Book Review: “Shepherds for Sale” by Megan Basham

In the post-pandemic era, we’ve seen our country rapidly descend deeper into a fractured, low-trust society. After the recent presidential debate, the left-wing media was aghast to see a feeble Joe Biden stumble and mumble his way through the moderators’ predictable questions. Of course, the public already knew he was in cognitive decline, but the legacy media dismissed these claims as “right-wing conspiracies.” Instead, we’re told to trust the experts. “Nothing to see here.” In the days following the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life, the White House remained radio silent as the public was left to speculate on the shooter’s motives and the reasons for the Secret Service’s failure to protect the former president. As Biden would say, “anyway…”

As Christian investigative journalist Meghan Basham details in her new book, Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda, evangelical leaders have employed these same types of manipulation tactics on the average churchgoer for decades. In this extensively researched exposé, Basham unravels how the progressive left has infiltrated the conservative church through shadowy non-governmental organization (NGO) initiatives with benign-sounding front groups that well-respected pastors, theologians, and para-church leaders promoted under the banner of “loving your neighbor.” Based on a compilation of her years of reporting on church issues for the conservative news and media outlet The Daily Wire, Shepherds uncovers the behind-the-scenes political machinations of evangelical elites that have led venerated Christian institutions and publications.

Utilizing her research acumen, personal anecdotes, and connections with evangelical insiders, Basham systematically unmasks the benefactors of current progressive left ideologies being pushed into conservative evangelical churches. The amount of players involved in what is akin to a conservative evangelical ”deep state” is overwhelming at times, but that serves to show the level of obfuscation under which the current regime operates. Basham writes with precision and thoroughness while still wearing her layperson’s hat. The reader senses her righteous indignation as she does not hide her own beliefs and convictions, and her commentary is fortified throughout with biblical refutations. The following are some takeaways one can glean from a good-faith reading of Shepherds.

1. The “Divisive Groups” were Right

In her introduction, Basham states that her chief aim for writing this book is to validate what the discerning Christian has suspected for some time: “that [their] pulpits and […] institutions are being co-opted by political forces with explicitly secular progressive aims…” (Basham, XXVIII). Of course, this flies in the face of the messaging they have received from Big Eva leaders like JD Greear (who is featured prominently in Shepherds) and his guild of “Great Commission Baptists.” At the 2023 SBC Convention in New Orleans, Todd Unzicker, executive director of the North Carolina Baptist State Convention and close friend of Greear, scolded his fellow believers who pushed back against the social justice causes promoted by his colleagues. He characterized them as “divisive groups” who were more interested in posting their concerns on social media than “soul-winning” and keeping “on mission.” This textbook example of deflection is what Shepherds succeeds in debunking by showing how off-course evangelical institutions have gone.

One case in point is Danny Aiken’s Southeastern Theological Seminary, which platforms climate alarmist Jonathan Moo. As Basham notes, Moo and his secular backer, A. Rocha, set their sights on the younger generation to start grassroots campaigns in churches in order to pressure the GOP to join the cause (22). As if climate activism weren’t enough, leaders such as former ERLC leader Russell Moore, linked arms with the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT), an initiative of Soro’s backed National Immigration Forum (NIF), which to this day exists to persuade evangelicals to vote for open borders (34). This “mission” seems more aligned with The Great Reset than The Great Commission.

2. Unfit Leaders Cower Under the Progressive Gaze

One particularly illuminating quote in Shepherds comes from its second most cited figure (behind Russell Moore), JD Greear, which can be found courtesy of a Woke Preacher Clip taken from the 2019 Just Gospel conference. Here he states that his “main task” as SBC president “is …to appoint people on committees who will then appoint trustees who end up shaping the institutions…” (emphasis added). He then goes on to give the typical DEI criterion of hiring mostly women and minorities. This type of posture falls under what Joe Rigney aptly calls “living under the progressive gaze,” It operates under the assumption that: “It’s progressive sensitivities that we must take into account, progressive concerns that we must speak to, progressive hopes that we must show the gospel subversively fulfilling.” In order to appear acceptable to the world, Greear and other evangelical leaders have championed causes such as racial justice.

In the chapter “Critical Race Prophets,” Basham takes the reader down “memories-we’d-like-to-forget lane” when the topic of systemic racism came to the forefront of evangelical conversations. Suddenly, white evangelicals, America’s most powerful voting bloc, had to recognize their “white privilege.” This is why in 2019, Greear’s culturally diverse executive committee framed “Resolution 9: On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality” as a neutral “analytical tool” useful for church governance. In fact, according to Southern Seminary professor Keith Whitfield, “it was meant to provide cover for SBC professors who were already teaching CRT” (130). From Greear’s perspective, it looks like the institutions are shaping up just fine.

