FULL AUDIOBOOK - Tim Alberta - The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory - Part 2

he told us if you place your hope in the politics of this world you will be greatly shaken the sanctuary was silent I have so little faith in America but fortunately I'm sustained by a faith placed elsewhere Zan said it doesn't mean I don't care about America it just means I place my faith elsewhere I place it in a kingdom that cannot be shaken and that is the kingdom of Christ and that is the glory of the latter Temple that is greater than anything that has ever been or ever will be amen and amen amen nodded the people around meow the Pastor said pointing toward the communion elements let's come to the table and participate in the body of Christ Zan's story of Faith begins at age 15 raised an hour outside of Kansas City Missouri the the son of a prominent attorney who helped run the Missouri Republican party zand was a compulsory churchgoer but his real religion was music his gods were Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Hendricks Jesus of Nazareth was little more than an abstract character then one night he attended a youth Revival at Missouri Western State University there Zan had such a vivid encounter with Christ that he became a self-proclaimed Jesus Freak he began proz everyone he met and joined the Jesus movement that sprang from the charismatic renewal of the 1960s recall that the Greek word charism refers to a gift or favor that is bestowed often in a supernatural context with its emphasis on spiritual endowments the Jesus movement aimed to restore to Modern churches some ancient practices of the Apostles healing prophesying speaking in tongues this was a decentralized undertaking a non-conformist ground swell drawing its strength from the notion that Western Christianity had become complacent and consumeristic for kids like zand who was raised in a respectable Baptist Home the draw was irresistible when he was 17 Zan began organizing an avantgard Ministry called The Catacombs it was part Church part music venue part Coffee House and became a headquarters for young members of the Jesus movement in the Kansas City metro area in 1981 Zan decided to spin off the catacombs into an actual church he called it Word of Life and despite having no theological training whatsoever appointed himself lead Pastor he was 22 years old the church was a sensation attracting masses of college age and young professional Christians disillusioned with the stodginess of their congregations Word of Life quickly outgrew its original venue it moved and then moved again finally just over a decade after he' founded the church zhan broke ground on a vast new property with designs for a grand state-of-the-art Sanctuary that would represent word of life's arrival as a mega church these were heady times throughout the 1990s Word of Life would explode in size and influence zand went from garage band leader to Rockstar headliner regularly preaching to thousands of people every weekend we went through a period of time when almost every single Sunday it was a new record attendance Zan said by the metrics that Americans use to measure success in Ministry we had achieved it all people money power around the turn of the century however Zan began to sense that something wasn't right his church was full of nice people they had grown up together if not literally than by association from subversive teenage zealots to refined middle-aged church folk but they hadn't grown up spiritually theirs was a Christianity Zan began to realize so heavy on style and feeling and expression that it issued doctrinal substance in this sense they had become every bit as complacent and consumeristic as the churches they'd once rebelled against there wasn't anything counter culture about what we were doing this was the culture just with a few Bible verses drizzled over it Zan said we started off as these radical Jesus Freaks but over time we turned into a bunch of Republicans with Jesus fishes on our SUVs it all began to feel fil and thin zand had never been insecure about his lack of theological training but now it noded him he would come home Sunday afternoons feeling strangely unfulfilled like a man leaving a banquet with his stomach still rumbling I had a crisis of Faith but it wasn't about Christ it was about Christianity American Christianity the pastor recalled I just came to the conclusion that Jesus deserves a better Christianity than this and I needed to go looking for it he had no idea where to start zand by then in his mid-40s had spent his entire adult life stuck in this culdesac of charismatic Christianity where everyone reads the same stuff and it's very insular after stumbling for a while zand finally discovered the church fathers these were the experts who helped establish Christian doctrine in the ancient world Augustine of Hippo Gregory of Nissa irenaeus of Leon Maximus the Confessor known in academic settings as the patristics these men merged Christian philosophy with applied theology ology Furnishing zand with an intellectual understanding of Christ he never knew existed it was thrilling I had been embarrassingly ignorant of this stuff and I couldn't get enough Zan told me I found this thread after studying all the church fathers now I'm starting to read NT Wright and Walter bramman and Stanley howw and David Bentley heart and all these preeminent theologians I'm learning and changing I'm loving every second of it on this metamorphic Journey zand was slow to shed his former self he was still leading a massive religious Enterprise after all one that had certain expectations of its Pastor the 9/11 attacks had Amplified nationalistic sentiments inside the church fights over abortion and gay marriage were hotter than ever for a while zand kept on playing along indulging the culture wars and lending his Pulpit to Republican politicians finally in the summer of 2004 he decided enough was enough I stood up in front of the church and said I'm moving on we're going in a New Direction zand recalled the pastor did some nipping and tucking at first adjusting congregational norms and tweaking his preaching style at the margins not wanting to scare anyone off and then he got a phone call it was October 2004 in the thick of the campaign pitting President George W bush against against Democratic Challenger John Kerrey the local GOP boss told zand that Vice President Dick Cheney was coming to town for a rally would the Word of Life Pastor deliver the invocation zand was paralyzed by the request he did consider himself a nominal Republican both his father a judge and his brother a prosecutor had been active in the state party and besides it was an honor to be asked to pray over the vice president of the United States so why did he feel sick at the idea of saying yes after a few tortured days of deliberation zand accepted the invitation he met with Cheney personally he got the VIP treatment then he was pushed out onto the stage tasked with kicking off the event staring out at the Sea of people nearly 10,000 of them zand was overcome with guilt he saw members of his church everywhere draped in red white and blue and they saw their Pastor the guy who'd sworn to take the church in a New Direction lending his religious authority to the Republican Party the crowd is going absolutely wild zand recalled and I just heard Jesus saying Brian Brian why are you politicizing me that moment Zan believes was God ordering him once and for all to abandon the world he'd known and that's what he did after muttering the most innocuous prayer possible into the microphone zand exited the stage walked past the designated chair for him in the front row of the Arena found the parking lot and got into his car all the while praying silently for the Lord to forgive him the following Sunday and in the Sundays that followed Zan made clear to his congregation what the new Word of Life Church would be about I began to critique the American Empire as not a kind of biblical Israel but as a kind of biblical Babylon I told them that God was not on our side that God raised up Jesus not America the pastor recalled I was pretty direct about it you didn't have to read between the lines anymore they got it and then they left it was a slow leak at first a Sunday noow here a Bible study absence there and then a gusher entire clicks and social networks quit the church together people defected by the dozens and then by the hundreds within a few years of Zan's announcement the church had lost more than 1500 members the pastor was prepared for casualties but he couldn't have predicted the scale of the Exodus looking back the hardest part was overhearing all the accusatory Whispers how he'd succumbed to a weakened watered down Christianity when precisely the opposite was true they would say Brian's backsliding and if anything I was fronts sliding he said laughing suddenly I'm more committed to Jesus than I've ever been but they saw it differently because when you're stuck in that left right Paradigm that's all you can see they would say Brian's become a Democrat but I'm not a Democrat I'm a kingdom person I trailed the pastor's Jeep to a roadside Sushi Joint and parked alongside him rumaging through my belongings on the passenger seat I grabbed a notebook two pens and my recording device then I spotted God and cancel culture I was still chafing from my chat with Steven Strang the night before in Branson on a whim I grabbed the book walked into the restaurant and placed it on the seat beside me this Zan said drumming on the table between us was one of his favorite study spots it could be hard to concentrate inside the church everyone always needed something from the senior pastor here he could achieve solitude reading and praying and reflecting without interruption it was inside this restaurant that he conceived of his book postcards from Babylon the church in American Exile which was published in 2019 he wrote the book in the format of letters to his former comrades in the charismatic Evangelical World pleading with with them to recognize the disservice they were doing to Christ and his gospel I have asked myself repeatedly why did I wake up and so many of my contemporaries didn't Zan said I still don't have the answer there was an old pastor friend in particular Zan said whom he thought about often Jensen Franklin immediately I flashed back to the faith and freedom conference in Nashville Franklin had been one of Ralph Reed's Marquees speakers I had watched the pastor whip the crowd into a frenzy describing how our enemies aimed to destroy Christianity in America that used to be my routine Zan told me if you want to know what I preached back when we had the 4,000 people go find Jensen sermons on YouTube it's the same kind of stuff the two men had been close friends and Kindred Spirits a pair of rising stars in the charismatic movement Franklin was stunned by Zan's decision to leave that World Behind they remained friendly for a while it was Franklin who reached out to Zan in the middle of the evacuation Word of Life and introduced him to a Christian publisher called Charisma media years earlier zand had self-published a short book what to do on the worst day of your life that caught the attention of Charisma now the publisher was asking zand to write an updated version for Mass distribution Zan felt compelled to say yes his church was in trouble attendance was barely 200 on some Sundays and he was beginning to wonder if it might expire altogether a book could at least help pay the bills if he found himself unemployed when it came time to publish in January 2009 Charisma began booking zand on every major religious television and radio program in the country there was one hitch he he refused to appear on Paula White's show the Prosperity Gospel preacher was attracting huge audiences with her health and wealth spiritualism but zand wasn't just bothered by her bad theology he was offended by the fact that white a professing Christian minister would regularly host Donald Trump the vulgar Playboy billionaire on her evangelism platform all because she was enamored with his worldly success in this term turns into a big fight because I'm refusing to go on her show Zan told me so finally the president of Charisma media the big boss this guy named Steven Strang he calls me up personally and pleads with me to do the show he tells me how many books it's going to sell and I tell him Stephen I don't care if it sells 1 million books you have to understand Paula White and I do not belong to the same religion startled I reached over and grabbed God and cancel culture holding it up to zand this guy zand inspected the cover of strang's Book why do you have that he asked me I was just with him last night in Branson zand pressed his palms against his cheekbones he was there yes did he know you were coming here today no zand stared ahead then he began to laugh the Lord works in mysterious ways he said let me tell you about Steven Strang the two had quite a history after Zan's 2009 book sold relatively well Strang taken with the pastor's conviction the man had torpedoed his own mega church in the name of theology offered him a deal to write three more books zand accepted in 2011 he published unconditional the call of Jesus to radical forgiveness with a forward written by Miroslav vulf the Yale Theologian I befriended on the French Riviera Strang loved the book so much zand told me that he flew the pastor to charisma's headquarters in Orlando to address the staff too much of their work during Barack Obama's presidency had been hostile and acrimonious Strang told his employees zand with his emphasis on reconciliation and the rejection of political tribalism was demonstrating a different path forward Strang was so smitten with zand that he asked him to begin writing a column for Charisma magazine it looked to be the dawn of a great partnership and then capitalism got in the way Charisma readers complained about the pacifistic undertone of Zan's columns unconditional flopped with the Publishers core demographic you had a lot of methodists buying that book Zan said with a chuckle but not a lot of charismatics it made for an awkward situation Charisma media had poured resources into promoting zand and his book but it was outsold badly by one of the Publishers other offerings that year the harbinger a book that connected the 9911 Terror attacks to the ancient destruction of Israel prophesying a full circle threat to American Christians zand was undeterred ignoring Market feedback and the not so subtle hints of editors and Executives at Charisma media he wrote the next book Beauty will save the world as a repudiation of materialism and political striving the book sold well but Zan's iconic clastic streak not to mention his blunt denunciation of the Prosperity Gospel made him the resident bet Noir his Charisma column was cancelled by the time zand wrote a third book A Farewell to Mars which argued for nonviolence as a foundational Christian principle Charisma had turned on him Strang refused to print the book then tried to stop Zan from publishing it altogether in this context my misadventure in Branson took on new meaning I had been bewildered by strang's unwillingness to acknowledge what was manifestly a miss all around us by the latest Charisma magazine issue he handed me the cover of which promoted a new book by The Harbinger author warning of ancient gods wreaking havoc on American culture and by strang's own books which to make his Illusions to a Divine indwelling of Donald Trump all the more questionable included forwards from the likes of Jerry fwell Jr and Michael andell Zan's Story made it all click these people have lost their souls Zan told me tapping on the cover of strang's Book that's not being dramatic that's being analytical Steven Strang knew better than this he could have done the right thing he chose not to it was evident that zand took no pleasure in saying any of this there was an anguish in his eyes a stinging Melancholy in his voice too many of his old friends Franklin and Strang just a name two had been seduced by prominence and Power by Fame and Fortune and Zan could not understand why there is a warning issued repeatedly in the scripture about boasting not in one's own accomplishments but boasting only in the knowledge and glorification of God that word Glory can seem vague in certain biblical contexts but typically derived from the Hebrew covode it implies weight importance heaviness something of substantial value when Christians achieve something of substantial value be it a mega church or a publishing Empire the impulse to self- glorify can become overpowering but it must be resisted because the dynamic is very much binary you can glorify God or glorify yourself but not both this Zan said explains why Jesus insisted that his followers deny themselves and prepare to throw away their lives for his sake the pastor quoted one of my favorite verses Mark 8:36 what good is it for someone to gain the whole world Jesus asked yet forfeit their soul looking back zand is grateful for losing much of his congregation all those years ago downsizing so dramatically allowed the pastor to connect with his people more intimately to make sure everyone was on board with his mission and his message this not only made for a healthier Church it insulated Word of Life from the turmoil of the Trump era in fact Zan told me at a moment when many of his clergy counterparts were bleeding members from their churches Word of Life was experiencing real growth for the first time in over a decade the chief explanation YouTube this was not a covid specific phenomenon Word of Life had begun streaming its services online years before the pandemic arrived zand was skeptical of the practice at first he believed in gathering physically in taking communion as one body in the power of corpor worship he wasn't terribly interested in pastoring people thousands of miles away but then he got to know some of them he listened to their stories heard their prayers online Church wasn't their preference either they would love to join a solid unified Kingdom first congregation in their Community they just can't find one Zan told me these people feel like they have nowhere to go I just heard from someone yesterday who lives in Texas apparently the county she lives in voted for Trump in a higher percentage in 2020 than any other County in America and she told me Pastor I cannot find a normal church what do I say to that zand is Happy on some interim basis to offer an online community to the displaced masses but it's not a sustainable solution to the problem of normal Church scarcity these people watching zand online particularly the less seasoned Believers need a permanent home they need a pastor to love and disciple them they need a church family to grow alongside them and hold them accountable to this end zand is trying to help the only way he knows how by mentoring young preachers I had these four pastors here yesterday from a fairly large Church in Oregon Zan said and I told them you're going to have to lean into the great tradition don't allow your preaching to be driven by the news Cycles start paying attention to the revised common lectionary preach from that pay attention to the lurgical calendar preach from that hours earlier at the Word of Life entrance a kindly Old Gentleman had handed me a church bulletin the first thing I noticed was the date November 6th 2022 22nd Sunday after Pentecost Zan's Church observes days tied to the deaths of saints sacred moments from scripture and the onset of Seasons such as lent and Advent American holidays Memorial Day Independence Day Veterans Day are not recognized what do those dates have to do with us Zan said with a shrug we the church it's not easy to break away from American traditions Zan said but if evangelicals are to regain lost standing it's necessary Christianity is inherently ly countercultural that's how it thrives when it tries to become a dominant culture it becomes corrupted that's been the case from the very beginning Zan said this is one major difference between Islam and Christianity Islam has designs on running the world it's a system of government Christianity is nothing like that the gospels and the Epistles have no vision of Christianity being a dominant religion or culture the Bible as an pointed out is written primarily from the perspective of the underdog Hebrew slaves fleeing Egypt Jews exiled to Babylon Christians living under Roman occupation this is why Paul implored his fellow first century Believers especially those in Rome who lived under a brutal regime to both submit to their governing authorities and stay loyal to the Kingdom built by Christ it stands to reason that American evangelicals themselves borne into the bosom of of Imperial might can't quite relate to Paul and his please for humility or Peter and his enthusiasm for suffering never mind that poor vagrant preacher from Nazareth and his egalitarian rhetoric the last shall be first what kind of socialist indoctrination is that you see the kingdom of God isn't real to most of these people they can't perceive it Zan said what's real is America what's real is this todrey world of partisan politics this Winner Takes all Blood Sport so they keep charging into the fry and the temptation to bow down to the devil to gain control over the kingdoms of this world becomes more and more irresistible zand has studied the rise and fall of Christian civilizations he understands as the Book of Ecclesiastes tells us there is nothing new Under the Sun still it's hard for him to accept just how quickly this particular American experiment went South when he created Word of Life Church at age 22 Riding High on the generational momentum of the Jesus movement he was convinced that the United States was experiencing a real-time Revival 40 years later he is witnessing the sort of Crash that will be studied by Pastors in the centuries to come I think about it every day I can't believe it came to this Zan said I'm totally baffled by it I'm not depressed I'm not unhappy I'm just baffled the pastor was quick to clarify something he's not baffled by the 1500 people who left his church almost two decades ago he's not baffled by the people who go to Greg Lock's circus tent or listen to Paula White's podcasts or buy VIP tickets to Mike Flynn's reawaken America rally these people are called Sheep for a reason no zand is baffled by the so-called Shepherds scripture says we should hold these leaders to a higher standard and yet whether it's Strang platforming the my pillow lunatic or Liberty University's leaders trading evangelism for electioneering or the pastor down the road in St Louis a one-time friend who now leads his Sunday services with a 15minute political segment called Ron's rants zand sees a reckless abdication of Duty on the part of the people in charge they are as Jesus said of the Pharisees blind guides leading their followers to fall into a pit you are forming your people in anger and hate you are helping to intensify their capacity to hate other people zh said you are giving them permission to carry around this permanent rage I countered by telling zand what these pastors would say about him that he's woke that he's lukewarm that he's a coward for not taking a stand and fighting to advance biblical principles in a broken World taking a stand Zan scoffed there's this false Assumption of action we're called to take the task of the church is simply to be the church all of this High blown rhetoric about changing the world we don't need to change the world we're not called to change the world we're called to be the world already changed by Christ that's how we're salt that's how we're light he looked incredulous I talk about about Jesus all the time I talk about Jesus constantly but I talk about Jesus in the context of his kingdom Zan said the idea that Jesus is some mascot for the donkeys or the elephants it's a catastrophe for the gospel the pastor told me he was offended not upset or hurt or angry but offended by what the American church had become God does not tolerate Idols competing for his glory Zan said and neither should anyone who claims to worship Him you can take up the sword of Caesar or you can take up the cross of Jesus Zan told me you have to choose chapter 16 Kenesaw Georgia no one can serve two masters either you will hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other Matthew 6:4 hersel Walker had a joke to tell it was about a man who suddenly dies and meets St Peter at the Pearly Gates only to learn that due to some mixup his soul had not been designated for either heaven or hell because of the unusual circumstance Peter gives the man a chance to T both places they ride the elevator down down to Hell first it's a giant party the man living it up with old friends is reluctant to leave finally he goes with Peter to see heaven and while it's nice enough he decides he'd rather spend eternity down south but when the man descends back to Hell Everything Has Changed it's torturously hot people are crying and screaming what happened the man asks aloud a couple hours ago there was a party Satan shows up Walker deadpanned and he says a couple hours ago I was campaigning everyone laughed but this was no incidental comedic detour the US Senate race in Georgia had become the most watched campaign in America and not just because it was likely to determine control of congress's upper chamber the snowballing claims of personal Scandal against Walker the Republican nominee had turned the contest into a made for Jerry Springer spectacle Walker's campaign had responded by bludgeoning his opponent Democratic senator Raphael waro stressing his Church's history of threatening to evict tenants from a rental property and dredging up an unsubstantiated claim that he'd run over his ex-wife's foot with a car that waro was a pastor the pastor in fact of Ebenezer Baptist the Atlanta Church once led by Martin Luther King Jr lent an error of divine consequence to the campaign as November 8th Drew closer each candidate accused the other in so many words of being a phony follower of Jesus by the time Walker stepped to the podium on Election Day Eve he made it known that the next day's Choice was not just between a Republican and a Democrat the left is campaigning right now for you they're campaigning my God Senator warno is campaigning Walker said referring back to his punchline they're trying to take you down in that elevator the insinuation was hard to miss even the conservative Washington examiner ran a headline reading Walker Likens waro to Satan in contentious Georgia Senate race but the Republican nominee left nothing to chance I'm that Warrior for God Walker declared he prepared me for this moment because he knew I was going to have to go up against that wolf and sheep's clothing the hundreds of people around me pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in the floodlight bathed parking lot of the governor's Gun Club in exurban Atlanta had signed up for just this sort of spiritual conflict every likening of waro to the devil stirred snarling cheers every mention of his own dauntless persecution at the hands of the left inspired a struck Ovations Walker was accustomed to being a hero he'd won the Heisman Trophy as a punishing tailback at the University of Georgia but this was was a different sort of exaltation he was more than a homecoming King he was a crusader standing before a bulldog red Tor buus that featured his smiling Visage stamped over the word hersel the Republican candidate pledged to stop waro from dragging the good people of Georgia down to hell with him they danced and chanted and celebrated as though the election was already won maybe it was Republicans looked to have momentum in the late stages of the campaign and party officials were swelling with confidence about winning Georgia this would be a Triumph made all the sweeter by what Walker had endured though he denied allegations of having ever paid for an abortion the pile of evidence in one particular case including a personal check covering the cost of the procedure and a handwritten get well card both synced to the date in question left little doubt that he had I thought we all knew this Eric Ericson a conservative radio host in Georgia tweeted in response to the Daily Beast bombshell that dropped one month before election day Ericson added that people do change over time that October surprise was most notable for what it didn't do change the trajectory of the race The Fallout from the abortion story even the social media scorning from Walker's own son who had once been a visible supporter of his dad's campaign did little to sour the state's conservative Christian voters on Walker even the Revelation that Walker had allegedly pressured that same woman to have a second abortion and a subsequent on camera accusation from another ex-girlfriend that he' paid for her procedure didn't hurt his candidacy why would it What mattered was that Walker had an R next to his name What mattered was power winning is a virtue Dana lash a Conservative Christian talk show host said on her program I don't care if Hershel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles I want control of the Senate and so it came to pass in Georgia the night before the election that these hundreds of people gathered for a performative ritual of Make Believe martyrdom As Walker surrogates took turns at the microphone denouncing the character assassination of this good and decent man the people in the crowd played along booing and hissing and baining outrage even as one after another admitted to me that they believed the charges against Walker were true this is a tough business the difference between football and politics is you don't have a helmet and there are no rules you can cheat Lindsey Graham the senator from South Carolina said from the stage I've been in this business a long time I don't think I've ever seen anybody belittled dehumanized treated so poorly as my good friend Hershel Walker soon after Gina Phillips who had been applauding Graham's impassioned defense of Walker's Integrity stopped on the sidelines of the event to chat with a pastor named Raymond Porter the minister wearing a silver and burgundy clergyman's robe was there to protest War kno's pro-choice policies Phillips worked at a pregnancy help clinic and was eager to compare notes with Porter as I stood chatting with them I was struck by the nonchalant of their shared observation about Walker of course he paid for those abortions as a private citizen they agreed but what counted moving forward was his opposition to abortion as a public official I'd rather have herel Walker pay for an abortion repent get right with God about it then elect Raphael waro who' allow everyone to have unlimited abortions Philips said there was one problem Walker had not repented at least not publicly the candidate had stubbornly denied the allegations claiming an innocence that was utterly implausible and yet somehow totally acceptable I asked Phillips if repentance is possible while clinging to a lie he's not telling us the truth but I think he's done the right thing with God Phillips replied if abortion is murder as pro-life Advocates like Phillips believe then can someone who committed murder be forgiven without admitting to it she Shrugged at the question I decided to simplify things doesn't the public deserve to know whether a politician running on a specific promise has broken that promise in his own life it doesn't bother me she replied because Raphael waro wants to let full-term babies be born and left on a table to die Phillips was referring to War's vote which he cast along with every other Democrat in the Senate save for Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Mansion of West Virginia against the born alive abortion survivors protection act the bill would require Health practitioners to provide medical care to any baby that survives an attempted abortion this one vote did not occur in a vacuum much of the democratic party which once emphasized that abortions should be safe legal and rare had more recently come to support abortion at any time for any reason a position well outside the mainstream both before and after the Dos ruling that overturned Ro v Wade polling consistently showed that while most Americans support abortion rights an overwhelming majority of them across the ideological Spectrum also believe abortion should be illegal in the third trimester what made waro extremist position all the more notable was his training in the clergy the son of a Pentecostal preacher waro spoke eloquently in Congress and on the campaign Trail about Mankind being made in the image of God he littered his speeches with references to scripture while advocating for human rights in 2022 he told voters that he has a profound reverence for Life given all that one might assume that warno would break from his party on this issue yet he remained unapologetically pro-choice under any circumstance stressing that the decision should be left between a woman her doctor and if need be her pastor even God gave us a choice waro told voter at one rally in a clip that quckly went viral pressed during a debate to clarify what he meant a flustered waro responded I think it's self-explanatory which theologically it most certainly was not Walker took plenty of pot shots at waro over his other positions from supporting transgender rights to expanding the social safety net to condemning institutional racism in America but it was war kno's abortion position that lent itself to Walker strategy of portraying the senator as Lucifer incarnate as the campaign wore on Walker went from challenging War kno's policy choices to questioning his legitimacy as a Christian he wants to throw these Bible verses out and say he's doing a good job Walker sneered at the election day Eve rally waro wasn't the only one throwing Bible verses out while making his closing argument that night walker alluded countless times to scripture often in in disjointed fashion he said waro failed the country by not holding Biden responsible for the withdrawal from Afghanistan the way God held Adam and Eve responsible for eating the forbidden fruit he said waro failed his community By ignoring Matthew 25 when I was hungry you fed me and threatening to evict those tenants he said waro failed his black church by preaching about racism instead of promoting America's innate goodness God says together we stand divided we fall Walker declared right now I'm not ready to fall these and other arguments were continually punctuated with the now familiar warning they're trying to take you down that elevator that Walker was not always biblically literate made no difference to the crowd in Kennesaw they were eating up every word he had convinced them no matter his own personal failings that he was playing for the right team politically and otherwise we need those Warriors in Washington Walker said building to his rhetorical Grand Finale when I go up there Jesus Christ is coming with me he can block and I can run with the pulsing lights and screaming crowd rousing memories of his athletic Zenith Walker shared what one of his offensive linemen used to tell him hersel follow me I can take you to the promised land the candidate extended his arms I'm going to to tell all you votee for me and I'll help us to get to the promised land as the music blasted and a throng of supporters circled around their hero for pictures and hugs and last minute prayers I glanced over at the Entourage standing in the shadows of Walker's Tor bus there were five of his confidants applauding and shouting through cued hands one of them was doing nothing at all he was just standing there arms crossed soaking it all in a knowing smile spread across his face it was Ralph Reed the next morning over an election day breakfast in the stylish Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta Reed told me he had a feeling this was Walker's day unlike some who believed the race was too close to call or others who predicted that neither Walker nor waro would clear the 50% Mark needed to avoid a runoff under Georgia election law Reed was on Walker chances of winning outright the Republican Governor Brian Kemp was running away with his race and could have coattails down the ticket Democrats nationally look to be limping toward the Finish Line playing defense over Untamed inflation Rising crime and lawlessness at the southern border the history of midterm beatings taken by new presidents voted poorly for Joe Biden and his party and yet Reed told me what informed his Outlook more than those political fundamentals was a gut feeling that the attempt to destroy Walker had failed not only that it had helped him Republicans who had been slow to embrace their party's nominee Reed said had rallied around him in the wake of the allegations sensing that this was yet another orchestrated attack on a virtuous Christian man hence the language of sacrificial suffering that became Central to Walker's cause down the home stretch if Democrats were weaponizing the familiar tro of Evangelical hypocrisy against him it only made sense for Republicans to tap into the tried andrue persecution complex of their base the drubbing of evangelicals as Hypocrites and frauds and phonies candidates like hersel and voters who support candidates like hersel is unrelenting Reed told me I think people are honestly tired of that kind of Politics the politics of fear and smear the politics of personal destruction the politics of trying to tear people down and produce somebody out of thin air it's gutter politics and it's sometimes practiced by both sides but it has become a wholly predictable and key part of the democratic Playbook the fact is Reed said dutifully reminding me that he trained as a historian that these ad hominum strikes have rarely been successful Thomas Jefferson's ownership of human beings didn't prove relevant to most voters neither did Grover Cleveland's out of wedlock child coincidentally one seeming exception came in the 1990s when Republicans led by Reed capitalized on Bill Clinton's libido and persuaded the conservative churchgoing masses that morality was a prequisite for political leadership we care about the conduct of our leaders and we will not rest until we have leaders of good moral character Reed told a Christian Coalition gathering in 1998 according to a contemporaneous in the New York Times the American people are hungry for that message but not as hungry as Reed hoped Democrats won surprising victories in the 1998 midterms right in the thick of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton's popularity rebounded to Historic highs this was a hard lesson for Reed Republicans had overplayed their hand assuming that voters cared more about character than they actually did by the time Trump came along Reed said voters were deaf to the Acoustics of personal indignity this explains why he bought into Trump's candidacy long before other Evangelical leaders did Reed had concluded that voters are far more forgiving than most political analysts give them credit for if Reed's performance in the aftermath of the Walker allegations came across as Shameless his emotional vouching for a dear friend he'd known for all of two years his organizing of a Prayer Warriors for hersel of event at an Atlanta church that he barred reporters from attending his comparison of Walker Standing Tall against these charges to Trump surviving the acccess Hollywood tape he didn't particularly care Reed did what he had to do his theories of primitive human nature American political history and the modern Republican party were connected by a Common Thread people he said are fundamentally self-interested and so was he voters are really pragmatic there's nothing new about giving candidates the benefit of the doubt about past moral failings he said scooping a spoonful of berries and oatmeal and by the way generally speaking I'm happy about that Reed broke into that inculpable grin now I'm more happy when that Grace is extended to the candidate that I'm supporting it reminded me of the conversation I'd had with Pastor Robert jeffris at First Baptist Dallas both he and Reed Drew a similar narrative Arc to make sense of Trump's relationship with the Evangelical voter but the two men seemed to diverge on one key Point jeffris believed that evangelicals came to Champion Trump not because they were full of grace but because they were full of fear the universal stench of Scandal may have enured the Evangelical mind jeffris told me but it was the rejection of Christian values in the culture the UND Siege mindset that truly changed the the game I asked Reed if he thought this was a fair way to understand the appeal of both Trump and Walker Reed bristled at the notion that evangelicals were mobilized by fear This months after he told us in Nashville that his conference goers were scared that the country might not survive much longer rather Reed said Christians were rebelling against their views being treated as inherently intolerant and undemocratic he recalled Barack Obama's observation that some voters would cling to their guns or their religion as the nation changed around them he assigned a spiritual subtext to Hillary Clinton's comments about deplorables and irredeemables in these cases and many others Reed said America's political and cultural Elite had gone out of their way to ostracize conservative Christians treating their political calculations as illegitimate and inciting growing hostility against the Evangelical Church there's no honest conversation anymore they're not saying I understand these are tough issues you have to wrestle with your faith and your moral beliefs and this is where you come down no it's you're a hypocrite you're a phony you're a fraud Reed told me all those things are lies and they're not just lies they're slurs on the character of these people because it suggests that their movement is based on some reactionary fear rather than an admirable robust expression of their citizenship Once Upon a Time Reed might have been right in observing that Christianity was getting a raw deal from the culture but not today just as with the unraveling of the Republican Party the church had been destabilized from within its Fringe infiltrating the mainstream in ways that warranted sweeping criticism there was a reason Christian views RIT large were now summarily dismissed as inherently intolerant and undemocratic for Generations white evangelicals had been overwhelmingly supportive of both immigrants and refugees entering the United States by 2020 they were far and way the least likely of any religious subgroup to advocate for either one and this was not some outlying development in the year after Trump left office polling repeatedly showed there was one demographic group most likely to believe that the election had been stolen that vaccines were dangerous that globalists were controlling the US population that liberal celebrities were feasting on the blood of infants that resorting to violence might be necessary to save the country white evangelicals none of this Justified the sweeping censure of tens of millions of people having spent Trump's presidency traveling the country meeting religious voters in small towns and big cities alike I knew how many serious sane evangelicals were still out there these people have no place in the left-wing fever dreams that inform cable news punditry and oped Pages they are reasonable and realistic making credential political judgments that often reflect something quite limited about their core values their commitment to others their complex set of religious convictions they are dismayed by the hysteria and hyperbole that has captured their movement and want nothing more than to reclaim it their character deserves respect and the crackup of the Evangelical Church is not they doing but Reed rejects this analysis in his narrative evangelicals have been in the barrel since the courts banned prayer in public schools and legalized abortion and sanctioned the government to regulate religious institutions this unfair and systemic shunning of evangelicals Reed insists is nothing new he's dedicated his career to fighting back against it the only recent development he told me is that now he's got an army behind him we've always been marginalized we're marginalized today Reed