Integrity for Sale?

This was not a review I wanted to write. I am still not finished with Megan Basham’s newly released book Shepherd’s For Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. I wanted to review the book in totality before I finished it but the news cycle and reactions waits for no man and so, unfortunately, there are things to be addressed prior to the release of a broad overview of the book. (That review is forthcoming.) If you have followed along with the recent X and YouTube spats concerning the book you might wonder whether the book is worth reading at all given some of the pointed criticisms concerning Basham’s usage of certain verbiage and sources. Basham has been accused of misrepresenting multiple people throughout the book. She is accused of misquoting, misrepresenting and some have even accused her of defamation. Many accusations are easily dismissed. Phil Vischer’s claim at being misrepresented is laughable at best and dishonest at worst as Vischer has said repeatedly both on X and on his Holy Post podcast that abortion is a nuanced view. I even reviewed a video of his a few years ago in which he horribly misrepresented the pro-life position concerning abortion. But some critiques and questions raise more reasonable objections than others. The day Basham’s book was released a YouTube personality and former Pastor in California (who currently resides in Tennessee) named Gavin Ortlund released a video claiming that he was misrepresented in Basham’s chapter concerning climate change. Somewhat of an online maelstrom resulted from the reaction. People having not read Basham’s book jumped to defend Basham and attack Ortlund, others, having not read Basham’s book jumped to excoriate Basham and call her to repentance. Ortlund then made a follow-up video covering some of Basham’s other “claims” concerning himself. To be sure, some of the reactions have been ridiculous from both sides of the issue. People labeling Ortlund a leftist and propogandist and others calling Basham discredited and dishonest. At the outset, I want to state that neither Basham nor Ortlund are responsible for what internet trolls call the other online. In a 250-page book the short discussion of one personality for six pages (maybe seven if you count the final page) took over the conversation about the truth relayed in the book. As Neil Shenvi correctly pointed out on X, factual mistakes do not disprove the central thesis of a book. Especially ancillary factual mistakes. So, what is at the heart of the controversy? The heart of the Ortlund controversy (and there are others, I will cover a controversy concerning J.D. Greear in a follow-up review) stems from a video Ortlund posted in 2022 called Climate Change: Why Christians Should Engage. To be sure there is some ambiguity within discussion (and I’ll get to that), but one thing should be stated at the outset. Certain people are stating that Basham is claiming that Ortlund is on the take from Big Eva (stands for the Evangelical Industrial Complex) or from climate change activists. Basham makes no such claims in her book, and her title “Shepherds for Sale” does not indicate every individual discussed in the book is reaping monetary benefits to compromise. To pretend otherwise is either ignorant or intentionally misleading. Basham states as much in her introduction:

But it need not always be explicitly transactional. Institutional prestige, seeing oneself lauded on CNN and in the

Washington Post

as more intellectually and morally advanced than the rest of the evangelical rabble, can also be a potent elixir. So can gilded invitations to the most exclusive parties in the world… Perhaps some are simply weary of being the bad guys and are eager to sign on to something,

anything,

that will draw the culture’s approval. (Pg. XXII) But there are differing degrees of error. Passivity, fear of reprisal, and plain old lack of discernment are also reasons pastors my compromise with the culture. For those who are not outright wolves, forthright, brother confrontation, such as when Paul opposed Peter... may bring about sincere repentance. (pg. XXIV) ...while this book focuses on false or misguided shepherds, this country is still blessed with many, many good shepherds. (pg. XXIX)

Basham has elsewhere confirmed that she does not consider Ortlund someone to be called a "shepherd for sale" but a product of what certain people end up parroting when nefarious influences succeed in their desire to infiltrate the church (See video HERE). He is, in a sense, a victim of the

Shepherds for Sale

but not a specific example of a shepherd who IS for sale. Basham covers Ortlund’s video in pages 25 and 26 of the first chapter in her book which looks into Climate Change. Many quotes are used from the video but two specific sentences within the book drew the ire of Ortlund and many others. Central to the points that Basham will make in the following pages is this statement as she introduces Gavin Ortlund’s video:

The key

theme

of the episode titled “Climate Change: Why Christians Should Engage” is that evangelicals have been “very skeptical or apathetic” about the issue because they’ve been politicized by the right. (emphasis mine) (pg. 24-25)

