September 2, 2024
Everybody loves an editor. (Ha, that’s the closest you’ll get to an editor joke.) The truth is, nobody likes being told all the ways they could have said what they said better. But it’s also true that every writer needs a good editor, which is why I never like to publish or preach anything without first running it by my favorite editor, my wife.
As the editorial director at RENEW.org, I thought I would take a stab at an imaginative experiment. What if Megan Basham, author of Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda, had sent me her manuscript to edit before publication? What feedback would I have given her?
I’ve long been a reader of World Magazine, to which Megan used to contribute regularly as a culture writer. My kids regularly view World Watch, which is World Magazine’s daily news digest for kids, hosted by Megan’s husband, Brian “The Big Bash” Basham. Even though I’ve got plenty of editing on my plate, I would have gladly made time to edit Megan’s book.
So, pour the coffee, pull up a chair, and listen in on an editor’s take on Shepherd’s for Sale. I’ll start with the positive comments and then move onto my suggestions for improvement. Here’s what I would have shared with the author.
Positive Comments
Vindication
First of all, you do an admirable job of helping conservative Christians (both theological conservatives and political conservatives) feel vindicated that they’re not crazy for noticing leftward drifts in pockets of evangelicalism. You point out how pro-lifers, often maligned as being pro-life only before birth, are actually the ones busily providing for struggling moms through crisis pregnancy centers. You call out the unfairness of churches, taking their cue from “anti-racists” such as Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi, in making white members feel guilty for being white and therefore complicit in racism. You challenge the subtle, suspect logic that to “love your neighbor” means their convictions need to drift leftward. It makes sense that, to impress secular elites, there have been evangelical elites treating the “rank and file” with condescension. This vindication of everyday Christians and their concerns is your book at its best.
“This vindication of everyday Christians and their concerns is your book at its best.”
Warnings
You narrate uncomfortable realities we need to face. It’s good that you remind us the perception politicians have regarding us evangelicals. Although some see us as a juicy voting bloc, progressives more often view us as a stubborn obstruction to progressive aims. You paint a plausible correlation between progressives’ desire for us to go soft on our convictions and progressive groups’ funding to influence church curriculum and parachurch organizations. These are indeed massive power brokers with significant influence, and to hear how they are actively seeking to sway evangelical institutions is alarming. If anyone thinks this sort of thing doesn’t happen, they need to be reminded of the dozens of once-Christian colleges that severed denominational ties in order to meet requirements to receive Carnegie grant money. It’s helpful to know there are influential megachurches permitting, possibly promoting, LGBTQ-affirming training. We need to be aware that, in the interest of standing up for sex abuse victims, a trend has developed to absolve the woman of guilt even in consensual relationships, according to an oppressor-oppressed framework. As you describe, in many pockets of evangelicalism, these drifts into a secular progressive way of thinking are happening.
Candidness
You were candid about your biases early in the book, so that you didn’t downplay your political and theological conservatism. Your goal, you point out in the introduction, isn’t theological or political persuasion. Instead, you’re writing with the assumption that readers already know, for example, “that homosexuality is a sin” and “that the push for equity (which guarantees outcomes) rather than equality (which guarantees opportunity) is simply a repackaged version of Marx’s politics of envy.” You “presume there are enough readers still orthodox enough in their thinking that [you] do not have to start at square one by outlining God’s intent in designing humanity as male and female and who are sensible enough to know that no nation can long remain a nation that does not police its borders.” This mingling of political and theological assumptions as your starting point for commonsense evangelicalism will help explain why the book ambitiously tackles such a wide swath of topics.
“This mingling of political and theological assumptions as your starting point for commonsense evangelicalism will help explain why the book ambitiously tackles such a wide swath of topics.”
Suggestions for Improvement
Clarity of Purpose
This isn’t the fun kind of comment to write or read. This is because it points to a structural, not cosmetic issue to the book. The truth is, I’m struggling to decipher the exact purpose of this book. As I mentioned above, you accomplish a number of important things throughout the book. But the overall purpose remains vague to me. True, you set the expectation early on (even in the title) that this will be an exposé of leftist infiltration into the church. You say it won’t primarily be an argument for conservative perspectives. At the same time, you spend a lot of space arguing for a conservative position, whether the destructiveness of climate initiatives, the pervasiveness of governmental misinformation regarding COVID, or the need for greater border security. If you were merely pointing out leftist infiltration into the church, all well and good. But the more intensely you go on to argue for rightist political positions as being the true Christian perspective, the more you undermine your thesis by suggesting that you’ve allowed your own faith to be infiltrated by rightist politics. If you keep the book as is, please don’t be surprised if readers apply your logic back on yourself, saying, “Why should we be surprised that an employee of the Daily Wire would be incentivized to couple Christianity with rightist politics?”
“If you keep the book as is, don’t be surprised if readers apply your logic back on yourself.”
