I last wrote about him in 2014, in a fit of frustration that this scandal-riddled charlatan was somehow still at the helm of Mars Hill Church, even after everything that I and others had revealed about him (he left Mars Hill soon thereafter to launch The Trinity Church in Scottsdale, AZ). 

I said in that article that I was done, and I have been done ever since. I can only take so much, after all. But I’ve decided to come briefly out of self-imposed Driscoll hibernation after reading Vince Manuele’s new book, “Kiss and Tell: The Innocent Moment that Shattered Mark Driscoll’s Cult.”

Manuele is a former junior intern and worship-team member at The Trinity Church whose family was ejected from the congregation and then – reportedly and mind-bogglingly – surveilled after they left. What heinous transgression did Manuele commit to deserve such draconian action, you may ask? As he recounts, the then-15-year-old was discovered to have kissed Mark Driscoll’s then-17-year-old daughter, Alexie, with whom he had struck up a friendship and innocent teen romance. 

“Kiss and Tell” tells the whole story behind that forbidden kiss, but it also reveals a lot more about Driscoll and the latest church he’s managed to sucker. 

Among the shocking and appalling claims that Manuele makes in the book:

• As a junior intern at the church, Manuele was paid $200 a month, but not via paycheck or direct deposit. The money, he writes, was “loaded onto a prepaid Visa card you could buy at Walmart.” 

• Every junior intern earned $200 a month, he says, but “the Driscoll kids were paid $500 a month.” That apparently included Alexie, the Head Junior Intern, who was just one of several Driscoll family members commanding various leadership roles at Trinity. 

• Teenage interns were required to sign non-disclosure agreements, in which they agreed to keep “all information obtained, discussed, witnessed or learned … strictly confidential” and to not discuss “certain information shared by The Church … with parents, guardians, or any outside parties, regardless of age or familial relationship, unless specifically approved in writing by Church leadership.” They also weren’t allowed to “speak or write negatively about The Church, its leadership, or its affiliates in any public or private context.”

• The first time Manuele met Mark Driscoll, he says, he asked the pastor how to control his temptations and “follow the Lord more” as a 15-year-old boy. Driscoll told the young man that he needed to get a girlfriend and that “God created men to be sexual creatures.” 

• Once Manuele and Alexie began to grow close, Driscoll started exerting control over the couple, telling Manuele that “there is no dating” and insisting that Manuele had to sit in the back seat of the car if Alexie was the driver. “If you two spend time together,” Manuele quotes Driscoll as saying, “it will be when (Driscoll’s wife) Grace and I coordinate it, and I will be watching to see how you grow as a man.” Alexie, Manuele writes, told him that Driscoll “did not allow her to talk to boys” and that she “always” referred to her father as “Mark.”

• Driscoll’s church office -- outfitted with “one-way glass” to look out over an outdoor youth-ministry area -- was “the largest room on campus, aside from the main sanctuary,” showing members “the control he had over the church.”

• At Driscoll’s behest, Trinity’s security guards threw out an African-American homeless man who entered a church service, stepped onstage and asked for prayer. The video recording of the service “was gone” by the end of the day, Manuele says. An angry Driscoll called out and “cut down” multiple security members afterward, and “the firings started,” he writes.

• As Manuele tells it, security maintained tight control whenever the same homeless man resurfaced near the church, commanding him to leave the property, refusing his requests for water and even using “slurs since the man was black.”

• When Driscoll’s son, Gideon, was asked “if it was true that his dad believed women were ‘penis homes,’” -- one of Driscoll’s many infamous epithets -- “Gideon didn’t flinch. He laughed and said, ‘They are.’ Like it was obvious … I asked what his mom thought about that. He shrugged and said, ‘She knows that’s what they are, too.’”

• Driscoll, by Manuele’s account, continues to use profanity in his new “pastoral” role (with some staffers following suit), including smutty vulgarities, and also told men at the Wednesday-night “Real Men” service that they need to “man up and stop being a p***y.”

• When church leadership found out that Manuele and Alexie had kissed, he says a campus pastor confronted him with crude language, then telling the teenager, “You failed Pastor Mark. You failed God.” When Manuele asked if he could speak to Driscoll, he writes that the campus pastor said: “There’s a reason Pastor Mark isn’t here. He would most likely bash your face in.”

• Manuele says he was asked to leave the church after that, and his brother followed him. The campus pastor then called the boys’ father, who was waiting outside in the car, to tell him not to come to church that night, either. He followed it up by saying that “security channels” had been messaged to remove both father and son from the campus “immediately.” Then the shunning from former friends began, Manuele writes, “the lies started,” and his contact with Alexie ceased. Driscoll, he also claims, “hired a surveillance team … watching us. Tracking us. Following us.”

There’s a lot more in the book, of course, but none of the jaw-dropping stories surprise me. This is just deja vu all over again. 

It also reminds me of the time that I spoke to a TV reporter who wanted my reaction to the news that Driscoll was just about to launch The Trinity Church. I can’t recall my exact words, but I said something like: “Everything anyone needs to know about Mark Driscoll’s many scandals and very well-documented downfall is readily available through a simple Google search. That’s why I think that anyone who’d go to his new church at this point -- and I hate to say it -- deserves to be ripped off. You were extensively warned!”

I meant it at the time, but I’d amend that statement now. From my unique vantage point then, I couldn’t imagine how any Christian could not have heard the truth about Mark Driscoll. The news seemed to be everywhere at the time. But the truth is that not everybody Googles their pastor before attending a church -- or even follows the news very closely. Some people also are very trusting and/or naive. And when I offered that quote, I certainly didn’t have in mind any high-school kids who might end up at Trinity, teenagers who just wanted to learn more about God and to serve Him in a church. 

I kept thinking about that as I read “Kiss and Tell.” It’s one thing for Driscoll to have deceived and offended and sinned against his Mars Hill congregation, elders, pastors and staffers -- and the oblivious readers of his plagiarized books. It’s quite another matter for the target of ire to be a young man whose only “misconduct” was to have normal affection for a girl and want to date like any normal young couple, without some control-freak fallen pastor trying to control their every move. But then again, we’re talking about Mark Driscoll, folks. The guy who, thus far, has been bridled by nobody, stopped by nobody, brought to repentance by nobody.

After reading Manuele’s stirring book, I just hope and pray that he, like so many others who have been wronged on Mark Driscoll’s watch, will remember a few important things.

First, Driscoll was not in that pulpit because God called him, but because he willfully disobeyed God and His Word (see 1 Tim. 3:1-7) in order to keep his celebrity church grift going. Second, the same God whose name Driscoll has invoked as he’s deceived and abused so many people through the years knows the whole truth about what this man has done and, in due time, will deal with him justly. 

And finally, I hope he will remember the words of Psalm 25 and keep fellowship with the God who still loves him and his family and will never forsake them. “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust … Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.”

Alongside my story, my newspaper had printed a photo of Hybels praying with then-President Bill Clinton at the White House. We had run the photo with previous stories, and it was well-known to his church and to our readers that Hybels described himself as a “behind-the-scenes spiritual adviser” to Clinton. That’s why I was surprised when one of his Willow Creek associates called me to complain about the picture.

“Bill was not happy that you guys ran that picture of him with Bill Clinton,” I recall the staffer telling me. “Janet, don’t you know how many Republicans go to Willow Creek?”

I was floored. Did this staffer really think it was some groundbreaking insight that a majority of the conservative Christians at WCCC were – gasp! -- Republicans? Not only that, but it was common knowledge at the time that Hybels had taken on a spiritual-adviser role with Clinton.

A few years later, Hybels even platformed Clinton at Willow Creek — to the consternation of many of his church members — so the disgraced POTUS could lament the “spiritual struggles” he allegedly endured after his Monica Lewinsky affair. And in a development that was shocking to no one, Clinton also used his appearance to soft-sell Al Gore, just days before the Democratic National Convention delegates made him the party’s presidential nominee.

This made me wonder: Did that Hybels staffer who complained to me also complain to Hybels about the political implications of platforming a pro-abortion Democrat president in front of so many Republican Christians? Highly doubtful.

This all came back to me as I’ve been considering this bigger problem nowadays of the evangelical church and politics. 

I’ve always believed that as Christians, our call to be “salt and light” means that we should both proclaim the gospel and do as much good in this world as we possibly can. I’ve always seen those Christian obligations as a both-and, not an either-or. In the political realm, this latter part means that we should vote, that we should let our voices be heard in the public square and that we should be willing to run for office ourselves, as the Lord leads. 

But in light of the recent Trump “Jesus picture” post and his jaw-dropping justification for it (“I thought it was me as a doctor!?”), preceded by his “praise be to Allah” (twice) and profanity-laden rant in an Easter morning post, followed by a lot of Trump-adjacent Christian leaders making outrageously indefensible excuses for all of this offensive behavior, I need to pose a question to them.

I still believe that Christians can be engaged in politics and can and should witness to politicians. But in light of the president’s recent antics, exactly where do you draw the line in the sand as Christians on unacceptable presidential behavior, Trump-adjacent Christian leaders? 

Weren’t many of you the same people who complained that President Biden picked Easter Sunday, of all days, to declare as the “Transgender Day of Visibility” in 2024? 

Consider what Franklin Graham, head of Samaritan’s Purse, said about it during his Trump inauguration speech last year:

“On the most significant day of the Christian calendar, when the Church around the world celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ who died and shed His blood for the sins of mankind, the Biden administration uses this opportunity to flaunt sin, to glorify sin, and to celebrate sin.” 

Yes, excellent. I agree … and therefore…

Why didn’t he say the same thing after Trump posted this?

Or this?

And where was his condemnation of this?

Why didn’t the many other Christian leaders who have attached themselves so closely to the Trump Administration say anything about these posts, either? Go through their individual X accounts. Where’s the outrage? The disgust? The cutting of ties? 

And why did so many online Christian “influencers” post about the controversy, making what I can only call demented excuses for the president?

It’s flat-out laughable that conservative commentator Stuckey backs Trump’s excuse that he thought he was pictured as a “doctor” in the despicable photo he posted – even as Vice President Vance gave a totally different excuse later, saying that the post was just “a joke.” It’s laughable, that is, until you reckon with what’s really going on with all of these Christians.

As I’ve said previously, close proximity to political power is more important to these people than expecting – insisting, in fact – that, as a very basic floor for qualification (much less any evangelical leader’s endorsement), every American president must have good moral character, appropriate public decorum, respect for the American people, respect for the office of the presidency and the basic ability to refrain from publicly committing blasphemy. Is this too much to ask?

And the way they’re not calling out Trump for all this is especially maddening when you consider that every one of them would have been totally apoplectic if a Democrat president had done it. They’d be in total meltdown.

It’s just all so hypocritical. I remember how outraged we all were when then-Vice President Biden dropped the F-bomb after then-President Obama signed Obamacare into law – as we should have been. Biden’s behavior was totally low-class and also disrespectful to the American people. We all knew it and said so. There was no ridiculous excuse-making along the lines of: “But we can’t expect a guy who isn’t a Christian to refrain from dropping F-bombs!” None of the Trump-adjacent Christian leaders would have given Biden a pass for a minute.

Now, however, Trump can drop the F-bomb over and over and over, while his ever-loyal Christian leader pals fall all over themselves to sew their mouths and fingers shut. And for what?

I would like to say this to the Christian leaders who’ve stood by Trump at all costs.

It is not only right but morally honorable to get mad that the president disrespected the Lord, the Christian faith and every Christian who voted for him.

You’re allowed to criticize him and say that his blasphemous “Jesus” post was completely out of line and that his paltry excuse for posting it isn’t believable. You’re allowed to distance yourself from Trump’s orbit at this point, just as we know you would do if the president were a Democrat speaking like this.

You have no idea how refreshing it would be to watch each of you say, “As a matter of Christian principle, I can’t be formally tied any longer to any president who is going to act this way.” I think most staunchly Republican Christians – at least the ones talking about all of this online – would appreciate it. They appear to be more angry about what Trump has done than are you leaders who are so closely attached to him. Should the shepherds have less wisdom than their sheep?

Also, I’d recommend that all of you gain some additional foresight. If enough GOP Christians abandon Trump and his down-ticket GOP allies after all this, the midterms may be a bigger bloodbath for Republicans than anyone can imagine. What would that do to your precious political “place at the table” then? It wouldn’t all be so rosy anymore. And if that happens, you wouldn’t be able to blame Christian voters. Not for the political losses. And definitely not for the lasting tarnish on your own reputations. So really, what will your personal loyalty to Trump stand to gain you in the end?

You’d do well to recall what Billy Graham (Franklin’s father) stated in 2011, after reflecting upon his life as a close spiritual adviser to many presidents. Given a chance to live his earthly life again, Graham said:

“I … would have steered clear of politics. I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back, I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn’t do that now.”

Some people today haven’t learned that important lesson. Access to power can corrupt even the most sincere Christian, making him close his mouth when the Lord would have him speak truth to the powerful. The desire for access to power, sadly, can make him stay put as a good political soldier even as he forgets that his most important and eternal calling is as a servant of the most high God.

I’m not saying that Trump’s offenses should cause every Christian to stop voting from now on or to abandon political involvement altogether.

What I am saying is that if Jesus is your Lord and Savior, then there have to be lines in the sand that you simply can’t and won’t cross for the sake of access to any politician or any political temptation that will compromise your Christian witness. 

At some point, it just doesn’t work anymore to trot out the tired lines: “We’re not voting for a person; we’re voting for policies!” or “We’re not affirming what Trump posted; we’re affirming his policies!” Last I checked, policies don’t hurl F-bombs, praise Allah or post pictures of themselves dressed as Jesus.

All I’m saying is that now is the time for you Trump-adjacent Christian leaders to draw a line in the sand. 

Pick a kingdom, men -- and may it be the one that can never be shaken.

Now the Daily Wire’s Megan Basham and American Reformer’s William Wolfe, executive director of AmRef’s “assumed name,” the Center for Baptist Leadership, are publicly echoing him. Here’s what they recently posted :

I’ll explain in a minute why I believe it’s even more foolish now for them to proclaim the “Eleven Words” (or words close to it) than it was in 2023, but allow me a bit of necessary background first.

Stephen Wolfe created an online firestorm when he first posted those “Eleven Words,” because that statement was a tip of the hat to the “Fourteen Words” made infamous by the late white-nationalist terrorist David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." 

As the Anti-Defamation League has noted, Lane’s statement “reflects the primary white supremacist worldview in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: that unless immediate action is taken, the white race is doomed to extinction by an alleged ‘rising tide of color’ purportedly controlled and manipulated by Jews.”

Doug Wilson of Canon Press, Wolfe’s publisher, lightly chided his embattled author for his post at the time, saying that posting the “Eleven Words” was both “dumb” and “not dumb,” before writing last year that “the denotation of Wolfe’s claim is spang-on accurate,” before adding: “… if you actually believe that white evangelicals are the lone bulwark against moral insanity in America, as I do, you have to take the total package.”

But the water is sufficiently fine now, it would seem, for Basham and William Wolfe to finally put more than just a toe out of the ethno-nationalist closet. Recall that their toes were out about 15 months ago, when American Reformer sponsored and promoted a True Texas Project conference, with Basham as the featured speaker. This is the group that was abandoned by multiple mainstream Texas conservative speakers in 2024, after they learned that TTP planned to “amplify white nationalist figures and rhetoric.” I posted about it last year:

In other words, it didn’t surprise me one bit that these two now feel confident enough to assert that “white evangelical Christians are the lone bulwark” against “moral insanity in America” or against “all-out leftist domination” and “are the force keeping this nation from total immorality.”

Let me explain why the “Eleven Words” claim about “white evangelicals” is spurious on its face.

First, notice the context in which this crowd hails “white evangelicals” as the great saviors of national morality – not by pointing to statistics about the wonderful morality actually practiced by a majority of evangelicals, but by pointing solely to a small sampling of stated evangelical views in polls.

What we ought to be asking is this: Just how “moral” are self-professed evangelicals in reality? And what kind of impact does actual evangelical morality have on America as a whole?

Consider this observation just two years ago from pollster George Barna, who was remarking upon the dramatic depth of depravity he has found to be rampant in our nation – and note especially what he cites as its cause: “The research shows that much of (America’s) steep cultural decline flows from the dramatic transformation in the evangelical community of the United States in the past 30 years.”

Far from being a triumphant “lone bulwark against moral insanity in America,” Barna reported: “Evangelicals are far fewer in number than typically reported, often are far less biblical in their thinking than one might think and tend to vote in far fewer numbers than expected.

“Although more conservative on moral issues, as a whole evangelicals reflect fewer lifestyle differences from the culture than often thought. Surprisingly, most evangelicals do not possess a biblical worldview—only about one-third do. In fact, the data strongly suggests that evangelicals are more likely to be shaped by the culture around them than they are to influence or ‘evangelize’ it.”

Yes, 74 percent of white evangelicals in the Pew survey that Basham cited did state that abortion should be “illegal in all or most cases,” but are we just supposed to ignore that the remaining quarter of white evangelicals believe abortion should be “legal in all or most cases?”

Barna estimates that there are roughly 30 million evangelicals in America. If 26 percent of them believe in near-absolute legalized abortion, we’re talking about almost 8 million “evangelicals” who are pro-abortion. What’s more, an estimated 13 percent of self-described “evangelical” women have had abortions. Going by Barna’s estimates, that would mean that nearly 4 million evangelical women have killed their children in the womb. Cancel the ticker-tape parade, CNs, because none of this adds up to an evangelical “lone bulwark against moral insanity” to me.

Also keep in mind that since Roe v. Wade was overturned, the total number of abortions nationally has not declined. Depending on which reports you read, the number of abortions either has stayed stable or even slightly increased. 

Last year’s Barna-Family Research Council study on social issues and worldview also noted that the overall number of churchgoers calling themselves “pro-life” dramatically decreased by 20 points between 2023-2025.

Isn’t something a “bulwark” only if it fortifies and safeguards? So in what way are “white evangelicals” fortifying the country or serving as a safeguard on abortion if abortion rates are not dropping, but in fact increasing, and churchgoers overall are increasingly less pro-life?

Moreover, Barna noted that the dominant worldview among Christian evangelicals remains Syncretism, which he defines as a “cut-and-paste approach to developing a philosophy of life” culled from ideologies like Marxism and secular humanism. “Very few evangelicals were defined by a worldview other than the biblical worldview or Syncretism. Nearly two-thirds of evangelicals (64 percent) qualified as Syncretists,” Barna stated about his research into the matter.

And Barna’s most recent data indicates that only 5 percent of white evangelicals have a biblical worldview. Non-white evangelicals only trailed them by 2 points, with 3 percent having a biblical worldview, “a small difference that falls within the margin of the survey’s sampling error,” Barna reported.

So essentially, the embarrassingly low number of evangelicals who actually have a biblical worldview cuts across evenly among whites and non-whites. Read it for yourself here.

Another study published in 2024 in the Journal of Beliefs and Values compared 411 evangelical Christians with 942 non-evangelicals and discovered that the evangelicals talked the morality talk, but their lives didn’t reflect any better morals in practice than those of non-evangelicals: 

“It was found that while evangelicals scored higher on a measure of commitment to external, public displays of morality, there were no group differences in scores on a measure of internal, private commitments to morality. Public and private commitments to morality are thus sometimes relatively independent of one another,” researchers stated.

What’s more, are Christian Nationalists aware that 83 percent of unmarried evangelical women between the ages of 23 and 32 have had premarital sex? Actually, American Reformer does know this statistic, because it ran this 2022 article authored by Grove City College professor of sociology David Ayers, who addressed the issue of sexual sin among “young evangelical women.” 

