Basham’s Shepherds for Sale is a book that addresses the political and market captivity of the church from a particular angle. It does so with greater or lesser effectiveness with regard to the charges she makes. But her ultimate point is that the church is often subject to influences that may be hostile to its actual mission. And that is the takeaway that should persist long after the specific controversies are exhausted.
Megan Basham’s bestselling new book Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda has created a massive furor. Those of us who live (and especially those of us who work) in the evangelical community in the U.S. are doing a great deal of reading, talking, reviewing, and yes, battling, over Basham’s claims. She argues with great force (and to a contested degree with “the receipts”) that various evangelical elites have sold out the church in order to obtain left-wing money and status. Significant individuals such as Eric Metaxas (famed Christian author and broadcaster) and Kelly Kullberg (editor of Finding God at Harvard) have supported and promoted Basham’s book, while several others such as the apologist Neil Shenvi and the president of Ministry Watch, Warren Smith, have offered strong critiques. Given that Basham has built part of her case by pointing at popular figures such as J. D. Greear (megachurch pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention) and Gavin Ortlund (the well-known Christian author and apologist), the conflict has been intense as allies of her targets seek to defend them (and others) from charges of unfaithfulness and compromise in the pursuit of worldly acclaim.
Is Basham right? Has she uncovered a scandal that must be revealed to the flock in the pews? The answer is that it is complicated. And it is more complicated than one might understand simply by reading the book.
My interest is not in striking a blow either for or against Basham and the like-minded folks who feel empowered and justified by her claims. Rather, I want to talk about why I think the book is important and how a more expansive framework might help us understand the strife and atmosphere of suspicion more accurately.
One of the organizations Basham discusses is the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention. While I have never been an employee of the organization, I have been a fellow of the ERLC for many years now, and I have written for their publications and participated in their programs. I had an acquaintance with Russell Moore, who is a target of the book. My experience of the ERLC is that it advocates public policy that Baptists consider important, such as religious liberty and the sanctity of life.
Several years ago, I participated in a meeting at the ERLC in Nashville aimed at generating a group statement on the ethics of artificial intelligence. We had a barbecue dinner at a restaurant the night before our meeting, stayed in a nearby hotel (probably a Hampton), and then convened for a productive discussion of artificial intelligence followed by drafting of a document. We had also had some virtual meetings prior to the event.
There was a feature of the meeting that is noteworthy in light of the controversy caused by Basham’s book: she has documented significant contributions by left-wing groups to major evangelical organizations as a way of demonstrating that these groups are buying influence on issues such as same-sex marriage, climate, race relations, and immigration. In attendance at our meeting, and understood to be a financial sponsor of it, was a representative of the Koch Foundation. For those not familiar with Koch, the group pushes for a more libertarian/small government philosophy. They would generally be classified on the Right side of American politics. The young man from Koch did not exert a strong force on our meeting or our discussion. He merely mentioned once or twice that the Koch Foundation’s position is that “a light regulatory touch” is preferable. He certainly made no effort to guide the course of our conversation or to affect the written document.