As Basham goes on to analyze Ortlund’s video, she does so with the theme of the video in mind and this is where things get hairy. The word

theme

in the opening to the section is carrying a lot of weight. This is not a discursus on the exact wording of Ortlund’s video, nor a complete refutation of climate change. Basham’s position is to take on the perceived

theme

of Ortlund’s video. This is an important distinction which ought not be missed. Multiple people have dissected such quotes, and I will offer what I think to be a reasonable explanation here. A colleague of my partner in ministry, (Dr. Stratton) Chris Date, released a video elucidating the issues he had with Basham’s quotes of Ortlund and he was brought on Trinity Radio with Braxton Hunter to explore the issue further. I respect both Braxton and Chris deeply and find both to be highly intelligent and thoughtful people concerning culture, theology, and discernment and their discussion is worth consideration as a counterpoint to my own. Interestingly, Basham quotes Ortlund at length on page 25 of the book and even includes some of the quotes that people go back to when critiquing her commentary on the matter on page 27.  However, it is not the multi-quote discussion of his video that people focus on, but it seems to be in these three specific quotes:

He goes on to say that every “scientific body of national or international standing agrees that human-caused global warming is a serious problem.” To not accept that consensus, he says, is to buy into “conspiracy and hoax,” it is a failure to “take a responsible posture” as a Christian. (Pg. 26) As for why Ortlund feels his brothers and sisters must accept the prevailing climate change narrative, he offers nothing more original than those three magic words:

love your neighbor.

(Pg. 26) But however softly his words were uttered, it’s hard to square that with his insistence that those who hold such views that differ from his can be doing so only because they are motivated by politics or haven’t “hit the books.” (Pg. 27)

I will briefly cover the controversy in each quote and then offer what I believe to be the explanation concerning each one. The first quote is being pulled apart because, it seems, in her desire to summarize the

theme

of the video in one sentence she pulls two separate quotes together to bolster her point that the theme of the video is that lack of agreement with consensus on climate change is irresponsible for the Christian.

He goes on to say that every “scientific body of national or international standing agrees that human-caused global warming is a serious problem.” To not accept that consensus, he says, is to buy into “conspiracy and hoax,” it is a failure to “take a responsible posture” as a Christian. (Pg. 26)

At issue is, specifically the last part of this quote, to be sure Ortlund indicates not that disagreement with global warming is not taking a responsible posture but doing so without “hitting the books” is an irresponsible posture. But what books? Therein lies the problem. This seems to be a misquote and on its face, it is, but is she trying to quote exactly what Ortlund said or is she trying to use his quotes to point at the seeming underlying message of his argument? I believe, as she breaks down the theme, she is attempting to do the latter (more on this in a bit).

 As for why Ortlund feels his brothers and sisters must accept the prevailing climate change narrative, he offers nothing more original than those three magic words:

love your neighbor.

(Pg 26)

Chris Date and others took this quote as Ortlund offers at least three reasons in his video for caring about Climate change. Date said this in his live stream:

Once again there's no ambiguity in the claim. There's no difficulty in parsing the claim that Basham is making here and that claim is that Ortlund says Christians must accept the consensus and for

only this one reason this love your neighbor idea,

here again this is undeniably false, this claim about Ortlund.

But is it undeniably false? Read the quote from Basham’s book again, she states he offers “

nothing more original

than those three magic words” this is not to say that was the ONLY reason he gave but that his other reasons were

nothing more original

than

love your neighbor

. Date says she says, “and for only this one reason” but that’s not what she said. One could forgive Date in this instance if he is saying that the

theme

of what she is indicating shows that she is trying to say this was, in fact, the only reason. However, the same courtesy then should possibly be extended to Basham’s next seeming gaffe in representing Ortlund,

 But however softly his words were uttered, it’s hard to square that with his insistence that those who hold such views that differ from his can be doing so only because they are motivated by politics or haven’t “hit the books." (Pg 27)

Indeed, Ortlund does not say this is the

only

reason specifically, but he does say 

many

(edit: which I took to mean "most" as in a follow up video he uses the word "everyone" when speaking about responses to Megan and then augments that to "a lot" a sentence later)

 Christians do it this way. However, again, Basham is dealing with the seeming theme of the video. As I indicated with Date’s critique of Basham in the above quote, we often do this when we are seeking to explain the tenor or thrust of someone’s argumentation. We say what seems obvious to us they are

really

saying rather than taking them strictly at their word. Do I think Chris Date grossly misrepresented or defamed Basham in the section where he claims that he says she says the

only

reason Ortlund gave is

Love your neighbor?

