Dear Reader,
Winter seemed to hit much of the country this week. Here in Montana, we were around -6 degrees midweek, with 2-3 inches of fresh snow on top of the 8 inches that have been sitting around for the past month. The good news is we’re supposed to be back up to a balmy 34 degrees today, so folks around here will be on the slopes in swimsuits by the weekend.
Let’s go to the mailbag. Here’s a text about the podcast on abortion from two weeks ago:
“You did a great job interviewing Catherine. I sensed your pastor's heart as you dealt with the tough issues. She has an amazing testimony. Kudos and thanks to you both.”
Indeed, Catherine was a great interview. This Instagram message is a new all-time favorite:
“Hi! I started following Megan years ago. I’m her hippy, liberal fan. I only disagreed with 50% of your newsletter this week; thus, I am concerned for both of us. Keep challenging me.”
Ha. This email from a Facebook friend/now new paid subscriber in Pennsylvania was nice:
“We've been friends on Facebook, where we've occasionally had an amusing conversation. Second Drafts was in its first incarnation. I was excited when you said you were bringing it back. I am drawn in by good writing, and you are a good writer. I'm often delightfully surprised by your eclectic choice of material and tickled by your off-beat/quirky/insightful sense of humor. All this and a biblical undergirding that is both inspiring and challenging. I enjoy reading what you write, and think you deserve to be compensated for it.”
Thanks for the notes, folks; I always love hearing from you, and as always, thanks for reading.
Craig
P.S.: Paid subscriber T-shirts are in the mail, just in time for the coldest winter weather of the year! Haven’t subscribed yet for extra podcasts and book reviews from Second Drafts? Do it!
Feature: “Covid & the Church”
Last week, I defaulted to a newsletter filled with multiple Hot Takes. This week, in response to a reader’s specific email, I’m dedicating the weekly Feature to a more nuanced news piece. I’ll shoot for my normal mix of Hot Takes and Feature next week; in the meantime, happy reading.
“The one who states his case first seems right,
until the other comes and examines him.”
Proverbs 18:17
“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
Matthew 7:3-5
Late this week, I received an email from a reader asking for my perspective on Megan Basham’s recent article, “How The Federal Government Used Evangelical Leaders To Spread Covid Propaganda To Churches,” as published in The Daily Wire. I’ve followed Basham since her days at World Magazine and had already identified her piece as a possible Hot Take this week. My reader’s letter made things more personal, however, and the issue seemed to warrant a closer look and a lengthier response. He wrote:
“I have not ever reached out to you about Second Drafts, but do want you to know I read it every week. I appreciate your insights and thoughts, especially stuff covering current events.
That said, I am a big fan of Eric Metaxas. I believe he is a very honest truth seeker without another agenda, something hard to come by these days. He can be a little wacky at times, but I trust him. He sent out a message this morning containing a link to this article. I am also a fan of Ben Shapiro and The Daily Wire, so I gave it a read. The article is mind-blowing, in my opinion.
My wife and I have struggled with institutional Christianity ever since our 5-year tenure with [name of parachurch organization redacted] in the early 2000s. That experience exposed us to the underbelly of the worldwide “Church,” and it wasn't pretty. Articles like this one, unfortunately, don't improve my notions of what the gatekeepers are doing.
When I read stuff like this, I immediately want to do something that will change it! I realize, however, there is very little I can do. However, as I pondered on it this morning, you came to mind. I would love to hear your thoughts and insights about what is exposed here. I thought it may provide you with some good material for Second Drafts as well.
Don't feel like you need to go deep here in a response to me. I know you are doing a lot these days to build on your blog and podcast. Just thought, your opinion could be valuable.”
Much to navigate here in terms of the claims of the article and the experience of my reader. With Proverbs and Matthew above as guides, let’s get into it.
