“The Bible insturcts us to proclaim truth, not to hold centers—and anyway, the center is far too liberal a place for biblical orthodoxy.”

Megan Basham’s pot-stirring Shepherds for Sale is an incisive, unflinching rebuke of the evangelical establishment’s moral and political compromises in the 21st century, a reprimand as rousing as it is necessary in an age where theological perversions masquerade as nuanced faithfulness to the Word of God. Basham names names—many of whom have publicly responded—laying bare the ways prominent evangelical leaders, schools, magazines, etc. have capitulated to the cultural pressures of recent years, from environmentalism and COVID-19 responses to transgenderism and racism. These are not issues to be ignored and there are numerous ways to navigate the murky waters in a biblical manner, however, as Basham painstakingly details across many cases, there is a tendency for those in positions of influence to seek the validation and admiration of secular society, at the grave expense of misleading their flocks. Raise your hand if you know somebody who is deeply passionate about one of those -isms but doesn’t have more than a surface level understanding of it, who attends a church that twists the bible to condone immoral behavior. Basham’s critique is broad and occasionally shocking, yet entirely fair, particularly when she draws the crucial distinction between a terribly flawed leader whose stated policies generally align with Christian ethics (Trump) and the alternatives—promoted by many evangelical institutions and spokesmen—whose actions and platforms are wholly incompatible with any semblance of biblical morality (Biden/Harris). For my money (although I got this book from the library and thus did not actually pay money for it), the strongest element of the exposé is its discussion on the distortion of aphoristic Christian language like “love your neighbor” to convince well-meaning Christians to allow exceptions to their moral convictions. Many lengthy responses have been forthcoming, and I don’t have the time or energy or knowledge to fully engage with most of what Basham has to say, but, in a nutshell, like Peter Hegseth’s The Battle for the American Mind, from a zoomed-out view, Basham is putting her finger on a cultural pressure point that needs more thoughtful attention from educated Christians, but she is also reaching beyond the core of her argument in assuming that because many progressive ideas are incompatible with Christianity, that her conservative politics necessarily frame the only Christian perspective.