said the challenge was could we ever change it and we did I mean it took 40 or 50 years but we've changed it changed what exactly the Public's perception of Evangelical Christianity is worse than at any point in recorded history Church attendance is steadily eroding and will nose dive as Baby Boomers die off in greater numbers meanwhile the rhetoric around their supposed persecution Reed told Steven Strang on his podcast in 2019 that it would be open season on Christians if Trump lost reelection hasn't been updated since the Heyday of Jerry fwell Senor the only thing that seems changed I observ to read is disposition whereas the Evangelical movement once downplayed its alliances with those who might undermine its moral credibility today it openly Champions the likes of Donald Trump and her Walker Reed set his jaw I believe as a theological matter that someone can find redemption in Christ and become a new person he replied and I believe that hersel Walker is a new person maybe he was I didn't know the man's heart if the allegations against Walker were true then it would be consistent with scripture for him as a new person who found redemption in Christ to take responsibility for his actions to admit his deceptions to ask for the Forgiveness that accompanies being a new person and to radiate the transformative Mercy he had been shown but Walker wasn't doing any of that instead he was asking for cheap Grace he was promoting a surface level sanctification he was using Christianity as a lowest common denominator a way to gloss over the mistakes of his past to explain his persecution at present and to guarantee voters a political reward in the future I flashed back to Walker's defiant appearance at Reed's event in Nashville a few months earlier no weapon formed against me shall ever Prosper the candidate had said quoting the prophet Isaiah as reports swirled about the outof wedlock children he'd neglected to raise Reed had looked smitten now with the campaign and its final hours I asked Reed if Walker won would it prove that Georgia voters really believed he was a new person or would it reveal that they care more about power than principle I think what it shows is that these people have rejected a really dirty gutter level campaign of character assassination and an attempt to destroy a good and decent human being Reed answered and I think that what it says is that with few exceptions elections tend to be about the economy and they tend to be a referendum on the policies of the party holding the White House with regard to the economy he paused for emphasis I think the Democrats and their allies tried to dodge that Bullet by trying to run an alternative campaign of character assassination and personal destruction Reed said and it failed not exactly Walker failed to hit the 50% needed to win the senate race outright and so did waro sending the election to a December runoff election the signs were most ominous for the Republican candidate Walker ran a full Five Points behind the top of the ticket GOP Governor Brian Kemp and also lagged noticeably behind other Republicans on the ballot the explanation was straightforward exit polling showed that for whatever concerns independent voters had about war kno's policies they were even more concerned about Walker's character and judgment despite framing his race as a proxy war between Heaven and Hell Walker won a smaller share of of white Evangelical voters than did Kemp he won a smaller share of pro-life voters than did Kemp he won a smaller share of conservatives than did Kemp these margins were small a few points but small margins made all the difference a month later Walker lost the runoff to waro the Republican nominee delivered a gracious concession speech pleading with his voters to believe in America and continue to believe in the Constitution and believe in our elected officials most of all there were no foolish claims about voter fraud no manufactured appeals to the almighty just a divisive candidate going out on a unifying note in truth Walker looked relieved at the result whatever his faults this man did not deserve to be used by powerful people to advance their agenda all the tough guy talk they coached into him a fighter for Georgia a warrior for God couldn't conceal the fact that he was unprepared unstable and fundamentally unfit for the office he was seeking don't beat women hold guns to people's heads fund abortions leave your multiple minor children alone to chase more Fame lie lie lie say stupid crap and make a fool of your family Walker's son Christian wrote on Twitter after the race was called and then maybe you can win a senate seat In fairness to Walker he was hardly the only Republican to come up short in 2022 defying the odds the GOP laid an egg on Election Day Republicans did recapture the House of Representatives by a thin margin but they blew a chance to win back the Senate lost key Governor's races and forfeited control of several State legislative bodies the analysis was Elementary in some of the nation's most competitive States Republicans had nominated radical candidates with views and rhetoric that scared away the Ates and independents who decide elections certainly it was no coincidence that the prime examples of this walker included were candidates who espoused some version of Christian nationalism in Pennsylvania Republican Doug mastriano who prayed for Trump to seize the power before Joe Biden's inauguration and later launched his campaign for governor to the sound of a chofar blowing did not get the biblical Miracle he promised in eie he lost by 15 points an impressive feat in a state where the last two presidential elections were decided by less than two points combined and in Arizona Carrie Lake the one-time Buddhist curious television anchor who found religion and bashing any Republican apostate who doubted the saving power of Donald Trump snatched defeat from the jaws of Victory though she faced a forgettable democratic opponent and claimed that God chose her to be governor Lake suffered critical defections from moderate Republican voters in Maricopa County the state's largest voting jurisdiction and lost the country's tightest race she refused to concede insisting the election was rigged against her Lake dialed up the religious fanaticism to Rally her faithful she spoke of praying to God telling him to make this Victory come whatever way you want even if that meant overcoming the BS that election officials were trying to pull she joined a live streamed prayer session pleading with heaven to overturn the results one speaker asked God to avenge us against the Democrats she told supporters that the power of prayer was leading to a successful legal effort to install her as Governor proclaiming we taking these bastards to trial a week after the election lakes's disciples performed a Jericho March around the Maricopa County elections office believing that upon the seventh lap the Deep State deception would come tumbling down like those City walls of Old Testament lore despite these efforts and half-baked lawsuits challenging the results lakes's loss was finalized and her Democratic opponent was sworn into office no man can serve two masters any politician who runs for office sensing a Divine mandate soon confronts a bracing reality campaigns are built around the accumulation of money power and influence currencies of a kingdom to which Christians do not belong dual citizenship is not a Biblical option when Jesus spoke of the metaphorical two masters he explained either you will hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other Jesus concluded with the famous line you cannot serve both God and money this quote has long been used to shame the extravagantly wealthy but Christ's message was more nuanced instead of money the term used in most translations is Mammon from the Greek word mamonas drawing from Roots in Hebrew and Aramaic mamonas has historically been understood as referring not just to material wealth but to any entity that encourages greed Prestige self- glorification some early Christian Scholars including Gregory of Nissa believe that Jesus meant Mammon as an alias for Satan himself the reason politics are such a dangerous trap for Christians isn't that they lead to devil worship per se but that they tempt even the most disciplined believer to pursue that which inevitably distracts from and comes into conflict with their allegiance to God Matthew 6:24 isn't simply a rebuke to the Doug mastrianos and Cary lakes and Hershel Walkers of the world the road to hell as that old unsigned proverb cautions is paved with good intentions consider the pro-life cause millions of evangelicals identify as single-issue voters having formed their political sensient around stopping what they see as the moral atrocity of killing unborn babies after fighting for two generations to overturn Ro v Wade evangelicals heralded the dobs ruling in June 2022 as deific validation of the efforts put forth and the compromises made to end the scourge of abortion some went out of their way to mock Christian leaders who had preached any modum of partisan restraint William Wolf the ex-trump administration official and avowed Christian nationalist blasted Russell Moore David French and like-minded evangelist iCal who had opposed Trump's candidacy in 2016 will they admit they were wrong wolf tweeted but the ruling didn't end the scorge of abortion the dobs case certainly changed the landscape of abortion policy in America but not in the ways people like wolf had envisioned once a controlled and regulated medical issue abortion became a wild west Patchwork of policies in the aftermath of dobs some red state rushed to ban the procedures entirely but many more blue and purple States now liberated from any overarching federal framework pursued laws that made Ro v Wade look conservative by comparison on Election Day 2022 the citizens of Six States voted on ballot measures that would shatter old precedents by dramatically increasing access to abortion all six measures including three in Republican dominated States ended in defeat for the Pro life side the 50-year campaign to overturn Ro v Wade had succeeded and the result was more abortions in America winning elections does nothing to woo persuadable people confirming Supreme Court justices does nothing to convert Skeptics the Evangelical movement's exercise of raw political power was doomed to fail even as it succeeded according to Gallup in early 2023 the number of Democrats who supported looser abortion laws had reached an all-time high no surprise there but that same poll also showed a historic number of Republicans supporting looser abortion laws the trend line was devastating for the pro-life Community Republicans Now supported liberalized abortion laws at higher rates than Democrats did just two decades earlier how could this have happened one explanation is that too many evangelicals have taken the path of least resistance holding up signs is easy posting on Facebook is easy voting for a candidate is easy but providing sustained support to babies and their mothers by donating disposable income by volunteering for long shifts at that clinic in a rough part of town by considering adoption of an infant with fetal alcohol syndrome is much much harder not every pro-life Advocate has the capacity to do these things things of course and that doesn't make their beliefs any less sincere plenty of pro-life Advocates have done these things and will continue to do them yet none of those people and I've known hundreds of them would argue that their efforts are anywhere close to the scale necessary to change the American public's heart on this issue none of them would pretend that the sum total of these Grassroots efforts is remotely proportional to the raw political engagement surrounding abortion rights it's worth wondering how different this debate might look a half century later had millions of single-issue Voters invested in something other than electoral Politics as a solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancy there is nothing inherently wrong with legislative engagement people of Faith should Advocate on moral grounds for the betterment of their fellow man but politics are one tool to help construct a movement politics are not the movement itself slavery would not have been abolished by bumper stickers and annual marches with hashtags the struggle for civil rights was powered by people who were unrelenting in their on theeg ground activism who toiled in the trenches without reward who did dangerous and unpleasant work with humility and grace these fights were waged block by Block City by City to Rally public Consciousness to the cause there were no shortcuts to legislating a more just Society more often than not winning a political battle first requires winning the public argument the pro-life movement has not won the public argument and arguably it hasn't really tried the message of abortion as a moral evil as an affront to the loving God who made Humanity in his own image has proven curiously ineffective why for one thing that message seems wildly inconsistent with the politics otherwise practiced by those who claim the pro-life mantle if one is driven to electoral advocacy by the conviction that mankind Bears the image of God why stop at opposing abortion what about the shunning of refugees what about the forced separation of babies from their mothers what about the hollowing out of programs that feed hungry kids what about the lifelong incarceration of nonviolent offenders and the wrongful execution of the innocent what about the darwinist healthc care system that prices out sick people and denies treatment to poor people and produces the developed world's highest maternal mortality rate what about the fact that in 2020 guns had become the number one cause of death for children in the United States surely even the most devoted anti-abortion Advocate could spot the problem when Sarah Huckaby Sanders the former Trump press secretary who was running for governor of Arkansas declared we will make sure that when a kid is in the womb they're as safe as they are in a classroom indeed America set another new record for school shootings in 2022 and the Evangelical movement was silent the other problem with the pro-life message The Messengers can we really expect Americans to take lessons on virtue from a President Who brags about grabbing women by their vaginas can we really expect voters to entertain the argument of unborn Lives having inherent dignity coming from a man who lies about having ended unborn life himself evangelicals can rationalize all this going on about binary decisions and the lesser of two evils until they convince themselves it's true but the unwillingness to demand and enforce a higher standard has sapped their arguments of moral urgency there is no blanket answer to complex questions of making compromises for the greater good inevitably some cens will choose to form uncomfortable associations like civil rights leaders did with a president who held retrograde racial views Lynden B Johnson in the name of passing the Voting Rights Act into law but the unbelieving world must always know that Earthly alliances are subordinate to Eternal Allegiance this is the great failing of today's Evangelical Lobby instead of testifying confidently to the presence of a supreme and Sovereign God a Celestial Chessmaster rolling his eyes at our Earthly checkerboard Christian conservatives have acted like toddlers lost at the shopping mall panicked and petrified shouting the name of their father with such hysteria that his reputation is diminished in the eyes of every onlooker it's not just a lack of confidence that undermines the Christian witness but a carelessness a casual way of communicating the Lord's priorities if a politician claims God's support and that politician goes on to lose can we blame blame unbelievers for concluding that God lost too and if God lost something as trivial as a political campaign how can he possibly triumph over the grave this is the problem with politics as a substitute religion Jesus commanded us to love the Lord with all our heart soul mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves this is the recipe for reaching the unchurch this is the recipe for convicting the unconvicted this is the recipe for affecting change whether over abortion or sexual ethics or any other issue of importance Donald Trump promised a transactional relationship with Evangelical voters he would give them pro-life policies in exchange for their unconditional support that transaction went through but the receipt isn't pretty abortion rates spiked during his presidency the C ation that accompanied toppling row v Wade was shortlived in 2022 for the first time in memory Democrats were the single issue voters when it came to abortion turning out in historic numbers to support abortion rights it proved to be decisive swinging dozens of competitive races against the Republican Party the only thing more predictable than this crushing defeat of the pro-life movement was its immediate scapegoating by Trump himself it wasn't my fault that the Republicans didn't live up to expectations in the midterms the former president wrote on social media it was Trump insisted the abortion issue chapter 17 Phoenix Arizona it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick Mark 2:1 17 2,000 Souls filled the sanctuary's lower Bowl One Night in February 2023 yet they hadn't come for sanctification they kicked off the event with a blaring rockband rendition of Christ be magnified I won't bow to Idols I'll stand strong and worship you and if it puts me in the fire I'll Rejoice cuz you're there too but there was little rejoicing although they gathered inside Dream City Church this wasn't a church service it was the first Wednesday evening of the month at Dream City that meant it was Freedom night in America Pastor Luke Barnett greeted the first timers in attendance he explained that this was a chance to talk about what's happening in our nation and draw a line in the sand to preserve its traditional Christian values he couldn't take credit for the idea Freedom Knight the Pastor said was the brainchild of a visionary Christian a wonderful wonderful man of God who loves the Lord as Barnett built up the introduction like the announcer at an NBA All-Star Game he's a friend of Dream City Church the crowd Rose to its feet Charlie Kirk played it cool after all he was used to Big entrances once a doey misfit with an outsized self-image he was now a doey misfit with 7 million social media media followers having grown his youth activist organization Turning Point USA from Scrappy upstart into industry Behemoth Kirk had canny tapped into the quick twitch instincts of his fellow Millennials building an empire of memes and merchandise takedowns and talking points recognizing early in Trump's rise how owning the libs could be monetized fighting foe outrage on the left with foe outrage from the right he became a profiteer of the American culture Wars Kirk still shy of his 30th birthday usurped the old guard of the conservative movement with such ease that even the right Wingers wise to his game had to play along he enlisted volunteers and earned downloads and won headlines at an extraordinary clip a few weeks before this dream City Event Kirk had hosted the second annual America Fest a 4-day carnival of politics and culture just down the street at the Phoenix Convention Center the event attracted GOP heavyweights Fox News celebrities internet luminaries and a crowd bigger than most of the year's other right-wing Gatherings combined despite these many successes Kirk like the folks in his audience was in no mood to celebrate it was a tough November for me personally he admitted studying the subdued expressions in the sanctuary Kirk admitted to feeling demoralized heads nodded All Around Me Kirk said that he'd spent the month of December in prayer seeking to understand what had gone wrong and what God was trying to tell him the conclusion Kirk reached we need to redouble our efforts he stressed no matter how exhausted Christians were feeling no matter how feudal the fight to get our country back could seem at times surrender was out of the question the enemy wanted Christians to give up so that America might be conquered now they needed to prove themselves it was Kirk suggested God's plan to withhold Republican victories in the midterm elections to test their medal how would they respond we've got to fight harder we've got to organize Kirk said we've got to continue to educate ourselves on where we come from in our Biblical tradition and from our history to understand what we're fighting at some level this was the same rah rah rhetoric Kirk had been deploying since he founded Turning Point USA in 2012 but there was something newly distinctive about his approach having spent the past decade waging a war that was at least superficially ideological in nature he was now hyping a struggle with higher Stakes this would be a spiritual battle with implications much larger than any one election he wanted the Dream City faithful to understand that they had entered a new phase of the War for America one that couldn't be won by politicians and voters alone to defeat the left Kirk explained Patriots would need to be led into battle by the people who'd been hanging back for too long their pastors the enemy would love nothing more than for the American Church to remain silent and complicit Kirk declared from Barnett's Pulpit tyranny and totalitarianism will continue to grow if the American Church does not stand up Kirk had come to issue a challenge to the clergy there was a time he said when it was defensible to avoid partisan disputes but now given the overt efforts to destroy the nation's judeo-christian culture including a state ordered shutdown of churches there was no excuse any Pastor who declared political neutrality was a weakling at best or a traitor at worst this was chest stuff coming from a 29-year-old whose sole theological exploit was getting his name image and likeness dropped by Liberty University and yet one could see how Kirk felt emboldened to lecture the nation's ministers he wasn't merely speaking to a crowd of several thousand professing Christians but doing so from the pulpit of one of America's largest mega churches for this successful appropriation of clout if not credibility Kirk could thank one person Pastor Barnett the leader of Dream City wasn't known for his discernment in the summer of 2020 as the Corona virus raged Nationwide he lent his stage to then president Donald Trump for a campaign rally boasting that his church operated a cuttingedge air filtration system that killed 99% of the virus the pastor's Sid splitly absurd claim which was quickly debunked and later removed from the church Facebook page disted Ed from the more pressing question of why he'd sanctioned a presidential campaign event inside his Sanctuary still what Barnet lacked in guile he made up for insincerity unlike so many other pastors I'd encountered Barnett came across as credulous to a fault a man who seemed thoroughly convinced of both the righteousness of his cause and the utter no time to waste urgency of advancing it on this particular night Barnett previewed a promotional video for his audience at dream City it told of an upcoming conference on this rock that his church would host later in the month about 2,000 pastors would be coming to Dream City to learn how to take a stand and defeat the leftist agenda as the lights dimmed two gargantuan monitors depicted a violent storm moving in now is the time the banner read for church leaders to stand for Christ soon typhoon waves were crashing against the church building and the famous words Jesus spoke to Peter scrolled across the screen on this rock I will build my church and the Gates of Hell will not Prevail against it for a grand finale the video showed a promotional reel of the pastors who would be headlining the event among them were Barnett his father Tommy Barnett his brother Matthew Barnett and naturally Jensen Franklin Barnett and Kirk made for a formidable tag team Barnett whose dynastic Ministry had deep ties to the charismatic movement could reach millions of Steven Strang reading churchgoers Kirk had well-placed political allies including but not limited to the entire Trump family and was fast becoming a player in the Evangelical world having established a religious foothold several years earlier with freedom Knight in America Kirk began hosting his own Pastor conferences in 2022 that same year he launched the saving America Tour which played in church sanctuaries from coast to coast for an encore in 2023 Kirk had announced the kingdom to the Capital Tour a traveling Revival that would bring music prayer and advocacy to each of the 50 state capitals before Year's End Kirk Was preparing an allout Blitz on American churches it didn't appear to be a bluff he certainly had the resource forces and the organization and the hutzpah to succeed where other right-wing agitators had failed at one point describing how atheism had led to mass violence in centuries past Kirk without a trace of self-awareness announced to his audience God will not honor those that try to do big Majestic and temporal things not in his name Kirk was doing a big Majestic temporal thing with Turning Point USA and with its newest division tpusa Faith the only thing standing between conservatives and control of the nation's key institutions he believed was impotent pastors teaming with their outspoken counterparts in the clergy Kirk Was preparing to crank up the pressure and if he couldn't get through to these church leaders and their congregations with the conferences and tours the radio ranting and social media shaming k KK knew someone who could Eric Maxis American evangelicalism has long been plagued by a certain pedagogical insecurity whatever their Collective influence amassed in certain Arenas politics and business certainly evangelicals have chafed at their seeming exclusion from Elite social academic and intellectual circles this hunger for relevance can result in the lionizing of men who infiltrate society's innermost sanctums seemingly on their behalf representing their views and validating their beliefs and giving them a metaphorical seat at the table simply put evangelicals hate feeling like outcasts and are quick to uncritically follow those who make them feel accepted relevant enlightened Eric Maxis understood this sentiment the church's gnawing sense of marginalization and knew just how to take advantage of it raised in the Greek Orthodox tradition Maxis embraced the Evangelical movement after graduating from Yale in the mid 1980s unlike many young Christian conservatives who rushed headlong into politics Maxis pursued the Arts he authored numerous children's books wrote for Veggie Tales the Christian cartoon for kids and became an understudy of Chuck Coulson the former disgraced Nixon a who' become born again and later launched the prison fellowship Ministry Maxis co-wrote coulson's widely distributed breakpoint media bulletins having cultivated deep roots in evangelicalism Maxis branched into secular society he began hosting live events in Manhattan known as Socrates in the city that Drew aidite crowds for discussions of the Finer Things over wine and or derves he wrote a book on the British abolitionist William Wilbur Force and followed that project with a biography of Dietrich Bon Hofer the German preacher who was martyred for his opposition to Hitler this earned Maxis an invitation to Keynote the National Prayer Breakfast in 2012 by the time he'd finished goting then President Obama and then speaker Nancy palosi over the issue of abortion both of them sitting a few feet away on the dis television feeds broadcasting the event live he'd become a singular celebrity on the Christian right I could see why axis was alluring to people like my mom and dad here was a witty and Winsome Christian intellectual sartorially Flawless and linguistically fearless displaying an evangelicalism that seemed immune to caricature but red flags were everywhere Maxis possessed a bottomless appetite for self-promotion he chased media exposure with a voracious abandon making no secret of his longing to land a Fox News show at the prayer breakfast he badgered Obama so insistently to read his Bon hoofer book that the president finally held it up playfully providing a photo that Maxis would spend years Milking for publicity and his grandiloquent style could not conceal questions about the substance even as Christian audiences devoured Bon hoofer the book came under intense scrutiny from historians who had spent their careers studying the German pastor and ripped many of mat axis's analyses and conclusions something about Maxis was off for a man whose celebrity owed to such a seemingly inimitable and authentic Persona he carried the eerily familiar scent of superficiality it was little surprised then that Maxis went all in on Trump's presidency having once skewered the Republican candidate and his manifest foibles Maxis declared soon after Trump clinched the GOP nomination that Christians must vote for him in the general election as with so many others this marked a crossing of the Rubicon for Maxis once a passive political onlooker he now argued that Democratic party rule would imperil America's very existence this is for the survival of the nation maxus pronounced in 2016 John Ward a Christian journalist captured the reaction thusly conservatives sent me unsolicited emails of outrage one email simply quoted from a passage in Max's Bon hoofer book where he described Hitler's rise to power the German people clamored for order and Leadership but it was as though in the babble of their clamoring they had summoned the Devil Himself for they now rose up from the deep wound in the National psyche something strange and terrible and compelling the ensuing debate over what had become of Maxis traced a well-worn dichotomy was he knowingly shedding his principles in the pursuit of Fame and influence or was he actually convinced that America needed saving and that Donald Trump was our national Messiah both answers may have been correct corruption and psychosis are not mutually exclusive Maxis had become accustomed to a level of commercial success and spiritual relevance that would be forfeited by opposing Trump's candidacy but it also did appear as though his views like those of so many Christians had become radicalized in the Obama ERA this would continue a pace into Trump's presidency Maxis went on to defend the 45th president with a converts Vigor he wrote children's books titled Donald builds the wall and Donald drains the swamp when Franklin Graham remarked to him that citizens protesting Trump's policies were almost demonic Maxis objected to the use of the word almost at the 2020 GOP convention in Washington Maxis sucker punched a demonstrator who was bicycling around the premises in a live stream debate with David French a fellow Evangelical intellectual who opposed Trump's reelection Maxis left their Christian College hosts slack jawed when he responded to French's opening argument by quipping an old Saturday Night Live joke Jane you ignorant given the intensity of this Evolution Maxis became a predictable champion of Trump's crusade to overturn the election result in late 2020 he promised that people were going to prison or worse for rigging the results he insisted that Trump would stay in office likening his faith in this outcome to his faith in Jesus rising from the dead he even booked the president on his radio show and suggested that martyrdom was an appropriate Christian recourse to the crisis at hand I'd be happy to die in this fight matak told Trump on the show this is a fight for everything God Is With Us these Antics permanently alienated Maxis from some longtime friends in the uppermost echelons of the Evangelical movement people who had clung naively to a hope that his Trump spell would ultimately break but in another predictable pattern it did nothing to diminish his standing within the Christian conservative Community if anything his Reckless rallying priz only further endeared met taxis to the masses who felt betrayed by their own leaders for not fully backing Trump's election denial this explained why several nights before I saw Kirk and Phoenix more than 1,000 worshippers greeted Maxis like a Biblical Prophet inside the sanctuary of a Suburban Seattle church it was Sunday night at Westgate Chapel a large congregation in the town of Edmunds Washington an agent bald Pastor named Alec Roland opened the proceedings by confessing to a terrible failure for many years Roland said he had refused to engage with partisan political causes basically I thought if I didn't say anything controversial that people who were more sensitive or maybe on the fence would hang around and eventually the gospel would get to them probably what a lot of pastors think Roland said and then when Co hit and we watched the systematic attack on the church it really opened my eyes Roland recalled how he'd repented to his congregation in 2021 but repentance wasn't enough he needed to atone and so apologia was born every other month rolands would bring an A-list guest speaker to address Westgate Chapel on a Sunday evening discussing the overlap of conservative Theology and conservative policies and urging Believers to get more involved the guest included Fox News characters and right-wing internet Brawlers but this event in early 2023 was the biggest draw of all Eric Maxis with his swoop of silver hair tortoise shell glasses and gold festooned navy sport coat Maxis took the stage to a wild Standing Ovation Roland said it was a record crowd for apologia and Maxis did not disappoint for the next two hours he and A friend he' brought along conservative pundit John zamir roused God's people with a message of scorching certitude on all things political cultural and Theological it was a race to the rhetorical bottom zamir blamed America's demise on rhinos Republicans in name only and the squish Christians who won't fight calling out the David frenches of this world as the Real Enemy he referred to the vice president as camel a Harris then started in on Michelle Obama calling her the American Winnie Mandela nobody in the racially homogeneous audience seemed to mind he mocked the crackhead Hunter Biden and asked if anyone had seen the YouTube video of the crackhead singing Amazing Grace which he found to be amusing beyond words he said with a straight face the next January 6 should be open carry Maxis was less nakedly incendiary and yet somehow more disturbing on the substance he claimed the imprisonment of Americans who stormed the capital was part of a deep State coverup and by God's grace very slowly but surely the truth is coming out thanks to the efforts of Julie Kelly Kelly a professional misinformation artist who claimed that January 6 was an FBI Inside Job once called Michael fenon the capital policeman nearly beaten to death by riers a crisis actor Maxis made at least four direct comparisons to Nazi Germany arguing that by accepting the government's policies on vaccines for instance Christians were doing the exact same thing they did in appeasing Adolf Hitler he emphasized again and again with increasing ferocity that Believers would be judged before God for refusing to confront these injustices if you're in the middle playing it safe you are enabling the devil to destroy the culture there are a lot of good people who have been fooled into silence and God will deal with them Maxis said God will hold you accountable because you're supposed to believe that he has deputized you to be his voice and his hands and his feet wherever you are the silence in this nation of the church is a scandal he took a late night infomercial pause and that's why I wrote this book sure enough Maxis had pegged his apologia appearance to the publication of A Treatise letter to the American Church the book encouraged Christians to follow the example of Bon hoofer and Maxis himself by combating the regime that aimed to inflict evil on the world he echoed the argument made by Kirk God was using the turmoil of recent years to T Test American Believers were they willing to pursue righteousness even if it entailed persecution and suffering maxus was proud to say that he had done so the half dozen members of law enforcement on hand two of them guarding either entrance of his book signing event and another two personally escorting him around the church was evidence of his supposed persecution if not of any material suffering even the most unhinged portions of the conversation failed to phase the people in attendance zamir repeatedly offered casual calls to violence at one point citing the Islamic fundamentalist takeovers of Middle Eastern societies as a model for how Christians can take this one back Maxis grew openly conspiratorial as the program wore on referencing his friend Roger Stone's work on the assassination of JFK suggesting that Biden's presidency was not what it appeared and predicting that Harris would soon be forced to the formally assume office that none of this nonsense appeared even mildly surprising to the folks at Westgate Chapel reflected the systematic enurement of evangelicals everywhere listening to his radio program in the weeks preceding mat axis's visit to the church I had to wonder if it was being produced from inside a padded room somewhere he compared January 6th to July 4th as a birth of Liberty that would one day be celebrated he hosted mik Del and Jenna Ellis the former Trump lawyer who was censured by a judge and admitted to spreading numerous falsehoods about Biden's victory for election Integrity updates he discussed the underbelly of Hollywood and the permanent lockdown being pushed by global Elites maxus speculated that Biden had been replaced by a body double encouraging his listeners to study the so-called president's earlobes as evidence of the switcheroo none of this stopped a prominent Pastor from allowing Maxis to feed his sheep none of this disqualified Maxis from giving religious instruction to a sanctuary full of professing Believers none of this excluded Maxis from The Conversation Over the future of American Christianity in fact if Charlie Kirk got his way Maxis would soon be leading that conversation at an extraordinary scale just as Pastor Roland hosts a special guest for each apologia event Freedom night in America is programmatically designed around Kirk interviewing a Christian conservative influencer on the night I visited Dream City Church Kirk sat down with Jeff Meyers an Evangelical academic who'd recently written a book about rediscovering absolute truth in an age of epistemological confusion Kirk began with a surprise question he wanted to know before they got into Myers's book whether the guest had any thoughts on Kirk's opening rant against churches that weren't taking a stand Myers hesitated to respond shifting in his seat only about 20% of the people who even go to church have a Biblical worldview he told Kirk now the people around me shifted in their seats it's hard to imagine but if you see in any given Church a row of 10 people two of them are there to figure out what God has to say and apply it to their lives the other eight are asking well does the pastor's story inspire me does his truth somehow match up with my truth Myers said as long as people who ought to know better are not seeking the truth he concluded I can see why it's very discouraging for a lot of pastors although it wasn't clear whether Myers meant it this way his comment set the tone for a tight RPP walking conversation with Kirk one of these two did know better Myers held a doctorate in philosophy was learned and well read and appeared uncomfortable with some of Kirk's adolescent commentaries at the same time Myers knew the market for his book and even more so for his educational programs aimed at teenagers and college students progressives weren't ponying up $2,000 to send their kids to a Biblical boot camp it was conservative churchgoers like the ones in Phoenix like the ones in Edmonds who paid Myers's bills and so the one who knew better modulated his responses to the one who didn't indulging Kirk on certain topics and sidestepping others following up on Myers's Point Kirk asked him without a hint of self-reflection if you have the truth and you don't speak the truth then what good is actually having the truth Meyers referenced a venerated Harvard sociologist pum sok who had studied civilizations all the world over and reached a harsh verdict in the absence of a belief in God in the absence of moral absolutes the only binding imperative left is power and physical Force Myers explained Kirk nodded But the irony may have been lost on him for all his talk about the absolute truths of certain topics gender sexuality and the like Kirk specialized in muddying the Waters about matters of basic fact he was uniquely Brazen about pedaling bad information when it came to election laws January 6th Russia's invasion of Ukraine racial violence education curriculum and the science and side effects of vaccination several weeks before the Dream City Event Kirk had been the tip of the Maga spear in blaming the onfield collapse of NFL player dear Hamlin on the covid-19 shot by definition the Pursuit and application of absolute truth cannot be discriminatory yet Kirk was famous for picking and choosing the certainties his base wanted to hear the things he could package into slick sound bites Market to the indignant masses and monetize with breathtaking velocity what Myers had articulated fit Kirk and his disciples All Too Well a belief in nothing except the imperative of power in an act of infantile projection Kirk pepp his freedom night performance with mentions of tyranny and tyrants this was usually in the context of Christians being pushed around by the woke secularists who control government bureaucracies corporate boardrooms and leading social media channels Christians were constantly being censored for misinformation Kirk complained but progressives who asserted their own truth were celebrated in this vein Kirk launched into a mean-spirited tangent about a lesbian in a wheelchair claiming a certain truth that white cisgendered males could not understand Myers looked dazed by the commentary wow he said to Kirk there was a lot there there certainly was and the church was a most fitting backdrop the more these two men spoke about absolute truth about this next Generation being morally a drift and detached from reality the less effective of any political program seemed as a solution if tens of millions of young people were as badly damaged as Myers and Kirk claimed the only answer was Christ yet the tone and tenor of this conversation rendered Christ or at least Christianity thoroughly off-putting to anyone who might otherwise be interested in seeking him perhaps sensing as much Myers finally spoke up the core truth that's been lost and needs to be recovered in our time is that every human has value because they bear the image of God Meer said the line won some polite Applause from the same people who'd been howling at Kirk's lesbian in a wheelchair crack hence my distinguishing between Christ and Christianity when Jesus walked the Earth he went out of his way to minister to the broken and the shunned he didn't show mere Mercy to the adulterer and The Prostitute and the tax collector he showed favoritism toward them because these were the people who needed him most he showered affection on them regardless of their Lifestyles this was disgraceful to the Jewish authorities monitoring Jesus's activity they demanded an explanation from his disciples why was their Rabbi keeping such company it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick Jesus responded overhearing their objections I have not come to call the righteous but Sinners Christianity in today's sad manifestation treats the lesbian in a wheelchair as a punchline Christ would have treated her then and he regards her now as a treasure the Scandal is that Christians someplace deep in their hearts possess that categorical Christlike love but they have been conditioned to subdue it they have been taught to selectively practice habits that are meant to be Universal they have been acclimatized to applaud when Myers talks about the