What’s really interesting, though, is that Ayers cited “white evangelicals” elsewhere, when he wrote that “58 percent of white evangelicals say they believe that cohabiting is acceptable if a couple plans to marry.”

A strong majority of white evangelicals are pro-fornication, Christian Nationalists. Exactly how does that square with a) Scripture and b) your unsubstantiated claim that white evangelicals are the “lone bulwark against moral insanity in America?”

Here’s what I believe: It doesn’t really matter to these people if the claim breaks down in the details, because you’re looking at a group of self-identified and/or functional ethno-nationalists with an unbiblical and morally reprehensible view on the racial superiority of whites. And at the end of the day, everything for these people is about political power. Not Jesus. Not the Bible. Not even morals apart from Jesus. Just political power.

It’s why they didn’t go after heretic Paula White for publicly comparing President Trump to the Lord Jesus Christ in that recent viral clip from the White House. It’s why they didn’t call out Trump himself for his disgusting post cursing Iran repeatedly and saying “praise be to Allah” – on EASTER. It’s why they didn’t call out Trump for threatening Iran yesterday by saying “a whole civilization will die tonight,” a flat-out genocidal threat later abandoned in favor of a two-week negotiation period.

There is no evidence of true personal morality affecting their approach to politics at all, because for Christian Nationalists, the ends always seem to justify the means. How else could William Wolfe brag about praying for Trump under the spiritual headship of a (female) heretic?

You see their own lack of “moral bulwarkness” online all the time. They don’t repent of anything. But they personally attack critics. They lie about people. They libel people. Some even lie about things like their organizational tax-exempt status. And they regularly refuse to listen to any Christian who warns them of their ungodly ideas and actions by pointing to reason, facts or, most importantly, Scripture. Because again, their lust for political power is stronger than — ironically — any moral fiber that would jerk them back from justifying the unjustifiable (along those lines, check out this just-dropped doozy from Joe “Empathy is a Sin!” Rigney at American Reformer’s website).

All of this is why, as dumb as the “Eleven Words” were back in 2023, they sound even dumber now. Two years after Stephen Wolfe wrote those incomprehensibly dumb words, we know much more about the moral character of the people who are trumpeting this ludicrous sentence, as well as the relevant data about the very immoral state of today’s American evangelicals.

Christian Nationalists may claim all day long that “white evangelicals are the lone bulwark against moral insanity in America,” but what they’ve shown in the last few years is that they are actually guilty of moral insanity themselves and compounding their guilt by shamelessly foisting it on both the church and the world, sans any repentance.

It’s why I much prefer these Eleven Words: “Stay away from fools; there is nothing they can teach you.” (Prov. 14:7)

Bible verses frequently pop into my head, sometimes out of nowhere.

Yesterday, the Phil. 2 passage above was what popped into my head, and I’m so glad it did. After I re-read it in context and meditated on it, I had two thoughts: 1) What a great passage to read in the run-up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday; and 2) What a devastatingly convicting passage, especially for American Christians in our day.

Here was the fruit of the mind which was in Christ Jesus, as outlined in that section of Scripture:

• He was God Incarnate, yet made Himself of no reputation

• He took the form of a bondservant

• He humbled Himself

• He became obedient to the point of death, even a heinous death by crucifixion

Consider the implications for us. If God’s only begotten Son made himself of no reputation (elsewhere described as “emptying Himself” of the rights and privileges of His deity), then how much more should we, as sinners, be humble? If Jesus came to be a servant (see also Mark 10:45), then we should be servants. If Jesus humbled himself, so should we. And if Jesus was obedient to the point of death, then we must be obedient to the point of death – assuming that death for the sake of Christ would, in fact, be required of us.

As Bible commentator Matthew Henry observed:

“If we were lowly-minded, we should be like-minded; and, if we were like Christ, we should be lowly-minded. We must walk in the same spirit and in the same steps with the Lord Jesus, who humbled himself to sufferings and death for us; not only to satisfy God’s justice, and pay the price of our redemption, but to set us an example, and that we might follow his steps.”

But think about the contrast between Jesus’ humility and service and the lack of such traits among many of His people in today’s churches.

No reputation? Look at all the Christians on social media who are only about their reputations, seeking constant clicks and likes, promoting themselves, their interests and their opinions. This behavior doesn’t enhance their reputations, so much as show that narcissism in Jesus’ name is a rampant problem.

Not all, but certainly many churches are the same way, declaring via professionally created and graphics-heavy websites or social-media posts: “Come to our fun and exciting services, where you can ‘connect’ and ‘plug in’ and ‘be part of a community!’” It sounds a lot more like an HOA announcement for an upcoming block party than an invitation to sinners to repent and believe the gospel of Jesus. Meanwhile, the name of Jesus is lightly referenced at best or, at worst, not even mentioned. And don’t forget all those shameful fiascos that pose as “Easter services” and inevitably show up each year on YouTube. God help us.

But just ask yourself: How would true, humble bondservants even feel at home in much of what passes for “Christianity” in America today? Answer: They wouldn’t!

Don’t even focus on the three-ring “Easter circuses” for a moment. Just think of what would happen in your average, heavily promoted megachurch if a church member actually wanted to serve someone, in a spirit of humility, off-camera. There’d be three other church staffers racing to stick iPhones in his face so they could livestream the church’s “awesome humility” on Facebook or post a video of the member’s “quiet service” on Instagram and X, followed by a “so come to our super-humble church!” promo. After all, think how many potential customers – er, visitors – that might bring in to their hoppin’-house-a-God next weekend! And the irony would be completely lost on them. I wish I were kidding, but there’s nothing either funny or even far-fetched about that scenario.

And what of Jesus’ “obedience unto death?” That’s not something we even like to think about, much less discuss. We enjoy the part where we can yell Jesus’ name as the onstage pyrotechnics go off, or the $200 fees to the big Christian conferences are rolling in, or the White House is asking a Christian Name to come and pray in the Oval Office (ED. NOTE: And so what if its faith adviser is a heretic?), but we don’t actually want to die for Him. And that would never, ever be required of us, right? We’re Americans. Come on.

That attitude is the whole distorted crux of Woke Right Christian Nationalism, by the way. These Christian Nationalists have a delusional view, in which the sun is always rising in America and enveloping them in the sweet glow of imminent political victory, all while they maintain no true grasp of where we really are as a nation. This happens while they display no interest in evangelism and no true burden for lost souls, whom they merely regard as “enemies” to be defeated.

“We want a Protestant Hitler/Franco/Prince,” they crow, “so we can force America to be as righteous as we are, all while pounding our chests in pride, throwing a proverbial pie in the faces of our adversaries and laughing in derision all the way to our permanent, glorious rule!” Is this really what Jesus taught His church to do? If so, please send me chapter and verse, because my Bible doesn’t teach it anywhere.

Some of the questions we CN critics have asked this crowd, with little impact, has been this: What if God’s plan for His church isn’t that we will become ever-more rich, famous, adored and politically powerful? What if things get worse — exponentially so — for Christians in America during our lifetime? What then? What’s your plan? How should pastors prepare Christians for that possibility? They have no answer.

We also should ask: What if American Christians end up having to suffer or die for Jesus in order to obey Him, as so many of our non-American brothers and sisters before us have had to do?

You think that’s impossible? If you do, then I recommend you pick up a copy of “The Hiding Place.”

I pray we will never have to face persecution or death for our faith here in America. But Scripture still calls for Christians to be “obedient unto death” as part of having the mind which was in Christ Jesus; that is, displaying the fruit of His character, which showed itself in radical, sacrificial obedience to God. It’s why we have to purpose in our hearts to be similarly obedient to God, even unto the (hopefully unlikely possibility of) death. After all, were it not for Jesus’ obedience to God, none of us would have been saved from our sins!

And because we are to be sober in spirit in these last days, we have to stop the church circus. All of it. Enough with the worldliness, pride, greed and narcissism that poses as “Christian,” yet is anything but. We’re way, way off course, and a lot of us know it. We project strength and victory, even as we more closely resemble the Laodiceans of Revelation 3:16-17, the ones whom Jesus told: “So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’— and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.”

Christians in America today should be ashamed that we are largely known among the pagans not for our humility, service and love, but for trading gospel proclamation for worldly political goals, for the near-constant stream of clergy sex and money scandals that are splashed across the media almost daily, for immorality and hypocrisy and worldliness and for an often-lukewarm commitment to the very One whom we claim to love and serve.

And might I say: I’m speaking to myself as much as to anyone else. I fall terribly short in living out Philippians 2. It’s hard to be like Jesus, and it’s painful when I fail Him, which I do a lot. But thankfully, our sanctification is not accomplished by human effort alone. The Holy Spirit is daily at work within us to make us more like Christ, so we need not despair. He is only a prayer away!

Moreover, what better time than Easter week to reverse course on all the sins that weigh us down? What better time than now to repent in all the areas where each of us needs to repent, and to truly ask God to let the mind that is in us be the one which was in Christ Jesus?

We desperately need to let His mind be in us. Because we are His.

“And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.” (Romans 13:10-12)

“Woke Right Christian Nationalists have had a longstanding pattern of gingerly hinting at evil, ‘envelope-pushing’ ideas just until they feel comfortable enough to advocate for them outright. The timing has to work, you see. People have to be propagandized enough to accept what’s next. Just in the past few weeks, that pattern has made me start to wonder: Who’s going to be the first in this CN crowd, or maybe the adjacent groyper MAGA crowd, to finally drop the term ‘Final Solution?’”

And a week to the day later, Michael Spangler, who was divested from his role as a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 2024, basically became the first figure of note in the Woke Right Christian Nationalist movement to finally go there on X:

Here’s his whole thread:

This was not a verbatim call for a “Final Solution,” but good grief, what about it isn’t right in line with all that incrementally unfolded in Nazi ideology before the idea of a Holocaust began to emerge from the carefully laid groundwork? This is like precariously balancing on the very edge of a pier, with one foot fully in the water as your other foot angles slowly up and your entire body is plunging forward. When you’re advocating for Hitler, with not even a minor caveat that you’re against the Holocaust, you’re gone. You’re exposed. You’re fully in the water.

The maddening part is that no one who’s followed this movement for the last few years in any detail is shocked at all that Spangler would say something like this. He is, after all, the same man who has a lengthy and consistent record of saying shockingly racist things on X, and you can see for yourself his deeper depravity on display in the “Race Realism” articles he wrote a few years ago. As OPC pastor David Vogel has pointed out:

“The series’ basic argument can be outlined as follows: 1. Race is real. 2. Differences between races are real, and remain relatively constant over time. 3. Because of these differences, some races are definitely and fixedly superior to others, with the white race preeminent.

From this third point, various applications are drawn, such as opposing interracial marriage, promoting segregation in society and church, opposing equal civil rights for non-whites, calling for the removal of non-white immigrants regardless of legal status, and suggesting foreign missions should be deemphasized to focus on revitalization of beleaguered white churches.”

This movement is now where an increasing number of Christians had expected it would end up, and I am sure this is only going to get worse before the Lord’s true disciples (not to mention the Lord!) have finally had enough of it.

All I can reiterate is that a whole lot of Christians and Christian leaders who have watched the ascent of this demonic movement had the chance to speak out against it three years ago — when it was obviously emerging — and all the years that followed.

Warned repeatedly, they turned a blind eye and refused to condemn CN. Some, because they were themselves closet white supremacists or at least sympathetic to them. More, because of politics — which is absolutely true and also one of the most revolting realities yet to be fully discussed.

Let me just ask the latter: What say you now?

Lazarus was a desperate beggar covered in sores, stationed outside the gate of the rich man, who lived a life of luxury. Both men died. Angels carried Lazarus to Abraham’s bosom, while the rich man was relegated to the fires of Hades. Now it was the rich man who was the desperate beggar, pleading with Abraham to have Lazarus dip his finger into water and come to cool his tongue, as he was in agony in the flames. When Abraham told him that wasn’t possible, the rich man asked for something else:

“‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

The rich man believed that some spectacular sign would convince his faithless brothers to repent and get right with the Lord, even though the brothers didn’t listen to God’s Word as it was made known through Moses and the Prophets. And as Abraham pointed out, if the brothers didn’t believe in the Lord based on the words of Moses and the Prophets, no dramatic sign would make any difference in their hearts. After all, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, and that didn’t make everyone in Jesus’ day a believer. Even more to the point, the resurrection of Jesus Himself didn’t make everyone a believer!

It is just a fact that people with stubborn, immovable souls don’t listen to God or His prophets – not then, and not now. It doesn’t matter how much hard evidence for the historic Christian faith you lay out in front of these kinds of people. It doesn’t matter how great your apologetic argument may be when talking to them. Their hearts are hardened. And when your heart is hardened, you don’t listen – indeed, won’t listen -- to the warnings of Scripture about sin, judgment or hell. Extraordinary signs, therefore, would have no further effect on them.

I’ve been pondering this parable in light of Christian Nationalism, because I believe that its adherents and cowardly enablers have some of the hardest hearts and most stubborn souls I’ve ever encountered, and that’s an amazing thing when you consider that they actually claim to represent God in the public square.

For starters: These are not Christian men who are full of love or exhibiting any passion at all for fulfilling the Great Commission.

Over the past three years, I’ve never seen any of them show any genuine love for God in anything they say on social media or in their podcast/webcast world. The Lord is rarely even mentioned, except when they use His name or quote verses to try to wound the “enemies” outside their tribe. And they have a lot of well-defined enemies, like non-whites, Jews, Muslims, atheists, women, Democrats, academics, old-fashioned journalists, premillennial dispensationalists, Reagan conservatives and certainly every stripe of critic of Christian Nationalism. It almost becomes comical as they display a kind of Elijah-esque “I alone am left” mentality, except instead of exhibiting the faithfulness of God’s prophets like Elijah, they boast with the same faithless shame that we see in the false prophets.

But they don’t see that. They can’t see it, because they’re swimming in it, and they won’t listen to anyone who points it out.

And I’m not just talking about the main men who’ve been pushing Christian Nationalism — the men I’ve long critiqued — such as William Wolfe, Stephen Wolfe, Josh Abbotoy, Nate Fischer, Joel Webbon, Doug Wilson, Brian Sauve, Eric Conn, C. Jay Engel, Andrew Isker, Dusty Deevers, et al.

They’re not the only problem here; they’re just the top tier of men who are the problem. The men who enable the men above are to blame for this movement, as well. The Southern Baptist “conservative” leaders who joined the advisory board at American Reformer’s “assumed name,” The Center for Baptist Leadership, for instance – men like Jon Whitehead and Tom Ascol. Though Ascol finally left the board recently, he appears to be as tied to Christian Nationalism as ever. He’s never repented for calling his critics “homosexuals” in Greek and setting up a private X group to make fun of them, either.

And then you have the guys like the ones who’ve appeared as speakers at Joel Webbon’s conferences and still won’t fully denounce him. How hard is it, really, to distance yourself from Joel Webbon?

All these guys have seen the overwhelming evidence that this is an evil, unbiblical movement and a movement that will stain the church for years, once it’s finally uprooted, but they don’t care enough about that to rebuke its pushers or follow the biblical instruction to have nothing to do with divisive men. Are they cowards, who put the desire for the clicks and likes of Christian Nationalist adherents above biblical truth? Or are they just mere stubborn souls, deaf to the Word of God? In the end, the fine distinctions don’t really matter. The answer is yes.

Then you have a second, even-lower tier of enablers – the Christian men who will take to X to rebuke more obscure, little-known Christian Nationalists but will never rebuke the Big Names whom they know are directly behind the lower-tier guys and made them who they are.

These enablers are the ones who feign “confusion” and start doing desperate tap dances of excuses when privately confronted with a line like: “Quit merely going after this lower-tier guy no one knows, and please start exposing the Big Name who you know helped launch this lower-tier guy and is still tied to him.”

But these second-tier enablers don’t want to lose the Internet clicks of the people who like that Big Name, so on they go, enabling away. Yet Jesus warned us clearly about sinful tolerance in Revelation 2, telling the church at Thyatira:

“Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.”

It just has to be stressed that more than three years after Canon Press did its launch of Stephen Wolfe’s book, Christian Nationalism remains an angry, petulant movement filled with stubborn souls, unrepentant hearts and itching ears — and the problem isn’t merely confined to its Big Names.

Many faithful Christians have warned all these men of their sin with the Word of God, over and over and over. They’re not listening. They do not have ears to hear.

This is, above everything else, a movement marked by spiritual death.

Maybe a final, dramatic split of the GOP amid an impending MAGA implosion and the surging of the Left back to dominant power in Washington after the November mid-terms will wake them up. Maybe they’ll finally say, “We were wrong! So wrong! We repent of our white supremacism, our antisemitism, our racism, our pride and the terrible hatred we’ve shown toward the Lord and so many of our neighbors!”

But let’s not kid ourselves. That’s about as likely as Abraham sending a resurrected man to the Highland Rim project.

– U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Woke Right Christian Nationalists have had a longstanding pattern of gingerly hinting at evil, “envelope-pushing” ideas just until they feel comfortable enough to advocate for them outright. The timing has to work, you see. People have to be propagandized enough to accept what’s next.

Just in the past few weeks, that pattern has made me start to wonder: Who’s going to be the first in this CN crowd, or maybe the adjacent groyper MAGA crowd, to finally drop the term “Final Solution?”

Then, this week, New Hampshire state Rep. Travis Corcoran, a Republican, posted this on X:

New Hampshire’s WMUR reported: 

“The speaker of the New Hampshire House is condemning a social media post made by a Republican state representative from Weare. In his post, state Rep. Travis Corcoran, R-Weare, called for a ‘final solution’ against a Jewish member of the House. On Monday, state Rep. Jessica Grill, D-Manchester, sent an e-mail to her colleagues inviting them to join a ‘karaoke caucus’ at a Concord bar after the legislative session day. Her message included a joke poem about hunting with ferrets, a recent issue debated by lawmakers. Corcoran posted her e-mail on X and wrote, ‘We need a final solution for theater kids in politics,’ which many interpreted as a reference to the Holocaust.  Grill is Jewish. … Corcoran did not respond to a request for comment.”

Corcoron then posted an exchange he’d had with the WMUR reporter who’d written the story, Adam Sexton:

After he was condemned by the New Hampshire House speaker, Corcoron responded this way to a Boston Globe reporter asking him, “Will you apologize to your colleagues for your ‘final solution’ post?”

Corcoran also reposted this:

Corcoran, per CNN, is the same person who responded to the 2011 shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords with the following blog post comment: “One down and 534 to go. It is absolutely, absolutely unacceptable to shoot indiscriminately.”

Added the now-politician at the time: “Target only politicians and their staff and leave regular citizens alone.”

To be fair, Corcoran does not fall into the Christian Nationalist camp, but a read of his X feed shows that his views on many political topics certainly overlap with those of the CN crowd. The attitude, rebellious spirit and anger are the same. And the doubling-down and failing to apologize for offensive comments is markedly similar to the posts you’ll see daily on X from Christian Nationalists.

With this all in mind, let’s now take a brief look at what William Wolfe, executive director of American Reformer’s “assumed name,” The Center for Baptist Leadership, has been posting lately:

“Moderate solution?” What does that mean? William has long been open about his support for mass deportation of illegal aliens, but this post is at another level. Yet he won’t say the next logical sentence explaining what the “stronger” solution is, whatever it is, because he clearly only wants to hint around at it.

One might ask William: What comes after a “moderate solution” of mass deportation? Is there a “stronger” or, I daresay, even a “final” solution of any kind to illegal immigration? What would that entail? I’m not trying to put words in his mouth, mind you. But he’s the one who’s saying mass deportations are merely “moderate,” so one can only speculate as to the thoughts he’s leaving untyped.