3. Everything is Political

In the fearful initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, people were weighing advice from the medical community and following the edicts of the governing authorities. Still, believers sought further guidance from trusted shepherds. Unfortunately, several influential evangelical leaders espoused vaccine propaganda and sided with the government’s oppressive lockdown mandates rather than listen to the concerns of their congregants. One such person they promoted was former National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Francis Collins, a professing believer, who fought the Trump administration for the continued use of human fetal cell research and is a staunch “ally” of the LGBTQ movement (107). In the chapter “Gracious Dialogue,” Basham delivers a devastating account of how Collins vilified Christians who opposed his establishment’s COVID narrative while receiving the blessing of evangelical heavyweights. She states that “[Tim]Keller, [Rick]Warren, [N.T.]Wright, [Russell]Moore, and [Ed]Stetzer all publicly lauded Collins as a godly brother, as did Christianity Today and Relevant [Magazine]” (108). Indeed, while many Christians were derided for following their convictions, the men who were supposed to lend biblical counsel were more concerned about their reputation among liberal elites.

In addition to propagating the left’s COVID narrative, Basham chronicles how high-profile evangelical leaders like the late Tim Keller took to shifting the Pro-Life argument into a “whole life” or “womb to tomb” issue. In the chapter “Hijacking The Pro-Life Movement,” Basham relates this to her personal experience as a reporter for WORLD Magazine, where the Kellerite former editor-in-chief, Marvin Olansky, told her that “their work should challenge Christian readers to moderate their tendency to rank abortion as the ‘single issue’ that settled their vote” (58). In “Christian Media and The Money Men,” we discover that the denigration of conservative voters by Christianity Today and Religion News Services is to appease the leftist Lilly Endowment and the pro-LGBTQ Arcus Foundation, respectively. Additionally, she discredits the claim that conservative believers are “too political” by exposing the role leftist billionaires played in funding initiatives that purport to teach Christians ‘what healthy democratic participation looks like’ and how to ‘love your neighbor politically’” (89). Evidently, Christians are not the right kind of political.

4. Untethered Empathy Imports False Ideologies

Since our society has become more feminized, we’ve seen a propensity for leaders to cater to the whims of those who are led by their emotions. Rigney is again helpful here by describing this inclination as “untethered empathy,” which is “a concern for the hurting and vulnerable that is unmoored from truth, goodness, and reality.” Basham goes to great lengths to show how the SBC abuse reforms are based on specious arguments from “trauma-informed” counseling and the now-rescinded Obama-era Title IX Sexual Abuse guidance. In fact, it’s a deception that will keep women in bondage to a “victim status” rather than taking accountability for their own actions, which Basham demonstrates through powerful anecdotes.

In “None Dare Call It Sin,” Basham describes the origins of Side A/ “affirming” ministry, Embracing The Journey, started by Andy Stanley’s North Point Church. A remark Stanley made at a pastor’s conference illustrates where untethered empathy leads; he states: “‘A gay person who still wants to attend church after the way they’ve been treated – I’m telling you, they have more faith than I do…They have more faith than a lot of you.’” (200). However, it’s the Side B position that warrants the most concern, as it adheres to the traditional sexual ethic but keeps the LGBTQ identity markers. Basham traces its infiltration into the PCA, through the Revoice Conference, and how revered pastor Tim Keller dismissed it’s influence while endorsing the work of its main advocate, Greg Johnson (223-224).

Conclusion

Much of what Shepherds covers will not be shocking to those who truly know “what time it is.” However, it is helpful to be aware of the secular power brokers behind the leftist propaganda in the evangelical church. It will be a valuable resource to share with those who have remained skeptical of the leftward drift. Basham’s experience covering major cultural events and her knowledge of political inner workings helps frame church issues in a wider context while her commitment to biblical fidelity informs her analysis. In a time when evangelicalism is facing a major leadership crisis, Shepherds offers not only a diagnosis of how we got here but also the remedy – standing firm on the authority of Scripture. Basham closes with an admonition for shepherds and laymen to engage in the “open war” on Truth around them. Shepherds certainly helps to clarify what “arguments” and “lofty opinions” they are fighting against (2 Cor. 10:5).

Shepherds for Sale can be ordered here.

Sources

Shepherds for Sale – HarperCollins