The Book Evangelical Elites Don’t Want You to Read

If you want to better understand what’s going on inside American evangelicalism’s elite, Shepherds for Sale (2024) by Megan Basham is a great place to start. And if you are a member of the evangelical elite yourself, you should read her book to understand what is going on among rank-and-file evangelicals.

A journalist with The Daily Wire, Basham has spent the past several years chronicling the growing chasm between many evangelical leaders and those they are supposed to shepherd. Her reporting has defied the standard narrative. Most journalists who cover evangelicals obsess over pastors and ministry leaders who they think have sold their souls to right-wing populism. That’s a legitimate concern and worth reporting on. However, this way of framing coverage of evangelicals provides—at best—only a partial picture of reality.

Most notably, it ignores the evangelical leaders who are being co-opted by various movements on the political and cultural left.

By turning the spotlight on evangelical elites she thinks have been comprised by progressivism, Basham has done the evangelical community a significant service. Some have criticized her for not also covering unholy alliances among some evangelicals on the right. But given the pervasiveness of the standard narrative, I think that criticism falls flat. If you are a well-read evangelical, you can’t avoid hearing (non-stop) about the corruption (or supposed corruption) on the right.

What Basham is doing is investigating the side of the story you don’t typically hear from the establishment media.

As a result, she has provoked the ire of many in the evangelical leadership class and its “old boy network.” The full-court press to silence her book even before it came out provides evidence of the anger—and perhaps the insecurities—of her detractors.

I’d like to make a plea to those in the evangelical leadership class: I know you might be tempted to denounce or dismiss or ignore Basham’s book without reading it or without fairly considering its main points. Please don’t. Basham vocalizes the concerns of a large and growing number of American evangelicals. Perhaps you think these evangelicals are stupid and self-destructive. But you aren’t going to have any hope of reaching or finding common ground with them if you ignore or demonize them. Try to read Basham’s book carefully and non-defensively. It may help you understand the views of people outside your own echo chamber.

Giving Voice to the Marginalized

Some of the most powerful parts of Basham’s book, which I didn’t expect, were her profiles of ordinary Christians and their experiences. She writes about a wife recruited by fellow church members to join a “Women’s March” for abortion, climate change, and LGTBQ rights. She tells of a husband who joined a racial reconciliation group at his church only to be “told that new white members weren’t allowed to speak for the first six months.” She recounts the experiences of a grieving mother whose son was killed by an illegal alien. She interviews a friend who was taken aback when her church’s advent devotional focused on the climate crisis rather than Jesus. She tells about the nurse who has devoted her life to helping women avoid abortion who is disheartened by the seeming disparagement of pro-life efforts by some leading evangelicals. Finally, Basham reveals her own painful journey of transformation. She tells how she was delivered from a life of substance abuse by hearing the sort of hard truths of traditional Christianity that so many leading evangelicals seem afraid to talk about. 

These personal narratives counter the stereotypes of conservative evangelicals that even some evangelical leaders help perpetuate. They make Shepherds for Sale worth reading for anyone who wants to understand the views and challenges of ordinary evangelicals. For evangelical leaders disconnected from those they serve, the stories will be a helpful guide to the concerns of parishioners they may have marginalized.

Of course, the book offers much else as well. But before getting to some of those other takeaways, let me address a couple of flashpoints involving the book.

Is the Book Really about Trump?

Warren Cole Smith has published a lengthy critique of Basham’s book that bears the subtitle: “A new book about evangelicalism is really about Trump.” Smith claims: “Shepherds For Sale has many villains, but it has only one true hero: Donald J. Trump. He is mentioned more than 30 times in the book, all positively or defensively.”

Smith published his critique in the pervasively anti-Trump publication The Dispatch, which I suppose has an interest in trying to make everything about Trump. Except in this case the charge isn’t true. Basham’s book is not focused on Trump, and it spends very few of its 320 pages discussing him. The book’s chapters focus on abortion, LGTBQ issues, immigration, climate change, the me-too movement, critical race theory, and COVID-19 policies. To reduce Basham’s book to a pro-Trump polemic is both unfair and inaccurate. Having said that, Basham’s reporting does raise an important issue connected to Trump: Are certain evangelical leaders so blinded by their opposition to him that they are abandoning or at least downplaying some of their previous commitments? That’s a serious question worth exploring. Of course, I also think it’s a serious question to ask whether some evangelical leaders have compromised their beliefs in support of Trump. But that latter question gets asked a lot. Basham’s book broaches a question that you typically won’t find covered, say, in either The Dispatch or Christianity Today.

Are Evangelical Leaders Really for Sale?