This is the same man who recently said these things:

The repulsive Joel Webbon, of course, has long ignored Matt. 5:43-46 when it comes to how Christians should view their enemies:

Don’t forget the words of Wesley Todd, the Robin to Webbon’s Batman on the Right Response podcast. Here he is, defending the views of one of the CNs’ intellectual heroes, Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt:

And, of course, the “crush them!” mentality toward perceived “enemies” was there from the beginning of this movement. Behold the author of “The Case for Christian Nationalism,” Stephen Wolfe:

Again, I want to emphasize I’m absolutely not accusing any of these Woke Right Christian Nationalists of crossing the line into “final solution” talk. None of them have used that term, as far as I can tell. And I cannot argue that any of them have even had such a thought. I just don’t know.

But I have read what they have written and heard what many of them have said over the past few years. They have a history of introducing outrageous ideas through the drip-drip-drip method. They do things like calling strong mass-deportation efforts the “moderate solution” for dealing with illegal immigrants, without finishing the thought and explaining what the “stronger” solution to dealing with them might be. They freely discuss “crushing and hating” enemies. They regularly condemn the alleged evils of Jews, women, atheists and various racial and religious minorities. Some already have spoken of the deaths of their “enemies” in positive terms.

These are Americans — MAGA Republicans, yet — saying these things. Worse, they claim to be Christian pastors and leaders! It’s absolutely unconscionable.

I don’t know exactly where this is all headed. I cannot predict the future.

All I’m asking is: How long will it be before one of them finally goes there?

Yes, yes, I’m exaggerating. I know that there are things more immediately exhilarating (though not that many). But as I approach three months of not posting on X, my hyperbolic glee is only increasing.

I stopped posting at the end of December because I just couldn’t take it anymore. It’s become obvious that X – particularly “MAGA/Christian Nationalist influencer/podcaster X” -- is not a mere social-media site anymore, so much as an antisemitic, angry, utterly offensive and vulgar hellscape and loony bin (this is not to argue that the radioactive Leftist-Woke X is not similarly vile, but a) Bluesky has helped to thin that herd and b) I mute and block all those who remain).

At this point, who’s left on there with a fully intact, biblical Christian worldview, with a visible commitment to the Word of God governing all things personal, religious and political? Very, very few. And I just think that when you’re down to muting and blocking pretty much everyone except your local weathermen and accounts showing adorable puppies, it’s time to hit the exits.

The antisemitism alone drove me away. How long have a number of us on the conservative Christian side been decrying this disgusting and demonic trend, in vain? Closing in on three years. Yet today, I saw a post from Dr. Naomi Wolf, who was bemoaning the fact that her “beautiful and gifted friend” Emerald Robinson (formerly of Newsmax and One America News Network) posted a “shockingly antisemitic” essay. This is the same “beautiful and gifted friend” who also just posted on X that complaining of rising antisemitism is a step in a “plan” toward making “all Americans lose their freedom of speech … Don’t fall for the plan.” Dr. Wolf, are you really only now noticing this insidious trend?

My disgust over the constant bigoted, baseless attacks on the Jewish people and on Israel from the “conservative side” of the aisle – really, the Tucker Carlson side of the aisle – knows no bounds at this point. Every one of these types presents as part of a big (well-funded?) herd, all swaying this way to say they’re “just asking questions,” then that way to yell about the Iran attacks, then this way to say that America is “controlled by the Jews,” then that way to yell about “ignorant dispensationalists” who “just want to usher in the end times.” Enough with it.

It all makes me think of Mark 9:14-29. A man brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus, saying that he’d been that way since childhood. “Teacher,” he said to Jesus, “I brought You my son, because he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak; and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes stiff. And I told Your disciples so that they would cast it out, but they could not do it.”

The passage continues:

“When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, ‘Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!’ Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him. And he became as one dead, so that many said, ‘He is dead.’ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ So He said to them, ‘This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.’”

Why was it that the disciples could not cast out the demon from the boy? Bible commentator Matthew Henry offered these thoughts:

“They enquired of (Jesus) privately why they could not, that wherein they were defective might be made up another time, and they might not again be thus publicly shamed; and he told them (Mark 9:29), This kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting. Whatever other difference there really might be, none appears between this and other kinds, but that the unclean spirit had had possession of this poor patient from a child, and that strengthened his interest, and confirmed his hold. When vicious habits are rooted by long usage, and begin to plead prescription, like chronical diseases that are hardly cured. Can the Aethiopian change his skin? The disciples must not think to do their work always with a like ease; some services call them to take more than ordinary pains; but Christ can do that with a word’s speaking, which they must prevail for the doing of by prayer and fasting.”

“Vicious habits rooted by long usage … are hardly cured.” How familiar that feels, when I read X. Mark 9, therefore, is a simple reminder to me that though I’ve done my best to help warn, rebuke, out-argue, cajole and plead with the Vile “Christian” Antisemites of X to forsake their Jew hatred and myriad other Woke Right moral crimes for a few years now, there are things I simply cannot do. Things that take more than ordinary pains. Whether some “Christians” are simply too clueless to repent, or too prone to being unthinking sheeple to repent, or too stubborn (or paid too well) to repent, or too entrenched in these devilish schemes posing as reasonable “Christian” or political ideologies to repent, I have no way of knowing.

But I can see among their ilk that the devil is heavily at work among them. So I’ve concluded that what I should do about all this is to stop beating my head in vain against a wall on a social-media site and do what Jesus said to do when a spiritual crisis is simply beyond any human ability to solve: pray and fast. Breaking the power of the devil is way beyond my capacity. But it’s not beyond Jesus’ power. Nothing is impossible with Him!

That’s why praying and fasting is now going to be my primary strategy against the horrors unfolding on X, especially among those who claim to believe in Jesus. For any other Christian who sees what I see, and mourns over it all as I do, I hope you’ll join me. Let’s go before the Throne with boldness together. We have a faithful, gracious and merciful God who will hear us.

And He alone can turn things around and bring men back to their right minds.

“And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.” (Ephesians 6:17, 18)

All I could think was: “That’s funny. And after the last two years of this Christian Nationalism fight, I can relate!”

Case in point: My latest interaction with Tom Buck, the well-connected SBC pastor of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas.

Tom and I have some history together, as I was the main person who helped him and his wife, Jennifer, publicly respond to and navigate a lot of the media upheaval during the Bucks’ infamous rough-draft controversy in 2022 (background here). I got involved simply because I felt genuine compassion for Jennifer, who was an abuse survivor, and wanted to help her out. But the whole thing eventually turned into a very complex political mess, with a lot of unnecessary mudslinging, and I wish now that I had just stayed out of the situation completely.

But because that controversy allowed me to get to know Tom, he was one of the first people in the SBC I contacted when Woke Right Christian Nationalism started rearing its ugly head. I sent him some X posts and screenshots, showing evidence that there was a growing white-nationalism problem among some people he knew. I also sent him Blake Callens’ February 2024 X thread of evidence that there was an out-in-the-open kinist church in Doug Wilson’s CREC, and Tom’s response was to send me a libelous thread about Blake written by the notably antisemitic and racist Christian Nationalist Ethan Holden (known as “The Jolly Brawler” on X), falsely accusing Blake of being “profoundly disturbed” and of using a Pinterest account to post sexually suggestive material.

It wasn’t true, and I told Tom as much. In fact, Blake had created the account just to do a technology work test and left it soon afterward. TechCrunch later reported that multiple Pinterest accounts like his were hacked and flooded with spam pins of weight-loss ads and “butt pics.” Alerted to this, Holden deleted most of his accusations in the thread, and I defended Blake to Tom with that fact. But Tom’s opinion of Blake didn’t appear to rise, even as his opinion of Holden didn’t appear to sink.

I only contacted Tom because I was very alarmed by the evidence of a dangerous and rising Far-Right movement in the church and expected that he would be alarmed, as well (and on a related note, Ethan’s brother Samuel was the guy who posted the repellent, Nazi-propaganda-filled “White Boy Summer” video that came under fire last year). Instead, Tom’s responses were understated, amounting to little more than: “Oh, I’ll have to look into that.” I wondered to myself: “What’s to look into when I’ve just explained what’s happening, and all the damning screenshots are right in front of you?”

As I continued to watch Tom’s posts here and there, I watched him seem to weave his way through the growing CN threat that was playing out in real time. He didn’t overtly embrace CN, but he also never fully repudiated it or fought against it. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t solidly standing against a Far-Right movement that was so obviously offensive, unbiblical and anti-American, to boot. And periodically, I would call or text him again to reiterate the dangers of CN – especially among some of his closer cohorts. I didn’t make any headway, though.

At one point last summer, Tom posted: “I obviously am not in the CN camp. But I also wouldn’t make the charge of kinism against (Joel) Webbon et al. I think that’s slandering them.” Tom’s not in the CN camp? Great! But now that we know that everything the critics said about Webbon’s and “et als’” racial views was true and even worse than we knew, did Tom later retract the last comment, or apologize to the people he accused of “slandering?” He did not.

In February of this year, he even appeared on a podcast as a fellow guest with some of the worst of the CNs: William Wolfe (executive director of AmRef’s “assumed name,” The Center for Baptist Leadership), Jeff Wright (AmRef executive director Josh Abbotoy’s pastor) and Tom Ascol (AmRef advisory board member). And it wasn’t as if Tom didn’t know the evidence against CN or these particular men. Yet there he was. So I decided that trying to convince Tom to stand against CN was a lost cause. I was done saying anything to him.

Or so I thought.

This week, in came Oklahoma State Sen. Dusty Deevers, a Christian Nationalist who also serves on the AmRef advisory board, to post this:

https://x.com/dustydeevers/status/1962965201810043004?s=46

In response, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor and eagle-eyed CN critic Matt Millsap responded:

https://x.com/mattmillsap/status/1962969569061982208?s=46

Matt’s was a very reasonable, polite and biblical response. If Deevers is so concerned about pornography, then why is he following a man who prints pornography in his magazine and also does business with the AmRef cofounder and chairman Nate Fischer? The next thing I knew, though, Tom Buck weighed in -- not to back Matt, as he should have done, but to upbraid him and tag his boss for asking Deevers legitimate questions:

https://x.com/tombuck/status/1963672131142852839?s=46

I replied in a longer post thread:

https://x.com/janet_mefferd/status/1963810091561328987?s=46

As of this writing, not only has Tom not retracted his ridiculous attack on Matt, but he’s refused to tag me or address me directly. But there was this:

https://x.com/tombuck/status/1963933178080424050?s=46

And this:

https://x.com/janet_mefferd/status/1963939585576014075?s=46

Followed by this:

https://x.com/tombuck/status/1963982046876901513?s=46

Was Tom’s post directed at me? I believe it was, and I replied to it:

https://x.com/janet_mefferd/status/1963994216041718030?s=46

My reply probably was unnecessarily harsh, but it was rooted in my ongoing frustration that ever since Woke Right Christian Nationalism came along, it has served to turn a lot of my onetime friends into people I no longer recognize. So many people I trusted as solid Christian conservatives have jumped on the CN train (or at least the “not-ever-going-to-criticize-my-CN-friends” train), against all the evidence, and seemingly in droves -- and for what?

The tragic reality is that Tribe has eclipsed Truth on much of the “conservative” side of the evangelical Christian aisle now, and I feel like I am on the outside, calling out: “You know your Bibles! Why won’t you apply the same biblical principles to your own Tribe as you do to the Tribes you dislike?” I mean, can you imagine if Russell Moore started using the N-word online or attacking Jews in a drooling antisemitic fit? Or pushing actual Nazi propaganda? Or demeaning women in every crude way imaginable while advocating for the repeal of the 19th Amendment? Would most of these more respectable conservative evangelical figures just stay silent if Moore was doing it? Not. A. Chance.

It’s just obvious that Tribe matters more than Truth for too many of these guys now, and I can’t help but conclude from his posturing online that Tom has fallen into that camp.

I also accept that I can’t fix anybody. I hope and pray that Tom wakes up and puts his oft-passionate personality fully to use for standing on the truth of God’s Word against CN. He is certainly capable of boldly standing for truth, and I sincerely hope the Lord will turn Tom around on all this. But I can’t worry about it anymore. At some point, you have to shake the dust off your feet and let the Lord deal with people.

At the same time, it’s awful to realize that you really can lose friends for being ideologically consistent — in this case, critiquing the Woke Right as fervently and as consistently as you critique the Woke Left — and the experience is no fun. But God has a way of caring for us as the faithful Chief Shepherd that He is, often bringing us new friends to replace the former ones who broke our hearts. His love is evident, even in our sorrow.

That’s why, by God’s grace, we have to remember that it is always Truth that must guide the Tribe — and not the reverse.

And we must never forget, when the fallout comes, what a Friend we have in Jesus.

Specifically, I am referring to Joshua Abbotoy, AmRef’s executive director and managing partner of New Founding, and Nate Fischer, AmRef chairman and founder/CEO of New Founding. Both men also are behind RidgeRunner, an affiliate of New Founding, which is building “town & country charter communities in Appalachia” and “pioneering what we believe to be a new model for local life in the digital age.”

Not only are these men working on building a creepy Christian Nationalist “aligned community” in Jackson County, Tenn., but now they’re beginning to sink their Woke Right teeth into Celina, Tenn., where they’ve purchased a 3,600-square-foot storefront building. And local residents are none too happy about it, as Williams reports.

The story is definitely news, and not just because of all of Abbotoy’s and Fischer’s maneuvers and myriad and intentional ties to multiple vile Christian Nationalists, such as Contra Mundum podcasters Andrew “Jews Shouldn’t Have a Seat at the Table” Isker and C. Jay “Protestant Franco is Inevitable” Engel.

What really stood out to me in the latest report, though, wasn’t the fact that AmRef leaders are furthering their goal of trying to establish ideologically white-nationalist beachheads in Tennessee. Williams exposed something even more important than that: he demonstrated how both Abbotoy and Fischer have deceived people about the project, its partners and its true “goals.”

From Williams’ report:

One of the developers, Josh Abbotoy, recently appeared before the Celina board of aldermen, asking for recommendations about what they should do with the building. Abbotoy — who is associated with two companies involved in the project, New Founding and RidgeRunner — also tried to distance himself from the podcasters who were initially described as his company's partners and who work out of the same office space as his company's offices. “I think a lot of the stuff down in Jackson County was about a couple of my customers, you know, people who aren't connected to my company, but bought land from me,” Abbotoy said. “They don't speak for my company. You know, I have various disagreements with them on things." Yet, Abbotoy, who appeared on an election night podcast with Isker and Engel, has refused to repudiate anything the podcasters have said.

Mere “customers” somehow ended up working out of Josh’s company’s office space and wrote articles for the AmRef website? Is it typical for the AmRef podcast to do “mashups” with “customer” podcasts? Also, if these men are so far removed from AmRef, why did its website review “The Boniface Option,” “customer” Isker’s horrible book, saying that it “recovers a hatred for evil” and “Isker does not need academic argumentation because all sensible Christian men know what he is writing is true?”

Williams’ report also cited some key differences between what Abbotoy told a Celina alderman about his building purchase and what he and Fischer actually say away from the eyes of the local government:

Back at City Hall, Abbotoy was asked by one alderman about the fear that “you move into a town and get into offices and start taking the town over." "We've never done that, and we don't plan to," Abbotoy insisted. But, as NewsChannel 5 Investigates has previously revealed, on their podcasts, Abbotoy and his partners tell a different story. Abbotoy himself said, “It's more attainable to get into civic and cultural leadership in a small town. It's more attainable to change the local market to make your presence felt.” Nate Fischer expressed similar notions. “Our goal is something where we actually have the concentration where we can control the town – or, in this case of the people there, it's already values aligned,” he said.

That’s strange. If Abbotoy and Fischer admit that this small-town move is all about “get(ting) into civic and cultural leadership” and having the concentration where the Woke Right can “control the town,” then why didn’t Abbotoy say so when the Celina alderman asked him that direct question? What’s to hide? Well, as more long-term observers of this movement know, there’s a lot to hide.

But given the deception, it’s no wonder the Celina residents interviewed for the report are nervous, angry and determined to “kick them out eventually.” People in small towns don’t take too kindly to radicals coming into their communities with a goal of “controlling the town.” Nor do they like being deceived about such plans. All that does is rightly raise a lot of red flags.

What’s even more important to understand is that deception and AmRef are far from newfound friends. In fact, the men of AmRef have long shown they’re comfortable playing fast and loose with the truth. It’s part and parcel of their ideology and key to implementing their long-term political plans.

AmRef’s website, for example, has featured multiple articles openly defending the idea -- incredibly, even the alleged morality -- of practicing deception to achieve political ends. To wit:

• AmRef’s editor-in-chief, Timon Cline, wrote a 2024 article at its website, called “Good Deceit,” in which he justified the need to “be shrewd, prudent, and even, at times, deceitful, concealing the truth and feigning myths but without losing our souls,” noting further: “sometimes, being aware of the times in which we live, we must use crude means out of necessity with prudence according to good ends.”

• Ben Crenshaw also published an article last year at the AmRef website, “Nietzscheans in Negative World,” writing: “Politically-active American Christians who defy the enemies of God and wage war against evil, and who necessarily employ crude memes, subterfuge, and even deception toward these ends, will likewise be commended for their faith.”

• Another writer AmRef has published, podcaster Josh Daws, notoriously posted this diatribe on X last year: “It’s okay to use deception in service of defeating the left. It’s not sinning in order to do good. It’s being righteously shrewd in order to do good. It’s also okay to enjoy it. Lighten up.”

• Earlier this year, AmRef additionally published “A Second Look at Lying and the Ethics of the New Christian Right.” In it, author James Clark claimed that enemies are not “neighbors” to whom we owe the truth: “When we encounter enemies, it is not only permissible, but righteous, to deceive them, for in doing so we love them as Christ commanded us.”

Clearly, this kind of thinking is completely unbiblical and wrong. But AmRef leaders do more than defend the concept of deception. They’ve also shown a continual disdain for operating in truth:

• AmRef, doing business as The Center for Baptist Leadership, falsely claims at CBL’s website that CBL is “a national nonprofit.” A search of the entire IRS nonprofit database shows no record of a national nonprofit called “The Center for Baptist Leadership,” but the Texas Secretary of State’s office has issued paperwork showing that CBL is merely a legal “assumed name” for American Reformer. Operating under another nonprofit group’s EIN is permitted, but according to the IRS, that subordinate group also must have its own subordinate EIN. Yet neither CBL’s executive director, William Wolfe, nor any of the advisory board members or other AmRef leaders have ever answered the multiple direct questions they’ve received online about whether or not CBL has its own subordinate EIN. Are they just refusing to furnish it to so-called “enemies” (with whom they’re obsessed), or is CBL actually in violation of IRS tax rules? Either way, they’re acting mighty shady about it. The most ironic part of it all is that CBL has continually pressed the Southern Baptist Convention for “transparency,” while evading transparency itself.

• In a further act of defiance, Wolfe openly claimed online in March that “Almost a year ago … I launched a Christian nonprofit …” Not according to the IRS or the Texas Secretary of State’s office, he didn’t. Wolfe’s statement is just dishonest.