danger of dehumanizing people like Hitler with Vermin or abortionists with fetuses but ignore the implications that challenge their own prejudices like migrants as aliens Or democrats as demons or lgbtq youth as the lesbian in a wheelchair when Kirk opened the session to audience questions one college age woman expressed concern about going into her chosen field teaching she wanted to know how to engage with lgbtq students while still speaking the truth as a Christian Myers suggested that the best place to start is Genesis with its emphasis on God making humans male and female and basic biology which documents thousands of differences between the Sexes he emphasized however that gender dysphoria is real and said Christians ought to extend compassion toward those suffering from it we should walk alongside them Myers concluded Kirk didn't bother hiding his smirk he ridiculed Myers for being so sweet and then declared this entire trans thing is one of the most evil things happening in our society and we cannot tolerate this evil he proceeded to liken gender dysphoric people to animals they think they a zebra a giraffe a lion and said doctors should be put in prison for prescribing treatment to minors both of these men both of these answers earned distinct waves of Applause for the first time all night the friction was palpable clearly even in this self-selecting audience of Christian conservatives attention nipped at the margins of their shared identity not all evangelicals even at a place like Dream City Church were sold on the uncompromising scorched Earth spirituality of Kirk and His Kind this was a risk that Kirk could not afford to take he had invested too much in this crusade to see it fail the pastor's conferences the church speeches the capitol tour he was promoting tpusa Faith as the crown jewel of his activism Empire losing his target market over some Lily livered misgivings about extending Grace to those who fell outside the accepted rubric would not do now at Dream City he was sharing some break news Kirk was working with Eric Maxis to produce a film version of letter to the American church and together they were aiming to screen it in sanctuaries Nationwide Kirk pred as the crowd buzzed at his announcement like a developer snatching up real estate the young ideologue was making a play to monopolize the conservative Church Market he didn't bother pretending that the goal was to glorify God or make disciples or reach Nations Kirk was building a movement to take back America and churches he said would be the backbone for the first time in a long time this movement Kirk spoke of lacked a single leader Donald Trump had declared his candidacy in November of the previous year not long after blaming PR lifers for the gops let down in November this scapegoating hadn't gone over well with social conservatives but in truth many of the Evangelical figureheads who' backed Trump in 2016 including close allies during his four years in the White House had already begun to hedge their bets on the former president Mike Evans an original member of Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board told the Washington Post that Trump used us to win the White House and then turned Christians into cult members glorifying Donald Trump like he was an idol James Robison a well-known televangelist who also advised Trump compared him to a little Elementary School child while addressing a group of Christian lawmakers David Lane a veteran Evangelical organizer whose email blasts reach many thousands of pastors and church leaders wrote that Trump's vision of making America as a nation great again has been put on the sidelines while the mission and the message are now subordinate to personal Grievances and self-importance Piper the former president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University reacted to the midterms by writing in the Washington Times the take-home of this past week is simple Donald Trump has to go even Robert jeffris the most loyal of trump loyalists worked to create some distance from the former president in several media interviews after the election jeffris explained that while Trump was still a close friend and the best president of our lifetime times there would be a large competitive field of Republican candidates running for president in 2024 and he wasn't ready to commit to any of them when I got jeffris on the phone in March 2023 not long after those interviews he admitted to running game on the reporters who'd been calling absolutely he was going to back Trump jeffris told me but what good would his endorsement do at this early stage jeffris explained that he and Trump had an understanding and in order to maximize impact he would hold off on endorsing for now then weigh in later in the primary contest when Trump most needed a boost I'll always support him jeffris said the country is going to hell and he's the only one who can save it if Trump really was in on this Arrangement he did a heck of a job concealing it the former president fumed to friends and advisers about the ungrateful evangelicals who were holding out when he learned that Jeff was hosting an event at First Baptist Dallas with Mike Pence his personal Judas who was now exploring a 2024 bid of his own Trump turned a new shade of Tangerine not that Trump had anything to fear from Pence sure the hoer state's favorite son was an actual Christian who cared about the issues abortion religious Liberties traditional ethics around sexuality and gender that had been purely transactional to Trump but none of that much mattered evangelicals had been habituated to a new political reality more important than questions of what a given candidate personally believed by this point was the question of how far that candidate would go to advance the beliefs of the Evangelical Republican base I witnessed this Evolution up close a few months after the midterms Pence traveled to Michigan for a lecture at Hillsdale College the small and highly influential Christian University the subject was faith in public life Pence looking preter naturally comfortable in the elevated Pulpit of hillsdale's gorgeous European inspired campus Chapel delivered an eloquent address that articulated his views on the most pressing cultural matters of the day the former vice president made clear that he would stand strong in defense of Traditional Values but Pence said unlike certain Republicans he would do so with a graciousness and Humanity that kept the country intact this had always been his calling card Pence reminded the audience that as far back as his days in conservative talk radio he was known as Rush limo on decaf the line got some laughs but it also underscored his limitation as a prospective candidate after the event I heard the same thing from attendees over and over Pence was not tough enough to meet this moment many folks still ad admired him they thought he was an honorable man and a model Christian to boot but a Sunday school teacher wasn't going to win this fight they needed a warrior I'm tired of nice guys letting us down the bushes were nice Mitt Romney was nice where did that get us said Jerry bird a church-going attorney who driven from the Detroit suburbs to hear Pence speak Trump is the only one who stood up for us the Democrats are ruining this country and being a good Christian isn't going to stop them honestly I don't want someone on decaf we need the real thing we're Pence to seek and fall short of the presidency in 2024 this line would warrant strong consideration for his political epigraph it said so much about him and about the movement that for decades he'd helped to lead surely Trump would take comfort in knowing that he'd sabotaged his former vice president that his own borish provocations had conditioned Christians to expect an expression of their faith so pugilistic that Pence could not pass muster at the same time Trump could be excused for feeling perplexed he did go to war with Democrats he had delivered evangelicals the policy wins they always wanted he was promising to do it all over again so why weren't they embracing his second run for the presidency one reason is that Trump had become politically toxic the electoral win loss record his own and the Republican parties under his leadership was Dreadful his defeat in 2020 might have been forgiven and his election fraud rubbish might have been overlooked had he not insisted on carrying it over into the 2022 cycle throwing his weight behind clownish candidates who doomed the GOP in crucial races the November midterms seemingly affirmed that Trump's brand was broken with moderates and independent voters the man who' convinced evangelicals that winning was everything now couldn't shake the stench of defeat in this sense it was difficult to separate Trump's decline from the rise of another Republican someone who looked to be both a warrior and a winner Ron DeSantis no politician had a better election day 2022 than Florida's young Governor running for a second term in one of America's Premier Battlegrounds DeSantis beat his Democratic rival by nearly 20 points carrying the state by an astonishing 1 and2 million votes more impressive than the margin was how DeSantis ran it up he hadn't courted the middle of the electorate emphasizing bipartisanship and good governance nor had he campaigned on a traditional conservative platform of free markets and limited government instead with ivy league precision and populist flare DeSantis had weaponized the state to crush the left seeking and destroying progressivism wherever it could be found State agencies Public Schools private corporations every Victory further emboldened the governor in one publicity stunt disantis used State funds to round up illegal immigrants in Texas put them on a charter plane then drop them in the blue Enclave of Martha's Vineyard Massachusetts using the suffering and Desperation of human beings to make a point about immigration policy the people of Martha's Vineyard perhaps unwittingly embracing biblical dicta welcomed these strangers and sojourners desantis's dominant re-election showing provided a mandate to do more soon after winning a second term DeSantis set about broadening his prohibition on discussions of sexuality in public schools he stripped colleges of the ability to teach certain curricula around race and gender he punished woke corporations like Disney stripping the company of its autonomous develop status and imposing control over its governance with a new five- member board all in retaliation for Mickey Mouse employees voicing opposition to the governor's agenda we find ourselves in Florida on the front lines in the Battle For Freedom DeSantis declared in his stateof the state address in early 2023 on paper this made DeSantis the prototype for leading the Republican Party into 2024 and Beyond he embodied all of Trump's willingness to scrap and Claw and pulverize opponents yet he carried none of the petty personal baggage Donald Trump came onto the playground found the bully that had been pushing evangelicals around and he punched them that's what endeared us to him said Tony Perkins the president of the family research Council a one-time Trump foe who helped to Rally Evangelical around the GOP nominee before the general election in 2016 but the challenge is is he went a little too far he had too much of an edge sometimes what we're looking for quite frankly is a cross between Mike Pence and Donald Trump we want someone like Pence with the strong moral convictions but Donald Trump had the fight in him we're looking for someone with that mix when I responded that it sounded quite obvious who he was describing Perkins just chuckled I've sure been cheering him on in Florida he said whether or not Trump could fend off to santis to remain a top the Republican Party his imprint on evangelicalism was already established the 45th president had foundationally altered the expectations and incentive structures within American Christendom he had persuaded the church-going masses that it was better to win with Vice than to lose with virtue he had blinded Believers to the means and fixed their eyes on the ends most significant ly he had shown evangelicals that their movement need not be led by an Evangelical this was evident enough in the emerging love affair with DeSantis a casual Catholic for whom Faith had never been a known part of his life but this phenomenon was bigger than politics consider the case of Charlie Kirk that a 20-some without any college education or theological training could have a think tank named after him at the world's most influential Christian University might once have prompted some disbelief from evangelicals not anymore nobody blinks when Kirk speaks at America's largest churches flippantly dropping insult and hateful innuendo from the pulpit it raises no eyebrows when Kirk invites an atheist the anti-woke pist James Lindsay to his Pastor conferences or when Donald Trump Jr disparages the teachings of Christ at one of Kirk's Turning Point USA jamborees we've turned the other cheek and I understand sort of the biblical reference Trump Jr said but it's gotten us nothing simply put Trump the Elder created a new moral political framework in which people like Kirk and Eric Maxis and John M convince evangelicals to distrust any believer Who Dares stray from their absolutist ideology they do so by fermenting fears of a crushing coordinated assault on Christian Christianity and by attacking anyone who refuses to adopt a militant posture in response this is how Maxis justifies portraying Tim Keller the widely admired New York Theologian and Rick Warren the author and leader of Saddleback Church in California as Hitler's favorite kind of pastors this is how John mck gets away with likening David French a staunch defender of social conservatism and of religious liberty to Nazi collaborators this is how Tucker Carlson blasts Russell Moore and his aforementioned friends as cowards who don't have the guts to defend their faith against a secular Onslaught where's Russell Moore and all the other breastfeeding Christians as that happens as the US government cracks down on Christianity Carlson asked on his Fox News show in March 2023 showcasing that familiar snarl while slinging an adjective nobody quite understood walking out of Dream City I thought about that question where were those Christians the forces of political identity and nationalist idolatry long latent now fully Unleashed in the form of trumpism were destroying the Evangelical Church I had seen it for myself over the past 6 years in every corner of the country pastors had walked away from the ministry congregations had been Shattered by infighting colle ctive Faith communities and individual relationships had been wrecked this turmoil once largely organic gestating in the back pews and coffee parlors of local churches across the country was now being sown by powerful outside actors by people like Kirk at a frightening clip they did not concern themselves with the credibility of the Christian witness churches were not a bride to be loved but a battlefield to be conquered this was nothing less than a war for the soul of American Christianity and church by Church Believer by believer it appeared to me that Kirk and his allies were winning it this wasn't just because their side had more resources to deploy and fewer ethical guidelines to observe it was because they were encountering no resistance this was always going to be an unfair fight but it was becoming painfully clear how uneven the two sides really were pastors who wanted to host a lobbying Workshop or voter registration drive or antivaxx rally at their churches had a sprawling sophisticated Network to tap into pastors who wanted to push back on tribal mutinies could send an email to Russell Moore or David French pray it earned a response and then prepare a sermon written in code so as to not scatter the remnant of their flocks I knew the leaders of the opposition figures like Moore and French and I knew that they were horrified by this hostile takeover of evangelicalism these were people who had suffered personally and professionally by swimming against the currents of their own faith subcultures it seemed most of them had given up or at least retreated and I couldn't blame them they had every excuse to ignore the institutional struggle and look inward toward their own families and their own faith Journeys to settle on loving the Lord and letting him sort out this mess in America but they had not given up they had not retreated they had been underground regrouping and organizing and plotting the path forward finally after so many years on the defensive they were poised to launch a Counterattack chapter 18 Brentwood Tennessee do to others as you would have them do to you Luke 6:31 the first thing David French did when Russell Moore flopped into our booth was to offer him a drink you're not a southern baptist anymore French said grinning as he twirled an old-fashioned in his left hand Moore snorted and shook his head it was almost the end of 2021 some 8 months after his departure from the Southern Baptist convention but for for all the changes in Moore's life since then taking up alcohol wasn't one of them he studied the sweet tea being sipped by the fourth member of our party author and Christian Communicator Daniel darling and asked the waitress to please bring him the same not that I couldn't use it Moore said nodding toward French's half- drained cocktail we all laughed Moore had been through a lot as had these other two gentlemen indeed it was their Mutual tor and their shared home base in Metropolitan Nashville that brought us together this late November night at a Mexican restaurant in the suburb of Brentwood all three men were losing sleep over the trajectory of American evangelicalism because all three men had seen from the inside the very worst it had to offer more of course had been bullied into leaving his role at top the ethics and religious liberty commission the influential public facing policy arm of the SBC darling had recently been fired from his job at the National Religious broadcasters where he'd served as senior vice president of communications for the sin of promoting covid-19 vaccines during an interview on the MSNBC show Morning Joe our family has lost too many close friends and relatives to co including an uncle a beloved church member and our piano teacher darling said on the cable news program French had probably endured more than either of them ever since announcing his opposition to Trump in 2015 while writing for National Review French had occupied a special place in the crosshairs of the Christian right perhaps it was because of his pedigree a distinguished lawyer who had represented major conservative organizations in federal court French had long been regarded as a steadfast opponent of the progressive left back in 2005 after stepping down as the president of a prominent civil liberties organization in order to join the US Army and deploy to Iraq to join the war on terror French told the conservative Gathering the two greatest threats to the United States of America are radical jihadists abroad and radical leftists at home and I feel called to fight both but then French went to war and I saw what the enemy actually looked like he told us at dinner the jihadists who were beheading journalists and mutilating young girls and burning apostates alive were nothing like the progressive political activists he' encountered back home in fact French a Kentucky native had spent most of his adult life in deep blue communities his son was born in Ithaca New York shortly after the reign of a socialist mayor his introduction to the Evangelical Church after his fundamentalist upbringing came in Cambridge Massachusetts his wife had accepted accepted Christ at a church in Manhattan French cherished these places and the people in them as he matured in his faith he told me I was very chastened I was still a conservative still a republican but I began to fall out of step with the tone and the direction of My Tribe French's wandering in the political Wilderness attracted little attention at first it wasn't until he declared his opposition to Trump in the pages of National Review and condemned the figures and forces of the white nationalist altright who supported Trump's candidacy that he became a Target the campaign against French and his family was vicious Twitter trolls bombarded him with death threats they flooded the internet with messages accusing French's wife Nancy an outspoken Survivor of sexual assault of sleeping with groups of black men during his deployment to Iraq they photoshopped images of his youngest daughter who' been adopted from Ethiopia inside a gas chamber Trump depicted in a Nazi SS uniform was shown with his finger on the ignition button the Spectre of physical violence was inescapable both David and Nancy began carrying pistols nor was the harassment limited to Anonymous social media accounts as French raced to keep up with blocking the thousands of Twitter users who stalked him he noticed some familiar names they belonged to fellow churchgoers this was perhaps the most wrenching part of French's ordeal he had hoped during these trying times to at least find refuge in his house of worship no such luck throughout the 2016 campaign and into Trump's presidency French was regularly confronted by his fellow congregants at their Church in Columbia Tennessee about his political writings he would always try to deescalate but the tension kept building families whispered about them when they walked into a room some even made a show of turning their backs to the frenches one Sunday morning in 2018 things boiled over an elder at the church a fellow veteran whom they considered a friend accosted David and Nancy inside the sanctuary after the worship service about an article David had written after all he's done for us the man said how can you still be opposed to our president when David began by citing Trump's basic moral failings his degradation of women his pension for sexual Conquest the man scoffed Trump's just an alleycat he said Nancy interrupted she asked whether he'd been bothered by Bill Clinton's womanizing the Elder responded that yes he had been but you're okay with paying hush money to porn stars and bragging about grabbing women by the she asked the Elder gritted his teeth you he said turning to David had better get your woman under control David demanded an apology the Elder refused storming out of the sanctuary the frenches found the rest of the congregation in the refreshment Lobby sipping coffee and making small talk before the Sunday School hour David grabbed a spoon and wrapped it several times against the mug hey everyone just an announcement he shouted eyes Ablaze restraining the rage now Cur Ling inside of him no one is allowed to talk to me and Nancy about Donald Trump while we at church you can come to our house you can do it over coffee but not here when they moved a short time later to the Nashville suburb of Franklin the frenches hoped to start over at their new church it didn't last one of the first Sundays there as David stood in a semicircle around the communion table with a small group of other congregants a man drank from the cup set it down then looked over at him you're David French aren't you he asked David noded the man told him right there at the communion table that he strongly disagreed with French's political opinions then he introduced himself French was astonished this man had been one of his most prolific online abusers his words had been so venomous that French having long ago blocked his Twitter account still recognize the name at an instant the frenches didn't last long at that church more striking than any one detail from French's account was the reaction from Russell Moore and Daniel darling they offered little more than shrugs and eye rolls it wasn't that they lacked for sympathy they just knew that what French was describing wasn't isolated or entirely unique this was the new reality of the Evangelical movement in America this is what they and Christian leaders everywhere were up against and let's be clear none of this started with Donald Trump Moore said it was easier to get an argument going in the church parking lot over whether there were death panels in Obamacare than it was over the Trinity or the inherency of scripture Trump just took it to a new level Moore recalled how back in 2014 Trump had reacted to the Ebola outbreak by arguing that Christian missionaries working in Africa whom the Obama Administration was working to bring back to the United States should not be allowed to reenter the country the United States has enough problems Trump had tweeted in all caps people that go to far away places to help out are great but must suffer the consequences Moore paused blinking rapidly struggling to summon the words and it was like come on this one is as easy as it gets missionaries caring for the sick get to come home he said but you had evangelicals defending Trump's position why the answer French suggested was complacency Christians had spent the previous decade watching the left take control of major cultural institutions and win defining battles over sexuality marriage and the like overwhelmed they had retreated ever deeper into the echo chamber of conservative talk radio and Fox News where every disagreement over policy was treated as a proxy war for the soul of the nation this formed a new catechesis for believers one that French like so many Christian leaders saw but never took seriously enough until it was too late what once seemed like heightened but not unhealthy political engagement turned out to be toxic malevolent paranoic thinking that Trump skillfully harnessed in his rise to the presidency Moore agreed with that assessment and he like french accepted some of the blame evangelicals should have seen this coming not because of the right-wing media induced freakouts over immigration patterns or Obama's birth certificate but because of the for-profit propagandizing of Christians that had been successful for decades long before your average churchgoer was addicted to Fox News Prime Time these same people were listening to four or five hours of fundamentalist prophecy charting conspiracy preaching on the radio and TV every single day Moore said so it's not all that different there's just a lot more of it now and it's more explicitly political in its aims the proliferation of content that prays on Christian audiences catastrophizing events for profit via podcasts and blogs social media sites and Forum subgroups makes it impossible for church leaders to police what their people are consuming whereas any Pastor in the 70s or ' 80s could identify the threats by name and warn their flock to stay away today churchgoers are em bibing information from sources their clergy have never heard of this has bred a certain resignation because the sheer volume of external noise is so overwhelming lots of church leaders have given up trying to block it out when I was a kid my parents and my pastors were hardcore about controlling our content any movies or music or TV that even hinted it violence sexuality drugs disrespect for Authority you name it that stuff was absolutely forbidden darling said what we need is for Christians to apply that same standard to political content because it's way more subversive than the pop culture content Moore chuckled there's been this amazing shift it used to be the parents coming to me worried sick about what their kids were watching and listening to asking what they could do to pull them back back he said now almost everywhere I go this just happened at a church I visited the other night it's the kids coming to me they say their Evangelical parents have gone totally crazy binge watching Fox News or Newsmax or one Amer news and they want to know how to pull them back darling noted how there were some people at his church who had strayed really far into the conspiracy stuff and sending them legitimate news articles with facts does not work these people have lost trust in institutions across the board darling said and are effectively living in a different reality arguing with them was pointless the only way to reach them he said was for pastors to accept the burden of meeting these people where they're at and try to help them live more responsibly in the information age French took exception to this point I'm really tired of this talk about how these poor people don't trust anything anymore oh no you trust you just trust all the wrong stuff you trust awful people with awful intentions for no good reason other than they tell you what you want to hear French seeed you come home after work put on Fox News and leave it on until you go to bed you trust Fox News despite the Seth Rich conspiracy theory the election bull crap all the revisionist history on January 6th you sit there for hours listening to this garbage rotting your soul and then you turn around and say why would I trust the New York Times really why would you trust Tucker Carlson we all agreed that these ideological die hards whom French was describing were not a majority of the American Evangelical movement there is a difference between the people who prefer the 6 p.m. hour of programming at Fox News to those of its cable Rivals and the people who marinate in right-wing misinformation all day long that latter group everyone estimated was still no more than 15 or 20% of most Church congregations they knew of the problem is as Moore pointed out that vocal minority will always push around a timid majority the people who care the most usually get what they want french nodded the people who care about an institution Define an institution this is the problem for pastors dealing with that crazy 15 or 20% French said if they had a just as committed 20% to push back on them their churches would be fine but they don't I asked what it would take to equip that other 20% what it would take for these pastors to regain control of their churches nobody said a word finally Moore spoke up I don't know honestly I'm more concerned than I was a year ago and that's saying something he said it may sound like Chicken Little but I'm telling you there is a serious effort to turn this two countryes talk into something real there are Christians taking all the populist passions and adding a Transcendent authority to it and nobody is stopping them an air of despondency hung over that dinner in late 2021 the events of the previous few years haunted each of my companions in unique ways all vowed to one another that they would spend the next few years fighting this contagion inside the American church but they struggled with a basic question where to start darling who was reeling after being axed by the National Religious broadcasters landed on his feet at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary moving his family from Tennessee to Texas darling became the director of the University's land Center for cultural engagement a prized perch from which he could reach a large Southern Baptist AUD audence while mentoring the next generation of theologians and preachers French focused his energies on journalism having left National Review near the end of Trump's presidency to join a new website the dispatch French became one of the most indispensible conservative voices in American Media in columns published twice a week French used his Judge Advocate General background to investigate abuses adjudicate bad faith arguments and offer nuanced perspective on on the most pressing political legal and social issues of the day Moore's Journey was the most ambitious splitting the difference between teaching Doctrine and practicing journalism he joined Christianity today as the Magazine's public Theologian Moore began writing a widely read newsletter and hosting an aonomus podcast using the CT platform to expose and contextualize the sausage making of the professional Evangelical industry he brought a sharp inquisitory voice to this effort most famously in May 2022 when a third-party firm released the shocking summary report of its probe into the handling of sexual abuse by the southern baptist convention's leadership Moore who'd been terrorized for requesting this very investigation wrote a scathing column titled this is the Southern Baptist apocalypse more the SBC Exile whose years of alarm ing were Vindicated by the findings of the report got lots of attention for his flame-throwing censures of America's largest denomination but all the while behind the scenes he was spending much of his time battling the blaze that was engulfing evangelicalism RIT large one of the first things Moore did after quitting the Southern Baptist convention was link up with other Christian refugees they were of different generations and races and political Persuasions they came from all different denominational backgrounds and worship Traditions what United them was the hard-earned knowledge that something had gone very wrong within American Christianity starting in the spring of 2021 Moore had convened a series of private Gatherings about how to rebuild the church the first meeting at a friend's home in Maryland counted 25 participants the next convening at a resort in Vermont that fall included twice that number every time I spoke with more over the ensuing year he reported that the group had grown larger yet its footprint became no more visible there were no Creeds or open letters or mission statements and that more explained was the entire point a few people have argued for forming a group you know the National Association of s evangelicals or something but most of us don't think that would be effective In This Moment Moore told me in the summer of 2022 all it takes is one of our members to be recognized as a woke or liberal or whatever and suddenly the entire effort is infected the people we're trying to empower they don't need to be signing onto manifestos on organizational letterhead they need to be in a safe space where they can ask questions and figure out how other people are dealing with these problems his group aimed to empower two different categories of Christian the first were highlevel operators people with deep Connections in the Evangelical world who were undertaking Myriad efforts to deute their own denominations and Affiliated churches because these efforts were often overlapping Moore came to view his secret society which ran the demographic and ideological Spectrum as being in charge of directing traffic they made sure that groups working toward racial reconciliation like undivided out of Cincinnati were communicating with groups focused on misin such as the dc-based American Values Coalition and that Grassroots efforts to combat Christian nationalism at Evangelical colleges were coordinated with well-funded studies at secular universities plenty of Believers had responded to the crisis facing the church by leaping into action Moore said but they had struggled because nobody was systematizing their efforts Moore called this the air War he and his allies were fighting and I could tell from our conversations as the months went by that he considered this effort a success at the same time I could sense Moore's growing angst about the other part of their operation the ground war he always had a heart for pastors preaching was in the man's blood after all nothing gave him a thrill like seeing one of his former seminarians in the Pulpit answering God's calling on their life but the thrill had in recent years given way to Terror Moore watched help hopelessly as pastors he knew and loved quit the ministry overwhelmed by the moment and unable to continue on in their work this was the other component of Moore's charge and it looked to be consuming him every time we spoke it seemed he was in a different city meeting with a different crowd of local pastors trying to prop up the whole of the American clergy like Atlas himself more worried that many pastors were simply ill equipped to meet the challenges of the times they had gone to Bible College or seminary to study the scriptures some had received Advanced degrees perhaps in Divinity or counseling but none of them had learned how to soothe tribal political tensions in their churches none of them had been trained to navigate an ascendant nationalist excitability in their congregations they were losing a game for which they had never practiced this sensation of failure could drive even the most gifted and confident preacher to despair I had seen it myself self Chris winens at Cornerstone John Torres at Goodwill and so many others Moore felt a manic urgency about their plight these pastors were a redout they were in so many cases the only thing standing between the Christians in their communities and forces that would destroy the church they needed to be fortified and fast we are losing our most stable people in Mississippi right now one out of every four Baptist churches are without pastors a lot of these guys they won't say it in a room in front of people but they'll whisper to me afterward I'm not sure how much longer I can hang on Moore said and pretty soon it's a choice between quitting and self-destruction there's a lot of pastors who are very isolated and they're giving into numbing mechanisms alcohol substance abuse Affairs subconsciously it gives them an off ramp we're seeing a lot of that right now Moore couldn't hope to save all of these individuals himself what he aimed to do by convening groups of clergy all over the country was to build networks of pastoral Brotherhood rivalries between religious factions even within shared Traditions have long prevented the kind of collaborating one might expect from Men of the cloth this moment more argued de Ed that collaboration not only were these pastors experiencing something that could only be related to by other pastors but they were experiencing it at a time of massive realignment within the Christian world that's what makes it such a challenge all this crazy political stuff is happening just as the denominational structures are imploding Moore explained most of these pastors don't have institutional support it doesn't matter what kind of poity they're in whether they have a bishop or a presbyter or whatever it doesn't matter it's similar to how the political parties have dissolved back in 2015 and 2016 I would hear people say don't worry about Trump the party won't let him win and then I'd meet with Ry Prius the chairman of the Republican National Committee and subsequently Trump's first chief of staff and he'd say you think we can stop Trump it's the same thing in these denominations most pastors can't count on a structure behind them to help because those structures don't exist anymore the good news Moore told me was that pastors were beginning to adapt to this new reality unlike in 2015 and 2016 when so many of his Brethren clung to the belief that this was a passing storm most of them now accepted that the Tempest would endure the result was a new and notably proactive attitude toward engaging these divisions the demand for Moore's private Network building seminars had exploded Beyond any reasonable Supply he was speaking in four different cities that week alone there was no keeping up with the outcry from pastors and church leaders who were pleading to be outfitted it was a good problem to have but a problem nonetheless Moore wasn't sure he could scale up his effort there was already so much to balance he had recently been named editorinchief of Christianity Today and in addition to Leading the magazine staff he was writing a book receiving constant speaking requests and raising five kids transforming his unofficial Loosely structured Pastor rehabilitation program into a formal public facing initiative wasn't in the cards God is up to something Moore told me but for once it wouldn't necessitate his leadership someone else needed to do the heavy lifting Curtis Chang knew a thing or two about the pressures of pastoral Ministry the Harvard educated son of Chinese immigrants Chang bypassed lucrative careers in business law and government to serve the Lord he spent his 20s working for intervarsity Christian Fellowship ship the nation's largest campus-based Ministry and in his 30s he assumed the role of lead pastor at a vibrant young Evangelical Church in San Jose California this was long before the Trump era yet the pressures were just as intense the dot bubble was beginning to burst which led to an exodus of money and human capital from Silicon Valley as the young pastor's congregation dwindled and he informed some staff m members that they would need to be let go Chang began to spiral he had battled anxiety since childhood but it now began to crush him he went weeks without sleep and suffered from crippling panic attacks the anxiety gave way to a severe depression Chang found himself hardly able to function he could not lead his family let alone his large church he took a leave from pastoring and eventually steep down for good it was a humiliating traumatizing ordeal Chang stuck around as a lay leader he still serves the church to this day but he knew that his clergy career was finished certain professions are not conducive to panic disorder preaching is one of them retreating from what he thought had been God's design for his life Chang decided to tap into another skill set launching a Bay Area consulting firm focused on serving corporations and universities secular nonprofits and government agencies he was enormously successful Chang earned loads of money and a superb reputation among silicon Valley's Elite for a decade after leaving the ministry he felt healthy personally professionally spiritually and content then around the time of Trump's election Chang began to detect in his church and in the broader Evangelical movement those same undertones of anxiety that had tortured him years earlier economic anxiety cultural anxiety racial anxiety National anxiety all of it was palpable none of it was productive Chang had a unique vantage point an Evangelical who subscribed to conservative theology he was politically left of center someone from whom issues of refugee settlement and gun violence mattered as much as abortion and same-sex marriage he had never fit neatly into any particular category or click troubled by Trump's presidency and its radicalizing effect on the church Chang in 2019 launched a religious nonprofit redeeming Babel the group's mission was to reimagine the methods by which evangelicals engaged with Society it was a noble enough idea and then covid-19 arrived Chang found himself at the intersection of an evangelicalism that recoiled at pandemic policies Church shutdowns maske wearing vaccines and a secular Silicon Valley that possessed zero understanding of this Faith Community or its objections to said policies he attempted to serve as a conduit between these worlds contracted by Health agencies to promote vaccination Chang worked to build an alliance between Evangelical and secular organizations but too often it was like translating between tribes recalling one particular meeting with a high-powered healthc care executive who could not fathom the Evangelical resistance to vaccines Chang walked her through arguments touching on everything from abortion and stem cell research to bodily temples and end times prophecy her expression was finally the passive and unfailingly polite Chang blurted out does the term mark of the beast mean anything to you the woman wide-eyed said it did not distressed by this disconnect Chang began pouring himself into dual education efforts teaching evangelicals about the vaccine while teaching everyone else about why evangelicals were forgoing the shot at rates exceeding any other Dem graphic he authored essays for the New York Times he testified before the US Senate he created video content explaining the science and efficacy of the vaccines these efforts absolutely moved the pun intended needle a peer-reviewed study from Stanford and Colombia left no doubt that Chang's initiatives saved lives in the Evangelical Community still he felt inadequate the bloody conclusion to Trump's presidency had Unleashed sentiments far more menacing than vaccine hesitancy even as he gained ground in one battle Chang feared that Christians like him were losing the war in July 2021 Chang and his wife hosted some friends for a stay at their California home one of those friends was David