Fact-checking
Whenever articulating an opposing position, it would be wise to aim for such accuracy that your opponent can read it and say, “Yes, that’s what I believe,” or “Yes, that’s what I said.” It doesn’t mean they’ll agree with your assessment of their views, but they need to know their views were given a fair hearing. Yet some of the quotes and summary statements I read in your book were alarming and seemed out of character from what I thought I knew about these leaders. There were some quote snippets that looked like they could have been taken out of context and made to say something it’s doubtful these leaders would have said. Are you absolutely sure your quotes are accurate and not pulled out of context? I trust that, since these are meant to be an exposé of Christian leaders and organizations, you’ve contacted them to make sure you’re getting the facts right? You don’t want others doing the fact-checking for you after the fact, as any errors they find will undermine the good you’re hoping to accomplish.[1]
Power
You’ve got a recurring cast of characters and organizations whom you paint over and over as evangelical sellouts (anything from wolves to fools). Tim Keller, J.D. Greear, Beth Moore, Karen Swallow Prior, Russell Moore, Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, and many more get numerous dishonorable mentions from you. There are going to be readers longing to be the faithful remnant and eager to believe the worst about “Big Eva” who will read this book and forever view these names and organizations as false shepherds. This book may destroy reputations and further divide Christians into fighting sub-camps. That’s a ton of power you wield, and I highly recommend that, if you go through with this exposé of these leaders, you offer their perspectives on these stories too. People deserve to hear both sides in their fairest light so they can make an honest choice between them. Yet throughout your book, I get the sense I’m only being told one side of all these stories. You can voice agreement or disagreement without treating one person only sympathetically and another only cynically.
“People deserve to hear both sides in their fairest light so they can make an honest choice between them.”
Red and blue
Even though the gospel has unmistakable implications for sexual ethics and the lives of unborn babies, you’re making it appear that gospel faithfulness requires adherence to red-state politics as a whole. I highly encourage you to acknowledge the possibility that some of these leaders have an evangelistic heart and are trying to reach people who might be interested in Christianity except they don’t buy rightist politics. One of my professors of theology, the late Norman Geisler, “Stormin’ Norman,” wasn’t known for backing down from a fight. Yet he would always start his critique of another worldview with a list of that worldview’s strengths. If Geisler could articulate a handful of things he appreciated about, say, atheists, surely you can extend some graciousness toward these brothers and sisters of yours with whom you disagree. It’s possible, however, that you don’t see them as your brothers and sisters in Christ, in which case you are viewing issues like climate change, immigration policy, and COVID response as gospel issues, and readers will suspect you as the sellout.
A Twofold Heaviness in Shepherds for Sale
So, that’s what I would have written to Basham. I know Shepherd’s for Sale wasn’t meant to be a happy read. But it was downright heavy. It was disheartening when the accusations were clear and fair but even more so when they weren’t, because every less-than-fair accusation chiseled a new, unnecessary schism of mistrust between brothers and sisters. Yes, there are some things worth battling over, and I’ve long warned about evangelical drift into progressivism. In this, Basham issues helpful warnings. At the same time, a bleeding church isn’t made more whole when sliced even further into more and more camps of Christians fighting against each other.
In Bible college, a professor told us students about how, shortly after he was married, he had to spend three miserable weeks in a row helping at church camp without his new wife. When the third week’s group of campers got homesick, he was called on to offer words of comfort. Speaking to the campers, he started with, “Kids, I know you miss your families back home.” The rest of the staff cringed. That’s not how to rally the troops. Then he said, “You know, I miss my wife, too.” And when he said “wife,” he, too, started crying. The kids began thinking to themselves, We’ve got to help this poor guy get it together!
Too much camp can be wearisome. The same goes for too many camps. Can’t we disagree and issue warnings without going so far as to carve each other into yet another set of camps?
“Can’t we disagree and issue warnings without going so far as to carve each other into yet another set of camps?”
It doesn’t have to be this way. Some disagreements evaporate when we humble ourselves by seeking the facts. Other disagreements deescalate when we’re clear on what’s essential to the faith, what’s important to pursue out of faithfulness, and what’s a matter of personal conviction. (And, yes, according to these criteria, there are definitely false shepherds to watch out for! Any pastor who says it’s okay for Christians to do what will cost them eternity according to the New Testament is clearly a false shepherd.) But even when we disagree with fellow Christians over nonessential, yet irreconcilable differences, we need to do so in the manner of Paul and Barnabas after their disagreement over whether to take John Mark on the missionary trip (Acts 15:36-41)—we bless each other to keep moving the gospel forward in our own corner of the world so that the work is doubled, not diminished.
[1] Sadly, it seems that Basham has not been careful with some of the facts, nor, for the most part, did she reach out beforehand to these leaders for clarification. Some statements have since been shown to be untrue and many quotes used out of context, and there is no shortage of reviewers who are setting the record straight by displaying the larger context of the quotes. In the words of Basham’s former World colleague Warren Cole Smith, “Now, Basham and her publisher are discovering that the fact-checking work is being done for them online.” If you read Basham’s book, then in the interest of fairness, I recommend you check out these reviews/responses by Warren Cole Smith, Gavin Ortlund, Samuel James, Neil Shenvi, and J.D. Greear.