• Williams reports that neither Abbotoy nor Fischer would grant him an interview for this week’s story about Celina. To show how angry Fischer was about the coverage, Williams posted online a direct message that Fischer had sent to him after he requested the (declined) interview. “Your on-camera delivery sucks, Phil,” Fischer responded. “It’s clear why you never made it big in broadcast. You’re reduced to tabloid-level gossip in your hunt for clicks.” Tabloid-level gossip? Not at all. So far, Williams has done nothing but repeatedly report accurately, with all the receipts, on the men of the Woke Right. It’s rather odd to baselessly smear a reporter who’s done his homework as a “gossip,” with no evidence, unless he really got under your skin with the truth. Furthermore, as Williams reported, “Neither Abbotoy nor Fischer have ever responded to any of NewsChannel 5’s questions, except to occasionally hurl insults by text or through social media.” This, from the “Christian” guys who want to take over evangelical denominations and ultimately run America. AmRef also has a track record of hiding from scrutiny. To give just a few recent examples, AmRef conducted a host-approved-only, secret-location gathering at the PCA General Assembly this summer and also imposed similar stealth measures at a recent “Camp American Reformer” event, which stated: “All registrants will be screened, and the guest list will be kept private. OpSec is a priority for cultivating friendships IRL and for free discussions.” Really? OpSec? Why so paranoid, AmRef?

• Lashing out online also has been stock-in-trade for Wolfe. Unable to identify a section of the Baptist Faith & Message presented to him online, for instance, Wolfe ignorantly posted that the section “isn’t Baptist, let alone Christian.” His truth aversion also extends to multiple posts in which he has lied about his critics and disparaged their characters – yours truly included. Among them? That because several of us reposted a Right Wing Watch article criticizing Wolfe (which he favorably posted), we critics were “making it clear” that we “will help the Regime load (our) fellow Christians onto the train cars – as long as (we) go last.” (For the record, I don’t even know who “the Regime” is!)

• But perhaps AmRef’s most overt form of deception is seen in its willingness to employ the Motte & Bailey fallacy. On the one hand, AmRef platforms seemingly “conservative” front men like William Wolfe to push the milder Motte, consisting of platitudes like “biblical truth must prevail, which is why we must save America, de-trans the kids, end abortion and stop the pastrixes,” even as Abbotoy and Fischer reveal the Bailey elsewhere. Abbotoy has posted on X: “As good conservatives we all value the rule of law, but the other side’s willingness to bend the rules combined with the increasing importance of the issues at stake militates for, in my opinion, a more flexible/Machiavellian approach to federal politics.” Added Fischer: “In fact, recognizing the limits of any current constitution – and not binding ourselves to procedures that no longer remain governing – is actually part of operating within the current system, and is an alternative to more revolutionary action.” So are they just mild-mannered conservatives, as Wolfe would like Southern Baptists and other evangelicals to believe, or really something way more radical? The social-media posts, the articles, the podcasts and Williams’ news reports all tell the tale.

I just don’t get why any Christians trust any of these men about anything at all, when it’s so obvious that they’re not biblical conservatives and have no problem with the ungodliness of dishonesty, just as long as it helps further their authoritarian pipe dreams. And try though they might to cite Rahab as an excuse for lying, they’re not being forced in unusual moments of history to deceive evil men to save innocent lives. They’re just not honest and don’t appear to have the consciences to be bothered by that.

The truth is that the Woke Right of AmRef deceive in order to achieve. They obfuscate, distract and fool gullible Christians because of what they want out of us: control of the SBC, control of the PCA, control of America. This all ends, in their imaginations, with “remaking” America into a nightmare authoritarian country that no normal, Constitution-respecting American wants!

And as Blake Callens, author of “The Case Against Christian Nationalism,” has pointed out about these men: “‘Our opponents break the rules, so we should, too,’ is standpoint epistemology. Peak Woke Right. This is how Italy, Spain and Germany went authoritarian, pre-WWII – an overreaction to leftist action, with the right abandoning core ethics.”

Christians who still see these AmRef men as would-be reformers who will finally put the Left in its place need to understand, once and for all, why so many of us call them the “Woke Right.” The dishonesty, the sneaky tactics, the overall rotten fruit – it’s all reminiscent of the Woke Left and arguably just as dangerous. Maybe even more so.

“No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes.” (Psalm 101:7)

“Some lies are so powerful that they have an evident spiritual dynamic behind them. These are lies crafted and promoted by deceiving spirits … Demons are theology majors and have systems of doctrine.” – David Guzik

American Reformer’s Woke Right Christian Nationalists tried mightily this year to secure levers of power both in the Southern Baptist Convention and the Presbyterian Church in America – and, for their efforts, received two significant smackdowns in what certainly has been more of a spiritual battle than a political one. I’ll explain why that is after a brief recap of what was a very bad month for AmRef.

First, AmRef embarrassingly self-cratered at the SBC Annual Meeting on June 10-11. On every major issue that AmRef and its band of SBC enablers pushed there, the group doing business as “The Center for Baptist Leadership” lost. It lost on the Law Amendment. It lost on abolishing the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. It lost on a motion to secure “increased financial transparency” from SBC entities. And what was CBL’s immediate reaction online? Urging Southern Baptists to join with AmRef “to represent your bold, conservative and convictional Christian values and beliefs in the public square and political arena!” Why, because naive actual conservatives need a deceptive group posing as “conservatives” to lead them into losing even harder in the future?

What made this situation particularly satisfying was that, shortly before the annual meeting, AmRef – which critiqued the ERLC for Leftist ideology and working with George Soros-funded groups – was outed for being completely hypocritical on that point. In fact, AmRef’s SBC event had as its top-listed partner the Future of Life Institute, a group with its own Leftist ideological viewpoints (the “risks of climate change,” for example) and ties to the president of Soros’ Open Society Foundations, who signed an FLI open letter about building “the global governance needed to make AI a force for good.”

Maybe AmRef’s leaders should just wear lapel buttons, reading: “Working with Soros-tied groups with Leftist ideology is only wrong when our enemies do it!”

Then, American Reformer got more egg on its face at the PCA General Assembly, which took place June 23-27. AmRef co-founder Nate Fischer readily admitted online that the denomination blocked the Woke Right group from exhibiting at the GA. But it still put on a side event at a secret location, with all registrations “subject to approval by the host.” Not only that, but AmRef put a cherry on top of its sundae of terrible event-planning by foolishly implementing a “no-press” policy, which it affirmed by rejecting the registration of a reporter from The Tennessean, a legitimate newspaper with a legitimate interest in the news value of the event.

Maybe AmRef’s leaders need to add another lapel button to their suit jackets: “Transparency? That’s only for our enemies!”

Then, pictures of the event released online showed the AmRef Presbyterians had some non-PCA buddies with them, as well: William “I’m All About Baptist Leadership, really!” Wolfe and Andrew Isker, who recently bemoaned the practice of giving kidney dialysis to “old people,” co-authored an awful CN book with vile antisemite Andrew Torba and co-hosts a podcast with the equally vile C. Jay Engel, who recently claimed “The Special Olympics shouldn’t exist.” Call me crazy, but nutty people showing up for events centered on leveraging power in denominations in which they aren’t even members should rank as highly suspicious to even the most charitable Christians in the PCA – and every other denomination.

But try as AmRef might to become the Big Cheese in a second denominational context, the PCA’s biblical understanding of what is at stake here thankfully prevailed. By substantial margins, the denomination ended up passing a statement that explicitly condemned both kinism and racial and ethnic supremacy (which are now openly held positions by many major Woke Right Christian Nationalist leaders), joining hands on the matter with both the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America. Additionally, the denomination agreed to form a study committee on Christian Nationalism.

Will AmRef finally admit defeat and close up shop? Of course not! Everything with these guys is about strategic huddling after discerning Christians hand them big losses and trying to figure out how to create yet another PR campaign that will allow them to re-emerge with new slogans, new agendas and fresh resolve to “win.” Now, William Wolfe has decided that he should start posting Bible verses in between new ERLC attacks, while Josh Abbotoy is pushing his New Founding-affiliated RidgeRunner aligned community again. But much like the Bad News Bears, AmRef will be back, you guys! “Just wait till next year!”

To which I say, with no sarcasm whatsoever: How long, O Lord? I’m so sick and tired of the entire Christian Nationalism movement -– of which AmRef is just a mere part -- that I can’t adequately articulate it. I’m sick of the whole crusade and all of its major and minor players. Yes, I’m sick of AmRef’s constant deception and hypocrisy. But I’m also sick of its friends’ and associates’ blatant antisemitism and disdain for all things Israel, hatred of non-whites, hatred of women, hatred of religious freedom and antipathy toward the U.S. Constitution. And don’t forget their collective willingness to tolerate and spiritually partner with some of the worst people – even heretics like Paula White (we’re looking at you, William Wolfe) – just to attain political and cultural power.

And yet, as I’ve been studying 1 Timothy, the first two verses of Chapter 4 have stood out to me in a fresh way. There is more wrong with the broader movement we know as Woke Right Christian Nationalism than just its unbiblical ideology. There is, I think, a dangerous spiritual component to this movement that really does reflect what the Bible says is a heeding of “deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.”

Again, as Paul tells Timothy: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Tim. 4:1-2). The context is apostasy. Certainly, we see a lot of apostates today among the exvangelicals and the nones, among those who abandon Christian orthodoxy to major in hip political and social issues instead and among those who adhere to Christian orthodoxy but are really fakes, liars, charlatans or sexual deviants. There is no shortage of apostates today, and a great departure from the faith is certainly a sign of the latter days. But this passage also leads me to ask: How do these Christian Nationalists specifically fit the description of latter-day apostates that Paul lays out in this passage?

Commentator Albert Barnes observed: “Some of the characteristics of that apostasy were these; there would be a giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Those who taught would hypocritically speak what they knew to be falsehood, having their own consciences seared.” In other words, the falsehoods these apostates speak without a twinge of conscience aren’t merely coming from the evil of their own hearts and thoughts. The Bible says these falsehoods ultimately come from evil spiritual sources: deceiving spirits with demonic doctrines.

Many of us who are not charismatic in any sense of the term (myself included) may feel a little uncomfortable saying that out loud, lest we get branded as wantonly blaming anything at all on “demons.” But that is what the text says about “some” of these end-times apostates: they “give heed” not merely to bad ideas, but to “deceiving spirits” themselves.

Pastor David Guzik, whom I quoted at the outset, notes in his Enduring Word Commentary that the first demonic doctrine is laid out in Gen. 3:4-5: “Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” He notes: “Since then, every demonic doctrine has found its way back to this root: the idea that we can be gods, and operate independently from God.”

In other words, the root of all demonic deception is convincing man that he can elevate himself to a place of preeminence, even becoming “like God.” That was the serpent’s big lie in the Garden of Eden, and that is his big lie now. As the Mormon president Brigham Young once put it in Journal of Discourses, “The Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming Gods like Himself.” Historian and author Yuval Noah Harari echoed this idea in a 2017 interview about his creepy book, “Homo Deus,” telling one interviewer: “Human history began when men created gods. It will end when men become gods.”

Now you may say, “These Christian Nationalist main players don’t believe they can become gods! They may have some weird ideas about ethno-nationalism and white supremacy and reshaping America under a Protestant Franco, but they’re still Christians!” First of all, we actually don’t fully know what these guys believe, both because they are cagey about a lot of what they believe and also because they lie a lot.

But second, their entire, crystal-clear goal is takeover – acquiring enormous power and control by taking over both the political realm and large sectors of the evangelical church, which they actually believe is an attainable goal. They may not believe they can become literal gods, but they certainly seek godlike power, speak lies with hypocrisy and display seared consciences when it comes to their own personal character. Where in Scripture did the Lord Jesus ever tell us to lie in order to grab power? Or to use His name to gain trust within the church in order to stage a soft coup? Or to take over countries, strip people of their freedoms and force them to be “righteous?” It’s absurdly unbiblical.

Yes, only God knows for sure who among them is really saved, and maybe some of them will repent in the future, but to those of us paying close attention, there is simply no evidence of any Christlike transformation in most of these men at all. All you really have to do is examine their fruit. In fact, as a lot of these guys have felt increasingly comfortable revealing the darker sides of their radical ideology online, it’s become almost impossible to make a positive case that the lion’s share of them are born again.

You can tell a lot about people by what they don’t say, too. For more than two years, I’ve been reading their articles and social-media posts and watching their videos, and I see little to no genuine and unforced interest, among the majority of these men, in the true God of Scripture. I see little to no interest in the Bible, evangelism, prayer, discipleship, missions or helping their brothers and sisters in need. I see no humility. No attempt to be transparent or open or honest. No expression of their desire to live godly lives in Christ Jesus. No repentance, ever.

But you know what I have seen, in spades? Christian Nationalists’ assertion of demonic doctrines like antisemitism and, among the Christian Nationalists who don’t make that assertion outright, a refusal to either denounce or cut ties with those who do.

So let’s consider: Who hates the Jews and the Jewish Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, more than Satan and his deceiving spirits?

Who tempted Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew 4, showing Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, vowing to give all of it to Him if He would just fall down and worship a rebellious fallen angel?

Who prompted Judas to betray the Lord in John 13:2? Who then “entered” Judas in Luke 22, right before he discussed with the chief priests and temple guard how he would betray Jesus?

Who now prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking to devour Christians?

We are warned so many times in Scripture of this tempter, this accuser, this Father of Lies, this Murderer and this Prince of the Power of the Air that you’d think we’d carefully look for his schemes every time a movement to destroy Christ’s church comes along. But we often do everything but that, which is why 1 Timothy 4:1-2 should be such a wake-up call for all of us.

With the way that Woke Right Christian Nationalists have been scheming and pushing their way into the heart of evangelical churches, not to mention conservative political circles, isn’t it entirely possible that these players may not be doing the bidding merely of their own ambitious, deceived and wayward hearts, but also the bidding of the very enemy of our souls and his deceiving spirits?

Those who care about staying faithful to Jesus Christ at this hour must not be deceived. This is a movement that has nothing less than both widespread political and spiritual destruction in its sights. These days, therefore, require great Christian discernment.

Who would have imagined how well Paul Harvey’s classic 1965 broadcast, “If I Were the Devil,” would resonate in 2025? But it does:

“If I were the devil … I would of course want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. I would have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree – Thee. So I should set about however necessary to take over the United States. I’d subvert the churches first …”

A virulent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Navalny was founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which produced multiple investigations into the dirty dealings of top Russian government officials. He attracted the support of millions of ordinary Russians, who also were sick of the status quo and enthusiastically backed both Navalny’s exposes and his personal political ambition to try to right the ship and return Russia to the people.

But courageous truth-telling can still cost you in post-U.S.S.R. Russia, and Navalny paid a heavy price for his. He collapsed on an airplane in 2020 after he was poisoned with a nerve agent, an attack he blamed on Putin. He was detained, arrested, sentenced and imprisoned — even put into the worst of personal solitary confinement cells — in a years-long series of trumped-up charges and sham trials. The government went after his family, too. And in February 2024, officials announced the “convict’s” death in an Arctic prison, allegedly from “combined diseases” and “an irregular heartbeat.”

Navalny’s true “crime” was hating corruption, exposing corruption and marshaling a lot of regular people to help him try to stop the corruption. He knew that when powerful leaders routinely lie, cover up and enrich themselves to the point of vulgarity, all at the expense of the powerless people they should be helping, you have to fight it — even if it costs you your life. As Navalny put it: “When corruption is the very foundation of a regime, those who battle it are extremists.”

What does this have to do with the American evangelical church?

Well, yesterday, G3 Ministries — an evangelical ministry emphasizing “the gospel, grace and the glory of God in Jesus Christ” and drawing thousands to its annual G3 Conference — announced that its president, pastor Josh Buice, suddenly had resigned. His church had discovered that for the past three years, he’d been operating “at least four anonymous social media accounts, two anonymous email addresses and two Substack platforms,” and he used them “to publicly and anonymously slander numerous Christian leaders,” including G3 Conference speakers and even fellow elders at the church he pastored, Pray’s Mill Baptist Church.

What’s more, Buice had been confronted about his stealth online life for two years, and lied that he was not behind the accounts. Finally, he admitted that he was behind the accounts, but only after “much pleading” and the presentation of “irrefutable evidence.” But the G3 statement offered assurance that “Josh has acknowledged his sin, expressed sorrow and asked for forgiveness.” He also deleted his actual “Josh Buice” X account, which you might think would be the appropriate venue to offer said apology, drip with genuine sorrow and request forgiveness from his thousands of now-disillusioned ministry customers. But no. Nothing says repentance like beating a hasty retreat from accountability.

Here’s the worst part of the statement: “While Josh has acknowledged with the elders that he is presently disqualified from serving as an elder, we do not believe at this time that his sin is necessarily disqualifying. Accordingly, his content will remain accessible via the G3 website and G3+.”

Really? How disgusting. The guy set up a bunch of fake online accounts to attack his own elders and conference speakers, lied about it for years, only admitted it after being cornered and forced into the truth, deleted his real account to avoid accountability where it’s warranted, and G3 doesn’t believe his sin is “necessarily disqualifying?” The message seems to be: Please don’t let Josh’s reprehensible actions stop you from taking in his content even now at G3, so you can still learn how to best give glory to God in your church, pastors! This would be hilarious if it weren’t so offensive.

Then, get this. A number of G3 leaders and those in its orbit posted their reactions to this statement on their (still-intact) X accounts, I assume because Josh’s wasn’t available. Guess what the constant theme was? That this terrible breach of ethics and demonstration of totally ungodly character from Josh is horrible and outrageous and totally corrupt? That such behavior from the head of G3 is a blight not just on the ministry, but on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ? Of course not! It was a “lament” fest. “I’m so sad,” they moaned. “I’m heartbroken.” “This is a sad day.” “I’m grieving.”

Give me a break.

I realize not every Christian is like me, and I’m sure that “sad” is among the emotions that some G3 supporters genuinely feel, but I’ve reported on enough evangelical scandals through the years as a religion reporter and Christian radio host to spot likely coordinated PR when I see it.

I’m sure these G3 guys aren’t happy about what Josh did, but are we really supposed to believe they’re in some kind of offline quasi-mourning state, weeping or stuck in the fetal position because Josh was an entrenched deceiver who covered up his actions for years? Intentionally or not, for the G3 men to put forward only a chorus of being “sad” and “grieving” has the effect of manipulation. It is verbiage that is meant to invoke pathos for Josh and G3. You are only to be depressed and gloomy about all this, Christian. Let the wahs! commence. Oh, do lament with us! the men implore the customers. Why is that?

Well, isn’t it obvious that by framing the scandal merely as “sad,” its customers will be swayed to suppress the more natural and understandable emotion of righteous anger at Josh’s corruption and, by extension, further confirm that there’s a despicable pattern of corruption among high-level shepherds in the evangelical church? To fail to direct people’s emotions certainly might not bode well for the now-Josh-free (oh, except for his ongoing content presence!) G3 Ministries. But rest assured. As its statement notes, “As we look to the ministry’s future, we will prioritize the publication of helpful biblical content that strengthens the church and avoids the dangerous celebrity culture that has unfortunately come to characterize so much of modern evangelicalism.”

Yes, we certainly need all these unknown, totally-non-celebrity G3 men — who will keep on offering you Josh’s instructive Christian content via the G3 portals, even after he deceived everyone for years and these guys knew about it, with some even revealing the details in direct online messages — to lecture us on the evils of celebrity culture in the church.

One organization defines corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.” Doesn’t that describe Josh Buice? He was a deceiver. He had all these fake accounts, and even as he wouldn’t say anything publicly as himself on certain issues, he was using fake accounts to follow and thumbs-up interact with and even direct-message people like me to air his thoughts on issues that sometimes directly contradicted what he said under his real name, if the outed true identities of these accounts are to be believed.