French they had known each other for 30 years a relationship built not on religion or law or politics but on something even more profound Fantasy Baseball having bonded decades earlier over the ritual of stat casting and simulated roster building Chang and French were now comrades sharing a foxhole although their politics were quite Divergent Chang a moderate pro-life Democrat French an arch conservative who' abandoned the Republican party they shared religious convictions to which everything else was subordinate both men had witnessed the unraveling of the Evangelical movement both men had watched Bad actors Strongarm the church in pursuit of a partisan agenda both men agreed that something needed to be done about it one afternoon while hiking the gry whale Cove Trail along the spectacular San Mato Coast Chang laid it all out for French there needed to be an organized visible well-funded effort to counter the work done by the like of Charlie Kirk Eric Maxis Ralph Reed David Barton and so many others on the Maga right Chang didn't Envision some puritanical campaign to banish politics from the church altogether what he hoped to articulate was an alternative to the manic Enemy at the gates mindset that was infecting American evangelicalism this would best be accomplished by a systematic curriculum something that could be studied by individuals and small groups something focused not on the who or what of politics who to vote for What policies to support but on the question of how Christians are called to engage the culture the one thing that's unambiguous where we can take direct instruction from Jesus is on the how of politics when it comes to loving our enemy having humility showing Mercy pursuing truth Chang told French and those hows while being deeply IAL and pointing people to Jesus also happen to be really congruent with the basic values of democracy and pluralism Chang was on to something how many disputes theological and political and otherwise might be amicably resolved by practicing the so-called Golden Rule we all learned in kindergarten that old adage meant to ensure Harmony dignity Community was first spoken by Jesus as he he taught his followers how to deal with people they didn't like or agree with do unto others as you would have them do to you Jesus said French listened carefully he and Chang had noodled on these ideas before but this was a new level of detail and commitment he had so many other obligations and so little time to give to such an ambitious new Venture but he knew it needed to be done as long as Chang was willing to lead the charge from an organizational and fundraising standpoint French told his friend I'm in at that very moment the two men rounded a curve in the trail outstretching before them was a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean Chang thought of the Old Fisherman's prayer oh God thy sea is so great and my boat is so small the man driven from the ranks of profess profal preaching by chronic anxiety was about to climb into an even wobbler Pulpit the first step Chang and French agreed was to throw up a flag and see who rallied to it they soon created the good faith podcast a weekly conversation situated at the Nexus of Christianity and current events the podcast launched in November 2021 and quickly climbed into the top 0.5% of global podcast downloads the response was a revelation until that point Chang and French had only hypothesized about the appetite for their novel approach to politics and evangelicalism now the audience was proving larger and hungrier than they could have imagined Chang assumed given basic market dynamics that raising money for their new initiative would be easy enough in my mind this is an Evangelical problem CH told me we allowed this to happen and so I felt like it was important that Christian funders Take the Lead but what I discovered very quickly was that the same paralysis the same fear of stepping into The Fray that has gripped Evangelical pastors has also gripped Evangelical funders just like the pastor fears the blowback if they speak out the Christian funders and Foundations do as well because they're dealing with the same Dynamics on their boards and with their constituents so even though I had relationships with these people I had worked with them before I kept coming up empty even without any clear sense of how the resources might materialize to power this project Chang embarked on a determined Talent recruiting tour throughout the spring and summer of 2022 he traveled the country pitching well-placed Evangelical leaders on the initiative slowly painstakingly he won important allies among them for former George W bush adviser and prolific writer Pete wayer Sher Harter who runs the dc-based nonprofit Trinity Forum Andrew hanau who leads the one America movement and Shirley hogra president of the council for Christian colleges and universities an organization long vexed by the question of how to handle the incursion of Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA into its Affiliated campuses the the biggest catch was Russell Moore better than anyone he understood the necessity of a teaching program that could be introduced at the lay level something to relieve the pressure on pastors to have to tackle everything from the pulpit Moore simply didn't have the time to do it himself he had been praying and waiting for someone else to shoulder the load suddenly here was Curtis Chang offering to do just that made in heaven or not the match was perfect Chang Moore and French decided to call their Venture the Afterparty it was a double on Tandra they aspired to a post-partisan Christianity but even more so they looked forward to the promised Feast awaiting Jesus's followers in eternity a place where divisions will vanish replaced by a celebration of unity in Christ with the gang put together Chang charged ahead even harder on the fundraising front striking out time and again with Christian individuals and entities he began to entertain a strange idea what if unbelievers footed the bill for this project walking into his initial meetings with secular funders Chang halfway wondered if he was losing his mind these were some of the same people who couldn't fathom vaccine hesitancy among evangelicals who had zero understanding of the church's conflicts regarding politics policy and culture now they were going to bankroll his Christian curriculum Enterprise yes that's what all of them said yes in retrospect Chang told me it shouldn't have been a surprise the people he approached while predominant Progressive in their personal views were invested in issues of democracy pluralism National cohesiveness in one particularly impactful meeting after Chang began with Amia kulpa explained that this was a problem of evangelicals own making and a problem that they were responsible for solving the man across the table a non-Christian abruptly cut him off no no no this isn't just your problem this is everyone's problem the man told him the truth is some of us have marginalized evangelicals we have given them reason to be suspicious of us this is our problem too Chang became emotional when recalling this ex change it was really really heartening to me he said I've come around since then to realizing that these Partnerships need to be part of the solution to sharing this Society together there has been so much hostility for so long and it's inexcusable on both sides but we are the ones called to be witnessing to the culture right so let's see maybe if we use the resources of the secular world to heal the Evangelical Church then we can also use the spirit of the Evangelical Church to heal the secular World flush with seed funding Chang French and more got to work crafting their curriculum what they wound up producing as an initial offering was a six session series designed to be plug-and-play for small groups that host 60 to 90 minute Bible studies a typical session might feature an opening video lecture followed by a time of conversation around certain prompts then conclude with a structured group exercise and a period of individual reflection the plan was to steadily build out a library of content available online and via smartphone apps that can be accessed anywhere and taught by anyone in December 2022 the Afterparty was awarded a large Grant to execute a pilot project in Ohio announcing the launch of his group at the national press Press Club in March 2023 Chang explained how they were partnering with networks of pastors and Christian colleges in the Bucky State and hoped to distribute the curriculum to some 50 churches later that year if all went according to plan Chang said they would receive enough positive feedback to start scaling the project up in 2024 just in time for a presidential campaign the timing Chang said is not coincidental pastors have been white knuckling their way through Politics the last 6 years he told me after the launch it's time we help them out there was something different about Russell Moore when we spoke in the spring of 2023 for the past number of years our regular conversations had been marked by a persistent heaviness and yet on this March afternoon just days after Tucker Carlson ridiculed him on his television show and days before the launch of the Afterparty Moore sounded Lively cheerful light I had to wonder if there wasn't a certain validation in being mocked by Carlson at this stage recent court documents revealed due to an ongoing lawsuit against Fox News had exposed the Staggering extent of Carlson's duplicity the fox host had promoted election fraud profiteers while privately deriding them and his own viewers as buffoons for believing any of it he'd publicly Champion Trump while telling one colleague via text I hate him passionately none of this mattered to the professional class of grifters I'd rather the men in my church be discipled by Tucker Carlson over David French tweeted magga mascot and Christian nationalist mouthpiece William wolf but it did serious damage with the common viewer Moore acknowledged that he was encouraged by this this in fact he told me he'd recently gotten a double dose of related good news a Revival had broken out at Asbury University a small Evangelical School in Kentucky and thousands of Christians had flooded the campus to share in the experience of spiritual ecstasy this was precisely the type of moment Moore had been praying for but he worried almost immediately upon hearing the news of asbury's Revival that it would be hijacked by Bad actors for the sake of their own agendas Asbury refused to let that happen when he called to check in with friends at the college Moore was told that in an attempt to safeguard the beauty and sanctity of the occasion school officials were guarding the campus against performance artists that included Fox News Carlson's team had asked to broadcast a show live from the Revival Moore was informed but the Asbury staff refused one of the things that's really extraordinary about what's happened at Asbury both at the institutional leadership level and with the organic on the ground presence of students there is they haven't let these Outsiders come in and Leverage What God was doing there for their own means to anend purposes Moore said that gives me real hope that something is changing for the better this amounted to an impossibly optimistic sentiment from more changing from the better who was this upbeat individual speaking in such buoyant tones I recalled to more what he told us at dinner in Tennessee 16 months earlier it may sound like chicken little but I'm telling you there's a serious effort to turn this two countries talk into something real there are Christians taking all the populist passions and adding a Transcendent authority to it and nobody is stopping Moore interrupted before I could finish I'm in a better place now we in a better place now he said one reason for that more noted was the resilience of the Young Generation of believers they had not only held the line but helped to pull their parents back from the brink put it this way the Turning Point USA youth rallies and the Asbury Revival are just two very clearly different things in a way that would not have been the case a couple of years ago Moore said these kids even though they'd have every right to rebel against the older generation they're not instead they're finding ways to love and honor and bring along their pastors their parents their grandparents and that's actually forcing a lot of these parents and grandparents to begin seeing things through the rubric of their children or grandchildren which is incredibly positive this was not however the primary explanation for Moore's surging confidence beyond the Asbury Revival and other recent developments the emergence of efforts like the Afterparty the continuing implosion of Carlson who was soon fired by Fox News there was reason to believe that despite having all the resources to Stage a serious institutional takeover of American Christianity people like Charlie Kirk and Eric Maxis were floundering no doubt they would continue to spend even bigger and push even harder making life miserable for pastors and sewing incessant instability in their churches but that was worlds removed from what seemed possible not long before when in the two years after Trump left office they seemed poised to capture the controls inside of the American church somewhere along the line their momentum had stalled I could see it on Kirk's demoralized face in Phoenix I could hear it in mat axis's strained desperate voice in Washington state these were not men men beholding a great victory that was within reach these were men bracing for further losses obviously we still have enormous challenges but one of those challenges is not an organized Christian nationalist movement gaining the power at a Grassroots level to hijack institutions Moore said that has now shown itself to be the case over and over again whether in denominations or Campus Ministries or colleges themselves those institutions that are doing the work of church-based evangelicalism have not Fallen to this nationalist political movement and they don't appear to be in danger of falling he added there was an almost Universal sense in many of those institutions not long ago that this populist Christian nationalist takeover had an appearance of inevitability and that has proven to not be the case it's a surprise a very pleasant surprise I asked more if there was a specific example that came to mind believe it or not he said with a reticent chuckle it's the Southern Baptist convention chapter 19 Anaheim California go and do likewise Luke 10: 37 when Daniel darling was fired by the National Religious broadcasters back in 2021 after voicing support for the Corona virus vaccine his life went sideways the father of four was cast away abruptly without work battered by internet bullies many of them self-identifying Christians who reveled in his Misfortune yet it was also Christians who rode to his rescue reaching out with prayers and encouragement offering job leads even sending money directly to his family so they could pay the bills man I've been hurt by the church but I've also been blessed by the church darling said getting fired like that revealed the best and the worst of what Christianity can be so ugly but also so beautiful and the problem is the public only sees the crazy side of Christianity they don't see the love behind the scenes stocky bearded and in his mid-40s darling wore a teal fishing shirt on the morning we met for breakfast in June 2022 a blue lanyard swung from around his neck it announced the southern baptist convention's annual meeting which was unfolding at a Convention Center three blocks away the theme of The Gathering displayed on literature and Banners and Darlings lanyard was Jesus the center of it all except Jesus wasn't the center of it all this year's SBC meeting like every other SBC meeting in recent memory would be dominated by extra biblical headlines there was the fight over Saddleback Church headed by renowned pastor and author Rick Warren who had antagonized some SBC mates by allowing women to teach inside his church there was a hotly contested election for the SBC presidency pitting a farri candidate against a more agreeable but still quite conservative opponent perhaps most consequentially there was a historic vote over whether to adopt recommendations from a third-party investigation the one that produced The Apocalypse report Russell Moore wrote of that would set up a database to track sexual predators inside of the denomination this was darling's entire Point our North American Mission board raised something like $66 million this year to help the most impoverished people around the world we've sent $1 million to Ukraine in the last year alone we have people on the ground there we have people on the ground everywhere I mean literally anywhere you see human suffering you see southern Baptists you see evangelicals darling told me but we spend so much time doing and saying crazy stuff stuff that hurts people that it distracts from all the good we're doing in the world it distracts from Jesus some of this darling complained was the product of incentive structures in the media industry he had spent years living and worshiping in Mount Juliet Tennessee the town where Greg lock pastored his Tent Revival Church darling explained that an alliance of Evangelical leaders there had done heroic work in the community including starting a public private Cooperative to help feed clothe and educate underserved youth they got no coverage from the Nashville press and they didn't want any but when Greg lock starts spouting all this crazy nonsense guess who makes the cover of The Tennessean darling said the resilience shown by many congregations in the face of these Insurgent threats he told me was as big a story as the Insurgency itself a lot of people expected that your average Evangelical Church had turned into some kind of Maga hot house on Sunday mornings and that's definitely happened in some places but it's nowhere near the numbers the people think darling said for all the problems we've seen with people arguing over covid and racial Justice and Trump people leaving their churches because of their own political biases those churches have held on and in a lot of cases they're actually healthier than they were before this sentiment was beginning to sound familiar I had heard it in conversations with pastors who had been through the ministerial meat grinder since 2016 who had watched a quarter of their congregations defect due to partisan grievances who had suffered so greatly in the process that they themselves nearly quit the church or the clergy altogether but who with the passing of time if not yet the proverbial storm had seen their Ministries fortified fears of a mass Exodus faded Church Life returned to some semblance of normal newcomers popped up in the pews pastors could finally Breathe Again focusing on their jobs instead of worrying about the next turn of the news cycle this is the mistake Tom ascal is making darling told me referring to the Florida Pastor who was running for SBC president on a Hardline conservative platform most pastors are thinking about their sermon for Sunday they're tied up with the person they're visiting in the hospital the marriage counseling they're doing and oh yeah they've also got a troubled kid at home they don't want to get sucked back in to this political junk it wasn't for a lack of conviction indeed many of the pastors I'd encountered over the previous few years held strong personal beliefs on the most pressing issues of the moment in certain cases such as with abortion they might feel obliged as a matter of conscience to share those beliefs with their flocks but by and large they kept quiet there was no upside to engaging in political discourse because too many of their congregants simply could not observe the boundaries necessary to keep that discourse centered on Christ what the military calls Mission creep a bombing of some Munitions Hut turns into a ground war against the entire continent confounds much of the modern Evangelical movement a specific ethical cause such as advocacy for The Unborn gives way to wide ranging knee-jerk intellectually untethered promotion of partisan Crusades the key to healthy Christianity darling said is Discerning where that line is and rejecting the pressure to cross it there's nothing wrong with presenting our views in the Public Square if we really see the world as our mission field then we should try to shape society as best we can darling said but we can't do it from a place of over realized patriotism we can't do it from a place of red versus blue we can't do it from a place of fear because to those people watching from the outside that's the only thing they see fear plenty of people were watching from the outside in Anaheim the SBC had credentialed scores of reporters many from major mainstream news outlets to cover the conflicts over women in Ministry over the leadership of the SBC and especially over the handling of sexual abuse in the denomination some Southern Baptists recoiled at the presence of such Interlopers they felt these jour journalists were there to ridicule and caricature them to gleefully document the southern baptist amb brolio for their vindictive secular audiences perhaps some of them were but I had to wonder in talking with darling whether this wasn't the best thing for the SBC and for American Christianity on the whole a public shaming was long overdue maybe after seeing nothing but coverups and self-preservation these reporters would finally see Contrition and repentance maybe that behavior would Point them and their audiences to the reason that thousands of people were meeting in Anaheim maybe just maybe they would start to see Jesus as the center of it all credibility matters every institution fails but the Christian church has failed spectacularly darling said what the Christian church has its secret weapon is the ethic of forgiveness and Recon ilation but we've got a lot of work to do we need to get this right I asked darling if he was optimistic about getting it right he said the outcomes in Anaheim would do much to color his Outlook the thing is Christianity is exploding across the globe in China in Iran all over Africa but we're struggling in America if we don't humble ourselves if we don't start treating people in a way that glorifies God we're going to squander what's left of our credibility here darling said I think we'd all do well to remember God's plan for the ages has nothing to do with America we need him he doesn't need us the first thing I spotted after walking into the Luminous Warehouse aesthetic exhibition Hall inside the Anaheim Convention Center was a sprawling blue Banner promoting a company called Brotherhood Mutual it stated Mission protecting Christian Ministries a middle-aged man named Charlie Cutler clad in a Navy Blazer and jeans leaned against the booth with brochures in one hand and a fly swatter in the other a longtime executive with Church West Insurance Services the parent company of Brotherhood Mutual Cutler explained to me that church West had for Generations worked exclusively with churches Christian schools and religious nonprofits most of their efforts focused on fires and floods storms and sewage typical Insurance stuff not anymore reputation Cutler said is becoming our specialty hence the fly swatter branded with a churchwest logo the plastic instrument carried a three-word warning not today Satan this was the message Cutler and Church West were advertising at the DC's annual meeting their services were specifically designed to help Christian organizations deal harshly with unwelcome species to protect them against an infestation of abusers predators and pedophiles for a long time Cutler told me this represented just a rump portion of their firm's business the Catholic Church Scandal was a wake-up call for a lot of Americans but not necessarily a lot of evangelicals Cutler said there was really a refusal to accept that this could be happening in their churches faith-based organizations have always cleaved to the notion or at least to fragments of it that they are somehow uniquely impervious to the woes that plague secular institutions thievery and fraud harassment and intimidation abuses of power and denials of Justice religious people Christians in particular want to believe that their communities are safe ER better more virtuous than those of non-believers but in fact those communities are often worse because of the traditions and misapplied teachings of the church trust can seem incompatible with transparency deference to Authority can seem irreconcilable with demands for accountability finding fault can seem unnecessary given the overarching emphasis on Mercy one of the great challenges in running a church is that they are self-governed self-regulated Cutler said they Answer to No One But themselves and that breeds a lot of problems so part of what we do is to try to help them meet standards of care that govern other organizations especially organizations that deal with children Cutler Shrugged let's face it if you're a pedopile the church is a very inviting Target he said it's a place built on trust you're not necessarily looking for those red flags finally that was beginning to change just down the hall from us in the main Ballroom thousands of delegates from SBC churches around the country known as Messengers were on the verge of adopting measures that might transform the Southern Baptist convention taken together these reforms would compel transparency and make those red flags a whole lot harder to miss it's about time is isn't it Cutler said nodding in the direction of the ballroom when these horrible things continue to happen inside the church the message of Christ his love for us and the work Christians do to share that love with the world is totally lost that work was on display all throughout the exhibition Hall this was not the road to majority conference or the reawaken America Tour there were no kiosk selling miracle cures or militaristic slogans instead spraw called out over some 10,000 square ft the SBC exhibitors promoted causes more readily identifiable with Christ one booth showcased the prison fellowship Ministry soliciting donations for an initiative that delivers gifts to the children of incarcerated persons at Christmas time another Booth sponsored by voice of the martyrs offered education on the Underground Church in parts of Africa and the Middle East and raised funds to support the Frontline workers who were risking their lives to support Christians in hostile locations some organizations fought childhood poverty with their meal packing operations others battled online porn addiction with free software downloads talk of stopping human trafficking the real thing not those Reddit rumors targeting Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey was everywhere at one point a crowd swarmed around the stall where SBC disaster relief officials signed up volunteers who would at indeterminate times over the years to come drop everything and rushed sites of Devastation in the United States and abroad most prominent were the stations dedicated to a holistic view of the pro-life movement catering to single mothers and mothers in dire economic Straits these organizations specialized in forming support groups at the local level offering food clothing clothing and diapers providing free child care and supporting them financially before and after birth it was an impressive display both in terms of generosity and self-awareness as many of the representatives spoke to me in regretful tones about what had long been a myopic approach to the anti-abortion cause one organization Embrace grace even handed out pamphlets declaring Pro love is the new pro-life Herby Newell the president of Lifeline children services said he was heartened to see his pro-life allies starting to catch up since 1981 his organization has been a leading advocate for what he calls human flourishing through the love of Christ they are widely and rightly perceived as a pro-life organization but they are best understood as a Christian social agency serving vulnerable women training new parents placing kids through adoption and Foster Care true human flourishing is not just when life is protected at the outset but when it's sustained Newell said we want to manifest the Gospel of Jesus Christ not Proclaim it but manifest it traditionally Newell told me his organization has focused on poverty maternal poverty childhood poverty as a social ailment to be addressed they have have not abandoned that mission however they have begun incorporating a new Mission relational poverty one of lifeline's burgeoning programs focuses on family reunification by mobilizing local churches to minister to parents who gave up their children either via adoption or foster care Lifeline hopes to help them with education job skills and biblical discipleship the idea is to build long-term Rel relationships between the biological parents their children and the families raising them when I commended this idea and offered praise for the other work that Lifeline does new arched a skeptical eyebrow in my direction as if to question whether these efforts should be in any way remarkable to a follower of Jesus we in the United States have such an inadequate view of what a Christian is called to be Newell told me the Bible tells us that we are broken Beyond repair all of us and that Christ came to heal us churches are supposed to be hospitals for the sick and once we're healed we're supposed to be helping others get healthy too I asked Newell whose work has taken him all over the world why his critique was focused on American Christianity our disease in America is the same as anywhere else sin but in America we've used our prosperity to hide it I think we've grown a customed to worshiping the blessings of God instead of the blesser he said those blessings have become Our God that's why you see Christians gripping on to the things of this world with sweaty Palms we too busy trying to stay on top trying to be in charge of things instead of being Misfits who were saved by grace a former Southern Baptist newel copped to a certain awkwardness given the setting he'd grown up in the SBC raised his kids in the SBC but the those concerns with the American Church readily apparent in his own local congregation eventually caused him to walk away just recently Newell and his family had begun attending a Presbyterian Church in their hometown of Birmingham Alabama he had come to Anaheim this week expecting to feel like a spectator instead he found himself hanging on the proceedings down the hall hoping that his brothers and sisters would get out of their own way look I'm sick about all this stuff the abuse the coverups the corruption it's got to stop but at the same time I'm not concerned about God getting his glory god always gets his glory because God is always Sovereign Newell told me the question is are we going to keep on living for our own Glory or are we going to die to ourselves and beg for his forgiveness every one of the stackable metal chairs was occupied thousands of them had been arranged throughout the main Ballroom wrapping around painted steel columns and unfurling across endless sections of the cavernous event space The Messengers sat in them quietly listening to the arguments being made at the microphones nearby they wore small badges Name Church Hometown and gripped yellow voting placards the size of business envelopes waiting for the action to begin one year earlier at the contentious 2021 SBC meeting in Nashville The Messengers had voted to create a temporary task force that would oversee a probe into allegations of sexual abuse and coverups within the denomination that vote had set history in motion the newly created task force hired a third-party firm guidepost solutions to investigate the sbc's executive committee which led to the publication of its bombshell report in May 22 just a few weeks before this annual meeting in light of guideposts findings the task force came to Anaheim armed with a package of recommendations one would create a new entity the abuse reform implementation task force to handle all such ongoing matters in the denomination another would form an independently maintained database known as Ministry check that would allow churches to share proper ly vetted information about people who had been credibly accused of abuse the first proposal received no real push back virtually everyone in the denomination even the head in the sand hardliners who recoiled at the hasht sbc2 acknowledged that they had a serious long-term problem on their hands and that some governing body would be needed to deal with it it was the second proposal pushing the formation of a database of credibly accused abusers that came under Fire from the sbc's arch conservatives what did credibly accused mean anyway how could they trust that such a system wouldn't be weaponized by opponents of a particular Pastor or enemies of the Christian faith to se chaos in the church why would they trust a secular third-party firm to handle the most sensitive inner workings of Southern Baptist polity after all gu post Solutions as several Messengers noted ruul from the microphones had just that very month issued a tweet celebrating pride month finally Bruce Frank put an end to the cantankerous debate the muscular middle-aged pastor of builtmore Church in Asheville North Carolina Frank had been appointed chairman of the original task force a year earlier now as he listened to certain Messengers people who had opposed his group from the very start suggests that its recommendations were tainted because of an external corporation's Twitter account Frank was running low on patience our book tells us that God is so Sovereign that he can even take Pagan Nations and use them to chastise his own people Frank declared from the ballroom stage the issue here is not what guidepost thinks about LGBT issues it's what southern Baptists think about abuse when it came time to vote the room hummed with anticipation then suddenly and more than a bit theatrically it fell silent seconds felt like minutes as The Messengers received their final balloting instructions per Robert's Rules of Order a group of outspoken sexual assault survivors seated together near the front joined hands and closed their eyes people glanced side to side looking to see who had their placards at the ready like amateur forecasters parsing exit polls on Election night the call from the chair came instructing all those in favor to say so at this time yellow ballots blasted into the air thousands of them it wasn't close for all the fuss the task Force's recommendations were adopted with what appeared to be at least 80% of the vote the ballroom erupted with Applause people began hugging and weeping and praying arm arms outstretched rejoicing in the Justice of this Triumph relatively incremental and ridiculously overdue as they knew it was as The Messengers began pouring out of the hall praise music boomed from the stage behind them I have built an altar where I worship things of men I have taken Journeys that have drawn me far from you now I am returning to your mercies ever flowing pardon my transgressions help me love you again a short time later in a small windowless space on the second level of the complex Frank and his task force colleagues stood at a makeshift dis before dozens of assembled media the air was drenched with catharsis before the press conference began one of the task force members a famous young woman who wore a long brown ponytail huddled with a group of abused survivors in the back of the room one of them cried out what the rest were thinking 3 years ago she said when they'd faced scorn and ridicule for going public with their allegations this would have been impossible their sobs were captured by snapping cameras all around them images that would rocket around the web in the days to come one by one Frank and his associates tackled questions from the Press about the Practical implications of the vote we just witnessed yes they said the work and constructing the database would begin immediately no they said attorney client privilege could not be invoked to keep abusers from being named yes they said the database would be retroactive to include past offenders in the scrum of sorting out these details about dates and organizations legal mechanisms and denominational proceedings the essential underlying question went ignored why did it take leaders of the Southern Baptist conventions so long to take such basic steps toward protecting the people inside their churches before I could ask Marshall balock a pastor from Charleston South Carolina and the vice chair of the task force offered an unsolicited window into his own experience and evolution from my perspective when these kinds of incidents come up I think our first instinct is about protecting the institution and we've got to have a culture change in our thinking block said and that's the one place where I've changed the most in my own life it wasn't that he had actively ignored the problem block continued he had simply been oblivious to it he was too busy pastoring his church looking out for his own flock to see how systemic the abuses had become and to engage with the scale of deception and exploitation it took hearing the harrowing tales of the surviv ders he'd met through his work on the task force to realize the extent of the crisis and repent for his own culpability something needed to change block declared rather than worrying about containing the damage and guarding its good name the first impulse of the church moving forward must be to care for the people who have been hurt alas the irony of it all churches had been so preoccupied with safeguarding their reputation that they behaved in ways that destroyed their reputations it took generations of getting it wrong for pastors like block to recognize that the best way to do right by the church was doing right by the people hurt inside of it I viewed this as an assignment from God to bring glory to his name Pastor buchas Sterling III a member of the task force told me after the press conference I believe we have done that we are openly repenting we are agreeing to do what is good and righteous in protecting the most vulnerable people in his church what God does with this now that's up to him but we've gained ground for his kingdom today Frank walking with us down a corridor frowned at his friend's optimistic note he had seen too much ugliness inside the SBC over his career and particularly over the last year to get carried away with this one Victory he assured assured me that the heaviest lifting was yet to come trust is earned Frank said today was a great day but in many ways it's just the beginning in the case of a vast complex clickish institution like the Southern Baptist convention doing the right thing depends on having leaders who want to do the right thing Russell Moore's departure from the denomination in Spring 2021 had seemed like a knockout blow landed by the sbc's radical faction they had spent years making an example of more bullying him with mafioso like tactics sending a chilling signal to other like-minded reformers when he quit they were sufficiently emboldened to believe it was their time to retake total control of the denomination they saw an opening in the summer of 2021 for a sequel to The Great conservative urgence of the late 1970s pushing back once more on the perceived liberalism and supposed biblical infidelity that were permeating the denomination but there were obvious problems with this strategy for one thing no evidence existed to support the idea of leftward drift within the SBC according to political scientist statistician and ordained minister Ryan Burge The Average White Southern Baptist voted 9% % more Republican in 2020 than in 2008 partisan loyalties aside nobody could plausibly claim that Russell Moore was some sort of ideological or theological Progressive turning Moore into the poster boy for weak need wokeness and hoisting his scalp as the rallying cry for a second conservative Resurgence would only work if their real reasons for hating more stayed secret but the secret got out in May 2021 a few weeks before the sbc's annual meeting in Nashville one of Moore's allies had leaked a copy of the damning letter he'd written to the SBC executive committee a year earlier Moore quite obviously did not leak the letter himself the time to do that would have been right when he sent it in 2020 as he was under investigation by the executive committee and fighting to maintain his own leadership role inside the SBC but the public publication and proliferation of Moore's letter nonetheless prove ruinous to his adversaries starting with Mike Stone the Georgia Pastor who had led the executive committee and directed the probes into more Stone was an immensely powerful figure within the conservative Baptist Network the CBN a sect of right-wing pastors who counted themselves as descendants of that fundamentalist takeover of the 1970s Stone if it so happened was also a candidate to become the southern baptist convention's president in 2021 in fact many considered him the favorite but the contents of Moore's letter which went viral inside the denomination swung public opinion sharply against Stone in the weeks leading up to the 2021 annual meeting he and his CBN allies had taken to calling themselves Pirates Who aimed to storm the southern baptist ship and steer it hard to the right but their Mutiny failed Stone lost the presidential race to Ed lton a pastor from Alabama sympathetic to Moore and his followers the attempt to destroy Moore had backfired in more ways than one not only did Stone and his brigands lose out on the presidency which given their hold on the executive committee would have given them total control of the SBC leadership structure they also unwittingly created a ground swell of support for the very Thing mo had been seeking an independent probe into the denomination's handling of sexual abuse the executive committee tried to head this off announcing days before the 2021 annual meeting that it would be commissioning an outside firm to do the investigating but the SBC Messengers in a stunning show of Defiance overruled the executive committee it was fast becoming apparent even to many loyal conservatives within the denomination that the executive committee could not be trusted to police itself The Messengers insisted on a different Arrangement the incoming president would appoint a special task force to oversee the investigation that's just what Lon did tapping Frank to lead the effort that one year later would result in the historic vote in Anaheim yet for all the Fanfare SBC Messengers realized that adopting the recommendations wouldn't Mean a Thing If the denomination's president refused to keep pressing the issue forward lton had announced he was stepping down after just one year on the job a result of the pressures he felt navigating this denominational Civil War this presidential vacancy created the conditions for a dramatic and devastating backlash the Pirates humiliated in Nashville and at risk of losing their grip on the SBC with another defeat would be inclined to pull up the stops indeed they did on the morning of the presidential vote in Anaheim members of the conservative Baptist Network gathered in an event space not far from the convention center they spoke of a showdown for the soul of their denomination they handed out copies of Rules for Radicals the book about Guerilla political tactics written by left-wing cult hero and right-wing Boogeyman Saul Alinsky they vowed never to surrender to the limp wristed church leaders who would let the Southern Baptist convention descend into a shapeless spiritual Utopia and then they brought out a special guest Charlie Kirk straddling the twin roles of motivational speaker and Maga cleric Kirk issued an impassioned fatwa against the other pastors in Anaheim their weak-willed SBC colleagues would do nothing to stop the bombardment of the American Church in fact they were abetting it by sidest stepping the political Maelstrom at a moment when Christianity was under attack from Within These pastors were complicit with the leftists and secularists who sought to purge the almighty