No, I do not. I think he was looking at the themes of what she was communicating and inferred from the text that she

meant

that is the only reason he gave, and he is free to do that. In fact, he might say,

“Josh, you know full well what she meant when she said nothing more original

and that she was only saying the one thing was offered.”

And that might be the case, but is that an attempt at mind reading? No, I believe it is an attempt at thematic narrative reading. He might be wrong, and Basham could correct him if she so desired, but she also does not need to address it even if she does not believe he is handling her accurately. This is the risk we take in discourse and often we look beyond the very words being said to the posture behind the words. This is not mind reading as Braxton and Chris indicate but a natural way we evaluate whether someone is trying to “hide the ball” in a conversation. For instance, suppose someone said to you,

"Number one, it’s just good to observe first of all that there is pretty much a scientific consensus or very close to a scientific consensus that Jesus never raised from the dead and this is again the appeal and just the burden I have when people are dismissive towards this if you’re gonna go against a near consensus in the scientific community don’t just shoot from the hip you know study it and make sure that that’s a wise thing to do because I see a lot of people reacting instinctively rather than really hitting the books and I don’t think that that’s a responsible posture for Christians to take."

Then, after he states this, he only recommends Bart Erhman's book and Skeptic magazine as resources to start from. Moreover, he/she said this after a 20-minute discursus on why it is kind of crazy to entertain the idea of resurrection given scientific evidence, history and textual errors. Would it be unreasonable for me to say of the thematic elements in that video that the speaker thinks I only believe in Christ’s resurrection because I haven’t read enough Ehrman? I don’t think so. I think it gets at the theme of what they would have been arguing even though they never said the word. In other words just because they hedged a statement does not mean they likely meant it more holistically than mere text would indicate. That brings me to an analysis of what I believe is

really

going on in Basham’s critiquing of Ortlund’s video. An important distinction that will hopefully be received well, but even if it is not, it is the notion that I have become convinced of after having read the chapter twice, watched all three of Ortlund’s videos multiple times, as well as Chris Date's video, his video with Braxton Hunter and Megan Basham’s video with Frank Turek and Alisa Childers. To be clear I saw Gavin Ortlund’s reaction video before I bought the book, I saw his second one before I read it. It was reading the chapter and watching Ortlund’s original Climate Change video that changed my mind. As I have said in multiple ways online, I am not inclined to be a Basham apologist, in fact I am more familiar with Gavin Ortlund’s work than I am with Megan Basham’s. I do not know if I have ever read anything else she has published but I think the following is not only a reasonable explanation of what is going on in the Ortlund space of the book but hopefully something that can help bring the two sides together as well to focus on the major thesis of the book which I believe is undeniably true and important to understand. As I have conceded on multiple occasions, I do think there was an issue with the wording involved and I believe Chris Date and some others to be right in a technical sense but again, Basham was not seeking technicality in her engagement with the video, she was seeking to capture the thematic undertones of Ortlund’s disposition in discussing the issue. Now, you might say she should not do this and can argue that, but that does not necessarily mean she misrepresented or defamed him. The question then becomes, what did Ortlund want people to take away from the video and not what are all the exact words he said in the video? This is not an academic treatise, and that's where Date goes wrong in my opinion, this is an analysis of the subversive nature of leftist ideas sneaking into the church. Thus, we would expect people to hedge their statements for plausible deniability as Ortlund does. When analyzing subversiveness, it is often necessary to look behind the words that are said to the goal behind them. Ortlund’s video is a prime example of the necessity to do just that. Ortlund

does

say in that video that for the scientific consensus to be wrong it would have to be some grand conspiracy. He also poisons the well of counter viewpoints by saying,

When I listen to the skeptics I’m not impressed. from 2007 on every other scientific body of national or international standing agrees that human-caused global warming is a serious problem so the, the level of conspiracy and hoax it would be if somehow all of these different…..  people think this... that scientists are all together... people have this distrust of science. Number one, it's just good to observe first of all that there is pretty much a scientific consensus or very close to a scientific consensus on human-caused climate change as a very real problem and this is again the appeal and just the burden I have when people are dismissive towards this if you're gonna go against a near consensus in the scientific community don't just shoot from the hip you know study it and make sure that that's a wise thing to do because I see a lot of people reacting instinctively rather than really hitting the books and I don't think that  that's a responsible posture for Christians to take.