Who was the real Josh, then? The man on the Josh Buice account? Or the man airing totally opposite views via anonymous avatars that he carefully constructed and hid? This is corruption. People trusted him in a powerful ministry position. He gained some money from it, I’m sure. But he abused his power, and then -- poof! –- he disappeared from the Internet.

This kind of corruption should make Christians mad. Anger is the right and natural emotion when someone in a powerful position abused your trust for private gain, and it’s all nicely tied up in a carefully constructed statement, and those who knew what was up are now telling you to be “sad.”

Worse, this is part of a huge pattern we’re seeing inside evangelicalism. A guy becomes well-known for his preaching, builds a big church or a big ministry, he gets the book deals, he gets a radio show, he gets a TV show, he rocks the conference circuit, and then he falls. He lied, he committed adultery, he plagiarized, he abused his power, he embezzled, he fondled or molested someone, whatever it was. And a lot of the time, there is no real reckoning. Only a quick PR pivot to “forgiveness and healing” from him and his enablers as he plots his comeback and the sheep are mostly kept in the dark about the details. The show must go on, folks.

The scandals are so numerous, so frequent and so often heinous that the average Christian does one of two things. He either obediently “laments” and allows himself to be told how to feel and respond to the scandal du jour by the enabling celebrity structure, or he shrugs his shoulders and gives up. Says he doesn’t care. Says his one little voice doesn’t matter, anyway. What can you do? It’s just the way things are.

But as Christians, we have to have a higher standard than that. Some of the greatest moments in the history of the church, and some of the greatest spiritual breakthroughs, came when godly men of biblical conviction refused to stand for the corruption in the church anymore and got angry. Go back and read the accounts of how King Josiah and King Hezekiah destroyed idolatry. Read the history of Martin Luther’s confrontation of corruption in the church on his route to Wittenberg’s door. Read again how the Lord Jesus confronted religious corruption in Matthew 21:12-13 and Matthew 23.

Navalny referred to this phenomenon of paralysis against corruption as “staring at the tables” — the action of lower-level Russian government officials whom he accused of going along with the political corruption and just accepting a system based on “endless lies.” He asked, in one impassioned trial speech, “Why do you put up with these lies? Why do you just stare at the table? … The only moments in our lives that count for anything are those when we do the right thing.”

I believe we are in a make-or-break era for American evangelicalism, and that the corruption of so many of our shepherds is simply a very strong sign that the entire ship is sinking. Not the invisible church, mind you; the Lord always upholds and strengthens us, and the gates of hell will never prevail against us. But anyone who’s been in evangelicalism for more than a few decades can see the corruption and decay that has developed over time and is now settling all around us. Dare we just stare at the tables, or does the Lord call us to do more than that?

From my vantage point, this is not a moment to be “sad” that yet another major ministry leader behaved corruptly. It’s a moment to get angry, because anger at corruption — especially corruption in the church — is a godly thing! We should be angry that, once again, the name of Jesus Christ has been smeared and subjected to ridicule. Angry that God’s people have been used and discarded, over and over, to help men like this become evangelical stars with almost no real accountability after their fall. Angry that there is so much corruption among the high-status ministry men who ought to be the most godly people there are, men of impeccable integrity, and yet so many are frauds and enablers.

Corruption in the church shouldn’t “sadden” you so much as anger you, because it is heinous sin. It isn’t “sadness” that God will unleash on the ungodly at the end of days, is it? It’s wrath. But, like God, our anger at sin and corruption has to be a godly anger, one that is driven by the hatred of sin but also the unshakeable desire to see the Lord glorified by the way His people live. Especially those who are our pastors and ministry leaders.

Do I have all the answers or next steps in view? Certainly not. But corruption has been on my mind, since reading Navalny’s excellent memoir (which you should read), and I can’t help but apply some of his observations on Russian corruption to where we are as a church in America. Such is the way of fallen man, except the church is supposed to be full of fallen people who are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb!

The best move, it seems to me, is to pray. Really pray. Already, the Lord has been exposing so many of these corrupt men. Pray fervently that He would continue. But more than that, pray for His forgiveness, wisdom and power to break through all of evangelicalism’s corruption and revive His church once again in a fresh move of the Holy Spirit. Pray that we would love and obey the Lord Jesus like never before and develop the godly character He would have all of us exhibit (John 15:5). Pray that our pastors and ministry leaders would be true men of God. Pray the Lord would raise up new, godly men to replace the corrupt leaders that He is bringing down.

In his final entry to his prison diary, Navalny summed up how he was handling the potential prospects of dying for his anti-corruption crusade, and his answer summed it all up: “My job is to seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.”

In any fight against corruption, doesn’t that have to be the bottom line? Please revive us again, dear Lord. We are helpless to fight the corruption without You.

“O LORD, I have heard the report of You and Your work, O LORD, do I fear. In the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.” Hab. 3:2

The latest skirmish started with Christian Nationalist favorite Joe “The Sin of Empathy” Rigney commenting on another CN’s post concerning the Statue of Union, a 90-foot sculpture of the Hindu “god” Hanuman that stands at the Sri Ashtalakshmi Temple site in Sugar Land, Texas. Posting over a short video showing the statue, Rigney remarked: “Anyone know if Michael Cassidy has anything going on these days?”

Cassidy, readers will recall, was the man who, back in December 2023, destroyed a Satanic Temple display in the Iowa State Capitol. Claiming “I saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged,” he initially faced a felony hate crime charge for his actions. He later pleaded guilty to an aggravated misdemeanor charge in order to get the felony hate crime count dropped, admitting that he “partially dismantled a display in the Iowa State Capitol Building, without a right/license to do so.”

Judging from their reactions to Rigney’s question (which may or may not have been serious), Christian Nationalists of the Woke Right variety now seem to think that Cassidy was an important trailblazer, with many appearing eager for a repeat of the “go around physically destroying idols” stunt. Mind you, this Hindu statue was constructed by Hindus and sits on the grounds of a Hindu temple; it’s not sitting in a corner of a taxpayer-funded state Capitol somewhere, although even that illegal act of Cassidy’s did nothing to advance the gospel or destroy Satanism (which the Satanic Temple doesn’t even believe or practice).

Noting the legal, constitutional and biblical problems with false-religion statue destruction, Midwest Baptist Theological Seminary library dean and professor Matt Millsap asked Rigney, “Are you encouraging trespassing and destruction of private property? Are you suggesting that in America, Christians have the right to free and unhindered religious expression, but Hindus should not?”

And then another little online war broke out.

The CN side, with its typical emotional outbursts, was all for destroying the Hindu statue and, further, eradicating all non-Christian religions in America (“Christianity should be privileged and sand-demon-worship should be banned!” argued one, as if Jesus Christ becomes the Savior and transforming Lord of anyone’s life through a simple political fiat). The anti-CN side, on the other hand, argued against the concept by exegeting and citing Scripture and defending the importance of our religious liberty, which – news flash! -- clearly benefits Christians. In return, the latter were met with very deep CN counter-arguments, such as “Shut up, fed.”

Again, it is just this sort of incident that often leads me to think: Why fight with these people, like a few of us have been doing for two years now? Why even bother countering the insane ideas these people put forward? Most of them just block, insult, lie and argue like third-grade schoolyard bullies, anyway, showing no good-faith willingness at all to be corrected by Scripture or a sound argument.

But then I remember why we must fight. God commanded us in His Word to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3) and to “fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Tim. 6:12). This fighting, however, isn’t in the category of the useless controversies or the unreasonable quarreling and fighting among ourselves that Scripture clearly commands Christians to avoid. There is a time and a place to step in and publicly correct and biblically rebuke false “Christian” moral dictates or “destructive heresies,” because they undermine the gospel, leading the sheep astray and dividing and damaging the Body of Christ. As each of us has time and opportunity, we must fight for the truth of God’s Word as He alone gives us the grace to do. It is simply our duty as Christians, regardless of the results we may or may not see.

Imagine, for example, what would happen if some CN crazy actually did travel to Sugar Land in a fit of faux holy war and destroyed the Hindu statue.

Remembering that every Christian is anti-pagan idol, we nonetheless understand that destroying someone else’s property is illegal and wrong. Second, the Hindus have the same constitutional right to freedom of religion that Christians do, and they have a First Amendment right to put up a statue on their temple site. Third, trying to destroy a Hindu statue in Jesus’ name would reflect horribly on the gospel and the Body of Christ as a whole.

Just as Christianity comes under hostile public scrutiny whenever a famous pastor falls, an attack on a Hindu statue would end up erroneously painting Christians as akin to Shiite Muslims in a new “Christian” form of wild-eyed jihad. Talk about undermining and harming the cause of Christ!

Meanwhile, post-statue-destruction, all the Hindus who erected the statue would still be lost, so how would that act help them in any way to believe that Christ loved them and died and rose again to save them from their sins? In fact, such an act would harm the advancement of the good news of salvation and falsely announce to the world that Christians care more about destroying physical idols than they do about the eternal destiny of the people who built the statue in the spiritual darkness of ignorance. If any Christian actually does care more about attacking an idol than seeing the salvation of a lost sinner for whom Christ died, then it is to his shame, and he is worthy of strong rebuke.

What’s more, the idea that Christians should go around attacking and destroying idols is not biblically defensible. Consider the Apostle Paul’s arrival in Athens in Acts 17. He had every reason, under CN logic, to go around tearing down all the idols he saw, but he didn’t do that. Instead, he used the opportunity God gave him to reference the pagans’ altar “to an unknown God” as a jumping-off point for a tremendous description of who the true Triune God really is and a public proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. “For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed,” Paul proclaimed. “He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”

And guess what happened? Some pagans said they wanted to hear him again on the topic. And others “joined him and believed.” That’s the right way to honor Jesus – by loving and evangelizing those who need Him, reasoning with them, as Paul did, to come to Him who is the only mediator between God and man and the only way to be saved. As Paul understood well, the outward idol isn’t the main problem, anyway; the inward idolatry of the heart is what must be addressed.

To reiterate, none of this means that we CN critics are idol-supporters. Of course not! But neither Paul, nor we, are called by God to clean the outside of the pagans’ cup just so we can pat ourselves on the back and get a chance to preen on Tucker Carlson’s show afterward. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. And we are here, therefore, to love sinners as Jesus does and to make disciples of all nations. Let the gospel triumph, not the illegal, totalitarian and often foolish impulses that are so much a part of CN.

This is just a small example of why I think it’s critical to continue to do battle against CN –- and other unbiblical errors —in a public way, as the Lord leads each of us to do. False teachers are on the rise in these last days, and they are publicly poisoning the church, often online, taking advantage of the fact that many Christians get more of their beliefs from false teachers on the Internet than from their own pastors or denominations in person. By God’s grace, we have a duty to fight for the faith against any who would falsify it, twist it, add to it, take away from it or undermine it, keeping in mind that we, too, always have to be open and responsive to the rebuke and correction of Scripture.

John Calvin once said, “A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.” That is right on the money. And yet, we can’t forget that “the battle is the Lord’s.” He is the One who saves, justifies and sanctifies. We only plant and water, while God gives the growth. And it is He who will advance His gospel through us. It is He who will finally separate the wheat from the chaff, as well.

Until He calls us home, may we who love our Master keep on barking.

The crux of all the criticisms that the Christian Nationalist-captured and Christian Nationalist-adjacent crowd have lobbed at me over the past two years basically comes down to some version of this: “Janet used to be so conservative. She used to be concerned about all the cultural issues that we’re trying to fight, yet she’s turned on us! What happened to her? She’s insane now. She’s the new Russell Moore! She’s the new David French!”

I imagine both Russell Moore and David French would find that last line to be hilarious (and someone online really did say that about me), but you’d imagine that if someone went that far in criticizing me, they’d at least offer up some evidence that I’m no longer a conservative. But they never do. Because they can’t.

In fact, I’m still a staunch conservative who’s never changed any of my positions on any cultural issue I ever tackled on Christian radio. Let’s recap.

I decried sexual abuse in the church in 2012; I still decry it. I exposed Mark Driscoll in 2013 and said he was disqualified from ministry; he obviously is disqualified. I went after what I termed “Big Gay,” in every way, for years, exposed and explained the dangers of Revoice in 2018, when no one had ever heard of it, stood firm against so-called “gay” marriage and “transing” and Drag Queen Story Hours and spoke at multiple conferences (and founded one) to take a strong biblical stand against all of it. I stand by everything I believed then, because I still believe it all.

I also spent hundreds of hours defending the lives of the unborn, arguing against open borders, supporting our military, defending our Constitution, standing for Israel, opposing all the COVID tyranny in our government and criticizing every aspect of the cultural Marxism of our day, outside the church and inside — including inside the Southern Baptist Convention. And when I saw more than a decade ago that the Twitter-eschewing Carl Trueman had coined a very useful term, “BigEva,” I was an early adopter of the term on Twitter to critique the power players in evangelicalism (I only mention this because some of my critics are now trying to smear me as “BigEva.” Give me a break!).

My point is that no one who’s criticizing me on the increasingly Dissident Right has ever produced one shred of evidence that I am no longer a political conservative (and I’m obviously biblically conservative to the hilt). What they are doing is smearing me because I am not drifting away from political and biblical conservatism, as they are. I’m still exactly where I’ve always been. I’m just trying to call them back to biblical and pro-constitutional sanity, but that’s not the zeitgeist in the “conservative” movement right now, and so they’re mad at me.

See, what has happened is that many of my former friends, associates and contacts in the evangelical subculture who used to like me just decided to ride the wave when conservatism got infiltrated by Christian Nationalism — not the caricature of the term that the Left used to smear normal Christian conservatives a few years back, but the Woke Right version that has become oh-so de rigueur. A lot of these go-alongs just didn’t realize what was really happening. Many still don’t. They liked that new people were popping up to “own the Left” and “fight for what is right.” They loved that the Daily Wire’s Megan Basham came along to write a book about how shepherds on the Left are “for sale.”

But let me explain my side here. You guys are looking at something one-dimensionally (“but they’re right on the cultural issues”) that is multi-dimensional in scope (the CNs’ underlying philosophy is unbiblical and completely deceptive). President Reagan had a famous line that is applicable here: “Trust, but verify.” He was referencing that wisdom as it applies in politics, but that principle also must apply in the church, especially in an age of so many false teachers and false prophets. We have to be biblically discerning.

Yes, American Reformer is against “transing” the kids. I agree with that; what Christian wouldn’t? But American Reformer also defends a Nazi jurist and denigrates the Constitution and unapologetically republished a retooled Communist Manifesto, for heaven’s sake.

Its own William Wolfe deceptively says there is no such thing as the “Woke Right,” while being one of its main leaders inside the church (and falsely stating online that the organization he directs to conquer the SBC for CN is a “national nonprofit,” sans any produced EIN, when it’s provably just an “assumed name” of American Reformer). He mass-deletes his X timeline regularly to purge posts containing things like antisemitic-infused phrases and Heil Hitler references and a crack-pipe meme sent to a black critic. He prayed with heretic Paula White-Cain in the Oval Office and bragged about it.

Shall we also talk about Stephen Wolfe’s “we need a Christian Franco/punish the heretics and blasphemers under CN” garbage, Joel Webbon’s denigration of women, American Reformer co-founder Aaron Renn’s embrace of Critical Theory, AmRef editor-in-chief Timon Cline’s embrace of “good deceit” and the antisemitism and white nationalist ideology that has been spreading like wildfire through their circles and beyond?

As for Megan Basham, she contacted me before she published her book, “Shepherds for Sale,” to get some information from me about BigEva. She seemed like a nice person, and I appreciated that she was tackling some of the same stories that I’d covered for years. It was great to have more company.

But guess what? Her book was full of errors, inaccuracies, mischaracterizations, unfair claims that were based on quotes taken out of context, an inexcusable lack of interviews or attempts to interview her subjects and even lifting material off Wikipedia (read my previous Substacks and X posts with the details). I’m a conservative, guys, but the errors in that book are real and provable. And when many of her subjects came forward to object to the unfair treatment they received in the book (including Marvin Olasky, her former boss at WORLD), Megan inexplicably and weirdly doubled down.

I’ve criticized the Evangelical Left for a very long time, but it is just wrong to misquote someone or misinterpret someone, take someone out of context, draw false conclusions based on a premise and then — when you’re publicly corrected by person after person after person — refuse to apologize or edit the book again or even pull it altogether. It is wrong to misrepresent anybody, on the Right or the Left, and I was simply holding to that same principle when someone on “our side” did that. Not only is that behavior unethical, but those kinds of errors destroy your credibility and erase any potential impact that a well-crafted argument with airtight hard proof would have achieved. I didn’t move Left. I was just trying to hold critics of the Left to the same standards that you know we would insist upon from critics of the Right.

Also, does it matter to anyone that Megan has had the CNs’ back from the get-go, even though she’s in the position to expose this awful movement? Does it matter that she’s basically done lots of free PR for Doug Wilson, arguably the subculture pioneer for promoting this disgusting form of Christian Nationalism (Stephen Wolfe’s “The Case for Christian Nationalism,” you’ll recall, was published by Canon Press)? Or that she recently spoke at a conference put on by openly antisemitic, white-nationalist ideologues in Texas, a conference that even super-conservative Texas GOP politicians abandoned when its founders’ views were made public (again, see my X feed for details)?

My point is this: All of you conservatives who defend this rot aren’t acting like conservatives, because conservatives — both biblical and political ones — believe in truth. In right and wrong, yes? Principles that govern us in every situation. Biblical morals. Biblical ethics. Biblical standards for everything. Individual liberty and justice. And maybe, if you’re like I am, the entire, brilliant Constitution and the good old three-legged stool of Reagan conservatism guides your politics, instead of the latest form of GOP populism that includes little things like on-the-ground support for “gay” marriage and hurrahs for evangelicals praying with heretics in the Oval Office. What is going on? Am I not allowed to notice and object to the disturbing shift? And lest you try to use this as evidence that I’ve somehow moved Left, I haven’t. I’ve never voted for a Democrat and never would. But if biblical and conservative principles guide you, and you see those who used to hold them begin to abandon them, isn’t it right to speak up?

When it comes right down to it, those who are “worried for me” and think I’m “bonkers” have no solid argument to prove I’ve moved Left at all. They’re just tired of my relentless opposition to CN. Fine, you’re sick of me. I have no problem if you want to mute or block me online. But understand that if I’m relentless against CN, I’m relentless because I am a biblical and political conservative who just sees the five-alarm fire that you guys — high on politics and the quest for more political power — apparently don’t see.

Along with other Christians in my position, I see the conservative downgrade, biblically and politically. I see the abandonment of the gospel taking place, as former “conservatives” put the lure of political control over Scripture. I see the apathy toward applying biblical principles to CN if a celebrity you like is involved. I see the nonchalance toward godliness and a rise in rage and hatred among people who are supposedly Christians. And I also see a whole lot of rising evil that you guys are either missing or ignoring. I feel a Christian duty to warn you about it. That is all I’m doing.

So no, nothing happened to me other than I am trying to do the right thing because I believe, wholeheartedly, that the biggest cultural concern the church should have right now is Christian Nationalism, a movement that has the potential to do catastrophic damage to the church and beyond.

So CN “conservatives,” insult me as you will.

But let me ask you a question: What has happened … to you?

For instance, American Reformer’s William Wolfe — head of the AmRef “assumed name” known as The Center for Baptist Leadership — couldn’t post enough fawning tributes to himself on his X feed yesterday, after he got into the Oval Office with a group gathered to meet with and pray for President Trump.