The Article: A Quick Overview
For the sake of an initial overview, if there is a thesis to Basham’s article, it is this:
“[National Institutes of Health Director] Francis Collins has been an especially successful envoy for the Biden administration, delivering messages to a mostly-Republican Christian populace who would otherwise be reluctant to hear them. In their presentation of Collins’ expertise, these pastors and leaders [Wheaton College dean Ed Stetzer, The Gospel Coalition editor Joe Carter, the editors at Christianity Today, then-Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission-head Russell Moore, former Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) pastor and author Tim Keller, Saddleback megachurch pastor Rick Warren, theologian N.T. Wright, Substack journalist David French, and “hipster Christian publications like Relevant”] suggested that questioning his explanations as to the origins of the virus or the efficacy of masks was not simply a point of disagreement but sinful. This was a charge likely to have a great deal of impact on churchgoers who strive to live lives in accordance with godly standards. Perhaps no other argument could’ve been more persuasive to this demographic.”
The only evangelical leader receiving a pass from Basham’s conspiratorial accusations is southern California pastor John MacArthur, whose Grace Community Church continued to meet in-person despite Covid lockdowns. Basham quotes Keller in a joint interview with Collins, saying that MacArthur’s actions “represented the ‘bad and ugly’ of good, bad, and ugly Christian responses to the virus.” (Full disclosure: At the time, I wasn’t sure what to make of Grace Community’s response and could have gone either way; I just (thankfully) didn’t have anybody asking me what I thought.)
“A Man You Can Trust”
Church leaders aside, Basham saves her biggest critiques for Collins himself, questioning Warren’s labeling of the nation’s top geneticist as “a man you can trust” and presenting (and documenting with links) a litany of transgressions that include:
His “Mr. Rogers-like appearance and gentle demeanor”
His espousing of “nearly no public positions that would mark him out as any different from any extreme Left-wing bureaucrat”
His defense of “experimentation on fetuses obtained by abortion and direction of record-level spending toward it”
His endorsement of “unrestricted funding of embryonic stem cell research”
His support of “an agenda of racial quotas and partiality based on skin color”
His implementation of “new policies that require scientists seeking NIH grants to pass diversity, equity, and inclusion tests in order to qualify”
His declaring himself “an ‘ally’ of the gay and trans movements as an ‘advocate’”
His oversight of NIH’s “awarding of millions in grants to experimental transgender research on minors” and other millions “recruiting teen boys to track homosexual activities”
His (along with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s) intentional use of “their media connections to conspire to suppress the lab-leak theory” as well as bankrolling “the NIH funded gain-of-function coronavirus research in Wuhan”
Basham then wonders:
“How did Collins overcome all this baggage to become the go-to expert for millions of Christians? With a little help from his friends, who were happy to stand as his character witnesses.
Keller, Warren, Wright, and Stetzer all publicly lauded him as a godly brother. When presenting Collins to Southern Baptists, Moore gushed over him as the smartest man in a book club he attends that also includes, according to Time Magazine, such luminaries of the ‘Christiantelligentsia’ as The Atlantic’s Pete Wehner and The New York Times’ David Brooks.
In October, even after Collins’ funding of the University of Pittsburgh research had become widely known, Moore continued to burnish his friend’s reputation, saying, ‘I admire greatly the wisdom, expertise, and, most of all, the Christian humility and grace of Francis Collins.’ That same month, influential evangelical pundit David French deemed Collins a ‘national treasure’ and his service in the NIH ‘faithful.’ Former George W. Bush speechwriter and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson struck the most poetic tone in his effusive praise, claiming that Collins possesses a ‘restless genius [that] is other-centered’ and is a ‘truth-seeker in the best sense.’
Basham then summarizes:
“While these evangelical leaders were warning about conspiracy theories, Collins was waging a misinformation campaign himself—one these Christian megaphones helped further.
Why they did it is a question only they can answer. Perhaps in their eagerness to promote vaccines, they weren’t willing to offer any pushback to Collins’ other claims. Certainly, the lure of respect in the halls of power has proved too great a siren call for many a man. Or perhaps it was simply that their friend, the NIH director, called on them for a favor. If so, a friend like Collins deserved much, much more scrutiny.