from public life Kirk suggested that they might as well hang lgbtq rainbow Flags below their Steeples and get it over with there was only one way to stop this madness Kirk endorsed the cbn's presidential candidate Florida Pastor Tom ascal portraying him as a buw workk against a sequence of events that might well lead to the collapse of Christianity in America but Kirk and his allies were attempting to usher in a second conservative Resurgence at a moment when the failures of the first were becoming all too obvious inside that very room Kirk spoke to on the morning of the presidential vote in Anaheim was one one of the last living architects of the 1970s fundamentalist takeover Paige Patterson a pastor and theologian who served as SBC president in between stints of presiding over two of the denomination's most prestigious seminaries Patterson had refashioned the SBC into a hard-nosed play for keep's entity he had stressed inherency of scripture as a means of not only suppressing heterodox thinking about culture but blocking outside voices that might challenge internal practices on things like say sexual abuse now the Southern Baptist convention was reaping what Patterson and his allies sowed the guidepost report implicated numerous SBC luminaries including Patterson himself who'd been fired by Southwestern seminary in 2018 for his repeated mishandling of rape cases including one instance of an outright cover up one week after the report dropped Patterson was Robert Jeff's guest preacher at First Baptist Dallas the Folly was inescapable at the very convention where Messengers voted in overwhelming fashion to modernize the good old boy culture of the SBC Patterson showed up to the CBN breakfast pushing for a return to the Past Paul presler a former Texas judge and SBC kingmaker who'd been Patterson's closest Ally in the 1970s at least had the good sense not to show up to Anaheim given the mounting legal troubles related to his alleged sexual assaults of underage males according to journalist Robert dowan who attended the breakfast Patterson compared himself to the Apostle Paul and said Jesus forgave my sins though he declined to specify them ascal lost the 2022 presidential vote in lopsided fashion the winner Bart Barber a pastor from smalltown Texas made plain after the election his concern that political extremism had infiltrated the church sometimes we let the tale Wag the Dog in southern baptist Life Barber told reporters I don't think if you tried to plot me politically you could find me anywhere other than the rightwing of American politics he added confessing his love for Ronald Reagan but the most important thing is where my home is spiritually and that's with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I do believe we've seen some unhealthy ways in which secular politics have dominated the conversation in the Southern Baptist convention asked about becoming president Barber choked with emotion he downplayed any exaltation that one might typically associate with the job instead he spoke of the scars he collected from his previous stops in the SBC and the fresh wounds he knew to expect in this role but the church is worth it it's worth enduring the slings and arrows he said sometimes we treat people in ways that must make it hard for people to believe that we believe in the inherency and sufficiency of a book that says the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control I knew all of that coming into this but praise God I give thanks to him for the things that happened before because now I look on Twitter and see the things people say about me and not only do I ignore it but I get to the point where I can love them it was hard to imagine a more Winsome human being barar answered every question by returning to the same Central message of ratcheting down the partisan ranker restoring the church's reputation and reach ING unbelievers with renewed credibility he even mentioned the heers back on his Ranch in Farmersville Texas the actual name of his town that he needed to get home and tend to only once did a fire Flash in Barber's eyes recognizing the implications of his own victory in tandem with the historic vote a day earlier ascal almost certainly would have subverted the database effort Barber declared that the Southern Baptist convention was never going back to the way things were calling out the Wolves who stalked SBC congregations for far too long he delivered a message that sounded very much like a threat sexual predators have used our decentralized po to try and turn our churches into a hunting ground Barber said the tables have turned the hunter is now the hunted Barber had sounded a bullish note believing that the sweeping reforms adopted by SBC Messengers in Anaheim boded well for the future of the denomination and The Wider church yet Frank's words from a day earlier echoed all the louder trust is earned maybe Barber was right maybe this was the moment when Southern Baptists would stop the bleeding and begin the process of restoring confidence in their churches but that process was bound to be plotting so much trust had already been squandered and for certain people there could be no restoration of it outside the convention center following Barber's press conference I Came Upon two of the unsung heroes in Anaheim Jules Woodson and Tiffany Thigpen both women were survivors of sexual assault in SBC churches and both women had persevered through years of mockery cruelty and Malice to force the issue in front of rank and file Southern Baptists their sobs of joy and release a day earlier in that Viral moment caught on camera were welld deserved for the first time since they were abused Woodson and Thigpen told me they had some Measure of Faith in the church getting things right the Old Guard had such a hold on all these people even as victims we thought we were doing the right thing by staying silent by doing what they told us by protecting the institution fig pen said I think those days are over I think I hope that this younger generation a generation that really is concerned with Justice will take the church in a better Direction Woodson lighting a cigarette while we sat on neighboring benches told me that she held on to the same hope but she wanted to make something clear she wouldn't be sticking around to see that new direction for the church in fact she had left the SB long ago Thigpen had two they were exp Patriots from the denomination of their youth and Exiles from organized religion altogether confronting my history of abuse especially in these last few years I've been thinking about my morals and my values and I've just come to realize that the Jesus I know is not the Jesus of the church anymore Woodson told me the Christ that has loved me at my most broken and most vulnerable is not the Christ that is demonstrated by the church so my faith used to be very outward facing but now it's very private I still identify as a Christian but I find it very hard to identify with the church Thigpen nodded toward the building behind us I still love corporate worship being in there even though it's painful it was beautiful I still love the singing and worshiping I would love to trust the church again she said but we've been hurt so many many times so many different ways and at a certain point I just can't risk going I can't afford to lose my faith I need to be closer to God but I feel like every time I've been part of a church it just pushes me farther away she thought a moment I'll tell you something fig pen said guidepost and their investigators showed us more of God their compassion they're fighting for us they're believing us they're validating us than we ever got from the church yes Woodson exclaimed she was reminded of the Good Samaritan a parable Jesus taught about a Jewish man who was robbed beaten and left half dead while walking the treacherous road from Jerusalem to Jericho he was ignored by two of his fellow Jews both of whom were religious leaders it was ultimately a Samaritan sworn enemy of the Jews who stopped tended to the man's wounds took him for medical care checked up on his recovery and even paid his hospital bills this was an astounding incendiary illustration to make Jesus had chosen as the protagonist of his story a hated Outsider who despite not adhering to Jewish teachings practiced them better than Believers did when he finished Jesus pointedly asked one of his listeners a Jewish religious leader himself which of these three Witnesses had treated the hurting man like a neighbor the one who had mercy on him answered the religious leader surely mortified by this exchange go Jesus told him and do likewise 2,000 years after Jesus told that Parable religious leaders were still failing to tend to their own and Outsiders were still showing the type of neighborly compassion that God requires of us when I went public with my story in 2018 it was the secular world that had my back it was the secular world that believed me and supported me Woodson said it wasn't the church Thigpen told me that her trauma had brought her into a closer relationship with God and fundamentally changed the way she reads scripture whereas she once primarily studied the teachings of Jesus she had in recent years developed a fondness for the front of the book I used to have a hard time reconciling the god of the Old Testament all that Doom and Gloom and anger with the idea of a loving God Thigpen said but now having lived this hell with the SBC I like God's anger and judgment I understand it I relate to it I can see how betrayed God must have felt watching people mock his name with the way they treated each other Thigpen and Woodson were struggling to make peace with the southern Baptists who had mistreated them not merely their original abusers but the legions of loyalists who had prized the church's name over the children of God inside of it both women knew their Bible well enough to appreciate the imperative of forgiving others as Christ forgave us still having witnessed enough acts of half-hearted penitence to P several lifetimes they weren't prepared to offer Absolution until it felt completely authentic these guys live off the message of cheap Grace they prop each other up by stressing God's forgiveness Woodson said and obviously that's an important part of his word but God also talks about bringing Darkness to light about truth about Justice about discipline about the qualifications for pastors and leaders you can't take one part of the Bible and dismiss the rest sure you can Thigpen scoffed they do it all the time they shared a laugh but then Woodson turned introspective she was clearly wrestling with feelings of hard-heartedness unsure of how to reconcile the progress of the last two days with the years of Agony she had endured Woodson looked around us and shook her head in amazement I will say when I went to Birmingham for the annual meeting in 2019 19 the year after I went public I never could have imagined this she said people have been coming up to me nonstop here some of the same people I'm pretty sure who were giving me dirty looks at previous meetings and saying thank you her eyes filled with tears she tried to finish her thought to no avail Thigpen rubbed her friend's back that's the love of Jesus she said Woodson put out her cigarette she had chained three in the course of our 20-minute conversation and we all stood up soon we were strolling along the campus of the Anaheim Convention Center as we prepared to part ways I congratulated the women on what they had accomplished at the 2022 annual meeting regardless of what came next I told them it was a moment for history they didn't deserve any congratulations the women told me flatly yes their stories had helped to shock the system of the denomination but those stories would have stayed hidden if not for the heroics of so many people around them there had been third party investigators who worked tirelessly to bring the truth to light there had been journalists secular and Christian alike who excavated and exposed that which was meant to stay buried forever there had been attorneys who leveraged the law in ways that compelled churches to finally at long last come clean if the church was going to be reformed really truly reformed Woodson and Thigpen said it would need to happen this way it was going to take people working from the outside in churches might improve their self- policing but they would never hold themselves fully accountable the blind spots were too big the best hope for the church Thigpen and Woodson said were people like that well-known woman they' tearfully embraced the day earlier the one with a long brown ponytail she was no Southern Baptist but she'd shaken the denomination to its core and her work was only just beginning Christian organizations across the country were seeking Her counsel in responding to abuse crises and reforming the rules that govern their institutions she was fast becoming a Joon of Arc figure in modern evangelicalism heroic and hated divinely inspired and widely despised her name was Rachel Den Hollander chapter 20 Jefferson Town Kentucky Well Done good and faithful servant you have been faithful with a few things I will put you in charge of many things Matthew chap 25 verse 21 I was the Evangelical dar Ling Rachel Den Hollander remembered until I started talking about abuse in the church raised in culturally Pious West Michigan the daughter of conservative Christians who homeschooled their three kids Dan Hollander was born with a maternal Instinct as the firstborn she vigilantly nurtured plastic dolls and gravitated toward babies from the time she was little older than one herself once she physically confronted a bully who'd been picking on her younger siblings at a McDonald's playpen all she wanted was to be a mother as she aged however Dan Hollander realized there was something embedded even deeper into her spiritual disposition Than This Love of children she still desired a family of her own but her true passion was defending the vulnerable at 8 years old she announced to her parents that she wanted to go to law school when asked why she replied to protect kids that calling soon would take on a personal Dimension Dan Hollander was sexually abused by a pedophile in her childhood church and later as a teenager she was groomed and repeatedly molested by a physician Larry Nasser was one of the most celebrated names in sports medicine the head doctor of USA Gymnastics Nasser cared for new numerous Olympic gold medal winners in addition to hundreds of other Elite athletes as part of his work at Michigan State University Den Hollander was no Olympian just a competitive gymnast from the city of kalamazo still she was serious enough about the sport and had suffered serious enough injuries from it to drive an hour and a half for a consultation with Nasser during that initial exam with then hollander's mother present in the room Nas digitally penetrated the 15-year-old girl the abuse committed under the guise of legitimate medical techniques was accompanied by playful talk gushing compliments and practiced affection to disarm both the victim and her mother this pattern continued over successive visits the abuse escalated to include fondling and arousal in one visit Nasser perhaps sensing Den hollander's growing alertness to his predatory behavior and knowing of her love for children asked her to meet and hold his newborn daughter it was the last time she visited his office 16 years later while tending to her three young children One Summer Morning Den Hollander pulled out her laptop to finalize a grocery shopping list spotting an open Facebook tab she clicked on her feed and immediately saw an Indianapolis Star Story trending it detailed a systematic coverup by USA Gymnastics of sexual abuse cases involving dozens of coaches who had gone on to assault countless girls after initial allegations had gone ignored Den Hollander was shocked but hardly surprised she had by then spent half of her life while attending law school passing the bar starting a family convincing herself that any attempt to expose Nasser would fail because nobody would believe her word over his this was the Crux of the USA Gymnastics Scandal powerful respected coaches received boundless benefit of the doubt from those invested in safeguarding the reputation of the institution all while young girls were robbed of their innocence Den Hollander felt ill reading the article but she also strangely felt a twinge of optimism the the star journalists had done outstanding work in documenting these abuses and coverups they had brought the Public's attention to a scandal they had helped to prevent these monsters from further praying on defenseless children they had listened to the victims and believed them then and there with a nursing baby toddler and 5-year-old boy in toe Dan Hollander stopped what she was doing and wrote an email to the star offering the rough overview of her own ordeal she identified Nasser who had not been a subject of that initial news story by his name and position she volunteered to go on the record with her accusation little did she know Den Hollander was setting in motion one of the most extraordinary criminal cases in modern American history nearly 2 and 1/2 years later in January 2018 Dan Hollander stood up inside a Michigan courtroom cameras flashed with her every movement she had effectively started a stampede hundreds of women inspired by Den hollander's decision to go public with her story of nasser's abuse had since come forward with their own now after 155 of her fellow survivors had read their victim statements to the court Den Hollander was going last how much is a little girl worth she asked the judge for the next 40 minutes Den Hollander delivered a riveting speech surpassingly composed and surgical with her every word she spoke of the scars that would never fully heal she shamed those who had accused her of wanting fame or money for going public she blasted the institutions that had provided shelter for degenerates like Nasser then she turned to Nasser himself forcing eye contact with the man who'd violated her so many years earlier in our early hearings you brought your Bible into the courtroom and you have spoken of praying for forgiveness Den Hollander told him and so it is on that basis that I appeal to you if you have read the Bible you carry you know the definition of sacrificial love portrayed is of God himself loving so sacrificially that he gave up everything to pay a penalty for the sin he did not commit by his grace I too choose to love this way you spoke of praying for forgiveness but Larry if you have read the Bible you carry you know forgiveness does not come from doing good things as if Good Deeds can erase what you have done it comes from repentance which requires facing and acknowledging the truth about what you have done in all of its utter depravity and horror without mitigation without excuse without acting as if Good Deeds can erase what you have seen in this courtroom today warning of an eternal judgment that awaits beyond the walls of the mid Michigan courtroom Den Hollander told Nasser that she was praying for him she hoped that he would experience the soul crushing weight of guilt that might lead to True repentance and true forgiveness from God which you need far more than forgiveness from me then she added though I extend that to you as well when Den Hollander finished after going deeper into biblical Doctrine at one point quoting directly from CS Lewis on the perversion of God's goodness the room was hushed then the judge saluted Den Hollander calling her the bravest person I've ever had in my courtroom and the Chamber erupted into a prolonged standing ovation it was an actual madefor TV moment footage of Dan hollander's speech quickly scored millions of YouTube views she was hailed as a heroine and lavished with recognition from receiving ESPN's Arthur Ash courage award to being named one of time's 100 most influential people Christian Outlets took particular satisfaction in promoting her as one of their own organizations such as the Christian Broadcasting Network The Gospel Coalition and focus on the family portrayed her as the Exemplar of Evangelical womanliness several prominent Christian bloggers likened her to a modern-day Prophet who had forced a depraved Society to confront its sins there was just one problem Dan Hollander like the Old Testament prophets of yor wasn't content to stop at condemning the outside world in a little notice line from her courtroom speech Dan Hollander revealed that her advocacy for sexual abuse survivors had made her and her husband unwelcome at their home Church in Louisville the couple had moved there so that Jacob Den hallander could pursue his PhD at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and thought they'd found a home in a local Baptist congregation but its decision to associate with a network of other churches Sovereign Gra which stood accused of brazenly covering up Mass cases of sexual abuse forced the den hollanders into conflict with the church leadership and eventually led to their exit no sooner had the jail cell slammed shut behind Nasser who received a 175-year sentence then Rachel Dan Hollander was firing a shot across the bow of Sovereign Grace and the Evangelical movement as a whole she she made it known that her hunt for Predators was just getting started they figured I would be a safe person to parade around I was a Godly woman a homeschooling graduate now homeschooling kids of my own with a husband studying at the most conservative seminary in the country and I had just extended forgiveness to this pedophile like I said I was the Evangelical darling Den Hollander told me and so they made me a household name they expected that I would become the poster child for Meek submissive femininity but they never considered what my theology would drive me to do next in the four years that followed the Nasser verdict Dan Hollander went from Esther to Jezebel in the eyes of many Evangelical shop callers turning her attention and considerable legal Savvy to the mushrooming sex abuse scandals inside the church most notably within the Southern Baptist convention Den Hollander took on the mightiest and most entrenched interests in American Christendom she worked with survivors to unearth evidence that had been expertly buried she parachuted into mega churches to overhaul broken systems and organize responses aimed at total transparency she cultivated sources and worked back channels and coordinated investigations that took down some of the biggest names in the Evangelical world but it wasn't enough s sitting in the second floor loft of her favorite Cafe in the spring of 2023 sipping coffee while Jacob toiled on his dissertation at a neighboring table Rachel Dan Hollander told me she was realizing the limits of her impact even as a renowned Advocate and attorney there was only so much she could uncover only so much she could do to raise awareness or AFF change the best hope for reforming the church she had come to accept wasn't the law change happens when the law catches up to public narrative but what drives public narrative D Hollander asked me stupidly I Shrugged then she reminded me of the origins of her involvement with the Nasser case the Indianapolis Star piece her email to the tip line the newspaper dogged reporting that forced the public and prosecutors in Michigan to take notice journalism Den Hollander said to this day Julie Roy isn't sure why she applied for that job at Moody Radio back in 2007 13 years earlier she'd walked away from her journalism career to raise a family though nothing quite compared to the thrill of chasing news Roy loved her life homeschooling three kids keeping active in her local Chicago land church and running a Christian youth ministry with her husband a public school teacher she was content then one day while listening to Moody Radio Roy heard an advertisement for the position of part-time talk show host she allowed Her Imagination to wander her older two kids were agitating to go to the school where their father taught Roy and her husband had mused about enrolling their youngest in a local Christian Academy she did miss the rush of working in media Roy sent over her resume on a whim landed the job and within a few years was awarded her own program Up For Debate which piloted in Chicago and quickly went National across Moody radio's network of owned and Affiliated stations the broadcasting Enterprise a subsidiary of Chicago's vastly influential moodi Bible Institute aimed to manifest the parent organization's motto proclaiming the word of Truth having listened to Moody's Conservative Christian programming for years Roy assumed she would be a natural fit once on the inside however she began to have her doubts although Roy was an Evangelical and a nominal Republican she didn't consider herself to be playing for any team she had always believed it was her job as a Christian and as a journalist to pursue truth without prejudice Roy wasn't surprised to discover that Moody possessed a governing ideology that was enforced from the top down still the higher she climbed the more suspicious she became of her organization's conformist culture quickly becoming one of Moody's most popular personalities Roy would supplement her radio observations by writing commentaries that were distributed through the company's various media platforms she was encouraged by management the ninth floor where Executives had their offices to stick it to Christianity's adversaries in the culture she did so regularly yet Roy ran into opposition whenever she turned her critical eye toward the church that opposition ultimately gave way to censorship the ninth floor spiked a number of her pieces explaining that their targets including weaton college and the local Mega Church Harvest Bible Chapel which was pastored by James McDonald who hosted a toprated radio program on the Moody Network were off limits this didn't sit well with Roy she and her husband had both attended weaton as undergrads if she was willing to criticize the school then why was Moody so invested in protecting it the McDonald episode was even more troubling red flags were becoming synonymous with the mega church pastor in addition to platforming controversial speakers at his many venues McDonald had earned a reputation for an abusive and domineering leadership style in 2013 Harvest stunned its congregation by excommunicating former Elders who'd written a letter raising serious character concerns about their Pastor around that same time World magazine reported that McDonald in addition to Jerry Jenkins chairman of the Board of Trustees at Moody Bible Institute and co-author of the Left Behind book series had been frequenting casinos to play poker Roy was incensed not long before the world article ran she had been roped into serving on a committee to revise Moody's standards and disciplinary guidelines to the confusion of Roy and others Senior Management was pushing hard to amend one specific policy the prohibition on gambling now months later she knew why confronting her boss Moody's top media executive Roy extracted a confession they had rushed to change the gambling rules to insulate McDonald and Jenkins that's when I realized how the sausage gets made Roy told me Moody was running a protection racket there was no unlearning what she had learned Roy tried to keep her head down and focus on her own work but Whispers of her clashes with the ninth floor had had begun to spread throughout the Moody Empire before long Roy had employees coming to her with tips complaints and allegations of wrongdoing she knew that chasing down these leads much less publishing her findings would spell the end of her time at Moody but she was fast becoming less concerned with her job security than with the broader condition of American Christianity Donald Trump was forging a fian bargain with Evangelical leaders churches were fracturing around cases of abuse and misconduct individual pastors and Theological figureheads were self ulating with Scandal on what felt like a daily basis praying to God and beseeching him for guidance Roy felt convicted that a house cleaning was overdue Moody seemed like a fine place to start having graduated from Northwestern University's prestigious medil School of Journalism Roy knew what to do she set about cultivating sources and procuring evidence building an investigative case against her employer the sum of what she documented was enough to bring Moody to its knees rampant Financial mismanagement profound theological drift in the teaching and curriculum a culture of fear and intimidation practiced to keep denters in line most damning was Roy's discovery that Moody had been self-dealing in ways that would make a mobster blush The Moody Bible Institute had given its then president a sweetheart half million loan to purchase a Chicago condominium a loan on which he' made zero payments meanwhile the school had converted two units on the top floor of a campus Building into a private residential suite for Jenkins the board chairman whose family used it as a second home the question for Roy was whether to publish any of this she loved Moody and cared about its many good God-fearing employees trying to contain the damage At first she took her findings to the Board of Trustees she was brushed aside and warned implicitly to keep quiet about what she knew praying more fervently still she felt God prodding her forward whatever harm would be done in the short term to Moody and to Roy's own career and relationships in the Evangelical World it could not compare to the consequences of lying cheating and stealing in the name of Jesus Christ I knew that I would be blowing up every bridge imaginable I had just published my first book I had speaking invitations left and right I had a lot of money-making opportunities there was no reason to give that up Roy recalled but it just became clear to me that if I stayed silent that if I didn't speak the truth about these things then I was selling my soul and I couldn't do that in January 2018 Roy decided to report what she knew teeing up her investigation on a Backwater blogging domain she acquired years earlier the Roy's report she clicked the button to publish while over International airspace in route to a family vacation in Mexico moments before her internet connection cut out when she landed there was an email waiting for her Roy had been fired the problem wasn't the reporting itself Roy had nailed the story in fact 48 hours after it ran Moody pushed out three top officials the school's president its Chief Operating Officer and its Provost all but acknowledging the rot she had exposed no the problem was that Roy had shamed her own tribe and the Fallout was predictable enough those speaking invitations disappeared so did some longtime friendships Book Sales plateaued and then plummeted Roy was cast as a villain in Evangelical circles a traitor to the cause of Moody and Christianity itself she figured that it was time to go back to homeschooling but then something happened Roy through her blogging site began to be inundated with unsolicited emails from tipsters they saw the results she'd gotten at Moody and wondered if she would investigate their religious outfit Roy had zero interest at first I needed another story on Christian corruption like I needed a hole in the head but the sheer volume of emails and of evidence became impossible to ignore waiting through her inbox Roy decided there was one Church One Pastor really who deserved her attention James McDonald over the ensuing year she published dozens of articles on the Roy report uncovering all manner of transgression at Harvest Bible Chapel she reported that McDonald's own Elders thought him unfit for Ministry that he' bullied and mistreated staff that he'd fattened his own wallet with contributions meant for the church McDonald sued Roy in hopes of impeding her work but the suit was dropped and Roy kept on going not bothering to stop even after McDonald was fired as a result of her reporting she revealed how the now ex pastor's alleged sexual harassment of an employee was well known among other staff how he'd taken exotic trips on the church's dime and gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal his salary how he was scheming to start a new ministry despite being thoroughly disgraced by the events at Harvest there was no going back to her quiet Life as a homeschooling mom tips kept pouring into her inbox people across the country were reading the Roy's report and sending leads for her to chase she had once been deeply conflicted over the brightness of investigating her fellow Believers not anymore both at Moody and at Harvest Roy saw how Christian leaders manipulated biblical principles of unity Harmony submission to authority to crush objections and avoid scrutiny these were not just abuses of power these were abuses of power that carried the imprimatur of the almighty preparing to stand in judgment one day before a just and holy God Roy's decided she was going to air on the side of justice and Holiness it was like a switch got tripped inside of me Roy said I couldn't turn it off two things happened to Rachel Den Hollander after her star turn in the Larry Nasser case first she got to know Al Mohler one of America's foremost Evangelical thinkers and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in louville where Den hollander's husband was studying Mohler had reached out with encouragement during the Nasser trial in early 2018 even offering extensions for Jacob's academic deadlines which the den hollanders greatly appreciated and they considered him an ally now a year later Mohler needed Rachel's help his network was besieged by sex scandals one in particular was afflicting his school Southern where a well-known professor had confessed to sexual contact with a former student while picking Dan hollander's brain for legal and strategic advice on how to navigate these messes Mohler shared with her certain details of the Southern case that case was the spark that would soon engulf the Southern Baptist convention in controversy according to a lawsuit later filed by The Professor David Sills he was scapegoated by Mohler among others for his alleged sexual abuse of a former student Jennifer Lyle when according to Sills the relationship had been consensual Sills accused Mohler of wrongly siding with Lyle when Mohler stated publicly that he believed her claims and that Sills confessed to him when confronted things that indicated a non-consensual abusive relationship this put Mohler Lyall and others in the legal crosshairs of Sills and set the SBC hurdling toward a showdown over sexual misconduct around that same time den Hollander was approached by the Southern Baptist convention more specifically by staffers with the ethics and religious liberty commission and asked to help design a cuttingedge curriculum program caring well the idea was to train pastors to make their churches welcoming and safe environments for survivors of abuse while also overhauling internal processes to guard against future instances of misconduct though Dan Hollander had never belonged to an SBC Church she was encouraged that the denomination was making such a public- facing effort having signed on to help with the initiative she was invited to attend the sbc's 2019 annual meeting in Birmingham Alabama that's where Den Hollander met Jennifer Lyle a vice president with LifeWay Christian resources the sbc's public Ing and marketing Behemoth Lyle's resume and reputation were gold she held an advanced degree from Southern she handled lifeway's biggest accounts and most complex contracts she was the highest placed highest paid female executive in the denomination then in the spring of 2019 Lyall unburdened herself of a dark secret as alleged in the complaint Lyle claimed that David Sills violent abused her over a period of many years Lyall never planned on going public with this information Sills had long since been pushed out by Southern and she was hoping to move on with her life but then came the news that Sills had been restored to Ministry in a different denomination setting off alarms among those who had heard the details of ly's allegations some of them were Bound by the non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements signed when Sills departed Southern but Lyall was was not they pressured her to speak out promising to help protect her from the inevitable backlash Lyall reluctantly agreed she wrote a statement of facts summarizing her allegations then gave it to Baptist Press the sbc's news agency Lyall was blindsided by the Betrayal that ensued Baptist Press which was governed by the so-called Pirates who controlled the SBC executive committee published an article inaccurately claiming that Lyall had confessed to a morally inappropriate relationship with SS the story gave the impression that Lyle had characterized it as a consensual Affair everyone who had heard and believed lyall's allegations was stunned including Dan Hollander she wondered how Baptist Press had gotten the story so wrong when Den Hollander met Lyle in Birmingham a couple of months later it became clear enough the executive committee was run by men who possessed a deep-seated contempt for anything resembling feminism it loathe the concept of the caring well initiative despite being furnished with detailed firsthand allegations of SS's Behavior Baptist Press characterized his relationship with Lyall as a consensual Affair the executive committee wasn't going to stand for Lyall the denomination's most accomplished woman being turned into an avat AR for the me too movement its members took a calculated risk they would paint her as an adulteress squashing the sorted details of her statement to Baptist Press and dare her to challenge the official published account of the denomination they probably would have gotten away with it if not for Den Hollander talking with Lyle for Endless hours in the summer of 2019 and splicing her testimony with what Mohler had relayed from his conversation with Sills Den Hollander smelled an obvious cover up she worked with Lyle to nail down the specifics of her case soon everyone would know what the executive committee had done to her there was just one hang-up Lyle didn't want to fight the SBC in public she had already been bombarded with harassment and threats since the Baptist Press story ran the last thing she wanted was to invite more had been privately pleading with Baptist Press to retract its story and publish her full on the record statement when Den Hollander told her that it wasn't going to work that the only way to get Justice was to go public with her claims Lyall resolved to keep quiet Jen had a broken family a broken childhood a broken life before she found the SBC the SBC was the only home she ever knew and they used that against her Den Hollander told me because she loved and trusted the SBC she decided to let them break the story because she loved and trusted the SBC she wouldn't go to a secular Outlet to correct the record she was still trying to protect them which is typical trauma response for a Survivor trying not to be a burden trying to be obedient trying to be submissive all she wanted to do was protect them and nobody was willing to protect her that October when the erlc convened its first ever caring well conference in Dallas Dan Hollander was invited to be a featured speaker the plan was for her to join the erc's president Russell Moore on stage for a keynote conversation about abuse Dynamics in the church but Dan Hollander felt unsettled in the leadup to the event Lyle had been spiraling since the Baptist news episode her mental health had deteriorated to the point of taking a leave from her job with LifeWay and with the sbc's purposeful Distortion of her testimony still concealed her reputation had suffered permanent injury Den Hollander had worked hard on the caring well project but now it all felt so artificial how could she stand in front of a room of Southern Baptists and pretend they were making progress when some of these same Southern Baptists were destroying Jennifer lyall's life sitting in a backstage Green Room Dan Hollander made a final appeal to Lyall who was watching the event from home via live stream there would never be a better moment or a bigger venue Dan Hollander told Lyall to share her story Lyall typed several last ditch text messages to executive committee members begging for them to issue a public retraction of the Baptist Press article she watched on her computer screen as one member pulled out his phone read her message then put the phone back into his pocket Li texted Den Hollander and gave permission for her story to be shared there was just one condition she needed to inform Russell Moore before he and Dan Hollander took the stage together Lyle thought the world of Moore and didn't want him to be embarrassed at his own event Den Hollander didn't know more to her the ER l c president was just another good old southern baptist boy who was looking out for the institution but honoring lyall's wishes in letter if not in law Dan Hollander waited until she and Moore were approaching the side stage moments before they walked out she notified him that she would be telling lyall's story more didn't stop her in fact he listened earnestly and probed for details giving Den Hollander every opportunity to shed light on the sbc's appalling treatment of one of its own top employees it blew up right then and there I mean there were calls and emails flying by the time we walked off the stage D Hollander remembered I think to this day that's the real reason that Dr Moore got run out of the SBC in that moment he could have stopped me from telling the truth and he didn't Dan Hollander had teamed with the SBC to help clean up the church not dig for its dirt her Focus was advocating for survivors she had never nurtured aspirations of exposing systemic wrongdoing but now the wrongdoing was front and center for the world to see and unlike many of her fellow evangelicals Dan Hollander didn't want the world to look away the church didn't deserve to be spared it deserved to be scrutinized humbled perhaps even humiliated if there was any hope for the bride of Christ it would be found in the cycle of crushing guilt and true repentance then Hollander had preached to Nasser that cycle kicked off in Earnest when Jennifer Lyle filed suit against the SBC executive committee in 2019 Jen's case became the Lynch pin Dan Hollander told me for pursuing Justice in the Southern Baptist convention it wasn't a pretty process Lyall shadowed by unceasing online cruelty lost her job and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder the executive committee stonewalled requests for records and denied that it had access to any funds to cover lal's ongoing medical expenses Den Hollander who represented Lyall in the case described her negotiations with executive committee members as the most degrading experience of her legal career r with taunts of alluding to her own Infamous abuse experience now Rachel that's just your trauma talking unpleasant as it was Dan hollander's close encounter with the executive committee proved critical in the fights that followed she studied the choreography of the pirate leaders which legal firms they contracted with what messaging tactics they deployed how they utilized attorney client privilege as an umbrella to Shield all internal Communications and be sketching the outlines of a strategy to defeat them the executive committee hoped to be rid of Dan Hollander when it finally agreed to a monster Financial settlement and an official apology to Lyall but Dan Hollander wasn't going anywhere she had already formed alliances with the most prominent and outspoken abuse survivors in the SBC she had collaborated with a pair of pastors who were drafting proposals to force an investigation into the executive committee she had also maneuvered to position guidepost Solutions a thirdparty firm she knew and trusted as an outside partner for the SBC having introduced guidepost to two leading evangelicals who needed probes into their own institutions Mohler and onetime SBC president JD Greer Den Hollander stood back and watched as both men vouched for the Integrity of guidepost at the critical moment when it came time to investigate the executive committee by the time the