There’s William, posting pictures of himself praying. There’s William, reposting Woke Right friends dutifully praising him for being so awesome and impressive. There’s William, oddly posing with even Christian Nationalism critic Owen Strachan in front of Trump’s Tesla (that’s a whole separate post). And there’s William, announcing that BigEva’s day is done and that he is now among the “new statesmen and new leaders” who are in charge.

Yet Jesus said, “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.” (Matt. 6:5-6)

In that same gospel, Jesus also told us, “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Matt. 23:12)

Are those still biblical truths to be believed and obeyed, or are they mere options left over from the now-bankrupt BigEva era?

And what of the fact that Wolfe is pictured just a few figures away from prosperity-gospel heretic and White House Faith Office head Paula White-Cain, dutifully bowing his head as she lays her hand on the president’s shoulder for group prayer? What is going on here?

Of course, it is both right and biblical to pray for our government’s leaders. We all agree on that. But prayer should never be done for show, nor can Christians pray with heretics, especially if the said heretic is the one leading the prayer effort! What fellowship does light have with darkness (1 Cor. 6:14)? Didn’t the Lord tell us in Matt. 7:15 to beware of false prophets, who come to us in sheep’s clothing “but inwardly are ravenous wolves?” Or is the Bible now less important than getting your mug into the Oval Office so you can football-spike your emerging greatness with a preening photo on social media? Frankly, it’s gross.

And what of the whole “woman pastor” issue here? The Woke Right is famous for griping to the church that women are pretty much the main problem with everything that ails Christendom, the family, the workplace, the ministry, politics, traffic, you name it. And Wolfe is well-known for his failed efforts last year to get the SBC to pass the Law Amendment, a measure that would have banned women from pastoral positions at member churches. I don’t believe there’s a biblical case to be made for female pastors or elders, either, but if Wolfe really believes that, then what is he doing as a bit player alongside self-proclaimed “Pastor” Paula White-Cain? Why does she get a pass as he quietly submits to her spiritual authority?

It’s a valid question, because there he is in a second picture on Facebook, grinning among men at a faith-leaders conference table as the heretic “woman pastor” holds court. William, aren’t you the same guy who was trying to pass an amendment at the SBC to ensure no SBC woman could do even a fraction of what White-Cain does in her church and televangelist “ministry?” What of 1 Timothy 3 now? Titus 1? The biblical order of creation? Or do those Bible passages only become relevant when the power you seek is power over the SBC?

The answer is packed right into the question, for to be amazed by the hypocrisy is to miss entirely what these Woke Right guys are all about: power, power and more power. Case in point: Pastor Joel Webbon of Right Response Ministries, who is perhaps regarded as the worst among the Woke Right misogynists. He’s said on his webcast, “I don’t want to see women in the public sphere.” He’s said women can’t even pray in front of a congregation. Yet guess what he said about Wolfe bowing his head and praying under the leadership of White-Cain, who is clearly both a woman and a false teacher? “Good to see William Wolfe in the Oval Office with President Trump, regardless of who might be in the room. Take the win. It’s a big one. Patriots in control.”

Translation: Go ahead and let that woman heretic lead you, William, because clearly we TheoBros are now taking control (even if it was actually White-Cain who was in control). But again, doesn’t the Bible speak to such situations in passages like 1 Cor. 15:9-13, which tells believers to avoid associating with those who call themselves Christians but are actually immoral, greedy, swindlers or idolaters? Of course it does! These guys don’t care, though. Power will soon be theirs! Moo-hoo-ha-ha and all that.

I’d issue a timely reminder that this unchecked lust for worldly and ecclesiastical power rarely ends well, especially when you read what God’s Word says about pride and about the Lord’s complete power and sovereignty over the affairs of even the most ambitious men (recall soberly how God

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reduced the power-mad King Nebuchadnezzar to eating grass like the ox in Daniel 4).

Dream all you want now of political power and compromise Scripture as much as you want, men of the Woke Right, but God will have the final say over how this movement ends. You may be feeling proud and emboldened now, but your spiritual trajectory is getting worse by the day. And the Lord will not be mocked.

“The proud look of man will be brought low, and the arrogance of men will be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.” (Isa. 2:11)

During the Super Bowl broadcast on Sunday, the oft-criticized campaign aired another commercial aimed at drawing viewers to, as it says, “rediscover the love story of Jesus.”

This year’s “What is Greatness?” ad featured, among other images, a still of a man hosing down a wall of graffiti that said, “Go Back,” and another of two men embracing at an event with rainbow Gay Pride objects in the background, with one of the men in a John 3:16 hat. The ending tagline? “Jesus showed us what greatness really is.”

American Reformer co-founder Nate Fischer and American Reformer initiative head William Wolfe both reacted to the ad online.

“He Gets Us seems designed to alienate the biggest group flocking to churches in recent years (young men),” Fischer posted on X last evening. He later added a poll in one of his posts, saying, “You must choose one,” with the choices of “I’m With Her” or “He Gets Us.” Today, Fischer posted another follow-up: “Super Bowl takeaway: Most of the world has moved on from woke. Most except the NFL and ‘He Gets Us’ evangelicals.”

American Reformer’s William Wolfe, who is the executive director of American Reformer’s “assumed name” initiative The Center for Baptist Leadership (more on that in a minute), reposted another comment: “He Gets Us is running anti-Trump, pro-illegal ads .. very inappropriate!”

What these American Reformer leaders failed to mention, however, was the fact that American Reformer took a $110,000 grant in 2022 from the Servant Foundation, the very group that devised and launched “He Gets Us” three years ago.

It’s right there, in black and white, as grant-recipient organization No. 76 on the Servant Foundation’s 2022 990 Form, Schedule I. The donation also is confirmed in a DataRepublican.com flow chart, which tracks the path of American Reformer’s grants.

Last year, Fischer also criticized the 2024 “He Gets Us” Super Bowl ad, called “Foot Washing,” in an article at American Reformer. After lamenting the Wokeness on display in the ad, Fischer wrote: “He Gets Us epitomizes an approach that is pervasive today in institutionalized evangelicalism. If the goal is to attract people to Christianity, it will fail. If the goal is to bend Christianity to support the interests of the regime, it is well-designed. American Christians need a different approach. This is why American Reformer exists.”

To be fair, I generally agree with Fischer about the particular weaknesses of the “He Gets Us” ad in 2024 (and I didn’t like the other ones very much, either, including the one that aired last night), but mostly because the gospel of Jesus Christ is nowhere to be found. Yet a search for any American Reformer commentary on the campaign prior to Fischer’s 2024 remarks did not immediately yield any articles, even though American Reformer was up and running. Just the same, Wolfe recently blasted Christianity Today’s Russell Moore online for affirming the same “Jesus was a refugee” line that “He Gets Us” pushed in an ad called “Refugee,” which aired during the 2023 Super Bowl.

The problem I really have with Fischer’s article is the hypocrisy and lack of relevant self-disclosure. It’s worded as though American Reformer is totally uncompromised on the matter of the “He Gets Us” ads when, in fact, the organization took a substantial amount of money from the very organization that launched the initiative in the first place. But American Reformer never discloses this. It seems to me that that is an ethical necessity for an organization that seeks to influence and shape the actions of other Christians.

So why, then, was American Reformer willing to publish an anti-“He Gets Us” commentary in 2024? One significant correlation of note is that as of 2024, the Servant Foundation was no longer affiliated with “He Gets Us,” having handed over the reins of the initiative at that point to a newly formed nonprofit group, called Come Near. Readers may wonder: Was American Reformer’s editorial decision at all impacted by the fact that the Servant Foundation was no longer running “He Gets Us” in 2024? Then why not just say so? It wasn’t wrong to take the grant, but just be honest about it.

Moreover, this all comes right on the heels of another, much worse American Reformer scandal that occurred last week.

On Thursday, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Matthew Millsap posted a document online from the Texas Secretary of State’s office, showing that The Center for Baptist Leadership – launched by American Reformer last year, with the aim of exerting increased control over the Southern Baptist Convention – isn’t exactly what it has been claiming to be.

Though the CBL website states that “The Center for Baptist Leadership is a national nonprofit,” the state document debunks that claim, revealing that CBL is just an “assumed name under which” American Reformer operates.

As Millsap put it: “The reason The Center for Baptist Leadership does not have a separate Employee Identification Number (EIN) from American Reformer is because it *is* American Reformer. They are legally one and the same entity. All donations to The Center for Baptist Leadership are donations to American Reformer.”

Why is that a big deal? First of all, it’s rather shocking that an ostensibly “Baptist” organization that’s working hard to gain control over America’s biggest evangelical denomination is making a false claim about its legal status on its website. Also, per the IRS, CBL must have its own subordinate EIN, even if it is operating legally under American Reformer’s EIN. As of this writing, American Reformer has not publicly revealed what CBL’s subordinate EIN is – or even if it exists at all.

Second, donors who thought they were giving money to an upstanding “Baptist” renewal group may not be too happy to learn that they were actually donating to American Reformer, an extremist Woke Right site that has been embroiled in multiple controversies since its launch. The biggest of them likely occurred in December 2024, when New Discourses’ James Lindsay submitted a hoax article to American Reformer that was just a retooled version of the Communist Manifesto, complete with a fake “Marcus Carlson” byline.

The point of the hoax was to see if American Reformer would affirm the Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels arguments for communism if the altered manifesto instead became a Woke Right critique of liberalism. Embarrassingly (but rather predictably), American Reformer bit. Not only did the site publish the hoax piece, but it hailed the essay as a “powerful article.”

And American Reformer’s troubling track record just keeps getting longer (remember its ridiculous “The Constitution is Not Holy Writ” article, which I critiqued in May?).

Critic Blake Callens recently argued there are many more reasons American Reformer is an organization to be avoided (I highly recommend that you read his whole article, here):

“ … they have run multiple articles promoting the political philosophy of an unrepentant Nazi party member, its Editor-in-Chief published a manifesto on supposedly Christian ‘fortress building’ that included the philosophy of a Nietzschean positive eugenicist (who has since publicly advocated for negative eugenics, including abortion to prevent miscegenation), and they ran an essay from Stephen Wolfe claiming that true hospitality is deporting the ethnic other. Their sister business, New Founding, where the secret society lodge president and Chairman of the journal is CEO and the journal’s Executive Director is Managing Partner, started another business with a literal Nazi pornographer. .. As for the ‘Executive Director’ of ‘The Center for Baptist Leadership’ himself, among other things, he once compared a multicultural worship service to grooming gangs and has tweeted what clearly appears to be well-known neo-Nazi code-phrases.”

As of this writing, the American Reformer team is working hard to ignore the “not-so national nonprofit” scandal, undoubtedly in the hopes that it will go away. But it shouldn’t go away.

The integrity of a nonprofit organization, especially one that is working hard to influence and direct conservative Christians and influence their churches, is absolutely nonnegotiable. The leaders of American Reformer and its “assumed name,” The Center for Baptist Leadership, have no business regularly decrying the lack of transparency in the SBC, as they do, while eschewing transparency themselves.

And when the organization took more than $100,000 from a foundation on the one hand, but only formally criticized that foundation’s well-known initiative after control of “He Gets Us” changed hands (coincidentally or otherwise), that’s something that it should disclose and openly explain. If you’re going to make a habit of insisting on the need for transparency in others, it’s vital that you first show them how it’s done.

Enter “The Antioch Declaration,” billed by its collaborators as: “A Statement on Racial Ideologies Threatening the Church.” Among its drafters and initial signers are Doug Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho; James White, founder of Alpha & Omega Ministries; Joe Boot, founder of the Ezra Institute; and Jeff Durbin, pastor of Apologia Church in Arizona.

The men state that they are coming together to oppose “the ideas of some contemporary leaders and influencers seeking to introduce anti-gospel racial categories into the church” and to “identify and resist a rising tide of reactionary thinking emerging on the fringes of our own circles.”

Who are these “contemporary leaders and influencers,” and what is this “reactionary thinking” of which they speak? They never name the former, but the “reactionary thinking” they reference includes blatant anti-Semitism, kinism, Holocaust denial and white nationalism. And it’s coming from a growing swath of younger “Woke Right” men -- who often are called the TheoBros -- in their churches, social-media feeds and, worst of all, personal circles.

But search the declaration in vain for any detailed explanation of why the collaborators only now feel compelled to oppose the ideas of the contemporary “Woke Right” leaders or identify the rising tide of reactionary thinking in their circles. That might require an admission that other Christians painstakingly “identified” all this rot in their circles to these men a long time ago, and they didn’t do anything meaningful to address it.

Right out of the gate, the declaration cites the incident in Antioch, which the Apostle Paul references in Galatians 2:11-14. There, Paul recounts how he rebuked the Apostle Peter to his face. Peter had been eating with Gentile Christians, but he had stopped doing so in order to appease the Judaizers, who believed that Gentile Christians must uphold the Mosaic Law. Paul upbraided him for this, stressing in Gal. 2:16 that both Jews and Gentiles are “not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.”

Strangely, The Antioch Declaration uses the Antioch incident as an example of “compromising the gospel of Jesus Christ by subjecting it to racial barriers” and attempts a strained parallel between that mischaracterization and their reasons for addressing the “Woke Right” TheoBro mess. It’s not a great exegetical start, considering that the issue Paul had with Peter was not his alleged subjection of the gospel to “racial barriers” but his functional denial of the gospel, period.

The declaration goes on to deny some of the abhorrent dogmas of the TheoBros, including the idea that it’s possible to harmonize Christianity with “the racial and anti-Semitic theories of Adolf Hitler and neo-pagan doctrines of the Nazi cult” and the idea that “Jews are in any way uniquely malevolent or sinful, that Judaism in its multifarious expressions is objectively more dangerous than other religions, or that it represents an exceptional threat to Christianity and Christian peoples.” The collaborators also affirm that the Holocaust is a matter of historical certitude and that “the Jews are as all other men … in need of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ.”

Casual observers might ask: All well and good, but exactly who is believing and saying all of this? These collaborators said this declaration was about “identifying” reactionary thinking, but thinking is merely a human action. It is the actual people who think -- people whose thoughts are expressed through verbal and keyboard output. Yet the declaration, for all its admittedly good and appropriate denials and affirmations, fails to name even one leader or person in the collaborators’ “circles" who believes or advances the ideology and reactionary thinking it was drafted to rebuke.

This only makes the irony of launching this declaration with a reference to the Antioch incident that much more striking. When Peter was in error, Paul not only rebuked him to his face, but he recorded the rebuke in his letter to the church in Galatia – and God further ensured that Peter’s error and Paul’s rebuke were recorded for all time in His Word! So why be so vague?

There’s no need to get into the complicated, “inside baseball” backstory to The Antioch Declaration (it involves a German pastor, a podcast and a leaked Zoom call; feel free to look it up), but suffice it to say that there’s likely more to this declaration than mere pastoral-care concerns. The TheoBro leaders and followers, it would appear, have just become inconveniently bad for branding.

Consider the link between many of these collaborators and Joel Webbon, a small-church Texas pastor and “Woke Right” Christian Nationalist agitator. He was a virtual unknown two years ago. But through untold hours of working to create a name for himself online and successfully drafting better-known Christian leaders to be part of his webcasts and conferences, he is now increasingly known for his myriad offensive positions and remarks.

He’s highlighted many of them in his X posts, including: “America has long had a separation of Church and State. Perhaps one day we might also have a separation of Synagogue and State.” He’s also written: “You thought Christian Nationalism was scary. Enjoy Jewish Nationalism.”

In his webcast, Webbon recently declared Judaism to be “parasitical” and told an interviewer that the Talmud is “uniquely hostile” to Jesus Christ and Christians, compared with other religions. He’s also advocated against allowing practicing Jews to serve in public office and said that “if you are not being called a Nazi, then you are not pushing against the post-war consensus hard enough.” Webbon also is a favorite of many TheoBros who openly affirm white-nationalist and anti-Semitic ideology.

Disturbingly, some of the very men who collaborated on The Antioch Declaration helped Webbon’s star to rise:

• Wilson spoke at Webbon’s Right Response Ministries conference in 2024. So did Boot.

• Both Boot and White spoke at Webbon’s Right Response Ministries conference in 2023.

• Webbon announced in May that Durbin was slated to speak at the Right Response Ministries conference in April 2025 and released a graphic including Durbin’s picture. Shortly afterward, thankfully, Durbin’s name disappeared from the speaker lineup.

• Wilson, White, Durbin and Boot all have done webcast interviews with Joel Webbon.

It’s certainly true that some of these collaborators have criticized Webbon by name elsewhere; White comes instantly to mind. And perhaps they all appeared with him unwittingly and, now, regretfully. That can happen, and no one would blame them if it had, as long as they admit their unintended error and cop to it.

But if that’s the case, why didn’t they just call out Webbon and those like him by name and express their repentance over lending their reputations to help popularize him? Why not do like the Apostle Paul and also name some of Webbon’s many “Woke Right” leader friends, who continue to enable the young men about whom Antioch Declaration expresses distinct concern? Why not name the worst of the TheoBros? Or are there just too many names to list?

It’s also worth noting that Wilson has an openly stated political and church PR motivation for collaborating on The Antioch Declaration. Pete Hegseth, who’s been tapped to become the next U.S. Secretary of Defense, is a member of one of Wilson’s CREC churches, and Wilson has admitted he is concerned about potential blowback.

In an oddly veiled “interview” Wilson posted at his website, he stated: “(Hegseth) was already going to be attacked as a white nationalist, far-right extremist, a theo-fascist, and all the rest of their tired drill. That was already going to happen. He is already being attacked as being part of our circles, and as someone who has been influenced by little old me.

“And so then, like there was a signal given or something, a bunch of guys, non-astute, let us call them — Nazis, Nazi-adjacent types, and aficionados of Nazi iconography — pop up in CREC circles, and we have ourselves our controversy. This means that the commies, during Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, will attempt to slander him with this kind of stuff. And they don’t even have to make up any of the raw material for their slander.”

So unsurprisingly, it seems Wilson didn’t sign onto this declaration purely out of biblical motives. In fact, as I wrote back in September, he’s long delayed “a direct moral and biblical repudiation of the rising racial prejudices and anti-Semitism among ‘Woke Right’ Christian Nationalists in his own backyard.” Has he made references to various “Woke Right” problems over time and stated that some of his own views aren’t in line with the extremes of the radicalized TheoBros? Sure, but it all kind of adds up to the line: “I can’t hear what you’re saying, because your life is too loud.” Especially when he just admitted that Hegseth’s political confirmation was what finally made him speak up.

Consider his recent commentary on Webbon, whom he is “not saying is a crypto-Nazi” (faint praise indeed) but did accuse of “displaying a calloused pastoral ineptitude when it comes to understanding and responding to the dank anons” who post hateful, white-nationalist garbage.

Wilson further acknowledges that Webbon called for these “dank anons” to attack and hound anti-Woke Right Owen Strachan, senior director of the Dobson Culture Center, off X. Yet instead of saying, “Webbon should be ashamed of himself for wanting Strachan to be hounded off X,” Wilson instead reminds Webbon that he shouldn’t do that, because he doesn’t know if the anons who would do his bidding are feds or under church discipline.

He also hails Webbon for finally signing a (ED. NOTE: kinist-tainted) statement condemning Nazis. Says Wilson: “It’s about time!” The irony is beyond rich.

It’s also relevant to reiterate that Wilson’s Canon Press published 2022’s “The Case for Christian Nationalism” by Stephen Wolfe, which kicked off this whole “Woke Right” Christian Nationalist impulse at the start. It is an utterly awful ethno-nationalist book (one that Wilson also endorsed) whose author notoriously posted the infamously dubbed “Eleven Words” on X: “White evangelicals are the lone bulwark against moral insanity in America,” a spin on the “Fourteen Words” of white nationalism. But apparently we are supposed to ignore all that.

