Shepherds for Sale: The Consequences of Bad Theological Ideas
Megan Basham’s book Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelicals Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda has struck a nerve. It is now a New York Times bestseller and the source of endless debate online. Many attacks have been hurled at Basham and her work. Everything from Kevin Williamson’s unhinged barrage of ad hominem attacks to attempts that claim she “misquoted” or took individuals “out of context.” I have followed much of the back and forth, and I believe Basham and others have sufficiently defended the accuracy of her work (see Basham, Sumpter, Strachan, and West).
Still, Basham kicked the hornets’ nest so attacks were inevitable. Most of these attacks act as distractions from her main point—how the secular left targeted evangelicals in an attempt to shift their beliefs. Basham’s work leaves no doubt this is exactly what leftist groups attempted to do. Yet, despite the title, Basham also makes it clear that not everyone named in her book is a “shepherd for sale.” This is a point many critics ignore. Basham writes:
While these [evangelical] leaders’ motives for such activities may be complex and sometimes unclear, the motives of their secular backers are simple.[1]
Are they [evangelical leaders] dupes or deceivers? Is it organic or orchestrated? Certainly, money is playing a role in some of these evolutions, there is no doubt, as we’ll see, that once-trusted evangelical leaders and institutions have yoked themselves to left-wing billionaires and their pet projects. But it need not always be explicitly transactional. Institutional prestige, seeing oneself lauded on CNN and in the Washington Post as more intellectually and morally advanced than the rest of the evangelical rabble, can also be a potent elixir.[2]
Basham wants readers to know that some of these leaders were likely duped, some genuinely believed in what they were doing, but what cannot be denied is how the secular left targeted evangelicalism. This is a massive accusation to make, and Basham provides plenty of evidence to support it.
Honestly, if you’ve been keeping up with the in-fighting within American evangelicalism, then much of the book will not surprise you. The battle over the heart of American Christianity rages on, and Basham’s work provides clarity over the fault lines.
The division is often found between the seemingly “uneducated” people in the pews, who lean to the political right, and some of those in leadership whose disdain toward such people is becoming harder to hide. Again, just look at the responses to Basham and her supporters. There is a strain of elitist snobbery within evangelicalism that is not only unattractive but also runs contrary to the very character of Christ in his earthly ministry.
Basham’s book is important because of the clarity it brings. I have fought some of these battles in many arenas from Christian higher education to denominational life. In short, this fight is not going away anytime soon, it is the inescapable reality of ministry in our moment.
There is an important question from Basham’s work that we must answer: Why is evangelicalism vulnerable to the lies of the left?
Evangelicalism’s Political Vulnerability
Part of the reason the left targeted evangelicals is because, politically speaking, they remain one of the largest roadblocks to the country’s full acceptance of leftism. Yet, as Basham notes, targeting the church is nothing new for those on the left.
Sadly, the history of American Christian institutions has often been the long story of small compromises leading to eventual spiritual death. For example, many mainline denominations were once thriving centers of orthodoxy, but today they are now whitewashed tombs with rainbow flags flying overhead. Church history is full of times of conflict over ideas. How different factions respond determines where they will end up. In short, ideas have consequences. Theological ideas, being of the utmost importance, carry the greatest consequences.
Basham notes that mainline churches did not abandon the faith without help. In the early 1900s, communists targeted these churches for infiltration. They sought to make these churches a foothold for Marxist ideology in hopes of taking the culture.[3] To accomplish their goal, Marxists targeted Christian leaders and pastors because they viewed them as the “biggest suckers of them all.” This infiltration was largely successful as the compromise and death of these denominations stand as a warning to us all.
As long as Marxism has been around, the faithful church has always been a hindrance to its spread. Thus, cultural Marxists are still targeting the church as a part of their “long march” through our institutions. American evangelicalism has been a constant thorn in the side of these cultural revolutionaries. To win the culture, the church must be silenced or converted.
Basham provides proof of how secular leftist organizations are currently targeting evangelicalism. If we compromise, we will end up spiritually dead, just like the mainline churches. We cannot serve both Christ and Marx.
With this history evidently clear, shouldn’t the church be more resistant to the siren calls of modern leftism? Sadly, this is not the case. Why, then, is evangelicalism vulnerable to having politics be the gateway to ultimate compromise?
The wisdom of Francis Schaeffer highlights the root issue, “The basic problem of the Christians in this country in the last eighty years or so . . . is that they have seen things in bits and pieces instead of totals.”[4] Many evangelicals operate with a functionally secular worldview. They have reduced their faith to the private arena of life, leaving them susceptible to outside influences in the public parts of life like politics.
The reason the left makes inroads within evangelicalism through issues like climate change, race relations, and immigration is that we see these things not as a part of a larger agenda, or as connected to a wholistic worldview, but as independent issues. If evangelicals would think in totals, as leftists do, then they would know that compromise on any of these issues invites the corrosive acid of the entire leftist worldview. The left just needs Christians to prop open the door to allow parts of their worldview in. In this way, the church allows the seeds of a rival belief system to be planted in the soil of the church. Eventually, its rotten and deadly fruit will come.
Leftists tend to think more in totals than evangelicals do. They aim to gain partial compromise on an issue, appealing to parts of evangelical morality, with the total goal of advancing their whole worldview. Step by step, as we embrace bits and pieces of leftism, we unwittingly conform to their whole system. Instead of these issues becoming a “gospel bridge” for us to convert them, they end up transforming us. Make no mistake, leftism is a totalizing worldview, and they evangelize others with a religious fervor.
Conversely, the church largely cuts off its cultural and political reasoning from the anchor of Scripture and the formation of a totalizing Christian worldview. We think and reason with bits and pieces and such trifles are insufficient to slay the behemoth of the leftist worldview. The truth is, if we swallow parts of cultural Marxism, it will metastasize and destroy the foundations of the Christian faith.
The choice before the American church is not just becoming shepherds for sale who actively promote leftism or being politically and culturally conservative. The choice is between recovering the totalizing worldview of Scripture or fading into oblivion. Ignoring cultural and political thinking is not a viable solution as it leaves us vulnerable to our main adversary. Cultural withdrawal will only assure the victory of leftism.
The choice before the church is either a return to thinking in totals or a slow and painful death. Thinking in bits and pieces abandons the sheep to the wolves. Either we speak clearly and distinctly as Christians in all of life, or we will surrender the world to the lies of the enemy.
Conclusion: Find a Faithful Church
One of the most heart-wrenching parts of Basham’s book is to read all the stories of people who sought out faithful churches but who were greeted on Sunday morning with leftist talking points. These stories hit home because it is a reality we are all too familiar with at Christ Bible Church. Many times, people come to our express both shock and gratitude, “We were beginning to think there were no churches like this anymore.” As a pastor, this reality breaks my heart. The fact is the culturally despised people in the pews often have a better cultural instinct than our leaders do.
I know faithful churches can be hard to find, but there are still many who refuse to compromise on these issues. For those looking for a good church, do not compromise on this, find such a church and support it. Demand faithfulness, and don’t compromise because the stakes are too high. This is one of the most powerful thing the average Christian can do to push back against this leftward drift in evangelicalism.
Pastor Levi Secord
Christ Bible Church
[1] Megan Basham, Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda (New York: Broadside Books, 2024) xviii.
[2] Basham, Shepherds for Sale, xxii.
[3] Basham, Shepherds for Sale, xvi.
[4] Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto (Westchester: Crossway Books, 1981), 17.