bewildered Pirates shouted their protestations in Anaheim it was too late the yellow ballots were proof of how badly they'd been outsmarted some of these guys will never take a woman seriously and I've used that to my advantage Den Hollander told me a smile curling at the corners of her mouth they don't want to feel threatened so I try hard not to threaten them you know business suit pastel colors low ponytail light makeup collar bone covered Flats not heels because you cannot be taller than any of the men in the room they need to feel like they're in charge you know I did know but then again I didn't my own childhood Church held to many traditional views and Customs but the treatment of women as second class Christians was never among them we had a woman Pastor on staff we had women teaching ing mixed gender classes and bible studies every second Sunday in May my dad handed over the pulpit to my mom a superb and accomplished speaker in her own right to deliver the Mother's Day sermon it was one of the highlights on the church calendar this isn't to say there weren't issues with sexism or abuse in fact as I would learn later there were both but the notion of excluding women from church leadership seemed backward and decidedly unbiblical it was Jesus who made the radical by first century standards decision to reveal himself after rising from the dead to groups of women not only that Jesus deputized these women to go and announce the crowds of men literally preach to them the world changing news of his resurrection one has to wonder if these women had complied with the Jewish Norms of the day which forbade women from instructing men in public spaces would there even be a church other examples abound Junia was an apostle Phoebe was a deacon and Priscilla was such an important teacher that she is named ahead of her husband in The Narrative of their mentoring early church leaders it's true that Paul wrote in one letter that women should not teach men it's also true that Paul lauded in many letters the numerous women who worked alongside him in various Ministry capacities including teaching which bolsters the scholarly argument that his instruction was specific to the one church he was writing in short the biblical case for a blanket ban on women serving in church leadership is thin and unconvincing as evidenced by the fact that many of America's most conservative denominations observe no such ban the southern Baptists do things differently women are not permitted to teach men in any church setting even a Sunday school class or hold positions that impute Spiritual Authority over men hence the other headline coming out of Anaheim in the summer of 2022 the previous year Rick Warren the best-selling author and pastor of Saddleback Church in Southern California had ordained three women on his staff as pastors the ensuing uproar prompted a motion to eject Saddleback from the SBC Warren begged his fellow Southern Baptists not to lose the plot are we going to keep bickering over secondary issues or are we going to keep the main thing the main thing Warren asked at the annual meeting the effort to disfellowship Saddleback from the SBC stalled taken with the other events in Anaheim it seemed like a Triumph for modernity and common sense then the following February the SBC executive committee delivered an Abrupt verdict Saddleback was out as I sat with Dan Hollander a few weeks after the Saddleback ruling I could read the for boing written all over her face if the hardliners who' controlled the SBC for half a century were still sufficiently organized and defiant to expel one of its biggest wealthiest most established churches than they certainly had the juice to sabotage these new reforms aimed at stopping sexual abuse in fact Den Hollander was counting on it everything we've won she told me could be lost very very suddenly when Ravi Zacharias died in May 2020 the Christian World went into mourning the indian-born Zacharias was an international superstar in the field of apologetics or the intellectual defense of the Christian faith he had spent decades zipping between continents lectur ing in Palace courts and college cafeterias Big City Sports Arenas and small town sanctuaries he turned his namesake organization Ravi Zacharias International Ministries into a pillar of the modern Evangelical movement together with his wife and daughter both of whom sat on the organization's board they raised tens of millions of dollars while churning out books videos and curricula aimed at winning over Skeptics for Christ Franklin Graham hailed Zacharias as one of the great Christian apologists of our time Tim TBO the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback said Zacharias belonged in the Hall of Faith Johnny Moore a pastor and top official with the US Commission on International religious freedom called Zacharias a once in a millennium Christian leader Louie Giglio a mega church pastor and zacharias's hometown of Atlanta reacted to his friend's death by saying I join the thunderous Applause of Heaven asked to deliver a eulogy then vice president Mike Pence declared in Ravi Zacharias God gave us the greatest Christian apologist of this Century a year after his death however Zacharias was known by another description prolific sexual predator Zacharias wasn't gone long before allegations started to percolate three women who worked at an Atlanta area Spa co-owned By Zacharias claimed that he'd sexually abused them when Christianity Today reported these specifics interviewing the women independently of one another rzim vehemently denied the allegations and hired a thirdparty firm to investigate that outside probe produced an even darker picture Zacharias had methodically used his spiritual clout to win the trust of vulnerable women condition them for financial and emotional dependence then exploit them for his sexual gratification investigators who searched zacharias's electronic devices found hundreds of contacts for massage therapists in the United States and Asia they also discovered loads of explicit photos that he'd solicited Zacharias multiple women told investigators described his sexual conquest of their bodies as a reward for dedicating his life to God's service by the time donors filed the class action lawsuit arguing that the prolific sexual predator had used their funds for evil purposes there could be no doubting the enormity of the evidence Ravi Zacharias a giant of Christianity had been leading a deviant double life Julie Roy never saw it coming she didn't want to see it coming like many evangelicals she considered Zacharias Beyond reproach back in 2017 when a husband and wife brought disturbing charges against Zacharias they claimed that he' manipulated her under the guise of ministry before engaging in sexual conversations and eventually soliciting nude pictures Roy scoffed at the allegations when when Zachariah sued the couple eventually silencing them with an NDA Roy felt righteously grieved on his behalf I can still remember texting his assistant whom I'd met a few times by that point saying it's so terrible what they're doing to Ravi Roy told me she grimaced at the memory of her own naive even though I was in the middle of investigating Moody seeing all this bad behavior with my own eyes I refused to believe it with Ravi Zacharias I could relate my wife an Indian immigrant who converted to Christianity as an adult revered Zacharias and so did I we read his books watched his videos and attended a live lecture he delivered at Constitution Hall in Washington despite some of the disquieting details surrounding that 2017 episode the sort of disquieting details people in my profession are trained not to ignore I had the same reaction as Roy denial Roy chuckled when I told her that here we were a couple of Veteran hard-boiled journalists blinded by our own biases to what should have been an obvious truth it was more than bias though it was fear we were afraid to see someone like Zacharias fall not because of what it said about him but because of what it said about us us weren't Christians supposed to hold themselves to a higher standard why was it that ner a new cycle could pass without fresh allegations of a pastor abusing someone in his flock if the world's most prominent Evangelical was praying on women what did that suggest about the morals of the rest of us Christians are taught never to place their faith in man yet the heart to quote John Calvin is an idol making fact Factory my dad always used to say that humans were designed for worship whether or not we believe in any higher power we are predisposed to making gods out of athletes entertainers politicians anyone who can Dazzle or Inspire or fill us with awe this predisposition is especially dangerous when it involves figures who claim Divine affiliation years ago when Dad learned that an associate pastor was getting hands with women at the church he fired him immediately then gave a full accounting to denominational leaders in hopes of preventing the man from pastoring again but Dad declined to pursue a formal inquiry fearing that the findings would become public he didn't want the congregation to know why the popular Charming Pastor was suddenly gone when there was an outcry from The Men's Ministry that he'd been leading dad felt even firmer in his decision not to disclose the particulars lots of the men in that Ministry were new Christians immature and impressionable what would they think what would become of their faith if they learned that their spiritual Mentor was groping women for sport dad made the wrong call I think but it's obvious why he made it he wanted to protect the fragile faith of some of his church members he also wanted to protect the church itself this approach might be defensible in a vacuum yet no vacuum exists well I don't know whether that associate pastor ever latched on to another church I do know that pastors just like him resurface at churches every single day sometimes their sins are known and confronted after certain steps they are restored to Ministry but many more have no such documentation they move undetected from one congregation to the next sexual and spiritual wreckage left in their wake Roy told me this was the last straw at her own longtime Church in weaton Illinois a lay leader from her congregation was found to have abused multiple children at an Affiliated Church Plant but it wasn't until one family pressed criminal charges and several more came to Roy with their stories wanting to go public that the church finally made its members aware of the situation the set your watch regularity of Evangelical pastors being exposed for victimizing their church members is bad enough what's worse is that Christianity has become institutionally desensitized to it the odds are some Faith leader I respect and admire today will reveal themselves to be a fraud and a scoundrel tomorrow and I won't be able to Fain surprise or conjure righteous outrage because Scandal is now baked in to the Evangelical experience in ways that distort our standards of leadership in this sense numbness is the least of our problems plenty of Christians rather than shaking their head and Crossing another spiritual leader off the list are actively keeping that leader on the list the Pauline criteria for pastoral character no longer apply because well we are all just Sinners anyway and can't you see this is an attempt to take down a strong voice for biblical values take John MacArthur the California Pastor long a leader in the conservative but sane Lane of modern evangelicalism someone who spoke passionately about eternal priorities trumping Earthly ones more recently began merging into the fast lane of Fringe political advocacy when Roy broke open the story that MacArthur and his leadership team had fostered a culture of abuse ignoring the physical mistreatment of women and children in their congregation people were outraged at Roy's a small army of Christian bloggers and influencers descended on her website pummeling her for having the tarity to report on an objectively horrifying episode MacArthur had excommunicated a woman from the church for refusing to take back her child abuser husband who at the time was threatening to kill her and the kids and who was now incarcerated for aggravated child molestation corporal injury to a child and child abuse Roy had few allies in the Evangelical world one was Den Hollander who called for an independent investigation into McArthur's Church another was relevant a Christian magazine that covered the disturbing facts that Roy had uncovered the founder and CEO of relevant is Cameron Strang son of Steven Strang finally one of MacArthur's former lieutenants a well-known and respected Elder named hon Cho went on the record with Christianity Today detailing MacArthur's awful pattern of siding with abusers over victims the wagon circling that ensued was epic prominent evangelicals like Jenna Ellis the former Trump lawyer who'd admitted in court to lying on his behalf swore that MacArthur had done nothing wrong that he was being railroaded that this was a coordinated attack on a courageous Christian man as a means of undermining the entire church I asked Roy why the reporting on MacArthur struck such a nerve he's too big to fail I mean he's huge that's the honest answer there are too many people making money off John MacArthur she said there are Publishers making money off him conferences making money off him G3 his nonprofit Ministry group making money off him and then Grace to You his media firm that's a multi multi multi-million dollar company so yeah a pastor like John MacArthur is too big to fail she shook her head if Jesus were here I think he'd be overturning tables everywhere Roy said everywhere Jesus possessed a uniquely pessimistic view of human nature having taken on flesh to redeem a fallen mankind he saw how people continually try to justify themselves rather than repenting and seeking renewal in God's grace he especially saw this among religious people there is a reason why Jesus is harder on the Pharisees than he is on the unbelieving masses there is a reason why Paul demands we rebuke sinful church leaders before everyone so that the others may take take warning throughout scripture God Demands a greater accountability from those in positions of spiritual influence accountability is unfashionable in today's church at the end of 2022 when Christianity Today recapped its 20 most read stories of the Year Evangelical author Patrick Miller noticed an interesting Trend 15 of those stories focused on scandals that had plagued various pastors and Cong gations scanning the list you begin to wonder if CT is making a killing by killing trust in the church Miller wrote on Twitter this was a telling complaint one that echoed throughout my own reporting experiences even some of the best most transparent most trustworthy pastors I'd met had grumbled about Julie Roy and the journalism she inspired if we have family disputes these pastors said they should be dealt with in the family broadcasting our dysfunction to unbelievers only undermines our mission to evangelize them but if this were the case then why include Paul's Epistles in the New Testament Canon his writings after all were known as occasional letters in response to occasions inside of various churches the occasions were messy sex scandals power struggles personality clashes studying these missives centuries later Church councils surely recognized how depictions of such contemptible conduct might diminish the notion of Christ's transformative power they could have included Paul's wise admonitions without identifying the squalet happenings within the church but the Bible is a book of brutal cander man's sinful nature stars from Genesis through Revelation no one not Abraham or Moses not Peter or even Paul is spared the only Flawless character is Christ and that is the entire point this criticism I hear about airing the church's Dirty Laundry give me a break God couldn't care less about some pastor's reputation he cares about his reputation Roy told me this Evangelical industrial complex making millions getting famous building some brand restoring wolves to prey on more sheep it has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus and we've got to stop pretending it does Roy attends a local house church now no rock music no fancy preaching just study and worship and prayer and she said her faith is stronger than it's ever been still she acknowledged the disillusionment that accompanies 5 years spent examining this Evangelical industrial complex hoping to offer some solution rather than just diagnosing the problem she landed on a novel idea she had always loathed the Evangelical conference circuit what with its consumeristic exhibit hall undertones so she decided to host a conference of her own Roy called it restore rather than focus on rehabilitating pastors her program would support survivors of abuse in 2019 on the heels of her reporting on Harvest and after the pasture of another Chicagoland mega church Willow Creek stepped down amid allegations of misconduct Roy hosted the first restore conference at a local College it attracted some 200 people from those nearby churches a few years later when Roy hosted the second restore conference she Drew even more attendees and they were from 44 States and two provinces in Canada she told me Roy has been more than Vindicated in her Pursuit Of Truth in March 2023 James McDonald was arrested in California on charges of felony battery and assault after attacking a 58-year-old woman during a car parking dispute the woman was taken to the hospital with what police described as serious injuries while officers on the scene recovered a handgun from inside McDonald's truck there's a strange in congruity at work Roy has received more scrutiny than McDonald and all the other abusive pastors she's reported on yet she's the one with the least to answer for I didn't have any Grand Vision for this I've never had a Grand Vision for anything I've just tried to be obedient Roy said I think God wants us to be tending to the people who have been strewn along the side of the road there are so many of them so many casualties of this corruption in the church but I'll tell you these people they're some of the strongest Christians I've ever known because they've held on to their beliefs despite having every reason not to Roy kept insisting to me that God is doing something in the American Church before we parted ways I asked her what role journalism might play in that something good question she replied grinning if there's one thing we've learned is that we cannot trust these institutions to police themselves so I feel like we don't have a choice the problem is I'm reporting on maybe onethird of the leads I've got right now and they're good leads but I can only cover so much because we're operating on this barebones budget meanwhile these spiritually bankrupt organizations are taking in millions upon Millions upon Millions she stopped herself I don't want to sound cynical Roy said but somebody said to me once people love building houses they don't like paying for the housing inspector and I think that's right maybe that's why all the houses are falling down Broadmore Baptist Church a prominent SBC member located outside Jackson Mississippi decided to pay the housing inspector in the fall of 2022 a woman approached church leaders claiming that a former youth pastor had groomed her as a pre-teen and subsequently abused her over a period of years Broadmore Pastor immediately called Dan Hollander mediating between the church and the Survivor Den Hollander helped to establish the facts of the case she confirmed that the alleged abuser who' left Broadmore years earlier to Pastor another local SBC church had paid for the women's therapy and other medical expenses she also confirmed that this assistance came only after the woman signed an NDA when Witnesses came forward to corroborate the contemporaneous claims made by the woman Broadmore decided her allegations were highly credible at Dan hollander's urging the church opened a review of its policies and commissioned an outside firm to investigate the incident most remarkable was Broadmore decision to publish a public statement even featuring it on the landing page of the church's website that detailed the allegations endorsed The credibility of the accuser emphasized the Christian commitment to truth and transparency offered resources for survivors to receive counseling and provided instructions for victims to report their abuse moving forward the Jackson claran Ledger praised Broadmore for sharing a striking amount of detail on an issue that has often been shrouded in secrecy by other Faith groups the tennesseans religion reporter who has documented all manner of Devastation inside the SBC called Broadmore response a model for the denomination to follow they lost a lot of members at first but they eventually gained more than they lost Den Hollander told me Broadmore actually grew in membership and has grown financially since they released that public statement because people at other churches saw them do this the right way and if you ask the pastors at Broadmore they'll tell you they've been hearing non-stop from other SBC pastors ever since they all saw the response they want to know how to get this right that said Den Hollander doesn't expect most churches or even many of them to follow Broadmore example when we talked over coffee in Kentucky she had just returned from a trip to Atlanta where she was meeting meeting with fellow task force members in preparation for the 2023 SBC annual meeting they gamed out scenarios involving executive committee blessed efforts to dismantle the abuser database and strip the task force of its Authority they also talked about the erlc working with State leaders on legislative reform aimed at criminalizing clergy congregant sexual relationships a potential breakthrough in the fight against Church abuse but much of what Den Hollander and her colleagues discussed was whether SBC churches would comply with the new standards around reporting and investigating abuse or whether they would refuse forcing a standoff with the denomination one of two things is eventually going to happen Den Hollander predicted either the SBC will hold the line and show the door to hundreds of churches that refuse to comply with the new guidelines or so many Church will refuse to comply effectively calling the denominations Bluff that the SBC will back down and stop enforcing the rules which would likely prompt a whole separate click of churches to leave either way she said a massive split is coming to the country's largest denomination and maybe that's for the best Unity is a good thing we are commanded to pursue it but Unity around the wrong thing is sin and we want so badly to be unified that we get to a point where we excuse and enable sin Den Hollander said there is not a path forward from my perspective to keep the SBC together in its current form I think the healthiest thing that can happen and this is true for a number of different denominations is the fracture and maybe at that point you can truly have Unity Den Hollander knows the risk of saying this part out out loud she's already viewed as a war profiteer by the far right of the SBC an opportunistic outsider who turned her own abuse into a cottage industry as then Hollander quips rolling her eyes the irony is that she's worked harder to fix the denomination than most of its own leaders since being asked to help launch caring well and learning of Jennifer lyall's case back in 2019 Dan Hollander has treated the SBC like a full-time job logging thousands of hours in calls meetings flights paperwork and so on her compensation nothing Dan Hollander has been formally retained and paid for work at specific churches such as Broadmore Baptist yet all her work for the SBC done while homeschooling four kids and working on countless high-profile cases in the secular world has been pro bono that could change at some point the task force has urged Den Hollander to accept payment for her Services an infusion of income that she would welcome as the family Breadwinner yet she cringes at the thought of cashing checks from the SBC the denomination as a whole has brought her family nothing but heartburn Jacob her husband chose to leave Southern Seminary after finishing his PhD coursework because he was having to continually justify his existence on campus Because of Who his wife is Rachel told me the reality is she added with a sigh I have burned every bridge that he might potentially have to cross to teach at any conservative Seminary much less one that's affiliated with the SBC she noted that both she and her husband remain conservative on almost every theological social and moral issue but it hardly matters anymore Jacob who was studying Trinity Arian theology with a focus on penal substitutionary atonement an orthodox concentration if ever there was one eventually transferred to the University of Wales to finish with the dissertation phase of his PhD together with his wife they have marveled at the differences they've seen while interfacing with Christians outside the United States recounting one visit to the UK in which she was working with local churches on social welfare programs Rachel told me it was enough to make them Muse about leaving the United States altogether it was wild to spend time with Christians whose identity wasn't wrapped up in anything except Christ she said to see what Christianity looks like in a culture where Christians don't filter every idea and conviction through a lens of right versus left it was sort of shocking honestly Den Hollander doesn't know what the future holds for her and her family what she does know is that God placed her at the center of this madness for a reason like Julie Roy with her journalism Dan Hollander believes she's been called to use her legal skills and life experiences to advocate for a better more biblically sound Christianity she stressed however the limits of that calling if she becomes consumed with saving the SBC or ending the abuse epidemic in the church I'll wind up burnt out and angry and bitter because I won't succeed Dan Hollander said the only metric that matters she added is whether she's being faithful to what she feels God has asked her to do Dan Hollander told me that her favorite childhood Bible story wasn't about any of the Bold female protagonists but rather the parable of the talents Jesus is teaching about stewardship and servanthood in the story Jesus explains how a master entrusts his servants with various amounts of money based on their abilities and expects a certain return according to what they've been given well done good and faithful servant the master says when he sees them making the most of those abilities you have been faithful with a few things I will put you in charge of many things my parents would tell us growing up whatever God has for you is the most important thing she said that meant if God has a quiet Life as a mom for you that is the most important thing and don't you ever diminish or underestimate the impact of that if God has a public platform for you then be faithful and serve him if you're given the responsibility of being a garbage collector that's great do it for God's glory I need to be faithful with what the Lord has asked me to Steward nothing more and that's what we're trying to teach our kids as well Rachel Den Hollander has three young daughters they participate in gymnastics like she did they're being raised in a church like she was certainly she worries about protecting them from the harms of the world she also worries about preparing them as Christians to confront not just the disbelief of the secular world but the callousness and cruelty of their own religious movement for speaking truth about abuse and corruption in the church Church Dan Hollander has been shunned by many of her fellow Believers her daughters and millions of other girls coming of age in the church are watching closely I asked her what she hopes they see Define your identity Dan Hollander replied if you do that you will be able to stand up against abuses of your theology and speak out against your own Community you will be okay with not having a home with not fitting in anywhere because your identity is not tied to anything here she thought for a moment when you lose sight of your identity it's easy to lust after power and to justify the moral compromises necessary to achieve it chapter 21 Lynchberg Virginia there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known Luke 12: 2 Nick Olen could no longer justify those moral compromises from his earliest memories olsson's identity had been wrapped up in Liberty University his parents had met there as undergraduates his father had prayed to advance Jerry fwell senior's Vision on the Mountaintop he'd grown up romanticizing the school and eventually went there himself earning a pair of degrees and winning a prized teaching job in the English Department he had settled down in Lynchburg and started a family one day Olsson allowed himself to think his two sons would carry on the flame but that identity came at a cost belonging to the Liberty Family meant believing the story that Liberty told about itself s sitting on the back patio of his favorite barbecue joint one sunny afternoon in April 2023 olssen told me he didn't believe that story anymore in truth he'd stopped believing it a long time ago Doug Olen had shielded his son from some of the ugly truths about Liberty Nick might have never seen it for himself had he not pursued a career in teaching as he became close with several of his professors the younger Olsen retraced the same Arc of Discovery and disillusionment traveled by his father decades earlier he saw the coercion and intimidation and cruelty he heard about the methodical suppression of opposing views he witnessed the ways in which indoctrination not education not inquiry but rather absolute uniformity of opinion was incentivized from the top down there was more to Liberty Olsen began to realize than than the feel-good mythology that had been expertly packaged and sold to millions of Evangelical families like his there were as some of his professors like to say two Liberties one was a presentable outward facing University that trained champions for Christ the other was an insular unstable paranoid family business run by sycophants who weaponized spirituality against any person or idea that might threaten their hold on power most of the students couldn't see it they had been brainwashed Olson told me I probably would have gotten brainwashed too if certain professors hadn't opened my eyes to it when Liberty offered him the teaching position in 2013 Olsen struggled to reconcile these competing versions of the school his idealism about the place had vanished Olen spoke openly with friends about his darkened view of the instit tion and questioned whether it would be a healthy workplace at the same time he knew the awesome potential of Liberty despite its manifest flaws or perhaps because of them he saw a singular opportunity to mold the next generation of Christian leaders and Advance the kingdom of God things needed to change at Liberty but the only way to affect that change olssen convinced himself was from the inside almost immediately after he arrived on campus in August 2013 for the new faculty orientation Olsen was disabused of his reformist Notions after an opening prayer and some perfunctory welcomes from the Provost a man named Ron Godwin took the stage one of Jerry fwell senior's most loyal lieutenants dating back to their days in the Moral Majority Godwin had held virtually every top executive position at the school and even served as the deao caretaker for a period of time after Jerry fwell Jr's sudden succession but none of the titles on Godwin's resume truly captured the essence of his role Ron was The Barking Dog enforcer for the fwell family Olsson said he did all the dirty work for the University even knowing this Olsson told me he was stunned by Godwin's remarks to Liberty's incoming batch of educators Ron gets up and says if you think you're coming here to change things think again you need to fall in line with what we're doing here or leave Olsson recalled he looked dazed by the memory this was the kind of thing I'd only heard about Olen said now on my first day as a faculty member I was seeing it for myself it was Ron's job to put the fear of God into us and it worked fear aside Godwin and his Associates had their ways to keep everyone in line curricula were streamlined and centralized professors were constantly monitored Department by department for deviations real or perceived Renegades were promptly fired and bound by non-disclosure agreements Liberty has never offered tenure to its faculty professors work on year-to-year contracts that can be terminated at any time this Perpetual state of limbo was very much designed to stifle any freethinking instincts the message was unmistakable get in line as Godwin warned or get out professors tolerated this treatment because they loved the Lord and believed they were serving him they also loved their students and believed they were making a difference in their lives above all they loved the idea of Liberty and believed in what it might yet become everyone could see that Jerry Jr was building something huge people wanted to be a part of that future even if they'd been hurt in the past and so we just continued to look the other way Olsson said obviously that was a big mistake Olsen had gone to work for Liberty just as the boss's life was starting to unravel fwell and his wife had met the Miami pool boy a year earlier the origination of a torid love triangle that eventually led to the university president's downfall Olsson and his colleagues were unaware of those details at the time of course but they could observe the related changes in falwell's personal comportment it was an Open Secret that he was drinking heavily his lewd comments were becoming the stuff of legend by the time he joined forces with Trump in 2016 and subsequently ousted Mark deas the executive committee chairman who voiced his objection everyone could see that fwell was equal parts emboldened and un touchable professors had never thought of fwell as hostile to the extent he came across a standoffish they chocked it up to his being aloof awkward insecure but now he was increasingly authoritarian in his approach fwell had steadily expanded his purview while shrinking his inner circle he had even pushed out Godwin the ultimate power consolidation maneuver he was meddling ever more in the Affairs of students and professor ERS alike deploying lieutenants to stomp out any trace of dissent before long some employees of the school felt like members of the North Korean military all but standing and saluting under the watchful eye of the ministers and department heads never daring to make eye contact with the dear leader there had always been warnings veiled threats really to remember your place stuff like that but suddenly we're hearing things from the dean things that clearly came from from above the dean like if you see the president in public don't talk to him you can say hello but don't ask any questions follow the chain of command Olson said it was very bizarre and it wasn't just about Jerry Jr we were told not to approach any administrators so the people in charge are micromanaging every aspect of our teaching but there's no feedback welcome we didn't get to offer upward evaluations of anyone the goal essentially was to have zero faculty input in the way Liberty educated its students to Olsen there was no divorcing the administration's posture toward faculty from the pedagogical decisions being made at Liberty acceptance rates soared as the school dumbed down its curriculum standards time became a Quantified and scrutinized commodity professors were penalized for paper grading delays that resulted from offering detailed personalized feedback to their in-person students and rewarded for taking a standardized minimum workload approach to large online classes programs focused on business and politics blossomed while the Arts became an afterthought in 2020 fallwell shocked the faculty by dissolving the school's philosophy Department ask yourself why he did that Olsson told me it's because philosophy is all about questioning things challenging things searching for wisdom and Truth in ways that caus people to think for themselves it was around this time that Olen began to despair over the future of Liberty the school was flourishing by every tangible metric record enrollment record profits record endowment fwell had built the campus into a Marvel and formed a strategic alliance with the president of the United States yet this gaining of the world had come at the expense of Liberty Soul every intangible metric of the school's spiritual health suggested that Liberty was in a state of Crisis students from that period recalled to me a certain malaise settling in over the campus Olen and his colleagues perceiving as much despaired over their pupils some professors began drinking to deal with the devastation others contemplated quitting Olsen did both fantasizing about being free from Liberty ruing the day he accepted that job offer whatever relief accompanied falwell's ouster was shortlived by that point Olson and he estimated the great majority of his colleagues recognized that Liberty's problems ran deeper than any one individual soon enough evidence of this came courtesy of Ron Godwin himself the longtime University enforcer still chafing at his own ouster years earlier reacted to falwell's demise by writing a lengthy email to the Board of Trustees that sought to reestablish Jerry fwell senior as the true Visionary behind Liberty and diminish his son's role in the school's success Olen obtained the email from a source at the University I have since verified its authenticity to bolster his case Godwin cited fwell seniors take no prisoners approach to building out Liberty's online learning program which had become the school's dominant source of Revenue one particular passage stood out while typically the enrollment process for college campuses occurs via a slow growth relationship with a counselor developing in Affinity with a potential student over many months Dr fwell instead chose to house enrollment in a call center much like one would find at a for-profit institution employees were supervised closely and constantly and efficiency became a principal goal for for some employees unaccustomed to working in a for-profit environment accountability and daily productivity standards felt off mechanistic dehumanizing and they registered their discomfort by publicly voicing concern that Dr falwell's testimony was going to suffer his answer though delivered with his characteristic Good Humor made his position clear let him worry about his testimony and they should instead worry about being worthy of being retained Olen who' been reading the email aloud stopped and looked up Liberty's goal has never been some holistic vision of Christian academics it's about maximum efficiency maximum productivity maximum profit making he told me in that sense Ron was actually establishing a continuity between Jerry senior and Jerry Jr their Visions were the same how can we make more money how can we build a bigger in stitution how can we gain political power and influence how can we impose our conservative values on the nation Olsen paused so you've got this program that's highly unethical a terrible work environment an abusive workplace but hey it serves the mission of training champions for Christ right he scoffed the problem is the mission is lost once you've adopted that mentality and that's what happened here Liberty has taken a by any means necessary Approach To The Ends because they think those ends glorified God but the means have distorted those ends so badly Olsen had agreed to go on the record with me in doing so he was not simply stepping outside the cult-like cave of secrecy that had come to envelop the institution he cherished he was also throwing away his job he was risking his future in Academia his family's Financial Security and some of his close closest relationships when I asked him why was blowing the whistle on Liberty worth such personal suffering olssen sat in silence for a long time there's this apocalyptic feeling in American Christianity right now he finally said and I've been thinking maybe that's a good thing apocalypse means Revelation maybe it's time all these hidden things were revealed he was referencing The Book of Luke 12 when Jesus promises that the hypocrisy of the religious leaders would soon be exposed there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known Jesus warned what you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs Olsen was right about Liberty students being brainwashed while visiting Lynchberg over the years I was always struck by the disconnect between the sleaziness of the university and the sincerity of its pupils without fail students were kind decent solicitous everything their school was not this Behavior reflected a serious commitment to Christ but it also betrayed an underlying ignorance about the place they called home home questions about controversies or scandals were usually met with a foreign gaze like fish borne into contaminated Waters these kids were oblivious to the corruption all around them there were periodic Awakenings on the Liberty campus a protest here a petition there but the student body's disposition generally remained one of wide-eyed witlessness that started to change toward the end of Trump's presidency students organized to register their disapproval of the school's plan to host the Miss Virginia pageant complete with a swimsuit competition inside its Center for music and worship of the University remaining open and mandating in-person attendance during the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic of fwell teaming with Charlie Kirk to open a republican advocacy shop the ridiculously named ferk Center on campus and of the racial callousness displayed by fwell during the summer of 2020 which resulted in several black student athletes transferring from the school watching this unfold from his hometown of Johnstown Pennsylvania 18-year-old Daniel Hostetter was having second thoughts about Liberty he had like so many others before him fallen in love with the school during a campus visit despite the warnings of his father and his favorite teacher who were worried about Liberty's incessant state of turmoil he committed to enroll in the fall of 2020 now he was reconsidering their advice hastetter was a Conservative Christian raised in a republican home educated at an Evangelical private school yet there was something deeply unsettling about Liberty's posture toward the culture his senior year of high school had been marked by a lethal pandemic and escalating racial tensions and the beginnings of an assault on American democracy on each of these fronts Liberty had done more to wound than to heal it was for this very reason that Hostetter ultimately decided he needed to go to Liberty I remember being very disillusioned with the direction of Christianity in this country he told me but I also remember thinking maybe I can help to Model A Better Way his first week in Lynchberg was a blur fwell resigned the day after Hostetter started class celebrations and impromptu prayer sessions often they were one and the same sprang up around campus as top Liberty officials while convening public meetings and blasting out public statements privately jostled for position that Sunday hostetter's first in Lynchburg he went to Thomas Road Baptist Church and listened to Jonathan fwell explain why his older brother could no longer lead their father school it was surreal disorienting A fitting preview of the turbulence to come Jerry privo stepping into the role of Liberty's interim president picked up mostly where fwell had left off he spoke on apologetically of an agenda to elect Republican politicians he attended the White House ceremony at which Trump announced the nomination of Amy Cony Barrett for the US Supreme Court after Liberty hosted a virtual convocation in October 2020 featuring two prominent pastors John Piper and JD Greer during which Piper tacitly condemned Trump's morals