Another flashpoint over the book has been its title. The title seems to suggest that there are a lot of evangelical leaders who have apostatized because they’ve received money from left-wing funders. Let me be clear: I don’t think that’s true. There are exceptions, but in my experience pastors, professors, and ministry leaders don’t change their views primarily because of funding. Instead, they take the funding because they’ve already changed their views. They are what I’ve called “Stockholm Syndrome Christians.” Held hostage by the secular elites, they end up identifying more with the cultural oppressors of Christianity than with their fellow Christians. (Full disclosure: I have a book coming out on this topic early next year.)

Despite my disclaimer about the title, the preoccupation of some critics with the title strikes me as unjust. In the book itself Basham makes abundantly clear she is not arguing that every evangelical leader is for sale. She explicitly acknowledges that “motives may be complex and sometimes unclear,” and there are “different degrees of error.” She admits that Christians can have sincere differences of opinion on many issues. So just because someone is named in her book doesn’t mean she thinks they are a “shepherd for sale.”

Even so, it is true that one of the book’s most damning indictments involves money.

The Most Serious Issue Posed by Progressive Money

While the motives of evangelical leaders veering into progressive causes may be unclear, writes Basham, “the motives of their secular backers are simple.” Evangelicals as a group represent the single largest obstacle to the implementation of many progressive policy goals in America. So lots of money has been spent by left-wing secular funders to reshape the views of evangelicals on climate change, immigration, LGBTQ issues, and more. The cynicism of some of the left-wing funders is palpable. Basham recounts an extraordinary meeting where one foundation tried to diagnose the failure of previous initiatives designed to convince most evangelicals to embrace climate change activism. The moderator referred to one of the approaches that had been tried in the past as “rent an evangelical.” In other words, if you secure some evangelical figureheads with your funding, those hired spokespeople may be able to lead their flocks to embrace climate change activism. That’s a pretty demeaning view of the evangelicals they are funding.

For me, the most serious issue posed by the money from secular progressives isn’t that the money is buying off those who get it. It’s that the money has created a wildly uneven playing field. By platforming and bankrolling certain speakers and views, secular, left-wing funders are massively distorting conversations among evangelicals over climate change, immigration, abortion, LGTBQ policies, and more. That means ideas are becoming accepted not organically but because secular funders have given their speakers a bigger megaphone to drown out other, more traditional views. This is a serious problem.

Political Double-Standards

Another serious problem exposed by Basham’s book is the hypocrisy and double-standards embraced by some evangelical leaders when it comes to evangelical involvement in politics. She writes:

Again and again in these pages, you will note the manipulation of Church leaders who claim that to stand where the Bible stands is ‘political,’ yet not accepting their view on some issue where biblical application is disputable is somehow—even when they’re pressing you to lobby for legislative remedies—paradoxically not political. Republicans who speak of how their faith prompts them to vote for a certain candidate are grasping for power. Democrats who do the same are illustrating faithfulness in the public sphere.

This part of Basham’s book resonates with my own experiences. I was a professor at a historically evangelical university for 12 years, and for many years I served as an elder at an urban evangelical church whose leaders were influenced by the teachings of Presbyterian pastor Tim Keller (a key figure in Basham’s book). I experienced the kind of double-standards Basham reports on first-hand.

I saw politically conservative evangelicals being told repeatedly that they should be careful not to inject politics into their comments at church or give the impression to others that they had to be a conservative Republican to be a Christian. I actually agreed with this admonition—until I came to realize that it was one-sided. The same people who were concerned about Christians in church illegitimately fusing their faith with right-wing politics weren’t so concerned about them mixing with left-wing causes. They weren’t concerned if someone wore an Obama shirt to church, or “safety pins” to protest Trump’s immigration policies. Some wanted the church to read works promoting critical race theory. They chastised Christians for making disparaging comments about Obama, but were seemingly fine with disparaging comments about Trump.  In my experience, the people doing this were perfectly sincere. They were just so convinced that their own views were based on righteousness that they couldn’t see their double-standard. Indeed, they might get angry if you pointed out the double-standard. Basham is right to expose how this kind of thinking has infected the highest reaches of evangelicalism. It isn’t healthy.

What is also not healthy is the way certain people have tried to keep Basham’s book from seeing the light of day.

The Book You Aren’t Supposed to Read

Basham’s book was originally scheduled for release by a certain publisher. Then suddenly it wasn’t. I won’t name the publisher, but it is part of the public record. I’m not privy to the details of what happened, but I know enough to offer some informed speculation. The bottom line is that the evangelical leadership class is quite clubby, and if you go after it, you will likely get burned. Thankfully, Basham secured another publisher. Interestingly, it’s a secular publisher, one presumably not beholden to the evangelical leadership class.

Shortly before the book’s release, a series of social media posts started to appear claiming that Basham’s book was filled with factual errors. Some of the posts cited page numbers where the errors were supposed to appear in the book. For a book that wasn’t even out yet, this was curious. Presumably these posts were being made by people who had obtained access to a pre-publication copy.  It is generally tacky, if not unethical, to start writing about the specifics of a book before it is released. This is worth noting because many of those critical of Basham’s book have no small estimate of their own righteousness in attacking it.

