Vichy Evangelicals Makes Their Case to the Lost World for What’s Wrong With You

Russell Moore, Thabiti Anyabwile, Tim Dalrymple, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Karen Swallow Prior, David French, Lecrae, Walter Kim, Tim Keller. All are featured prominently in David Brooks’ latest New York Times column as (try not to laugh out loud) evangelical dissidents, where they make their case to the world for what ails evangelicalism. Uncoincidentally, all are featured on this website as people to be marked and avoided.

Broken By Trump

Back in 2016, Donald Trump acted like a black light in the hotel room of evangelicalism. In 2020, COVID-19 turned up the power. Now the messy, hidden, ideological war that most believers couldn’t see in their churches is glowing purple in every corner of the room.

Despite the desperate protestations of the Evangelical Intelligentsia, Trump’s political success didn’t expose the supposed hidden bigotry and “political idolatry” of the 80% of self-described evangelicals who voted for him twice. Instead, his success forced those inside the evangelical institutional complex who have been consistently and covertly pushing conservative churches leftward to reveal the subversive ideology and theology underneath their words and actions.

Institutional world-pleasers leading organizations within the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the Gospel Coalition (among others) suddenly became primarily concerned with the personal morality of secular office holders, as a deeply flawed Donald Trump unapologetically stood up against worldly forces these institutions should have been standing against but instead “fought” with mere lip service. Or worse, these leaders encouraged Christians to concede the fight in order to “keep politics out of the church.” The pragmatic choice made by evangelicals to vote for morally suspect but freedom supporting Trump over state-empowering, baby-murdering, God-hating Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden was not acceptable not only because Trump was a sinner, but his crass and brash obnoxiousness offended the erudite sensibilities of the gilded class – sensibilities they bent over backward to ascribe gospel implications.

Countless articles were written to turn evangelical voters away from a plain focus on policy, party, and the basics of God’s law as it related to the positions of the candidates, and the gospel of niceness and nuance was promoted to (at the very least) equivocate between the candidates’ positions. Our betters at the Gospel Coalition/ERLC/NAE insisted that it wasn’t that they weren’t pro-life, pro-liberty, or pro-America (how dare you question this?), it was that they were better able to realize the gospel implications of not being hated by the world for supporting Trump. After all, how would the Spirit be able to work in the hearts of unbelievers if we didn’t hate Trump as much as the Beltway elites did?

Could the closeted leftists of Big Eva tolerate a “clean,” “moral” leader (think Mitt Romney) speaking out against Planned Parenthood, the D.C. swamp, illegal immigration, and China? They might have to play along long enough for him to predictably lose (graciously, of course). But a crass, personally immoral loudmouth who happened to be actually advancing policies in line with a biblical worldview? This might disrupt the Marxist plans of their worldly masters and jeopardize the seats at the table they expect in exchange for delivering the Church into the arms of Caesar.

Evangelical “Dissenters”

Now the New York Times’s David Brooks – longtime a punchline for actual conservative journalists – has done the favor of grouping nearly every prominent subversive leftist into one convenient article published under the newspeak title, “The Dissenters Trying to Save Evangelicalism From Itself.”

On one hand, describing evangelical thought leaders who march in lockstep with CNN as “dissenters” is an Orwellian characterization worthy of a fake Russian dossier. On the other, those profiled in the article are dissenting against the unmoving principles of Christian orthodoxy as historically applied in a hostile world. The article is a who’s who list of those marked by faithful discernment ministries for years, and the claims they make in the article expose the exact reasons they show up in article after article at Protestia.

Brooks describes the world’s take on this war within evangelicalism:

There have been three big issues that have profoundly divided them: the white evangelical embrace of Donald Trump, sex abuse scandals in evangelical churches and parachurch organizations, and attitudes about race relations, especially after the killing of George Floyd.

Of course, a decision to vote for a candidate whose policies more closely align with those of faithful churchgoers (or even so-called cultural Christians) does not constitute an “embrace,” and the incessant and hypocritical personal morality lectures of institutional elites (who willfully ignored the personal and political immorality of Trump’s opponents) sent regular pew-sitters running the other direction.

Sex abuse scandals rattled isolated churches and communities, but most evangelicals rightly determined that these cases often stemmed from a church growth culture that prized numerical growth and produced narcissistic and abusive leaders rather than a flaw with traditional biblical sexual ethics. Yet elites insisted that any sexual abuse in a church was evidence that the conservative insistence on male headship (toxic masculinity, of course) was a systemic sin that demanded conformity to the egalitarianism of the world.

Perhaps most tellingly, the death of George Floyd is characterized as not only de facto evidence of the pervasive systemic racism of American society at large, it is used as a clarion call to churches to elevate racial issues to the preeminent position in Christian ministry. This is despite the fact that there remains no evidence that the Floyd incident was driven by race at all. In short, the culture is race-obsessed, so the church must concede the issue and give them a gospel-flavored solution.

Thabiti Anyabwile predictably calls for “justice” while being careful not to add the clarifying “social” adjective that betrays what he is really advocating for, and Tim Keller similarly calls for a focus on “racial justice” – a slightly more revealing term for social justice wrapped in a color-based framework.

“Jesus and John Wayne” author and egalitarian feminist Kristin Kobes Du Mez decries so-called “rugged masculinity” in the evangelical world before notorious accuser of the brethren, theological chameleon and grifting beta-male Russell Moore castigates those who are “most engaged in spiritual life and politics” as the “unhealthiest” people spiritually. In other words, you pesky politically-aware pew-sitters need to abandon politics so we can continue selling you out to the world’s powerful political influences.

Pro-life-redefining animal rights feminist Karen Swallow Prior linked Jerry Fallwell Jr. to Trump, claiming Fallwell supported Trump because “they both had loose morals” – apparently just like other evangelical Trump voters whose vote for Trump amounted to an ability to “rationalize his sins.”

The Vichy French

Of course, no progressive “dissident” manifesto would be complete without David French whining about so-called “assaults” from the “alt-right.” This a mere five years after his rapid downgrade into full-blown “drag queen story hour is a blessing of liberty” antinomian worthlessness. In Brooks’ article, French describes how his confrontations with Christians over politics – rather than being a reason to introspectively consider the validity of his positions – are merely evidence the country had not progressed to the level of wisdom and clarity that he had reached.

David French is what you get when an evangelical columnist asks themselves, “What would MSNBC want evangelicals to say about this?” French’s Never-Trumpism has painted him into a corner where he can no longer credibly deny his quickly-developed leftism, so his only option is to find solace being patted on the head by secular elites who tell him what a good boy he is. His Trumphobia is so powerful that any issue (COVID, George Floyd, January 6th) on which Trump voters hold an obvious position forces him to line up with Democrats, write a desperate column about it, and add yet another feather to his leftist cap.

This cabal of wolves is all about politics. Just not your politics. They will gladly remind you that overtly supporting Trump damages your witness. So does not wearing your mask, not taking the government’s experimental vaccine, and insisting that your church should remain open when Caesar tells you to close. Focusing on conservative politics is idolatry. Focusing on the world’s view of race is gospel ministry. Supporting Trump is unloving, if not downright evil. Yet Big Eva clearing the way for moral ambiguity on major political issues like abortion, collectivism, and national security is the responsible thing to do. You do want us to be able to advance the gospel after the great reset, don’t you?

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David Morrill

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