And Wilson is hardly kicking his endorsed author to the curb, either, saying Wolfe “has not yet violated any of the terms of his contract. In his Twitter exchanges online, he can really be rude and ungracious, but he is right 80 percent of the time … Stephen has assured us that he is no kinist.” We should apparently all feel so much better now and pay no attention to the way-under-calculated “20 percent” of the time that Wolfe says or writes something that is totally unbiblical and indefensible.

Awkwardly for Wilson, Wolfe’s former podcast host was the famously outed “anonymous” racist Thomas Achord, who co-authored a book on “natural relations.” Wolfe told people on X to “buy this book by my friends.” Wilson wrote that Achord deserved to be fired from the Christian school where he worked but noted: “What if it comes out a couple years from now that Stephen Wolfe knew about Achord all along, and agreed with all the dark stuff he said? That would not reveal the true meaning of ‘The Case for Christian Nationalism.’” So judge the book, but the “80 percent OK” author should be left alone? This attitude is very much in keeping with the mood of The Antioch Declaration, which aims to “identify and resist reactionary thinking” but apparently not enough to come down on the actual leaders or “reactionary thinkers” who are responsible for spreading it.

The Antioch Declaration does have some good content, but it’s overshadowed by the fact that its collaborators both waited so long to do it and the fact that they just can’t seem to manage a biblically based, name-’em rebuke to Webbon, his comrades in TheoBro influencing or their cadre of white-nationalist fanboys. Nor can the collaborators bring themselves to say anything much stronger than “we deny” and “we affirm” about such insanely obvious, shouldn’t-even-need-to-be-stated truths and errors.

Let’s just be honest. When you get to the point where you have to tell people — even on the supposed “fringes” of your circles — that Nazis are bad, that the Holocaust really happened and that Jews are not inherently evil, then maybe your circles have developed much bigger problems than you’re willing to admit.

"Sure, the guy got away with it," the politician might say to an objector, "but that wasn't my fault. I agree with my constituents that this guy is a bad guy. I said he was bad and even yelled at him on TV. What more do you want? My hands are clean!"

This is the old dodge we know as "plausible deniability," a concept the Cambridge Dictionary defines as "the ability to say in a way that seems possibly true that you did not know about something or were not responsible for something."

Plausible deniability isn't just a problem in politics, either. Given some recent developments in the ecosystem of the Moscow, Idaho-based Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, the church entity's media-savvy pastor Doug Wilson appears to be employing a similar tactic to avoid issuing a direct moral and biblical repudiation of the rising racial prejudices and antisemitism among "Woke Right" Christian Nationalists in his own backyard.

This issue first began to catch fire back in February, when Blake Callens, author of "The Case Against Christian Nationalism," released an X post thread, outlining evidence of white nationalist/kinist ideology and antisemitism finding open support among members of a CREC church, Christ the Redeemer in Pella, Iowa. Callens showed group pictures of its pastor and other church members gathering with known white-nationalist authors and provided online evidence that they shared similar ideology.     

A few days later, Wilson responded to the thread in two blog posts (here and here), while also taking to X to accuse Callens of being a "slanderer" for "ignoring" the Pella CREC church's January 2023 "statement on ethnicity" -- leaving observers to wonder how not typing something into a computer could possibly be characterized as "slander," which is spoken defamation.

Also accusing Callens of "slander" was Pella member Shane Anderson, who was among those named in the thread. Highlighting that the Pella church session made the statement against racially motivated sin, Anderson insisted he was not a "kinist or white nationalist or racist."

Besides, Wilson wrote at the time, the CREC is working on a "memorial" -- a kind of statement the CREC says it issues "on which a confessional statement has not yet been made" -- to deal with problems on the "ethnic balance" issues within. And by the way, the Pella church, Wilson claimed, "was attacked for ministering to and fellowshipping with some folks who would not have been included on the committee that drafted our memorial." This, as he also called Callens "unhinged" and told him to "pound sand." The best defense is a good offense? Not very ministerial.

Seven months later, online searches indicate that Wilson's promised CREC "memorial" has not yet materialized publicly, while recent statements from Anderson and other CREC-affiliated figures have only underscored that statements and pending statements aren't doing much to fix the very real and continuing "ethnic balance" issues in Wilson's church body -- or among "Woke Right" Christian Nationalists, in general.

Recent case in point: Anthony Diehl, a CREC church member, came under fire days ago for posting that he now understands why Wilson and CREC pastor Uriesou Brito "are working hard to root out antisemitism amongst our ranks. When they both started speaking on it, I thought it was reactionary, but it's growing quickly and deeply, and it's pretty disheartening, to be honest." Brito responded: "Thanks for your testimony through all of this."

Awkwardly, Internet sleuths soon posted a number of Diehl's posts denigrating Jews as "owning the entire porn industry," criticizing another poster for having a "Jew star" in a bio and stating that "Hitler did have a point." This is a "testimony" against antisemitism worthy of a CREC pastor's praise? 

Also a few days ago, Anderson -- under his "DailyGenevan"  handle on X -- posted: "Uncomfortable question for Americans who believe our myth of equality: Which social/societal approach would be more likely to bless the people of Haiti with an expansion of the gospel and its good fruits: democracy or slavery?" He also commented on another post about the low IQs of Haitians, while also claiming that he wasn't advocating for their enslavement, yet remarking: "And people still argue that slavery is inherently unkind."

Additionally, Anderson posted an article that advocated for racial segregation in schools and asserted that a "race realist" could answer an opponent by saying, "Everyone is a white supremacist of some sort."

But Wilson, as of this writing, has not uttered a peep about any of it. Why should he? Well, not only is he at the helm of the CREC, but it could be argued reasonably that the "Woke Right" Christian Nationalist movement owes its very cultural ascension to him.

It was Wilson's Canon Press, after all, that published Stephen Wolfe's "The Case for Christian Nationalism," the 2022 book that launched this whole new, twisted blend of cultural outrage, antisemitism, racial hatred and creepy authoritarian yearning for an American version of "theocratic Caesarism" in the first place.

Wilson also endorsed the book, writing: "The Case for Christian Nationalism is a carefully reasoned case for an approach that our nation had at our founding, and should never have abandoned. We are today living in the wreckage of that abandonment. Stephen Wolfe is to be thanked for having the courage and learning to show us our way back.” Yet two years after the book's release, the quickest perusal of the fruit of this movement doesn't yield a thankful heart for Wolfe, so much as it brings the Lord Jesus' warnings in Matthew 7:15-20 to mind.

It also has been Wilson who continues to appear in media interviews (and at conferences and in roundtable discussions) with some of the other biggest names in this dangerous Christian Nationalism movement: Andrew Isker, Joel Webbon, Oklahoma State Sen. Dusty Deevers, Eric Conn and  Brian Sauve, to name a few. And yet, so voluminous is his writing and online commentary and interview output regarding Christian Nationalism that no one possibly can consume it all, leaving Wilson the opportunity to deny just about any bad position he's taken by pointing out that you failed to consume the very opposite position he took in this book or that article or this video over here.. Plausible deniability, indeed.

The bottom line is that it's outrageous that media-ubiquitous Wilson -- the prolific political and cultural icon, the man Tucker Carlson called "the Christian nationalist they warned you about" -- apparently doesn't think this or myriad other examples of "ethnic imbalance" in Christian Nationalist circles is worthy of even one simple, sharp, public rebuke. Are we not to heed the words of Eph. 5:11: "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them?"

No doubt any critique lamenting Wilson's lack of public urgency about the matter would be met with yet another laborious explanation that CREC memorials like this take time, folks. And remember that the CREC never does anything its adversaries say it should do, because this is about God. And we certainly wouldn't want to interfere with the "fellowship" within a bunch of -- how did Wilson put it online? -- "people who are in dire need of pastoral care working through their ethnic issues," people he says "should be simultaneously brought to the Lord's Table, and also kept away from microphones."

Maybe if Wilson turned down a few more microphones himself, particularly those offered by some of the worst men in "Woke Right" Christian Nationalism, he'd have time both to rebuke those who need rebuking and address why his delay in speaking out hasn't been confined to mere months. Wilson writes: "There have been CREC discussions for a few years now about how some CREC members and adjacent folks have been conducting themselves online, with some of that connected to Pella."

A few years? What's the holdup in dealing with this trend of besetting sins? What is stopping Wilson from offering at least a general public reprimand and statement condemning such reprehensible behavior? When you are at the top of your church body, with a big subculture presence to boot, you certainly don't need a communion-wide "memorial" or drafted doctrinal statement in order to put out an X post containing some honest Christian conviction.

Why not say something like this? "I am grieved to see a growing and disturbing number of people within the Christian Nationalist movement, and even within my own communion, who are engaging in antisemitic and racially offensive speech. Jesus Christ, our Jewish savior, told us to love our neighbors. The apostles and prophets upon which the church was founded were Jewish, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20). Heaven will be filled 'a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb (Rev. 7:9).' Antisemitism and racial animus is absolutely unbiblical and ungodly and will not be tolerated in the CREC, and I call upon anyone engaged in this sinful behavior to stop and repent of it immediately."

That is not a violation of Matthew 18:15-17. In fact, it would be a fully appropriate and needed statement for members of the CREC, “Woke Right” Christian Nationalists, the whole Body of Christ and that ever-watching world.

Also, something tells me that if a number of Pella church members suddenly started getting sex changes or declaring themselves "non-binary," Wilson wouldn't wait years for a "memorial" to condemn it. It's all a matter of priority.

Addressing openly stated antisemitism and racial hatred within the CREC -- or anywhere within the ranks of the Christian Nationalism movement that Wilson helped launch -- also dare not be delayed for another year or two, especially not as we consider that the German Christian movement's sinful embrace of Nazi antisemitism is becoming frighteningly more relevant to our own situation every day.

More and more Christians are noticing this evil shift and are speaking up against the growing prejudice against the Jewish people and those of other racial backgrounds that we see within Christian Nationalism. I praise God for them.

To Doug Wilson, I say: Join us. It’s time.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven ... a time to keep silence, and a time to speak." Ecc. 3: 1, 7

It's truly unbelievable to watch. No matter how many errors and misrepresentations Basham is proven to have made, no matter how many citations she gets wrong, no matter how off the mark she is on actually proving her central thesis and no matter how nonexistent her journalistic ethics, the Believers keep on Believing that the mountain of accumulated evidence against her just makes their Daily Wire heroine a Super-Size combo of a Christian Carl Bernstein and Leftist-Busting Luther for today's church.

So dedicated are these Believers that some who were most behind me when I exposed Mark Driscoll's plagiarism in 2013 have managed to ignore completely my evidence on X that shows Basham's book contains lifted and rephrased passages from Wikipedia, complete with two of Wikipedia's same footnotes, and one of them doesn't even prove the claim she was making. Doesn't matter, they're thinking. Because ... we Believe!

This is why I was glad to see Kevin D. Williamson, a journalist and former longtime columnist at National Review, write what I consider to be an appropriately scathing review of Basham's book. I particularly liked his main title: "Bearing False Witness: Megan Basham's 'Shepherds for Sale' is Not a Smart Book." It's the best headline yet for an anti-"Shepherds" review. And boy, does he rightly take her to task.

"Reviewing a book like this is like trying to argue with an avalanche — an avalanche of stupidity and error, to be sure, but an avalanche all the same," Williamson writes. " ... The author can make enough errors in a dozen words that the critic needs 400 words to correct them. And so one ends up writing an annotated companion to a work that was not worth reading in the first place, much less annotating."

Amen to that. In digging through the book on my own, that's exactly how I've felt. There are so many errors, of so many kinds, on so many fronts, and it would take so long to explain why they were wrong, from so many angles, that I had to give up in exhaustion. It's just too much work, and none of the Basham Believers are swayed by silly things like facts, anyway.

But the "Bearing False Witness" angle desperately needs to be addressed. How is it that self-described conservative Christians have reached the point of total apathy over a "Christian" book that repeatedly and obviously bears false witness? And why are they so pack-like in ferociously attacking even the few conservative Christians who recognize that it is, in fact, sinful to jettison truth, ethics and logic just to "own the Left?"

As R.C. Sproul quipped in the popular meme: “What is wrong with you people?!”

I honestly don't know, but let's tackle the logic problem first, because this is where the intellectual dishonesty of the Believers is so crystal clear. It's also not a surprise that Basham -- known not just for her inept reporting, but for her strident, ceaseless self-defense techniques online -- has a problem with logic herself.

For instance, she posted this on X after Williamson's article appeared online:

"There is a certain class of conservative writer for whom their highest aspiration is to be viewed as intellectually sophisticated. The greatest condemnation they can imagine is to sneeringly call someone 'not smart' (or some acerbically inventive variation thereof). Thankfully, I have never had a background that would even allow me to pretend to be among this class. I do not aspire to admiration for my mental acuity. I aspire to truth and wisdom."

First of all, who responds to a brutal review about her journalistic incompetence by doubling down on not being fit to run among the intellectually sophisticated or the mentally keen -- and expressing pride over it?

Worse, Basham commits two flagrant logical fallacies in the process of hailing herself for rising above the need to be smart: an Ad Hominem (dismissing the opinion of people who value "smart" books just because they are "a certain class of conservative writer," rather than directly addressing Williamson's arguments) and a False Dilemma (presenting a false choice between being "viewed as intellectually sophisticated" and "aspiring to truth and wisdom," as if it is impossible to be smart, truthful and wise all at once).

Basically, it's a way to pat yourself on the back for being “above” the need to make intellectually sound arguments in your book, since it was intellectually sophisticated people who pointed out that, as a matter of fact, you didn't make intellectually sound arguments in your book. Huh?

I mean, how embarrassing. But there's more! In fact, anyone can sniff out the logical fallacies of Basham and her Believers simply by putting her statements and/or their statements into this handy-dandy online Fallacy Detector, found at logicalfallacies.org.

The Believers, in fact, have been drowning in logical fallacies themselves as they've attempted to defend Basham's many indefensible book errors. Here are a few random samples of some of the most common fallacious arguments they're making online, with some of the Fallacy Detector's analysis:

• "Even if Basham's book has the facts wrong, her thesis is true." Logical fallacies committed: Tu Quoque ("a logical fallacy (that) does not address the validity of the original accusation, as it only serves to distract from it”) and the Fallacy of Composition (a fallacy that "makes the assumption that one part of something will apply to the whole, or that the whole must apply to all the parts").

• "People who are getting upset about Basham's argument are only showing that she's over the target!" Logical fallacies committed: Ad Hominem (the people criticizing Basham's book should be disregarded since they are obviously bad people), Appeal to Emotion (this "occurs when an argument is made that is based primarily on emotion or feelings, rather than facts and logic; this fallacy is often used in an attempt to manipulate the audience into accepting a particular argument or position, regardless of its validity or truthfulness") and Strawman (a strawman is "asserting a simplified version of the opponent’s position that is not accurate so it can therefore be easily debunked.")

• "The quote in the footnote is wrong, but it's OK, because the person said that quote somewhere else." Logical fallacies committed: Tu Quoque ("answering criticism with criticism") and the Fallacy of Ambiguity ("the argument implies that just because a quote was said elsewhere, it can be assumed to be correct in the context provided").

• "Even if she made mistakes, Basham is right." Logical fallacies committed: Ad Hominem, Circumstantial (dismissing "the author's mistakes as irrelevant to the validity of their conclusions, suggesting that personal circumstances might influence the argument rather than focusing on the argument itself"), Begging the Question ("when an argument simply reiterates the same point over and over again without adding any additional evidence to support the conclusion") and Appeal to Authority (which "makes the argument that if one credible source believes something .. it must be true").

I'd also argue that Basham and her Believers are living out daily the Fallacy of Proof by Verbosity (also known as proof by intimidation), which the Fallacy Detector describes as "an argument that is far too complicated and verbose for an opponent to reasonably address all the particulars, or the person making the argument is so well-reputed that one takes his claims as truth."

Williamson aptly referenced that first point -- so verbose is Basham that for roughly every dozen of her words, at least 400 are needed to refute them. Then, the Believers reiterate the second point every day online: "Megan Basham, because she is Megan Basham, is above your 'factual errors and journalistic ethics exposure,' you Leftists, you conservative sellouts, you Enemies of Believing!"

As the kids say these days: Yeah ... no.

Regardless of the Believers' reckless blind faith in her, Basham is definitely not above the truth. She's definitely not above the Ninth Commandment, and she's not above journalistic ethics, either. She's not above anything that is a basic requirement for anyone who is writing an expose of any kind. As her former boss, the longtime WORLD Magazine editor-in-chief Marvin Olasky, put it, Basham is just a "bad reporter." Who are you going to believe on these matters, Believers: Experienced Christian journalists or your lying eyes? Never mind. We already know the answer.

They keep going back to the same dumb, fallacious argument: It's all about The Thesis! "The Thesis is true! That's what matters -- the Thesis!" What is this Thesis? Basically, it's that a gaggle of Leftist billionaires and progressive power brokers are changing the American church because evangelical leaders traded the truth for a Leftist agenda! I take issue with that Thesis -- and the defense of the Thesis, because Basham doesn't actually definitively prove the Thesis in her book (Remember? All the errors? Resist the urge to respond with your usual logical fallacies, Believers!).

This all reminds me of a relevant situation that I encountered during my first year as a full-time newspaper reporter.

On his way to our bureau each day, my editor at the time drove past a busy intersection that had a gas station at all four corners. One day, he came into the office to suggest a story to me, based on something he had noticed about these gas stations.

"Janet, there's a gas war going on down the street!" he told me. "Every day for the past few days, I've seen one gas station lowering its prices, and then the other stations lower theirs. Go down and interview the gas station owners to find out how the gas war is affecting their businesses!"

Off I dutifully went to the gas stations. One by one, I interviewed the managers, asking about the gas war, how they felt about the gas war and how the gas war was affecting their stations.

There was only one problem. One by one, each manager said the same thing to me: "There isn't any gas war. We don't even set the prices here. That's all done by corporate officials who live in another state, and so our prices at this station have nothing to do with the prices at other gas stations nearby."

Having uncovered the truth, I returned to my bureau and wrote a story that cleared the four gas-station managers of any "gas war" theories the locals (including my editor) might have had. I wondered at the time why I was even bothering to write the story at all, given that there was no story. But what did I know?

Unsurprisingly, my editor didn't like my story. "There is a gas war!" he insisted. "The gas station managers just won't admit it." Now I was in a pickle. As a young reporter, I didn't want to run afoul of my editor. But on the other hand, I knew his thesis was bogus. More than that, I had four sources on the record, saying that his thesis was bogus! I tried to make this case, but he just wasn't having it. The next day, there was my story on the front page, declaring that there was an old-fashioned gas war going on in town, and the gas station managers were trying to cover it up.

What?! Mortified, I wanted to crawl under my desk and never reappear. Instead, I returned to the gas stations and, one by one, profusely apologized to each manager. I explained that what I had actually written stated just the opposite of the story that got into the paper, because, against all the facts and quotes and the basic journalistic ethics of the situation, my editor just wouldn't let go of his thesis. All four of the managers, happily, believed me and forgave me and thanked me for coming in to tell them what happened -- but they were disgusted with my editor and, by extension, my newspaper.

And who could blame them? I was disgusted, too, because the thesis wasn't true. It didn't matter that I'd spelled the sources' names right or quoted them accurately. Even if had messed those things up in my story, it still wouldn't have mattered because, again, the thesis wasn't true!