and said he'd be voting third party in the upcoming election privo ordered that the video be scrubbed from the school's website Liberty Hoster soon realized was even Messier on the inside than it appeared from the outside the Piper episode was particularly troubling the 2020 election would be H's first time voting after much prayer and reflection he had decided to support a third party candidate himself now his school was effectively stating its opposition to his ballot preference Hostetter saw two paths forward he could run from the repression keeping quiet about his politics or perhaps even finding a new school to attend or he could do something about it sensing a unique opportunity to help shape Liberty in the post fwell era Hoster threw himself into a Reconstructionist Crusade he joined an uprising against the ferk center and helped organize Justice for Janes to protest the school's systematic mishandling of sexual abuse allegations progress proved halting Liberty cut ties with Charlie Kirk but kept the offending organization itself renaming it the standing for Freedom Center and renewing its mandate for right-wing agit prop Hoster decided he needed to push even harder he ran for student body government as a sophomore and was elected speaker of the house when the presidency came open a year later he went for it the campaign took on a harsh tone antagonism toward President Joe Biden and his Democratic party was running high on campus let's go Brandon signs and shirts were commonplace and Hostetter had earned the reputation of of a squishy Centrist seizing on hostetter's rhetoric around racial reconciliation and justice for abuse survivors his opponent painted him as an apostate people would come up to me and say what are you woke Hoster recalled all because I refused to expressly run as a republican as he told me this story in March 2023 Hoster was campaigning hard for a second term he had won that first race in nail-biting fashion not perceiving a mandate for bold ambitious objectives Hostetter spent his first term as student body president sizing up Liberty from the inside what he saw unnerved him senior administrators people who have been here since the 70s and have no appetite for structural change Hostetter told me were deeply entrenched and ferociously territorial policy-making discussions were centralized and cloistered even as the student top elected representative Hostetter was shut out of essential conversations about the school's present and future at every turn he saw how politics and self-preservation dictated the big decisions being made at his university Hoster kept these concerns to himself rallying the fractured student body around any cause would prove difficult he certainly didn't have the juice to take on the Liberty Administration besides the biggest decision of all was imminent the presidential search committee had reportedly settled on a permanent replacement for fwell a selection that would speak volumes about the school's Direction and sense of identity the search committee had rebuffed Hostetter and his fellow student leaders making it plain that their opinions and participation were entirely unwelcome Hostetter tried to sound optimistic he said they had persisted in sending a letter to the committee stressing a pastoral style and a gospel centered approach to life and academics not a politics centered approach to everything he believed that the people who'd gotten so much wrong in the past would actually get this right he told me he was praying daily and fervently that Liberty's new president could turn the page on its past but if hter had learned one thing as student body president it was that Liberty prized its status quo and punished anyone who would challenge it just a few weeks earlier his favorite Professor had abruptly been fired from the school of divinity there was no cause given hundreds of students signed a petition to reinstate him when that failed some of them demanded a meeting with the dean and then with the Provost this incident Hostetter told me represented everything that was wrong with Liberty there was no transparency there was no trust a brilliant teacher a brilliant Christian teacher had been sarily disposed of divorced from his students and cut off from his livelihood he would be bound and gagged with an NDA Hostetter said and his story his very existence would be erased from Liberty's memory what Hoster did not know what Liberty could not have predicted is that Dr Aaron Werner would refuse to go quietly papers were strewn across the kitchen table there was a contract with the terms of werner's employment with Liberty the notice of his termination his appeal to the administration a denial of the appeal notes from his recent meeting with a lawyer and a collection of letters addressed by his students to the school of divin Dean pleading for their professor's job in the middle of the table marked up in his handwriting was a non-disclosure agreement offering wner nearly $25,000 in exchange for remaining silent about the university his deadline to sign the NDA was 3 days away Kathy Werner had been hoping that her husband would agree to the terms take the money and leave Liberty in the family's rearview mirror once and for all she had homeschooled their four daughters depriving the family of a second income and it wouldn't be long before the bills started to pile up tuition funds weighed on the wers their oldest was a freshman in college her sisters weren't far behind taking the hush money would give the family some breathing room as the professor figured out his next move and yet wner could not stomach the idea of letting Liberty off the hook the termination notice said he'd been fired with cause but that cause had never been articulated not to him not to his students not to his friends on the faculty the only thing he'd been told was that he had recently said something problematic in class something that warranted his immediate dismissal I've narrowed it down to about eight things wner told me his eyes dancing mischievously bottom line I wasn't following the example of big J he grinned Jerry that is not Jesus it was probably destined to end this way for wner 30 years earlier as a liberty undergrad studying biology he had resented fwell senior and his imperious style Werner never would have chosen Liberty on his own raised in Maine the son of a rough neck lobsterman Werner came to Lynchburg only because his brother a star athlete had scored a full ride to the university transferring from the University of Maine to run alongside his kid brother on the track team wner chafed at Liberty's self-righteous legalism you couldn't have a glass of wine you couldn't have long hair you couldn't even wear sandals Warner recalled I remember telling a professor you guys would kick Jesus out of this place after graduating and meeting his future wife Werner undertook a zigzagging Odyssey of the American Evangelical landscape they taught at a Christian school in Florida served an Evangelical Ministry in Indiana pastored at a church in Arkansas then landed in Louisville where Aaron earned both his master of divinity and doctor of philosophy degrees at Southern Seminary after a few years in California they tried to put down roots in Georgia Werner became a Dean at Shorter University a large Southern Baptist affiliate and emerged as a top candidate to take over as president but the Warners still felt Restless they had been to so many places yet their spiritual World felt so small Aaron and Kathy decided to be missionaries and accepted an assignment in Vietnam when that fell through and as they debated alternative countries for their young family of six the wers fielded an unexpected request what if they planted a church here in the United States right in Aaron's Hometown in Maine his family and friends were not exactly Church types Aaron had earned a PhD in apologetics specifically for the purpose of converting his father a crabby old New Englander known as the skippa but the hot shot acad had failed naturally it was an old drinking buddy who eventually reached werner's dad with the gospel and convinced him to attend church knowing that his father's New Faith was shallow Werner jumped at the chance to help nurture it he moved the family back to Maine and for the next s years worked as a bivocational pastor raising up a Congregation of 200 while lobstering with his dad to pay the bills Warner finally felt content when a phone call came from Liberty University he laughed it off the more Warner thought about returning to Lynchburg however the less crazy it seemed having spent the past two decades as an itinerant Evangelical pastoring teaching planting he had seen the very worst of the church his brother-in-law once a popular Pastor was outed after carrying on sexual relationships with numerous men while married to a woman his direct supervisor at minary David Sills was mired in Scandal over his relationship with Jennifer ly one of his favorite pastors Southern Baptist celebrity Johnny hunt would soon admit to sexual misconduct and be accused of sexual assault which he denied stemming from an incident with a fellow pastor's wife still to Werner nothing embodied the drift of American evangelicalism quite like Liberty University it was for this reason like Nick olssen and Daniel Hostetter and so many others that Werner felt God calling him to Lynchberg the initial offer was to become dean of the school of divinity Werner wanted nothing to do with such a high-profile posting he suspected that an old acquaintance Harvey gainy the longtime Liberty trustee who succeeded Mark deas as executive committee chairman wanted him in that job to help contain the excesses of Jerry fwell Jr Werner informed gainy that he wasn't interested in bureaucratic responsibilities or babysitting duties if he came to Liberty it would be to teach in summer 2019 as Warner weighed his decision 12 professors were purged from the school of divinity it made waves Beyond Lynchberg despite record profits Liberty was aing a dozen Educators from what was once its most prominent Department Werner took this as a dreadful Omen yet he also took it as a challenge fwell was now brazenly dismantling what little remained of Liberty's theological Heritage and nobody was doing anything about it Werner took the job in late 2019 on the condition that he would teach classes in the honors program if falwell's goal was to empty the school of its intellectualism making Liberty into an assembly line that churned out lawyers and businessmen and political activists then Werner would create his own little fom a refuge of audition and self-examination and critical thinking I could sense that God wanted me to help turn this honors program into something really special something that could be distinct from the rest of the University Warner recalled the 700 or so students in the honors program were even brighter than Werner had expected many had chosen Liberty over the ivy league the average SAT score of his students wner told me was higher than those at har Harvard these students were training for careers in every vocation imaginable from medicine to Ministry their Futures were Limitless wner spotted just one dilemma lots of these kids came to Liberty from White conservative Evangelical households the professor said and they had never challenged their own assumptions and I mean never Warner got to work changing that in each of the courses he taught Evangel ISM theology New Testament the professor came equipped with a PowerPoint deck hundreds of slides long that he used to provoke discussion and debate pairing certain slides with the week's readings or lectures Werner would dare his students to interrogate their own beliefs about the world he showed a meme image of Jesus holding an assault rifle to question the church's commitment to non-violence he displayed quotes from Jerry fwell Senor on a range of topics race education Warfare even prayer to highlight the spiritual inconsistencies of the school's founder he shared images of Bernie Sanders the Socialist turned Democratic presidential candidate whom fwell Jr had hosted at convocation as a publicity stunt to examine the relationship between Christianity and economic systems he presented a passage from CS Lewis's the screw tape letters in which a senior devil advises his demon Apprentice that patriotism is a most seductive substitute religion to ask students about their true loyalties the only thing off limits the only person above reproach was Christ pressing his pupils to investigate the claims of any mortal man Werner demanded that they start with their Professor he told the students that he was constantly finding flaws with his own arguments and conclusions surely they could find some too this invitation to open searching potentially subversive inquiry was entirely alien to most of these students and they revered Dr Warner for it the non-conformist approach made him a sensation on campus it also made him a liability near the end of his first semester teaching Werner was asked to lead the faculty devotional if this was a trap the buzz about his classes had put him on the administration's radar and now the new professor was being asked to present to his colleagues Warner didn't bother avoiding it armed with a few of his favorite slides Werner dedicated the session to probing the ties between nationalism and American Christianity the timing was purposeful Trump and Biden were heading for a showdown that November and the Liberty campus was all but painted red as his presentation wound down Werner put up a final slide it was an image of Jesus on Palm Sunday in the saddle of a donkey arriving triumphantly in Jerusalem the gathered crowds singing hosas to their promised savior wearing a red baseball cap it read make Israel great again the earliest followers of Jesus believed that he was delivering them a state superpower Warner reminded his colleagues American Christians ought to guard against similar fantasies he left that assembly A Marked Man Werner wasn't dumb he knew the bullseye he' placed on his own back but he didn't especially care he had come to Liberty with a mission to edify these young Christians to elevate their thinking and expose them to a world bigger than Lynchberg wner plowed ahead he stepped on toes and slaughtered sacred cows all but daring someone to stop him the Bolder I became the more the students loved it wner told me and the more the students loved it the more fearful the administration became werner's self assurance owed in part to the fact that gainy the executive committee chairman had personally recruited him to Lynchberg when gainy died unexpectedly in late 2021 just a few semesters into werner's career at Liberty the clock began to tick it wasn't lost on Troy Temple the dean of the Divinity School that wner had been offered the position that Temple himself now held held Temple and for that matter much of the school's leadership could see the risk Warner represented the professor's popularity now extended well beyond his own Department this ideological Rebellion he was fem menting in one small corner of Campus might soon spread Kathy Werner could see what was coming she warned her husband to button things up to keep his head down for a while and not make any noise he had extra incentive to do so reluctantly wner had allowed his oldest daughter Kayla a star athlete who'd scored a 1570 on her sat to enroll at Liberty she wanted to be close to me but I shouldn't have let her come here he sighed now feeling this added family pressure wner tried to tone down the provocation but he couldn't help himself the year following Gay's death was marked by clashes with temple run-ins with the administration and such swelling demand from students that Werner taught five courses ultimately the long wait lists and Stellar reviews and he changed my life testimonials couldn't save the professor in January 2023 without any warning he was terminated Werner was promptly locked out of his office security escorted him away from campus not allowing him to collect any belongings or say goodbye to students or even see his own daughter it was pretty malicious he recalled if you're going to fire me fire me in a Christian way you know the outcry from students was overwhelming Warner was inundated with phone calls and voicemails emails and text messages some 500 students signed the petition for his reinstatement several of them met with temple then demanded an audience with the Provost Scott Hicks Liberty's top academic official audio recordings of both meetings stealthily captured by one of the students reveal the paternalistic wielding of spiritualized power that permeates Liberty as an institution Temple told the students three times that God works through Authority in this case him and that they needed to trust that Authority hinting at the existence of a pattern of troubling Behavior by Werner that he wasn't permitted to itemize Hicks contradicted this sentiment sticking to the story that Werner had been fired for a specific spe ific recent infraction but stressed the underlying point about deferring to Authority after making several factual misstatements about the process of werner's appeal regarding what details could and could not be disclosed Hicks told the students the honor students that education isn't a popularity contest Werner had kept a sense of humor in recounting to me this entire Saga but now his demeanor shifted maybe it was because his daugh da sat on the nearby couch studying maybe he was thinking about all the parents who had sacrificed to send their kids to Liberty who had entrusted them to the FWS and their lackes who had believed they would be trained as champions for Christ whatever the inspiration Werner could no longer suppress his Chagrin He Knew Too Many Liberty graduates who had drifted from their faith or abandoned it altogether after leaving Lynchberg however naive they might have been while in school the eyes of many in alumnus were soon opened the painful realization they would reach wasn't just that Liberty was no better no Holier no more Christlike than what they encountered in secular spaces it was that Liberty was worse than the secular World remember what Paul says to the Corinthians you guys are doing stuff that even the pagans don't do Warner said paraphrasing the apostles rebuke of the church in ancient Greece wner was a traveled cultured man he had seen a lot of things but nothing quite compared to what he claimed was going on at Liberty there was his friend in the registar office who discovered the school was admitting students into its online graduate program who had phony undergraduate degrees and was fired for refusing to cover it up there was the gay student who was kicked out of school while his boyfriend a football player was allowed to stay there was the administrator who admitted to him that he'd pushed a faulty textbook for years one that is required reading for Liberty's entire student body because of a massive Kickback from the publisher summarizing it all the enforcers and cronies the lawsuits and payoffs the Shameless self-dealing and Shady real estate transactions wner threw up his hands you tell me he said kind of sounds criminal doesn't it Kathy Warner had heard enough we had been sitting for several hours around their kitchen table and the longer we talked the less interested she seemed in her husband signing the NDA she was still worried about her family and their livelihood but she was also concerned about the truth despite being married to a professor Kathy had never appreciated the extent of Liberty's deception until her own daughter was enrolled there prospective students and their parents deserved to know what they were getting themselves into just to be clear this is not about hurting anyone Cathy said I don't want to hurt Liberty Martin Luther didn't want to hurt the Catholic Church her husband responded he wanted to purify it they both agreed Liberty needed purifying I think we need to be honest about the FWS wner told me Jerry Senor was always a bit of a scoundrel and Jerry Jr perfected the art of using fear and hatred as a grow strategy Christianity happens to be the thing they Ed to build a multi-billion dollar institution it could have been anything else it could have been moonshine but they chose Christianity and it's gained them a lot of power and a lot of money the two things these people truly worship Warner was quick to issue a caveat he didn't believe the other fallwell son Jonathan was complicit in the family's sins in fact he was ENC couraged to know that Jonathan the lead pastor of Thomas Road was reportedly leading the search for a new University president Werner was watching closely just like everyone else waiting for the announcement of Liberty's new leader he was praying for a modern-day Reformation they have a chance Werner told me to finally get this right most pastors if they serve a church long enough wind up with a commemorative plaque somewhere in the building others might even have a gymnasium or office Wing named after them a select few will prove so impactful as to be honored with the title pastor ameritus at Thomas Road the shrine to Jerry fwell Senor fills an entire Corridor of the church stretching several hundred feet of pale mint shaded walls the panoramic spectacle commemorates 50 years of Miracles it was unlike anything I'd ever seen inside a Protestant house of worship clear floating cases arranged into sections by date and theme displayed the red tie he wore and the blue pen he wrote with his vinyl record sermon recordings and his God save America musical CDs five of the magazine covers he graced and 14 books he authored promotional pamphlets he hawked and fundamentalist periodicals he appeared in some oldtime Gospel Hour videotapes and a Hollywood clapboard bearing his name all this was ATT tribute to fwell himself the celebration of Thomas rad unfolded on alternating beige-colored banners nearby each of them commemorating one decade of the church's existence 1980 to 1989 a decade of Destiny of course separate pons to fwell a faithful servant and his children a Godly family featured in these presentations as well spanning his overlapping careers with Thomas RH Liberty University and the Moral Majority the final section documenting his death in 2007 was headlined with a quote from Ron Godwin a giant has fallen just beneath that the exhibition concluded the Legacy continues with a photo of Jerry fwell Jr and his brother Jonathan it had been nearly 3 years since Jerry Jr was defenestrated and yet there he was on display inside Thomas Road Baptist Church still identified as the leader of Liberty University maybe his brother didn't have the heart to scrub the caption or order an updated placard maybe he was too busy with his booming Church to worry about visiting gawkers doing a double take at the photo and revisiting the humiliation foed upon the entire fwell Clan there was no way of knowing despite my attempts to reach him by email by phone even by visiting his church office the youngest fwell never made himself available for an interview getting a read on Jonathan proved elusive in speaking with a few dozen people who know him everyone at least agreed that he was unlike his brother sincere about living out his faith there was little consensus beyond that some of his friends contemporaries and congregants saw a squeaky clean Pastor who kept his distance from Liberty and was thus ignorant of much of the Mischief there others described Jonathan as The consumate Insider someone who had the university wired yet stayed strategically detached from its interessen jockeying clinging to a plausible deniability that might insulate the pulpit from politics in a way his father never had Jonathan was certainly well connected at liberty for years he had been been the school's senior vice president of Spiritual Development yet it was widely understood that he and his older brother did not get along that personal tension and Jerry Jr's rapid consolidation of power at the school seemingly pushed Jonathan further and further toward the periphery by the time of his brother's resignation in August 2020 the Thomas Road Pastor was scarcely ever seen around campus Jonathan now occupied center stage at Liberty he was something of a tragic figure a man burdened with the weight of restoring both the family's name and the University's reputation everyone affiliated with the school was studying him parsing his sermons for clues about his vision for Liberty one Sunday in the spring of 2023 I came to Thomas Road to listen for myself inside the prodigious Sanctuary under an embankment of soft Neon Lights fwell continued weeks long series on Jesus's Sermon on the Mount he had reached chapter 7 a crucial passage in which Jesus having just explained how we are to live by humbling ourselves by shunning worldly possessions by loving our enemies suddenly turns to the subject of judgment invoking Jesus's words about the wide road that leads to destruction and the narrow gate that leads to eternal life fwell issued a warning about which direction we are headed and more pointedly who we are following in America today fwell said truth is being redefined there are ravenous wolves seeking to devour God's Sheep by watering down biblical standards and making the narrow gate appear wider than it really is if Christians stick to God's truth the pastor continued they will be portrayed as extremists and bigots they will be azed by society and relegated to the fringes I don't have any doubt in my mind fwell said there will be a time when the government tries to come into churches like this one and say you can't preach that anymore he seems to be careening toward a culture War homy pitting the pious True Believers at churches like Thomas rad against the Sinister secular progressives in the culture at large at this juncture in the sermon based on my travels the pastor would issue a call to political and perhaps literal arms bracing his flock for a clash between the partisan forces of Good and Evil but then fwell pivoted he said that Christianity had always been under attack that there was nothing new about this twisting of Truth the best defense against ravenous wolves fwell suggested is a Good Shepherd the pastor's message contained no real ambiguity rather than seeking out external conflict Christians must focus on internal sanctification meditating on the truth of Christ keeping our eyes fixed on that narrow gate and nothing else fwell then went a step further the Wolves Jesus described don't simply roam outside the church walls in fact fwell reminded us Jesus warned that one day many of his so-called disciples people who'd been duplicity who'd practiced a religion based on rules and rituals but had no relationship with him would show up to heaven expecting obvious admission and then I will declare to them I never knew you depart from me you who practice lawlessness Jesus thundered fwell told the people at Thomas Road that Jesus's words should frighten them some of the people in this Sanctuary who came every Sunday who gave their money to the church who threw themselves into related causes were estranged from Jesus it was a deaft delicate threading of the oratorical needle fwell had identified the cultural threats to Christianity while holding Christianity itself accountable he had diagnosed a war on truth and prescribed truth as the only solution he had predicted an assault on the church without giving a corresponding battlecry Daniel Hostetter didn't think Liberty search committee would read the letter he'd written them articulating what he and other student leaders were looking for in their next president but it sure sounded like Jonathan fwell had this sermon had captured almost precisely the conservative Christ centered Evangelical but not antagonistic approach Hostetter hoped for walking out of Thomas Road I halfway wondered if fwell would pull a Dick Cheney concluding the search process by choosing himself that hunch proved halfway right a few weeks after my visit to Thomas Road Liberty announced two leadership appointments whereas Jerry fwell Jr had held the Dual titles of President and Chancellor those duties would now be split his younger brother Jonathan would assume the role of Chancellor the new president would be d dcon a retired Air Force General Who had most recently served as president of Charleston Southern University the response was tremendously positive just about everyone I spoke with about these appointments faculty students alumni employees was pleased with the promotion of Jonathan fwell and especially thrilled about the selection of Kon for a half Century Liberty had operated as a family business free to flout attempts at oversight or the enforcement of Industry standards the school needed an outsider although C had earned a pair of master's degrees from Liberty early in his military career the executive committee was never going to approve someone who had no ties to the school he was as close to an outsider as anyone could hope Hostetter was positively giddy at the news even Aaron Warner was encouraged telling me it seems like a step in the right direction there was but one angry critic Jerry fwell Jr based on these hires they're choosing piety over competence and it's just pitiful Jerry Jr told me it's exactly what my dad didn't want to see happen we were speaking by phone soon after the appointments had been announced but before c and Jonathan fwell took office Jerry Jr was in a bad place he had been banned from campus the place where his father is buried he was locked in a vicious legal dispute with Liberty seeking $8.5 million in withheld retirement payments after the school sued him for $10 million my dad turned over in his grave Jerry Jr said of the University's action against him I'm sure of it he was no longer of any use to his friend Donald J Trump who was fighting to keep evangelicals in the fold after recently being indicted on 34 felony counts and separately being found liable for sexual abuse falwell's longtime Associates had cut him off people he considered friends had turned on him his wife and their children the appointment of his younger brother proved especially stinging not long after Liberty announced its new leadership team Jonathan and Cen joined Troy Temple the Divinity Dean to shoot a video for the school's Facebook page with camera's rolling Jonathan extolled the virtues of the man who' replaced his brother slapping Cen on the back and telling of his moral rectitude when the incoming president offered pay on to Dr falwell's original Vision Jonathan nodded dandi is actually a picture of that original Vision he bragged to Temple you can't find scandals you can't find issues why because he's walked with character he's walked with Integrity as if the implication wasn't clear enough Jonathan pointed out C's loyal relationship with his loving wife calling them great role models for our students it's a direct slap at me Jerry Jr told me the day after the video posted they've all tried to paint this picture like I was some kind of rep probate and it's all based on lies so they can take power and take control if you watch that video you'll see right away there's no academic competence whatsoever no knowledge of how to run a major institution of Higher Learning he was a especially irked by Jonathan's suggestion that Liberty's spiritual life had suffered in recent years guess who was in charge of the spiritual life of the school since 2010 my brother Jerry Jr said lingering on the two words his syrupy draw now dripping with disdain if he really thought things were going so bad spiritually he could have said something I couldn't have done a thing about it because the board appointed him but he never did and yet there he sits they made him Chancellor changing the inflection of his voice to imitate Jonathan uptight performed preacher likee Jerry Jr mimicked our founder had a mission for Liberty and that was to train champions for Christ and that's what we're going to do Jerry Jr told me he was spoiling for a fight with his brother with C with anyone at Liberty who would try to erase his legacy and dilute the real vision of his father he told me the school was building a new $35 million facility the Jerry fwell Center that would make the altar at Thomas Road look modest by comparison it was planned as the ultimate tribute to Liberty's founder there would even be a hologram of fwell senior preaching I'm going to do everything I can to prevent them from being able to open it Jerry Jr told me because I actually own my father's name and it happens to be my name too he paused also his vision for Liberty was nothing like theirs the arena was dark save for the radiant beams of red and white that swept across Center Stage giving a rock concert vibe to a Friday morning Chapel service thousands of students packed into the vine Center a gorgeous facility in the center of Liberty's bustling campus arms raised and eyes closed as they sang praise to the Lord for if my God is for me then what have I to fear and I will not deny him the glory that is his in fact these Christians had plenty to fear according to the day's special convocation speaker Ron DeSantis the Florida governor was more than a month out from the formal launch of his 2024 presidential campaign but had scheduled a mid-april swing through Lynchberg to flex some spiritual muscle his timing was impeccable less than 24 hours before arriving at Liberty DeSantis had signed a so-called heartbeat bill in Florida effectively banning all abortions after 6 weeks of gestation Trump had alienated key pro-life allies after blaming them for the Republican party's woeful performance in the 2022 election if abortion was indeed Trump's great vulnerability then DeSantis was now uniquely positioned to take advantage when the arena ceased to pulsate from Guitar blasts Jonathan fwell jogged up the steps and onto the main stage Liberty had come full circle sort of in the very place where his brother had promoted Trump ahead of the 2016 Republican primary Jonathan now stood pushing DeSantis widely expected to be Trump's Chief Challenger as a Holier alternative touting the newly signed heartbeat bill fwell told the students that DeSantis recognizes and knows that life is a gift from God the school's incoming Chancellor looked at DeSantis we thank you today for coming to help Inspire our students to become champions for Christ fwell said it was the dream introduction for a presidential Contender DeSantis swaggered toward the platform like a prize fighter making his way to the ring for a heavyweight bout weaving through rows of screaming fans a spotlight tracking him every step of the way greetings from the free state of Florida he bellowed the standing ovation lasted more than 30 seconds and then as though he'd forgotten which fwell had invited him DeSantis delivered a speech that had nothing to do with training champions for Christ in his half hourong address to America's most influential Christian College Florida's governor made zero mention of Jesus instead he boasted of bloody political Crusades how he'd shunned the advice of his party's establishment rejected any semblance of compromise with Democrats pummeled the liberal media and used the power of the state to punish partisan enemies not that his audience seemed a mind Des santis won Applause for touting his enormous margin of victory in 2022 and the cheers grew louder still when he announced there is not a single Democrat that's elected to Statewide office in Florida each time DeSantis appeared poised to transition into religious Doctrine he doubled down on political pugilism he bashed leftist politicians who endanger our way of life he spoke of crime skyrocketing and medical authoritarianism he warned that cultural Marxism and the woke agenda would destroy America unless we fought back when began describing a war on truth it seemed that his moment of rhetorical transition had arrived but it hadn't the truth he spoke of wasn't the Gospel of Jesus Christ it was right-wing conservatism inherited from the founding fathers who if alive today he intimated would be leading the charge against Disney World finally 20 minutes into his speech DeSantis declared that our constitutional freedoms are a gift from almighty God he told the Liberty students it was time for a Revival of their faith of their commitment to following Christ's example no rather DeSantis was calling for an American Revival a return to the revolutionary era struggle against big government the only thing more jarring than the lazy lowest common denominator substance of desantis's speech was the reception it earn Leed many students stood and cheered throughout when DeSantis finished their rockus Ovation gave way to a thumping chant USA USA USA not everyone was so enthralled as the lights came on and the crowds emptied out I plopped down in a seat at the top of the Arena an old friend came over and joined me Daniel Hoster the student body presid were a VIP badge pinned to a dark gray suit hoping to find a palatable Republican alternative to Trump ahead of 2024 Hostetter had been excited about today's convocation he had met DeSantis beforehand chatted with him a bit watched his speech from the front row and now he looked utterly dejected some of us are just tired of being used as political props Hostetter said citing text messages from friends who'd been disgusted with the tone of the event we were hoping this would be more than another campaign rally I mean if you want to use biblical language to speak to political issues fine but at some point you have to actually speak to the Bible right the pained expression on hostetter's face suggested that this was a rhetorical question he knew the answer and it hurt evangelicals by and large no longer seem to care whether they referred candidate had a Biblical world view much less a command of scripture even at a place like Liberty especially at a place like Liberty politicians saw the pointlessness in talking about servanthood about humility about unity and peace and love for Thy Neighbor the market for such a message had long since disappeared the demand was for Domination and Republicans like Trump and DeSantis were happy to supply it their appeal to Evangelical had everything to do with acting like Champions and nothing to do with acting like Christ in the weeks leading up to desantis's visit Hostetter had sensed that something was different about Liberty the appointments of c and Jonathan fwell hinted at a distinct new identity for the school he had just cruised to reelection in the race for student body president defying the attacks on his supposed wokeness that had proved so resonant in the previous campaign meanwhile the Revival at Asbury University where his younger sister attended had roused Liberty's students in ways that Hostetter had never seen sure there were still some hardliners on campus guys who wore Maga hats to class and flew let's go Brandon flags from their dorm rooms but they seemed to be shrinking into an Ever smaller minority for the first time since he' arrived at Liberty Hostetter believed that the school was turning a corner and yet he told me sweeping his outstretched Palm across the emptying Arena before us Hostetter would soon have a choice to make he could spend his second term as student body president laboring at the margins toward incremental gains or he could use the capital he now had Capital he'd lacked during his first term to advocate for serious reform persuasion and collaboration hadn't gotten him very far in dealing with the entrenched interest at Liberty however optimistic he felt about a long-term directional shift under C and Jonathan fwell if more immediate change was going to come it would have to come from the students it would have to come from him there was so much work to do Hostetter wanted permanent student representation On The Board of Trustees he wanted tenure for professors and transparency in the hiring and firing processes he wanted certain prohibitions lifted off-campus drinking for students over 21 for instance and a comprehensive review of the school's policies around sexual assault he wanted to dramatically cut funding to the standing for Freedom Center which uses students tuition money to bankroll the extra biblical musings of professional provocators such as William Wolf the most urgent item on his to-do list Hoster told me was also the most symbolic this new Shrine they're building to Jerry fwell Senor and that's the only word to describe it honestly it's bordering on idolatry he told me I think more and more students realize we have to do something about it the arena was now still and completely silent Hoster and I were the last two people in sight he looked all around us taking in the scene looking wistful he recalled the first time he visited the Liberty campus and heard about the Founder's famous Mountaintop Vision in 1976 this place is bigger than one man I'm worried we're glorifying he stopped himself our goal is to glorify the Lord hastetter said isn't it when I sat down with Nick Olson a few hours later at that Roadside Barbecue Joint on the outskirts of Lynchburg he he was thinking about Jonathan fwell like so many people at Liberty Olsen had been pleased to see the youngest fwell sibling appointed Chancellor of the University this wasn't because he thought Jonathan to be blameless in fact one of olsson's Faculty mentors a longtime Thomas Road member who was close to the pastor had warned him that Jonathan knew exactly how bad things had become at Liberty he was every bit as complicit in the school's corruption as his older brother Olson's Mentor insisted because he was the one person with the standing to expose all the wrongdoing and he chose not to now olssen told me Jonathan was being given a second chance to truly fix this place someone has to step up someone has to be willing to tell the truth to cross some powerful people to lose some powerful friends and make some powerful enemies olssen told me now ask yourself who at Liberty is in a position to do that Jonathan that's it there's nobody else this is still a family business and he's the one with the family name I asked olssen if he were advising Jonathan on a plan to clean up Liberty where he would suggest the new Chancellor should start the standing for Freedom Center Olsson replied we've got brilliant students here brilliant faculty members people who've dedicated their lives to exploring the relationship ship between faith and education but it's the Freedom Center the Freedom Center that speaks for our University think about how insulting that is and then ask yourself why why do we hire these people why do we pay them to say and write outrageous things why do we promote them as the representatives of an institution of Higher Learning the answer was obvious enough Liberty has been guarding against liberal dream Rift since the moment of its Inception Jerry fwell Senor would regularly cite the cautionary tale of certain Ivy League schools established by conservative Christians that had devolved into havens of Secular Progressive thinking this explains why alcohol continues to be prohibited on campus why the school newspaper is still censored by administrators why Republican politics remain a focal point of the University's Mission Liberty has always taken extraordinary measures to avoid any hint of backsliding given both the intensifying external scrutiny and Rising internal restlessness of students and professors alike it was only fitting that Liberty would overcompensate by making the Freedom Center with its cartoonishly far-right Politics the voice of the University Olsen told me about an old expression one that began as an inside joke among fwell senior's close friends and later morphed into an unofficial School motto Politically Incorrect since 1971 the irony Olson noted is that dissension has never been tolerated at Liberty University Rebellion against the status quo is acceptable only if rebelling in the approved Direction fwell senior may have reveled in provoking the thought police of his time but his school had become its own totalitarian regime you can say anything you want to disparage Democrats and own the libs Olsson told me but the moment you step out of line with respect to Conservative Republican politics they'll come after you we had been talking for hours now just as the sun dropped below the Blue Ridge Mountains