There’s an instructive moment at the end of Warren‘s interview with Collins. The pastor misquotes Proverbs 4, saying, ‘Get the facts at any price.’
That, of course, is not what the verse says. It says get wisdom at any price. And it was wisdom that was severely lacking when so many pastors and ministry heads recklessly turned over their platforms, influence, and credibility to a government official who had done little to demonstrate he deserved them.”
Basham’s Article Is Not the Danger
In reading an article involving religion (in particular evangelical Christianity), it’s nice to read someone who is herself an evangelical Christian and knows the landscape as well as Basham. Whether at World Magazine or now at The Daily View, she has a good track record of having her finger on the evangelical pulse, especially compared to “religion writers” from outlets like The New York Times or Washington Post, many of whom view Christianity as a monolithic religion resembling (mostly) Catholicism.
The danger of an article like Basham’s is not what she has reported; it is well-documented and, at least with regard to Collins, accurately lines up facts with other pieces I’ve read on him. I can’t imagine the pressure he must have been under these past 12 years straddling the Enlightenment-induced chasm separating faith and science as head of the NIH. I don’t know if he is or isn’t an evangelical Christian, but I will say I’ve not trusted him in his role as NIH Director for reasons listed above.
What lines up less in Basham’s article are her conspiracy theories involving Collins’ “friends,” whom she makes out as providing lemming-like responses to his requests for help in addressing evangelical audiences about Covid-19. Though I don’t know any of the men mentioned personally, I am hardly a stranger to their ministries and their teaching as pastors and leaders in the evangelical world. Should they have asked more questions of Collins about Covid-19? Probably. Should they have been more careful about drawing hard and fast conclusions about a virus even when science was scrambling to get ahead of the ball in Covid’s early days? Certainly. Should they have not ham-handedly equated “loving one’s neighbor” with getting vaccinated in an almost neo-Fundamentalist way? Absolutely.
But I’ve never known any of these men—many of whose books I’ve read, messages I’ve listened to, and ministries I’ve followed for decades—to look the other way when it came to matters of truth and helping people. What would their motive have been here? Money? Doubtful. Control? Of what? Power or favors? Both seem contrived. Are these leaders perfect? No. When in the Old Testament, New Testament, or Church history have God’s leaders ever been? If anything, these men’s “sin” (for lack of a better word) is that they are simply pastors and leaders to whom people looked for timely and perfect counsel, but if there’s anything we’ve learned in dealing with the coronavirus, it is that timely and perfect counsel is impossible to come by.
From a journalist’s perspective (i.e. Basham’s), is it worth asking these leaders questions of collusion? Perhaps. But I seriously doubt those questions will lead to anything more significantly sinister than an (honest) statement that, “I made a mistake” (which, guys, if you’re reading this, might not be a bad idea right now).
The Real Danger Comes from Within
To sum up: just because there’s plenty that’s questionable about Dr. Frances Collins’ tenure as NIH Director doesn’t necessarily mean that the aforementioned evangelical leaders’ hands are dirty. Basham essentially says as much when she writes,
“This does not mean these leaders necessarily knew that the information they were conveying to the broader Christian public could be false, but it does highlight the danger religious leaders face when they’re willing to become mouth organs of the government.”
Agreed, but let’s not keep the discussion only at a distance; remember, this whole post is in response to a reader’s email, one that contains familiar phrases to those who have been around evangelical Christianity and the Church and have heard before:
“struggled with institutional Christianity”
“experience exposed us to the underbelly of the worldwide ‘Church’”
“what the gatekeepers are doing”
Christ’s people have always been accused of doing wrong things—atheism, for only believing in one God instead of multiple Roman ones; incest—for referring to one another as brothers and sisters and greeting one another literally with “a holy kiss”; cannibalism, for the Eucharistic teaching of “eating Christ’s flesh and blood.” The Church has always been (especially for her critics) an easy target.
Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, in their book, Why We Love the Church, write:
“I see the Church derided with mockery and scorn. I see critics exaggerating her weaknesses and incapable of affirming any of her strengths. I see many leaving the Church instead of loving her for better or for worse. I see lots of my peers who have 20/20 vision for the Church’s failings, but are nearsighted to their own pride, self-importance and mutual self-congratulation. I see a willful ignorance of the Church’s history, a simplistic understanding of its past errors, and childish impatience for her current struggles.” (138)
We are no different from the critics when we pick eight evangelical “big names,” assume the worst, and then extrapolate that assumption across the institutional Church (evangelical or otherwise). Doing so is neither fair nor true, and it blinds us from seeing the beauty of Christ working through the Church in people’s lives.
Most of the pastors I know (including the three at our local church here in Bozeman) chose not to take sides with regard to Covid; repeatedly, our Eucharist table was presented as open to the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, and neither was put forth as loving or hating your neighbor because, let’s face it, no one knew (or still knows) what the long-term effects—good or bad—of the vaccines may actually be. While there may have been some prominent evangelicals talking about “loving your neighbor” by social distancing, masking, and getting vaccinated, there were at least as many, if not more, expressing hesitation about the vaccine and not automatically making a “love your neighbor = vaccination” moral equivalency.
Yes, the Church is filled with people only Jesus can love, but I can’t show you from Scripture that Jesus wants it any other way. And yes, it’s true we can be hurt by others in the Church and many of us have been (believe me), but what often happens is the people who most want the Church to be for broken sinners are the first to leave when they realize that, hey, the Church is filled with broken sinners! In truth, the issues may flow out of our own hearts rather than someone else’s. DeYoung and Kluck:
“In all honesty I can say that in the times I've been hurt by Church people or been disheartened, the biggest problems, in the end, proved to be those that came from my own heart. This is not to discount external pressures or difficult situations or the ways in which Christians can hurt each other. Yet even with all these outside factors, my main issue has been me. I respond in sinful ways. I feel sorry for myself. I lose faith. I doubt the Word of God. I don't want to forgive. I stop hoping. I get embittered. I grow lazy. I don't stay in step with the Spirit. These are my sins from my heart. Others can make life difficult for me, I can make it unbearable.” (84)
As one of my pastors preached on 2 Samuel 15:7-17 a few weeks ago, “We can’t let our complaints against God’s covenant people be a cover for our own little coup.” Some might say this teaching makes it easy to let the Church off the hook; on the contrary, it’s the first step in making sure we don’t let the Church off the hook. As Peter urges, “…it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17a).
To close, let me offer Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s words in Life Together for contemplation:
“Anyone who loves the dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter even though the devotion to the former is faultless and the intentions may ever be so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.”
Jesus will build his Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her (Matthew 16:18). If you’re a Christian, trust him to do so, and join him in his work.
Peaches’ Picks: Fools Crow
In case you missed Saturday’s special Second Drafts book review on The World-Ending Fire by Wendell Berry, you probably didn’t see the announcement for February’s book. Since January focused on a non-fiction offering, February’s book review will be on the novel, Fools Crow by James Welch, a book recommended to me by a friend from church who grew up on the Yakama reservation in Washington state. Here’s the back cover write-up:
“In the Two Medicine Territory of Montana, the Lone Eaters, a small band of Blackfeet Indians, are living their immemorial life. The men hunt and mount the occasional horse-taking raid or war party against the enemy Crow. The women tan the hides, sew the beadwork, and raise the children. But the year is 1870, and the whites are moving into their land. Fools Crow, a young warrior and medicine man, has seen the future and knows that the newcomers will punish resistance with swift retribution. First published to broad acclaim in 1986, Fools Crow is James Welch’s stunningly evocative portrait of his people’s bygone way of life.”
Until next time.