through the vapid and hubristic miasma:

Basham seems completely unconcerned by the fact that on nearly every issue...her own views are directly opposed to the positions of most Chr leaders in the US, including Catholic bishops, leading ev theologians, &other Chr thought leaders outside of partisan conservative circles.

Isn’t it strange how so much of the modern church has just drifted along with the current instead of, when it really mattered, standing up to speak against the evils of the day? Isn’t it strange how on Climate Change, Racial Justice, and Pro-Life issues it is very easy for Christian Thought Leaders to fit in with almost every political administration and suffer no shame or humiliation? That’s because what she’s saying about them is true, they have drifted away from the core anchor of the Bible, they have allowed the frame to shift, they have exchanged the unchanging truth of God for the many paltry, shifting causes of the day. This ought to be printed out as a certificate of honor—I was directly opposed to the positions of thought leaders on almost every issue that mattered, not because I’m contrary, but because they were wrong. Partisan Conservative Circles Forsooth.

Yet I think that a careful reading of scripture will show that what Basham considers the plain truth of Christianity is more a reflection of contemporary populist conservatism than it is of any historic message of Jesus or church teaching.

I’d love to know what a “careful reading of scripture” means in any of these realms. I think I know. Indeed, anytime I hear the term “historic message” I feel sure that the person making grand proclamations about the truth of Christianity will be careful to leave out all the bits about sexual immorality, penal substitutional atonement, and the Bible being the actual Word of God.

Here’s the last bit:

But I hope that people who are tempted to enlist in the fight Basham recommends will instead spend time with the words of Jesus. If they do, they may discover that the most damaging worldly cultural influences on the contemporary church are not the concerns of the left—whether climate science, anti-racism, or COVID health protocols—but are instead the sins of the heart that Jesus warned about.

Ah yes, those sins of the heart. What are they, pray tell? Whenever I go around to examine the teachings of supposed conservatives like Mr. Moore and all the people at Christianity Today, I am usually overwhelmed by a flood of theological ideas that go right up to the line of heresy without actually crossing over it. Be nice because Jesus was nice. Welcome the stranger, but don’t tell the stranger that he is a sinner or that she is in danger of committing murder if she decides to stop being pregnant. Read the Bible, of which Micah 6:8 is the only verse that matters. God hates adultery, but it’s important to be so very kind to those who are attracted to people to whom they are not married that they are able to guard and protect a special identity that is completely outside of, nay even conflicts with God’s view of the person, God’s view of the Church, and God’s view of the Kingdom of God. Don’t be so proud, in other words, that you suppose you know what Jesus means when he says that the man is the head of the woman, or that the baby is a person from conception. Think about ensoulment!

I could go on and on, of course, but I want to arrest my annoyance for just a moment and tell you the part I loved best about Shepherds For Sale. It is at the very end when, concluding her eye-popping tale, Basham tells us what time it is. She writes:

No one, least of all Christians, should welcome civil war in the Church. But too many Church leaders have grown arrogant due to the rank and file’s reluctance to seem unpleasant or uncharitable by confronting their deceit and manipulation, and a unity based on acceptance of false teaching is a unity of the damned. As Aragorn says to Théoden, king of Rohan, in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, open war is upon us whether we would risk it or not. Or, as Moses says to the Gadites and Reubenites in Numbers 32, “Should your fellow Israelites go to war while you sit here?” That is where we are. Open war is upon us and has been for a number of years. But we possess a power that no other in the world can rival. Listen to the progressive strategists as they complain that evangelicals have been the toughest nut to crack despite the tens of millions of dollars they have spent promoting elite church influencers who voice their preferred views. Why is that so? Because unlike any other targeted demographic, we have the objective source of truth. We have a North Star that pulls us back when we wander too far afield, that ensures that we fight the right battles in the right way. We have the Word that is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). The time has come to pick up that sword and unashamedly use it against the cunning and craftiness of people who would see us blown here and there by every wind of teaching, and to pursue what our Lord calls us to in Ephesians 4:15–16: “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

I love this because I have, since 2016, been noticing what time it is. As the Pax Americana unravels and we have to admit that our culture is fast losing its memory of Christian things, we are in that unsettling place of chaos and crisis that so many generations before us have faced. We have to choose, each of us, which way we will go. In the cacophony of people trying to explain what it means to be a Christian, each believer has to get her wits about her. She isn’t invited to blame other people for her failures to discern the true foe in the heat of battle. Or rather, she can, but that availeth nothing. No, it is better to open the eyes and see what is really true before it is too late.

The thing about the Christian battle, as Basham said, is that it is no ordinary, dark affair of violence and ruin. On the contrary, it is the cheerful business of waking up every morning and loving everyone enough to be clear about who Jesus is. It is the continual building up of confused and lonely people by the truth. It is the work of God himself who joins each believer to Christ forever. I’m so grateful for this book, and I encourage everyone to read it. Disagree on certain points, perhaps, but for the sake of the Church, for the fellowship of love, and for a lost and perishing world pay attention to the warnings and back away from the spiritual abyss of apostasy and ruin opening up under our feet.

And now I must run along. Have a nice day!