And guess what? I have the same misgivings about Basham's thesis, too. As I've noted, I already covered many of the same stories and figures Basham covers in her book when I was a Christian radio host. I'm pretty familiar with the lay of the land that existed when most of her narrative was unfolding.

I think there are some bad actors in power positions in evangelicalism, for sure. And yes, there are outside groups who donate to some causes that impact evangelicals. But do I believe that all these church power brokers were just pure, conservative Christians whose only concerns were love for the Lord Jesus and fidelity to Scripture until George Soros (or the Leftist billionaire du jour) suddenly appeared from behind their office drapes with tempting suitcases full of cash? I realize I'm taking poetic license in the way I phrased that, but no, I don't believe even a straightforward characterization of that theory. The political and ideological compromise within evangelicalism and its connection to the influence of outside groups is a lot more complicated than that, which is why it is my opinion (and not just mine) that Basham's thesis actually was writing checks that her facts couldn't cash.

It's also a funny thing about outside groups. As it happens, Basham was a featured speaker at a side event during this year's Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, which was co-sponsored by the newly formed entity from the Christian Nationalist Woke Right known as The Center for Baptist Leadership (CBL), which was established and funded by another Christian Nationalist Woke Right group called American Reformer (read what I and some others have written about these entities and their leaders here, here, here, here and here).

The leaders of these two groups (which, for the record, are outside the church) are William Wolfe, executive director of CBL, and Joshua Abbotoy, executive director of American Reformer, both of whom have been entirely open about wanting more control over the Southern Baptist Convention.

Ex-federal official Wolfe has boasted on X about "scheming about how to save the SBC" and also posted a map of America, showing the geographical breadth of the convention with this comment: "You see that massive red block? That's the SBC ... the SBC might very well be the most vital Christian conservative institution out there."

Abbotoy, who's written about why America needs a "Protestant Franco" and has stated that "we're going to need a Baptist Pinochet," also aims to create "pioneer communities" in Appalachia.

Abbotoy posted online that "CBL is (an) answer to prayer and an incredibly high-impact investment for American Reformer. CBL envisions a reinvigorated SBC that uses its massive resources to help churches smartly navigate this negative world." American Reformer also organized a recent side event during the Presbyterian Church in America's General Assembly.

“Investment?” “Massive resources?” Does this really sound like a purely spiritual, gospel-inspired endeavor?

Yet Basham was center stage at the SBC side event organized and/or funded by these same outside groups. She’s appeared on American Reformer’s podcast, and her work also has appeared on American Reformer’s website. Same with CBL; see here and here.  Also note how CBL marshaled its forces to defend her terrible book, here and here.

The last linked article actually calls the book — presumably unaccompanied by a laugh track — “a new and unavoidable litmus test for Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders” and argues that “SBC elites’ response or non-response to Megan Basham’s New York Times bestseller Shepherds For Sale should be viewed by rank-and-file Southern Baptists as an important gauge of our denomination’s spiritual state and of these leaders’ fitness to continue to serve at the highest levels of our Convention.”

You read that right. CBL asserts that it’s not the inerrant Holy Bible that is the litmus test for determining the denomination’s spiritual state. It’s not the inerrant Holy Bible that serves as the gauge of ministerial fitness within the SBC. No, folks, forget 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. If you’re an SBC pastor who wants to know how you’re doing spiritually or wants to determine if you’re even qualified to serve your convention in leadership, then you’d better get in line with an error-filled book by a “bad reporter.”

Doubt no more the sheer idolatry of the Basham Believers.

If other Believers outside the CBL are so concerned about outside groups having an outsize influence on evangelicalism for political purposes, maybe all of this should concern them.

Maybe they should Believe in getting the whole story about any outside forces that may be seeking to undermine biblical faithfulness inside evangelicalism. More to the point, maybe they should trust someone who actually is a trained journalist committed to truth and ethics to investigate what is going on, someone who actually bothers to contact the people he or she is covering, someone who won't bear false witness or lift assertions and footnotes from Wikipedia or engage in logical fallacies in the process of fleshing out the real “outside group influence in evangelicalism” story.

Maybe the Believers should further understand that the very person they so blindly Believe in -- the one who couldn't even factually or ethically craft an airtight argument for serious threats posed to evangelicals from Leftist billionaires -- might be party to an even bigger story of that nature, which sure seems to be percolating right under her nose.

Not that she'd report on it. But my, what an interesting thesis.

Catchy title, for sure. However, the initial excitement about Basham's book has been quickly marred by the multiple Christian leaders who have been revealing problems in it, from incorrect or inadequate citations to outright misrepresentations and factual errors.

I've only just begun to read the book on Kindle. But already, I've found some additional problems with it, specifically inadequate and inaccurate reporting on donations to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. I found the errors after doing a book search inspired by new information that the ERLC just posted online about its funding. I wanted to see if Basham got the numbers right (and rest assured, I will continue to fact-check the book as I read further).  

Before I launch into the specific errors, though, I think it's important to state three personal facts that account for my interest in this book and the criticism that has arisen since its release.

First, during my 12 years as a Christian radio host, I reported in real time on many of the same people and events Basham covers in her book, including the ERLC, so the subject interests me. Second, I am both a biblical and political conservative who has long been concerned about the leftward drift and/or outright acceleration into progressivism in the evangelical world, so she and I share that same concern, as well.

Lastly, I began my career as a newspaper journalist: I was a reporter, a copy editor, a religion columnist, then an editor charged with guiding and thoroughly editing the work of multiple reporters every day. I can't shake my training or conviction that journalism must be done properly -- nor do I want to.

Let me also stress that my journalistic concerns here are unrelated to my personal feelings about problems, old or new, within the ERLC or among its leaders. And my concerns also have nothing to do with who I think should or who should not be donating to the ERLC, so anyone who might want to malign me as some kind of "turncoat lib" for insisting on fair and factual reporting standards would be lying (you Internet trolls know who you are). I am still as much a conservative as ever. I just concurrently believe in the absolute importance of truthful, thorough, fair, factual and ethical reporting, especially when you are trying to convince people that other people are worthy of exposure for misdeeds.

What did Basham get wrong in her reporting about ERLC donations?

Beginning on p. xx of her introduction to the book, Basham references the fact that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar donated to the ERLC through a private foundation called Democracy Fund:

" ... In 2018, another billionaire, eBay founder and longtime Democratic donor Pierre Omidyar, a Buddhist, dipped a toe into the evangelical influence game. His foundation made the first of several $50,000 grants to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the legislative lobbying arm of the nation's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. This contribution's stated purpose was to help combat America's alleged white supremacy problem."

To prove her claims, Basham cited ProPublica filings referencing the Democracy Fund's donations and a Democracy Fund article that offers this description of the ERLC as one of the recipients of its "multiple grants:"

"The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention hosted “MLK50 Conference”, a conference focused on racial healing and unity in Memphis, Tennessee, on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. We are supporting ERLC’s efforts to turn the energy from the conference into long-term action. We believe that faith leaders can play an important role in combating the white supremacist Alt-Right movement, white supremacy more broadly, and other forms of extremism."

That "white supremacy" reference is worth comment, but I'll come back to that in a minute.

First, we need to note that when Basham writes that the Democracy Fund gave the ERLC "several $50,000 grants," the word "several" actually means "more than two." In fact, not only did the Democracy Fund not give "several" grants to the ERLC, one of its (just) two $50,000 grants actually was returned to the organization -- a fact that Basham never mentions.

However, the ERLC mentioned it in its new FAQ website section, under "Financials," answering the question, "Did the ERLC receive a grant from The Democracy Fund?"

"The Democracy Fund provided a grant in 2018 for a project focused on racial reconciliation, an issue which has been an ERLC assigned ministry area for decades. The first grant from Democracy Fund ($50,000 received May 30, 2018) was used to fund a private convening of national leaders during the MLK50 Conference in April 2018 and to produce a church curriculum 'The Church and the Racial Divide: Finding Unity in the Race-Transcending Gospel' written by a Southern Baptist pastor and published by LifeWay Christian Resources. The grant also helped produce digital video resources on similar topics. A second grant of $50,000 was received on December 23, 2019, but was returned in December 2021, when it had not been utilized."

So not only did the ERLC not receive "several" (i.e., more than two) $50,000 grants from the Democracy Fund, but after it returned half the money it was granted, it ended up only receiving $50,000, period.

Why didn't Basham report the returned donation in her book, instead of reporting that the donation number was still $100,000? How many interviews did she do -- or attempt to do -- with anyone from the ERLC staff or one of its more than 30 trustees, for that matter, which could have revealed this vital piece of information? It's hard to know (especially since she's blocked me online), but the fact is that no one from the ERLC is quoted.

And it's not the first time Basham got that number wrong. She also got it wrong in a speech she delivered in June, before her book was released, at the "SBC at a Crossroads" event that took place during the 2024 SBC Annual Meeting. Here's the relevant excerpt of what she said from a transcript posted at the Founders website:

"In 2018, when the Democracy Fund was looking for evangelical leaders to help foster more 'constructive politics' in the U.S., it, too, turned to the ERLC. The purpose of the $100,000 grant it gave them was to pursue 'long-term action' against America’s alleged white supremacy problem. The ERLC took it for granted that the Southern Baptists it is supposed to represent would agree that one of America’s most pressing problems is white supremacy."

There's that $100,000 mistake again. But even more baffling is a contradictory claim Basham makes elsewhere in her book about the amount of Omidyar's contributions to the ERLC.

On p. 88, she reports a different wrong donation amount: "The Southern Baptists' legislative lobbying arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, is a fellow beneficiary of (Democracy Fund founder) Omidyar's largesse, to the tune of some $150,000."

How does $150,000 square with her previous (and erroneous) claim on p. xx that Omidyar gave the ERLC $100,000? Is she just running with the "several $50,000 grants" summary from earlier in the book, under the assumption that there were three grants? Or is she reporting that she somehow found new evidence of an extra $50,000?

It's hard to tell, since she throws out the $150,000 number without any citation at all. In other words, the reader cannot know where she's getting that number, because she asserts it without any endnote to back it up. Consequently, no one can check her source for accuracy. At least now we have the ERLC stating on its website exactly how much money it took from the Democracy Fund: $100,000 - $50,000 = $50,000. But we didn't get that number from Basham's book.

There is also a problem with her narrative about the "purpose of the (Democracy Fund) grant."

To recap, the ERLC stated that the $50,000 Democracy Fund grant was spent on an MLK50 leaders gathering, a church curriculum and video resources, Basham, however, makes no reference to any of that.

Instead, she cites on p. xx only the Democracy Fund's stated motivation for investing in the ERLC -- "this contribution's stated purpose was to help combat America's alleged white supremacy problem" - and leaves out that the funds actually were spent on a few one-time purposes that weren't nearly as sensational as Basham might lead readers to believe.

Worse, Basham said in her speech -- in remarks similar to those in her book -- this line: "The ERLC took it for granted that the Southern Baptists it is supposed to represent would agree that one of America’s most pressing problems is white supremacy."

In that case, she wasn't just quoting the Democracy Fund's own words; she was putting words into and magically extrapolating motivation from the brains of the ERLC leaders from afar -- without presenting any evidence that anyone from the ERLC ever "took for granted" anything of the sort.

Is this not begging the question? How would she know if anyone at the ERLC took anything for granted concerning the Democracy Fund donation if she never bothered to interview anyone over there who weighed in on the subject? (For those who want to know, there's also a section in the ERLC FAQ that addresses the issue of how it accepts donations from outside organizations.)

To be fair, there's nothing wrong with Basham including what the Democracy Fund hoped would come of the grant in the long run, nor is it wrong to report that a far-left organization gave money to a Southern Baptist entity. Southern Baptists deserve to know those things and can and should address their concerns about them with ERLC and SBC leaders, as they feel led.

But for Basham to leave out the more-mundane reality of where the Democracy Fund money actually went is simply not fair or balanced or comprehensive reporting. Again, why was Basham unwilling or unable to obtain interviews with any ERLC employees who could have given her the complete and accurate picture of the grant transaction and the actual purpose of it? Failing to include that vital information is simply bad reporting.

But there's more. Basham also failed to report accurate information on two other ERLC donations, which she references on p. 88 of her book.

There, she writes, "The Fetzer Foundation (sic), likewise, has gifted the ERLC $220,000. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg was good for another $90,000 -- and all this between 2018 and 2021 alone."

Is this true? Not according to what the ERLC just stated in its latest FAQ. Here's what it reported about The Fetzer Institute donation it received: "A grant was secured in 2018 from The Fetzer Institute for a project focused on courage, civility, and healthy democracy, a priority underscored in the 2011 SBC Resolution, 'On Civil Public Discourse.' The grant was for a total of $305,000 and was used to fund several specific projects."

So according to the ERLC, the Fetzer donation amount wasn't $220,000, as Basham reported, but $305,000. Why the $85,000 discrepancy? Where did she come up with the $220,000 number? Readers are left guessing on that question, because she includes no citation alongside that number to show her documented source for the figure, nor does she quote anyone from the ERLC saying that was the donation amount.

And what about that $90,000 ERLC donation that Basham states Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg "was good for?" Basham got that figure right: the ERLC did receive a $90,000 grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. According to the ERLC, it submitted a grant proposal in 2019 to the initiative for the State Level Criminal Justice Reform Project, stating:

"The proposal was accepted, and a $90,000 grant was received on March 24, 2020. From Feb. 1, 2020, until June 30, 2020, the ERLC worked with various Southern Baptist state conventions and pastors and leaders to lay groundwork for state level policy work, especially criminal justice reform based on the Trump administration’s federal legislation. The funds from this grant were used exclusively for the personnel costs of the project for the five months it was active."

All fine, except ... then comes another, familiar plot twist in the ERLC's statement:

"Due to COVID restrictions, the project ended prior to completion and the balance of the funds ($59,684.71) was returned to the organization on Feb. 24, 2022." 

Another grant returned! That means that, again, the donation initially given to the ERLC was not the same amount that the ERLC retained and used. The upshot is that, according to the ERLC, it only spent $30,315.29 of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's grant, while the rest went right back where it came from -- another fact that Basham doesn't report in her book.

But even that $30,315.29 wouldn't necessarily be right, if you're intent on tracking "Zuckerberg money," because the ERLC states that Facebook, Inc. also gave the entity a $50,000 donation in October 2020 for its "work in the emerging fields of technology ethics" -- another fact that Basham doesn't include in her book. Per its FAQ:

"Following the organization’s work on AI ethics, the Digital Public Square research project was launched by our team as a way to engage the ongoing challenges to free speech and religious freedom in our digital world. The grant came alongside the trustee-approved research project to provide additional resources for the research team, including books, journals, research material, and travel costs, as well as help support the design and production costs associated with the project landing page at erlc.com, the WeeklyTech Newsletter, and WeeklyTech/The Digital Public Square podcast (2020-2024). The remaining balance of this grant will help underwrite a research gathering .."

What's odd in this case is that the Facebook grant has been public knowledge for three years, so there was no reason not to include it in the book. This 2021 Baptist Press story discussed the Facebook grant:

"The (Digital Public Square) project is funded by the Cooperative Program, the SBC’s unified giving plan, but Facebook Technologies LLC also provided a research grant after the effort was under way. (Jason Thacker, chair of research in technology ethics,) provided assurances to the trustees and on the project’s website – www.erlc.com/digital – regarding the ERLC’s independence in accepting the grant."

Thacker added that the Facebook grant "was provided on an unrestricted basis, meaning the grant monies will be used at [the] sole discretion of the ERLC leadership team and board of trustees without any direct or indirect oversight by Facebook in research efforts nor any influence on project outcomes or resources produced."

I ask once more: Why didn't Basham report this? Did she ever contact Thacker to interview him about this additional grant?                                           

Admittedly, these ERLC donations are just a small slice of what Basham covers in her book, but since I already knew she'd misreported on the Democracy Fund donation, I was curious to see how closely her book mirrored the information in the new ERLC FAQ. As you can see, it wasn't a mirror image.

Keep in mind that I am also far from the only person with concerns about the quality, truthfulness and fairness of Basham's reporting in "Shepherds for Sale."

Pastor Gavin Ortlund has made two YouTube videos, outlining how Basham misrepresented him in her book.

VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer reported online that he was misrepresented, as well. Others have chimed in with screenshots of citation inaccuracies or even claims of outright errors, with "celibate gay Christian" Wesley Hill posting a screenshot of Basham claiming in the book that he and Revoice founder Nate Collins "graduated from a PCA seminary," when neither did.

But perhaps the most damaging criticism thus far came from Warren Cole Smith, president of MinistryWatch and former vice president and associate publisher of WORLD News Group, publisher of WORLD magazine. Far from a distant critic of Basham, Smith notes, "I recommended her to WORLD magazine, where she subsequently spent 10 years as a movie reviewer and culture editor."

And his critique was blistering:
 
"In order to arrive as close to the truth as possible, one of an opinion journalist’s most basic duties is to understand and convey the perspectives of people with whom he or she disagrees. Basham fails to do this in her book—and that leads her to get a whole host of basic facts wrong. It’s worth asking: If we can’t trust her with the basic facts, why should we trust her with the interpretation of these facts? None of the people I spoke with who were mentioned in the book (nearly a dozen for this article) had been contacted either by Basham or by fact checkers from HarperCollins or its imprint Broadside Books, the book’s publisher. Such fact checking is a common practice to avoid legal liability, but it’s particularly puzzling considering several of the people Basham criticizes have themselves published books with HarperCollins or its subsidiaries."

Smith goes on to note other errors in "Shepherds for Sale," with noted theologian and author Os Guinness asserting that Basham took one of his quotes out of context.

Not only that, but Smith shares an anecdote about Basham's false characterization of noted journalist Marvin Olasky, her former boss at WORLD, and her apparent violation of an off-the-record understanding, something quite sacrosanct in journalism. Smith wrote that Basham "grossly misrepresent(ed) Olasky’s position on the life issue, his approach to journalism, and his approach to editorial meetings, which, in addition to being off-the-record (a fact Basham ignored), he often viewed as teaching opportunities."

What was Olasky's reaction to what Basham said about him? He told Smith: "Megan is inaccurate if she’s saying I wanted to turn away from a pro-life position."

But perhaps worst of all for Basham was Olasky's later commentary on X about Smith's article and Basham's book -- ending with a stinger made more even sharp because Olasky knows both journalism and his former employee.

"Good, fact-based analysis by Warren. Others have also noted her many errors. The section about me has no footnotes or quotations, and seems to rely on hazy memories of an event five years ago. I'd rather remember Megan as a good movie reviewer than a bad reporter."

And there's the rub. Many people would say it doesn't matter that this book has errors, because the point is that “we must own the Left!” Actually, multiple instances of errors in a book purporting to make a case against the Left is a really great way not to own the Left. No investigation into a movement can remain credible if the reporter's work is inaccurate in the details, even here and there. Whether you’re talking citation problems, inaccuracies, errors, plagiarism or embellishments — all of those things add up to a journalistic fail, regardless of intent, regardless of a “broader point.” Just ask Jayson Blair.

And when your former boss -- with a long track record of journalistic excellence and achievement -- calls you out as a "bad reporter," it really doesn't matter what any of your journalistically ignorant fans say. You have to report factually, in context, with proper sourcing and interviews, with everything you write put in an ethical and fair way, and you have to do it all the way through whatever you write if your book is to have any credibility or impact at all.

Basham describes herself online as "Journalist Megan Basham" and "Keeper of Receipts." Given the importance of her book's thesis, would that it were so. It's just an insult to Basham's readers that so much of what's been fact-checked thus far in "Shepherds for Sale" fails to embody her lofty self-descriptions.