storm clouds moved in over Lynchburg the skies opened up a few minutes later fleeing from the back patio of the Restaurant Olson invited me to his nearby home where we could finish the conversation over a glass of wine his wife Eliza joined us in the living room Eliza Olsen had watched her husband suffer under the stress of his association with Liberty she had listened to his anguished conversations with colleagues and read his tortured private writings she had spent the past month in prayer with him as they debated whether he should speak with me on the record about Liberty when the decision was made Eliza had one condition Nick needed to force Liberty's hand whereas he seemed more comfortable resigning from the school before his interviews with me were published she insisted that he stay on the job giving his words Maximum Impact and daring the new leadership to deal with him straightforwardly not as some disgruntled ex-employee taking shots at Liberty but as a legacy student and current Professor trying to save it they've always been able ble to do their dirty work in private Eliza told Nick make them deal with this in public Nick agreed to her terms yet he was under No Illusion about how this would end he knew that Cen and Jonathan fwell wouldn't want to risk opening the floodgates by tolerating one professor's public criticisms he knew that he wasn't long for Liberty University there was a time early in our conversations when this real it weighed on him he had sounded Forsaken and self-pitying but now he was past that Nick didn't feel sorry for himself anymore he mostly felt sorry for his father Doug Olen had been the one who initiated Nick when he was just a child into the folklore of Jerry falwell's Vision on the Mountaintop Doug had seen his own share of ugliness at Liberty yet he still believed 50 years later that falwell's founding vision for Liberty was pure Nick Olsen did not Jerry Jr found his whole identity in building this amazing physical campus in establishing Liberty as this ruthless Force for Republican causes because he thought that was the Fulfillment of his father's vision and it's heartbreaking Nick told me it's heartbreaking because it was the Fulfillment of his father's Vision that original Vision C and Jonathan fall spoke of to train champions for Christ to shine God's light in the culture to share his love with the world was little more than a convenient counterfactual olssen said a story people have told themselves because the real history is so lamentable I asked Olsen to indulge a theoretical exercise suppose that so-called original Vision was truly what fwell Senor wanted suppose it was truly the standard he hoped future Generations would use to gauge the school's success using that measure I asked him had Liberty University failed he sat quietly for a long time yes he finally murmured catastrophically Olsen winced when he said this he had learned under faithful Christians at Liberty he had studied alongside faithful Christians at Liberty he had educated faithful Christians at Liberty Liberty these people he stressed are a credit to the school but individual triumphs do not offset institutional tragedy if a mega church pastor is exposed for misconduct if he and his staff are proven to be Liars bullies Scoundrels enablers of abuse then what good is the testimony of thousands of people who insist that the pastor brought them closer to Christ one must take a comically small view of God to believe that these people could not have drawn closer to Christ while attending another church one not guilty of systemic misbehavior after all was it the pastor who had brought them closer to Christ or was it the work of the Holy Spirit does Jesus need the help of our broken institutions or do our broken institutions need the help of Jesus if Liberty was even in the ballpark of that original Vision then you and I wouldn't be sitting here talking right now he told me I believe God has a different vision for us moving forward not just for Liberty but for the entire American church and we need to be willing to step out in faith to pursue it this was the first time in our many hours of conversations that Olen had broadened his gaze Beyond Liberty University I asked him what this different vision for the American Church might look like I think the first step is reimagining the Christian worldview and that means replacing our dominant metaphor culture war with something different he answered that's been the running theme for evangelicals we're always in battled always fighting back but what if we laid down our defense mechanisms what if we reframed our relationship to Creation to our neighbors to our enemies in ways that are more closely aligned with The Sermon on the Mount what if we were willing to lay down our power and our status to love others even if that comes at a cost to ourselves Olsen was describing the biblical concept of God's power being made perfect in human weakness laying down our status and loving others sounds to many American Christians like a recipe for leaving the church vulnerable but in fact nothing could make it stronger when Paul wrote to fellow Believers saying that he delighted in insults and beatings and persecution the Apostle wasn't being a masochist he was boasting when translated from the Greek he was seeking glory in the one way that God permits he was celebrating the knowledge of God to know God Olsson said is to forget what we think we know about everything else we were created as finite limited beings we are called to seek we are called to Humble ourselves and Learn and Grow grow he told me here in an academic setting I don't see that humility I don't see a lot of humility in the way that Christians relate to the world around us and that's strange because the best teacher is the one who modeled humility the best teacher is the one who said knock and the door will be open to you when olssen said this my mind flashed to a mid 19th century painting the light of the World by William Holman hunt it had been my father's favorite after he died I acquired a framed copy for my home office the artwork depicts Jesus a majestic cloak draped over his dirty garments a Golden Crown placed over top of that excruciating Coronet of thorns standing outside a door he is knocking the door as my dad pointed out to me when I was a little boy has no handle on the outside Jesus cannot open it he needs to be led in this is the nature of Christ's relationship to man he stands at the door and knocks waiting patiently for us to accept him accepting Jesus is not the end of a believer's journey it is the beginning once the door to our heart is opened and Christ is welcomed inside he tells us that that it's our turn to start knocking epilogue I slipped into the building through a side entrance 5 minutes after the worship service began and snuck upstairs into the balcony satisfied at having gone undetected I found a corner seat all at once a thousand sights and sounds and smells came rushing back to me the rose-colored Carpeting and matching Pew upholstery the Towering triangular beams of Oak and Cedar the wall of exposed brick outlining three stained glass windows each one shot through with sunlight the glow of the red and orange cross in the middle pain warming all who held its gaze it was four Summers earlier that I stood in the Pulpit of this Sanctuary where my father had preached for a quarter of a century where IID honored his life and SC olded the people who'd used the occasion of his funeral to pick a political fight I hadn't been back to Cornerstone since after moving home to Michigan my wife and I found a different church for our family a church where we could blend in build a community of our own avoid the interessing wrangling that had consumed Cornerstone and yet scanning my surroundings this summer morning I was a wash in nostalgia so much of my life had been shaped by this place and so much of this place remained the same I spotted my mother in her usual place by the west side of the stage singing and raising her open Palms Skyward my childhood Sunday school teachers now senior citizens patrolled the aisleways and ushered guests to their seats just outside the sanctuary no more than 50 ft down the main hallway my initials were still carved in the Bri work the only thing unrecognizable about Cornerstone was its senior pastor I had walked into the church fairly expecting to see my father up front baggy sport coat unbuttoned his Spectre pacing the stage while unpacking the Four Points of his latest homic what I encountered instead was every bit as Fantastical the preacher who now stood before Cornerstone was not only not my father it was a very different Chris Winan's from the version I had once known he had nearly been run out of the church after succeeding my dad he had almost quit a couple of years later in the face of the continued turmoil over covid closures and racial Justice activism and Donald Trump's defeat Winn survived these ordeals but was badly wounded the anxiety disorder he developed might never fully recede he could hear the whispers about about him about the church about the long-term viability of both as he surveyed the damage in early 2021 watching an exodus of members from Cornerstone weens was a man thoroughly Paralyzed by his predicament there was no obvious path forward he could launch a frontal assault on the extremism that had infiltrated his church challenging congregants in a manner that would surely trigger even more defections or he could keep quiet pretending that everything was fine at Cornerstone all but guaranteeing that things would get much worse winens was not by Nature confrontational still the pastor told me he could not in good conscience perpetuate the toxic status quo at Cornerstone desperate to bypass this lose lose binary he prayed for a way to confront the problems at the church without alienating more of its people after struggling for some time in this regard Winan's finally had a breakthrough the strategy he settled on which he described to me as pull don't push was something of an elaborate Jedi mind trick winens wanted to bring his congregants along to compel them to second guess their extra biblical convictions but make them think it was their own idea he would preach on Godly character then play dunk when someone approached him afterward to admit that they were rethinking their allegiance to certain politicians or pop culture personalities he would preach on the spiritual principle of discernment then offer a bemused shrug when someone confessed to him that they were beginning to doubt conspiracy theories or question the information they'd been em bibing on social media the situation at Cornerstone began to stabilize new families joined the congregation a trickle at first and then a wave before long the church had regained all the members it once lost by the time of my visit in July 2023 the sanctuary was as full as I had ever seen it winens had remarked to me over breakfast earlier that summer about the massive turnover at Cornerstone since my dad's death he shared with me how several times recently he'd been explaining to someone how Pastor Alberto would always say only to be interrupted Pastor who the anecdote stung at first dad gave every ounce of himself to Cornerstone I thought and now half its members don't know his name but the sensation was shortlived though dad had plenty of flaws self- glorification wasn't one of them he wouldn't want a gym named after him or a shrine dedicated to his memory all he wanted was to enter into the presence of the Lord and hear the words well done good and faithful servant Cornerstone never belonged to my dad it belongs to Jesus Christ the Chief Cornerstone who promised that he would build the church and that the gates of hell would not Prevail against it Dad had been a faithful instrument of God's Grand construction project now it was Chris Winan's turn I hardly recognized him in the Pulpit having spent the previous few years getting to know winens comparing notes on the situation at Cornerstone talking through some of the darkest days of his life and career I considered him a friend but he wasn't my pastor to the extent I kept tabs on his preaching it was via occasional YouTube clips sitting in the sanctuary that July Morning I could scarcely believe Winan's transformation gone was the timid young preach who'd struggled to escape his predecessor's shadow in his place was a seasoned assertive intellectually imposing leader winens had salvaged his job by refining the pull don't push formula at Cornerstone but even those days were history winens wasn't content to pull people along anymore he was now pushing and pushing hard this was a special Sunday at Cornerstone the church was breaking ground on a new wing and announcing a major new initiative shine which would emphasize witnessing to unbelievers by reflecting God's light and love into the community this was no empty gesture Cornerstone was fundamentally reorienting its approach to the surrounding area and to the culture at large winens believed evangelicals in congregations like his had created needless barriers to entry that they had allowed tribal litmus tests to supersede biblical mandates squandering key opportunities to introduce Christ to people who needed him the most it was time for that to change nearly 6 years into the job winens was finally putting his imprint on the church at Cornerstone tradition calls for the congregation to stand and recite a long scripture passage to preface the day's sermon winens requested in instead that we remain seated today's sermon he explained hinged on a single verse my body went numb when the words flashed onto the overhead screens it was from the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 18 it was my favorite verse the first one I'd memorized as a child the one I'd meditated on every day since the one I'd read during my father's eulogy to understand this single verse winens explained was to understand the purpose of the church what is the purpose of the church for most of my life I thought the answer was simple the purpose of the church is to make disciples of all the nations first by sharing the gospel then by baptizing unbelievers into faith and ultimately by training followers of Jesus to become more and more like him this work is inherently self-perpetuating witnessing to The World is Not Enough converting unbelievers is not enough Christians are called to help God's family grow both quantitatively and qualitatively this is the enduring purpose of the church to mold Fallen Mortals into citizens of a kingdom they have inherited through the saving power of Jesus Christ to the Everlasting Glory of God so that they might go and make disciples of their own what I struggled for so long to accept what I finally was forced to confront during the four years I spent reporting this book is that not everyone shares this vision for the church to some evangelicals the purpose of the church is to own the libs with an aggressive identitarian conservatism they might cloak their Ambitions with Biblical language like Ralph Reed at his faith and freedom conferences or Charlie Kirk at his flag waving Sanctuary symposiums but that facade isn't sustainable the 2023 edition of Reed's event abandoned any pretense of spirituality one speaker who earned Applause for introducing himself as a straight white Christian said that all of America's problems could be solved by men reasserting an alpha male mindset Kirk for his part kept up his evangelizing by prescribing the death penalty for Joe Biden and calling for an amazing Patriot to bail out the deranged man who had brutally attacked and nearly killed the husband of Nancy Pelosi Kirk is not a pastor or religious leader so why is he enlisted Time and Again by the Hardline pirates of the Southern Baptist convention because they share a common goal preventing Progressive IDE from infiltrating the strongholds of traditional social conservatism at the sbc's 2023 annual meeting just as Rachel Dan Hollander predicted the Pirates launched an allout attack on the newly adopted reforms targeting sexual abuse inside SBC churches their chosen candidate Pastor Mike Stone campaigned for SBC president on a promise to remove Den Hollander from the task force abolish the category of credibly accused abusers from the database and returned most authority to the local congregations essentially freeing them from the pesky standards that would necessitate reporting cases of misconduct the rationale goes deeper than surface level fights against feminism many right-wing pastors simply cannot stomach the notion of their churches being accountable to secular actors legal bodies law enforcement agencies media Outlets because they vision for Christianity is one of absolute Supremacy the church in their view answers to no one but God they are the authority to which the rest of the culture must answer Stone lost his campaign and SBC president Bart Barber is pushing ahead to codify the efforts of den hollander's task force this effort to assert dominance over the culture is but a precondition for dominating the country itself in February 2023 a landmarked national survey conducted by the public religion Research Institute and Brookings institution found that roughly 2third of white evangelicals either explicitly supported the notion of Christian nationalism or were sympathetic to it the share of white evangelicals who expressed support for certain ideas that the government should declare Christianity as the state religion that being Christian is an important part of being an American that God has called on Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of society dwarfed that of white Mainline Protestants white Catholics and Protestants of color the research established a clear link between Christian nationalist ideology and racism xenophobia misogyny authoritarian and anti-democratic sentiments and an appetite for political violence the most remarkable finding nearly 90% of white adherence to Christian nationalism agreed that God intended America to be a new promised land run by European Christians the broader sample of respondents rejected that statement by a 2:1 margin hoping to capitalize on the passions of their base Texas Republicans introduced a bill in early 2023 that would require ire Public School classrooms throughout the state to display the Ten Commandments in a size and type face that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom this was part of a coordinated legislative effort to christianize Civics in the State Texas had already enacted a law requiring classrooms to display donated inod we trust placards one Local District made Headlines by Banning Arabic versions while accepting those written in English at the same time Republicans were pushing to replace public school counselors with religious chaplain when it came time to muscle The Ten Commandments Bill through the Senate the Bill's sponsor called on who else the esteemed pseudo historian David Barton to testify Barton did his part the bill cleared the Senate on a Partyline vote its failure in the house coincided with an ironic Twist of timing weeks before the bill died Brian Slayton a Republican representative and former SBC youth pastor who branded himself a champion for family values criminalizing abortion Waring with lgbtq groomers and yes promoting the Ten Commandments in public spaces was expelled by the house after an investigation found that he cheated on his wife with a 19-year-old Aid who could not effectively consent to intercourse after he' ped her with copious amounts of liquor champions of Christian nationalism would have you believe that these efforts to rule the country are inherently theological that they are in service of a broader effort to reclaim America for God this is a lie Christian nationalism is a contradiction in terms Paul told the Galatians there is neither Jew nor nor Gentile neither slave nor free nor is there male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus if you belong to Christ then you are Abraham's seed and hirs according to the promise this assurance that anyone who accepts Christ becomes a part of the abrahamic family residents of the promised New Jerusalem transcends all known racial ethnic and National identities this is why Paul wrote so explicitly to the people in Philippi a Roman Colony full of soldiers and state officials imploring the Christians there to pledge allegiance to Christ Alone their Destiny is destruction their God is their stomach and their glory is in their shame their mind is set on Earthly things Paul warned of those who would reject his plea but our citizenship is In Heaven There is nothing here to reclaim this country a drop in the bucket like all the nations was never God's to begin with because God does not show favoritism as Peter said but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is Right attempts to devise some Divine conception of the United States often end up demonstrating exactly the opposite take for example an Independence Day 2023 free tweet from Josh Holly the disgraced Missouri Senator whose lies and deceptive parliamentary maneuverings helped set in motion the violence of January 6th celebrating the holiday with a quote from Patrick Henry the senator tweeted it cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ it might have been humiliating enough for Holly to learn that the founding father never spoke or wrote these words what should have been downright mortifying was to realize as the historian Seth kotlar documented that these words actually originated in a notoriously anti-semitic and white nationalist publication The Virginian 150 years after Henry's death Holly never bothered to apologize for the error and why would he the way many of his constituents see it secular progressives in their quest to destroy America's Christian Heritage stopped playing by the rules a long time ago fire must be fought with fire standards must be suspended a winner takes all mentality must be embraced when the conservative activists and future Trump Administration official Michael Anton wrote his 2016 essay the flight 93 election he argued that leftists had hijacked America the only chance for its survival was if conservatives rushed the cockpit knowing full well that they might just crash the plane themselves notably absent from that essay was any reference to Christ or to Christianity or even to God and yet the argument Anton makes that imminent destruction justifies the unthinkable acts that made themselves lead to imminent Destruction has come to define the modern religious right I think there are two virtues loyalty and confidentiality Mike Huckaby the Baptist preacher turned governor and two-time presidential candidate said on Newsmax in the spring of 2023 be loyal to the people who helped you and learn how to keep your mouth shut naturally in this context Huckabee was discussing Donald Trump the former president had just held a campaign rally in Waco Texas not coincidentally the site of a deadly Showdown with the Federal Government after announcing that he was about to be arrested for the first of a string of criminal indictments there was a time when Huckabee who once authored a book character is the issue how people with Integrity can revolutionize America believed well that people with Integrity can revolutionize America not anymore the same night as his mafioso Soliloquy on Newsmax Huckabee announced on his own Trinity Broadcasting Network program that he was endorsing Trump for president in 2024 not because he was a righteous leader much less a religious one the former president couldn't find John 3:16 if he tried Huckaby equipped but because he fought with the same ferocity as his enemies it was this impious man hucke said who on behalf of Christians endured NeverEnding persecutions and prosecutions of the Demonic deep State Huckabee at least had the decency to hedge on Trump's Holiness before depicting him as a sacrificial lamb for the modern Church the same couldn't be said for his contemporaries president Trump is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today Georgia congresswoman margorie Taylor green declared on right side broadcasting live from New York on the morning of Trump's arraignment after mentioning Nelson Mandela she cried out Jesus Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government Joseph D McBride the attorney who gained prominence for his defense of several January 6th riers wrote on Twitter president Trump will be arrested during Lent a time of suffering and purification for the followers followers of Jesus Christ as Christ was crucified and then rose again on the third day so too will at real Donald Trump the response from Trump's Evangelical allies was every bit as predictable Paula White beseeched Christians to pray for Trump saying Americans should be appalled by the weaponization of the judicial system Franklin Graham denounced the politicized effort to hold Trump accountable for his calling it a shameful day for America around that time Graham also praised Taylor Green's Common Sense approach adding it will be interesting to see how God uses her Robert jeffris who had delivered the invocation at Trump's Waco rally reacted to the news of the second indictment by traveling to the former president's Club in Bedminster New Jersey a show of solidarity as the walls began to close in in reaction to the third indictment later that summer which quoted Trump disparaging his then vice president Mike Pence for being too honest after he refused to sabotage the Constitution to keep them in office Richard land the former president of the ethics and religious liberty commission accused the justice department of waging Jihad against Trump by this point the religious right had closed ranks around its Champion a new New York Times Sienna poll of the Republican primary showed that 76% of white evangelicals believed Trump had not committed any serious crime according to a meist survey 81% of white evangelicals held a favorable impression of trump and 67% said they plan to vote for him in the upcoming Republican presidential primary the exhaustion voters had expressed earlier in the year when a majority of evangelicals signal their preference to find a new Republican standard Bearer had since vanished the greater Trump's criminal difficulties he faced charges for falsifying business records related to the hush Money Paid to his porn star Paramore illegally taking National Security secrets to his Florida home and obstructing justice in the ensuing investigation and attempting to overthrow the 2020 election all while fighting a civil case for rape and defamation the greater support from Evangelical Christians when a fourth indictment landed in August 2023 charging Trump and 18 codefendants with criminal racketeering part of a coordinated conspiracy to overturn the election result the most telling response belonged to Jenna Ellis the former Trump lawyer had spun a documented web of deceptions she was even censured by a judge after admitting to propagating a dangerous series of falsehoods for an outspoken even Evangelical Christian this might have been a moment to model humility and repentance instead Ellis took to Twitter promoting her legal defense fund Trump wouldn't assist with her fees on account that she'd endorse DeSantis for president and captioned her mugshot with scripture performative piety in the face of supposed persecution I was reminded of the words Ellis wrote in a 2016 Facebook post back when she opposed Trump that slammed the candidate and his supporters for their aversion to honesty and this is the cumulative reason why this nation is in such terrible shape Ellis wrote we don't have truth Seekers we have narcissists whether or not Trump would go on to represent the Republican party in November 2024 whether or not Trump would win a rematch with Biden and move back into the White House his legacy in the sweep of Western Christendom was already secure more than any figure in American history the 45th president transformed Evangelical from spiritual signifier into Political punchline exposing the selective morality and ethical inconsistency and rank hypocrisy that had for so long lurked in the subconscious of the movement to be fair this slow motion reputational collapse predated Trump he did not author the cultural insecurities of the church but he did identify them and Prey Upon them in ways that have accelerated the unraveling of institutional Christianity in the United States since 1944 the Gallup polling organization has asked Americans whether they believe in God that number remained north of 90% for much of the past Century as recently as 2016 a full 89% of Americans responded in the affirmative in 202 2 that number reached an all-time low of 81% that same year the General Social Survey poll which has analyzed religious Trends since 1972 published the semicentennial anniversary of its research the conclusions were breathtaking 50 years ago only 9% of Americans said they never attended worship services but by 2022 that number had reached 33% these and other findings are consistent with years of social science that demonstrates the historic Pace at which Americans are abandoning religion in 2007 the percentage of Americans who claimed no faith affiliation commonly called The Nuns was estimated at 16% by 2021 according to the Pew Research Center it was 30% if that trajectory holds people who claim claim no religious affiliation will represent a majority of the American population within two generations meanwhile reflexive distrust of the church long a phenomenon on the left is newly ascended on the right an August 2023 poll from CBS News and yugov found that only 44% of Republican primary voters trust what religious leaders tell them is the truth among the Trump supporters who were pulled that number was just 42% compared to 71% of those same respondents who said they trusted Trump to tell them the truth from a purely organizational standpoint Christianity is in disarray pastors are becoming an endangered species according to Barna research one-third of pastors were under the age of 40 in the 1990s whereas today that number is 16% denominations are imploding in real time the United Methodist Church has effectively split into two new entities forcing thousands of individual congregations to permanently fracture over social and Theological disagreements the Southern Baptist convention has continued to bleed its affiliate churches in some cases because congregants perceive the denomination to be too aggressive in policing racism misogyny and sexual assault and in other cases because they perceive it to not be aggressive enough the Presbyterian Church of America the PCA one of the nation's largest denominations voted recently to leave the National Association of evangelicals my home denomination the Evangelical Presbyterian Church further to the right theologically and otherwise from the PCA has begun discussing whether to jettison Evangelical from its title that won't happen anytime soon too many older Christians have their identity wrapped up in the label to Let It Go no matter how damaging the connotations and make no mistake the damage is significant in March 2023 the Pew Research Center published a major survey on the perceptions of Faith traditions in America the findings helped to quantify what was already apparent evangelicals are the most disliked group this does not reflect some sweep anti-christian bias the perception of Catholics and Mainline Protestants was among secular respondents still a net positive while those same respondents registered overwhelmingly negative feelings toward evangelicals on the bright side evangelicals still held positive views of themselves as the Christianity Today headline reassured evangelicals are the most beloved us Faith group among evangelicals at an individual level many Christians have already commenced a rebranding exercise just like those Earth while fundamentalists who switched to embrace evangelicalism 50 years ago fearful that their tradition had become culturally irrelevant today's evangelicals are searching for a new designation a body of recent polling has shown a surge in the number of Christians who self-identify as Mainline Protestants and a corollary drop in those who call themselves evangelicals some go by exvangelical this represents a sea change in religious subculture evangelicalism has been ascendant since the founding of the nation now more white Protestants are identifying with the mainline tradition than with the Evangelical Church why speaking only for myself the answer is obvious Evangelical has become impediment to evangelizing the people to whom we are witnessing our friends neighbors co-workers are completely and categorically repelled by that word they sense that it has nothing to do with the teachings of Christ and everything to do with social and political power that perception must inform our reality we are called to be followers of Jesus we are called to make disciples of all the nations if we allow a word to get in the way of that Great Commission a man-made construct a marker of tribal belonging more than theological conviction then we will answer to God for our pride several decades ago Pastor weens told us a philosopher named James kse offered a novel take on the academic debate surrounding Game Theory unlike the mathematicians and military strategists who' adapted this discipline to their own Fields cars was interested in understanding sociology and existentialism in his 1986 book finite and infinite games carus argued that man's approach to the world around him typically fits one of these two categories finite games are defined by several criteria known players fixed rules and a zero sum objective think of a baseball game Spectators cannot enter from the stands and begin pitching for the home team nor can the pitcher move the mound to Third Base the objective in baseball as in all finite games is to defeat an opponent and every game concludes with a winner and a loser infinite games on the other hand are defined by the opposite criteria there are known and unknown players the rules are flexible and can change the objective is to constantly improve to be better than one's own self because the game has no conclusion education is an obvious example there is no winning at education only learning growing maturing I want to suggest to you this morning that the church is an infinite game wean said but the believer will be tempted to appr apprach the church in a finite way echoing the Vivid contrast Paul offered up in his second letter to the Corinthians the pastor asked his congregation to consider the purpose of the church in the context of three questions relating to the finite and the infinite first who are the players some Christians operate as though the players are known Winan said hence the segregated framing of Believers versus unbelievers Republicans versus Democrats and so on this is nothing new Winan reminded us that Jonah wound up in the belly of the whale because he refused God's command to go and preach to the violent Godless Wicked people of Neva they were not known players they had no place in Jonah's finite view of God's kingdom only after he repented traveled to Nineveh and won many Souls there could Jonah comp comprehend the infinite nature of God's design it was the same story in the first century winens added when Jesus was chastized by religious Elites and second guest by his own disciples for engaging with Sinners ethnic enemies people who were supposedly unwelcome to the game what the critics didn't understand is that while Jesus was offering an exclusive path to Salvation the offer itself was not exclusionary to this day consciously or subconsciously Christians possess a limited view of God's kingdom we tend to think of the church as a castle with high walls winens explained when Jesus made clear that he was building a hospital to make sick people well we dare not think that we know who the right and wrong people are the Pastor said his voice Stern the gospel goes out to everyone second question what are the rules one reason many Christians are reluctant to engage with these unknown players Wan said is because they are rigid in their ways the modern Evangelical movement has assumed that Christians ought to talk a certain way keep certain company and observe certain boundaries if they are to properly witness for Christ but the New Testament model demands just the opposite Jesus's disciples spoke of the need to adapt to their environments and meet people where they were at instead of forcing every prospective convert into the same box winens reminded us how Peter invoked the Jewish prophets and traditions when preaching to the Jews at Pentecost while Paul appealed to Greek cultural Customs when evangelizing the Athenians their message stayed the same and to be clear win and emphasized our message always stays the same but their methods were constantly evolving if Christians are to make disciples in a changing world we must be willing to break from the strictures that have stifled the church's Outreach to the unknown players we are increasingly in a post-christian culture wian said we need to be flexible in order to effectively embody and proclaim the gospel to the culture that we exist in today third question why are we playing in a finite game the church's objective would be to defeat a competitor except that Christians believe that the battle is already won unlike Adam who gave into the devil's Temptation and doomed mankind to an existence of sin and death Jesus resisted Satan in the wilderness conquered the grave and in so doing extended Redemption and eternal life for all of Adam's descendants because of this the objective of the church is infinite to to shed our Earthly selves to become Sanctified to transform more into the likeness of Christ we don't win at Holiness Wan said instead we strive to become more mature and become better than ourselves the pastor had preached a fine sermon Innovative unambiguous well executed he could have stopped there but winens chose not to expanding on that final Point weens asked us to compare two theoretical versions of the church in the infinite version he explained the goal of the church is to be a faithful presence for Jesus in the culture in the finite version the goal is to win the culture wars when weinan said this I glanced around the pews nervously uncertain if he was planning to take this to the place where I suspected he was headed sure enough let's think of this through the lens of an issue an issue that's near and dear to many people in this congregation the issue of abortion Winan said he affirmed his own view that life begins at conception that God knows Souls before they are knit together in their mother's wombs that human life is made in his own Divine image several people shouted amen and then the crowd fell silent too many evangelicals have taken a finite approach to abortion the Pastor said trying to win through the electing of particular political people so they can write certain kinds of Civic laws wean conceded that there are political and legal implications to the question of abortion but we're talking about the nature of the church he said the issue of abortion is not primarily legal or political the issue of abortion is spiritual there is a reason the culture wars become a quagmire for Christians even if they elect the right politicians and pass the right laws and the meaning of right looks very different to Believers in Brighton Winan said than it does to the brothers and sisters at their Affiliated Church in nearby Flint they are still not winning because they're playing the wrong game I was stunned in the space of a few minutes the senior pastor of Cornerstone Evangelical Presbyterian Church had dismantled the finite worldview that beckons to his congregants his wealthy white Conservative Republican congregants and challenged them to embrace the infinite my heart responded with delight but my head registered disappointment not in Winan's or in his sermon but at the thought of all the people who would never hear it to be clear there are still thousands of healthy vibrant churches across this country places that have their gospel priorities straight and lean into the tradition of discipling with hard truths and yet from everything I have seen most Christians in America have no interest in being provoked this way from the pulpit they have become captive to a cultural religion they have self- selected into theological milus that either reaffirm their existing dogmas or leave them undefiled in Brighton alone count L numbers of congregants had quit churches like Cornerstone and defected to a God and country roadside Jamboree called Floodgate a few weeks after my visit to Cornerstone Floodgate hosted an event admission was $99 plus fees featuring among other Headliners a tomahawk toing Patriot street fighter named Scott McCay as well as Patrick burn the former Overstock CEO who traffics in gratuitous f-bombs and conspiracies about the feds trying to eliminate him I grieved for the people over there just down the road that very morning consumed with the finite concerns of this Fallen World more immediately however I worried about the people here I could sense an uneasiness in the crowd at Cornerstone winens clearly felt emboldened by the makeover of his congregation by how healthy the church was compared with a few years earlier yet so many hazards remained this was still Brighton this was still America another election was coming and inevitably winens would at some point alienate portions of his flock with a message that calls for aiding and abetting the political enemy some of the folks around me were already uncomfortable certain visibly perturbed members would no doubt go home grumbling about that woke Lefty pastor winens and pining for the days of Pastor Alberta who never would have preached that sermon indeed one member confronted weens afterward demanding to know why he'd given people permission to vote for Democrats my father's death had ushered me into an age of gnawing unknowns how would he have handled the hostility around covid-19 shutdowns and the election of 2020 what would he think of me writing a book about the crackup of the church why did I have to wait until he was gone to pursue a master's degree at Seminary and where would he have encouraged me to apply each and every day I had wrestled with a ghost the only thing harder than heeding the example of a good and godly man was to question whether it might yet be improved upon praying silently that Sunday morning alone in the balcony of my childhood church I was overcome with a sense of assurance my anxieties could rest God as as a wise preacher once said doesn't bite his fingernails those Mal contents were right Dad never would have preached that sermon he wasn't capable of preaching that sermon which is exactly why he chose Chris weens to be his successor dad understood that while his own Ministry was finite the work of Cornerstone was infinite he had grown this congregation from several hundred people to several thousand now came a different season of growth and when it was time for winens to move on after a quarter Century of his own I hoped the church would grow a new Lord I pray that we would not fall into the Trap of thinking we know who the right or the wrong people are that we would extend the mercy and Grace the forgiveness and the message of Jesus to everyone Winan said bowing his head and Lord May may we be on mission to be a faithful presence to communicate the gospel that all who hear may turn and be healed the congregation stood for a benediction returning to his prefatory passage winens recited the Apostle Paul's words from the second book of Corinthians 4: 18 so we fix our eyes not on what is seen But on what is unseen since what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal amen this is Tim Alberta this unabridged production of the Kingdom the power and the glory American evangelicals in an age of extremism presented by Harper Collins and Harper audio was directed by Gordon Rothman and recorded at solid sound in an Arbor Michigan this program was produced by John Marshall media engineered by Eric WJN executive producer Haley Silverman text copyright 2023 by Tim Alberta production copyright 2023 by Harper Collins Publishers All rights reserved thank you for listening