Tribe Over Truth in Evangelicalism, Or How I Learned to Stop Making Friends

The Babylon Bee’s Joel Berry posted a throwback meme on X the other day, a picture of a man grinning into a camera under this headline: “Incredible: This Man is 100% Ideologically Consistent and Also He Doesn’t Have Any Friends.”

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.