Perhaps one of the most revealing attacks came from Christian journalist Tim Alberta at The Atlantic, one of America’s most iconic and influential publications. Alberta is author of The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory (2023), an indictment of the corruption of politically conservative evangelicals. The book is advertised on Amazon as “One of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of the Year.” It fits the standard narrative, so it was highly praised.

On July 25, a few days before Basham’s book was set to be released, Alberta tweeted this somewhat cryptic message on X: “I’d strongly encourage fellow believers: do not engage with this person anymore. She is not serious. She bears no fruit. She is, self-evidently, wounded and unwell. Pray for her. But do not give her the attention and the conflict she craves.” He apparently followed up with another tweet: “And yes, that means do not name her in these replies. Please.”

Who was this mystery woman Alberta was taking to task before the public? On X it was widely understood that Alberta was referring to Basham. Eventually, Alberta deleted both tweets, but not until after the first one had already been seen 74,000 times. I have twice emailed Alberta asking him to confirm or deny whether he was tweeting about Megan Basham. I also asked him to explain what he meant by saying she was “unwell.” Thus far I have received no response; nor has he posted any explanation (or apology) on his Twitter account.

Assuming Alberta was referring to Basham (and, again, that is how his tweets have been widely understood), his efforts to suppress discussion of her work are—to put it mildly—shocking.

Alberta is a journalist who works for one of America’s most influential media outlets. He is among America’s journalistic elite. He has 176,000 followers on Twitter. He is also a self-professed Christian. He apparently tried to leverage his influence to appeal to “fellow believers” to shun a female journalist who is also a Christian. Don’t engage with her, don’t even mention her name! Treat her like she doesn’t exist. He paints her as a bad Christian (“She bears no fruit.”) He depicts her as illegitimately craving attention and conflict. Even worse, he appears to traffic in sexist stereotypes, saying she is not “serious” and demeaning her as “wounded and unwell” (emphasis added). Mentally? Spiritually?

This is a toxic stew. And it comes from one of America’s top mainstream journalists who is a self-professing Christian.

What about Alberta’s claim that this mystery woman (again, presumably Basham) would like attention for her work? I’m sure she does. But is Alberta any different? Presumably he has spent 2024 promoting his own book and seeking attention for it. There is nothing wrong with that—and there is nothing wrong with Basham promoting her book and articles.

After Basham’s book was finally released, one of the earliest major responses came from former California pastor Gavin Ortlund, who now heads a ministry called Truth Unites in Tennessee. This was kind of odd because Ortlund is at best a minor figure in the book. Basham briefly discusses a video he did on climate change. She critiques it with facts and figures. Ortlund could have simply ignored what Basham wrote. Or he could have responded to her substantive criticisms of what he called the “consensus” view. He did neither.

Instead, he went ballistic with one and then two videos charging Basham with all sorts of malfeasance in misrepresenting what he said. Although he spoke in his usual mellow and laid-back style, his actual accusations were strident and over the top. He accused her of “dishonesty,” “distortion,” “spin,” and “bearing false testimony.” As I have explained elsewhere, I think Basham was mostly accurate in what she wrote. I also think Ortlund seems oversensitive, too quick to express hurt and take offense. The most interesting thing to me is how Ortlund’s responses served to distract attention from the main claims made by Basham in her climate change chapter. I’m not alleging that this was Ortlund’s intention. But his overwrought response provided a convenient excuse for people to avoid grappling with Basham’s critique.

Apart from Ortlund, there have been all sorts of people online clamoring against  Basham’s book. They claim it is riddled with errors and even “lies.” Some of these critics are more serious than others. It’s fine to fact-check, and there do appear to be some errors in Shepherds for Sale. For a book over 300 pages that covers its breadth of topics, I’d expect some errors. For example, it looks like Basham misstated the time frame during which a particular non-profit received a certain amount of funding. More seriously, the comments of certain people might have been taken out of context. It’s good for people to point these things out.

But some of the purported errors I’ve seen aren’t in fact errors. Other errors are inconsequential, like which seminary someone attended. Some critics seem intent on taking down Basham’s book at all costs. Whether the book is truly inaccurate seems a secondary matter for them. They just want to stop others from reading it.

What I haven’t seen much of is serious engagement with the book’s main claims. That may come eventually. But if you have enough time to do minute fact-checking, presumably you have enough time to deal with a book’s central claims. If there isn’t an engagement with the book’s central claims, many people will conclude it must be because her overall indictment is correct.

It is hard to ignore the feeling that much of the brouhaha raised against Basham’s book reflects insecurity and even fear. Those critiqued in her book may not want people to read it, because then they might have to deal with some uncomfortable questions.

I’d encourage you to read Basham’s book for yourself and make up your own mind.

NB - This article was originally posed by John G West at his own website, found here.