So, if we are dissecting the theme of the video, it seems these are fairly extensive claims to make about those who disagree especially when Ortlund does use the broader “people” rather than "most" people in one of the above quotes. Does Basham overstate his quotes? Yes. There’s no denying that, but she is doing so to get to the underlying tone of the entire video. I do not believe this is an attempt at mind-reading but an attempt at exposing what subversive messaging looks like. Now, we can argue whether Ortlund was being intentionally subversive or even subversive at all in his video, but I believe that her indication is that he was. Ortlund also says, in his original video, that

“if you are pro-life you should care about climate change”

and that Christians should

“lead the charge”

in discussing climate change. Ironically, Date and Hunter try to get behind the meaning of his words in their discussion. Mentioning that there are plenty of things we disagree with that we should care about, such as Calvinism in my case or Evolution in both Chris and my case. However, is this really what Ortlund means by "care" when he says this? For evidence, I believe one would have to let the rest of what Ortlund champions in the video do the talking. Ortlund only offers evidence of the IPCC and Kerry Emmanuel in his video as experts to read up on (as Basham points out). He never speaks of people like Bjorn Lomborg or the Cornwall Alliance as possible counterexamples. Perhaps they are in the “skeptics” that did not impress Ortlund. Whatever the case might be, his plea for Christians to “hit the books” comes with only two resources through which his viewers should start: The IPCC and Kerry Emmanuel. The same Kerry Emanuel who was allegedly caught lying to congress about the IPCC deleting data in relation to climate change in 2011. Basham is also correct that the only negative impacts that Ortlund talks about in his video are the purportedly negative impacts of climate change. Ortlund doesn’t speak of the negative impact of governments addressing climate change (even hinting at one point that government interventionism will be needed) and how that destroys economies and livelihoods and leads to death all over the world CURRENTLY. He leaves out any of these opposing sentiments and, remember, at the outset he claims listening to the skeptics is unimpressive (in the interest of charity, perhaps Ortlund meant “uneducated skeptics” but that is unclear). When Ortlund says “shooting from the hip” instead of “hitting the books” is irresponsible I would tend to agree at face value. However, in the video there seems to be a subversive undertone behind those words. One, it would seem, ought not trust the unimpressive skeptics and should trust multi-national governing bodies, the IPCC and Kerry Emmanuel. One wonders what he

really

meant by “hit the books” considering all of this. Now, is this an attempt at trying to read his mind? Or is this using contextual clues in the video to suss out what the specific intent of the video seemed to be, especially since Ortlund’s odd ending is simply to ask people to talk about it more. I believe this is what Basham was attempting to do. If a layperson who trusts Ortlund watches that YouTube video, he is likely going to walk away with exactly what Basham is saying.  And that's her point, as imperfectly as she may have made it, that the cultural milieu that came from billions of dollars being pumped into Evangelical Think Tanks on climate change awareness had this effect on the general good faith believing influencers like Ortlund. Those who want to help grow the body by not playing into either side of the aisle (pgs 5-23, Basham). A person who wants to seem reasonable and wants to take what seems to be a caring posture will then intentionally or unintentionally parrot the leftist style talking points that Ortlund ends up doing in his video. A thought experiment on another topic might be helpful. Let’s suppose a person recorded a video claiming that Christians ought to be pro-life from womb to tomb and that skeptics on this position are unimpressive. They spend twenty minutes in the video speaking not about abortion but about healthcare, the death penalty, and social programs using only leftist sources and claim that if you were pro-life you would care about these issues. Would the subtext of such a video seem genuinely pro-life in the conservative sense or even neutral? I would think not. The disposition behind the words matters. That said, I am on record saying that I believe Basham does, unfortunately, overstate her case when she uses words like “only” in her quote about Ortlund saying why people disagree with his position. I agree with Chris Date that if she had softened her wording to “mostly” or “predominantly” then I would find this whole thing to be a nothing burger. I try to use such words when I do my writing to avoid lumping in the exceptions as well. I hold no ill-will towards Gavin Ortlund and I have no stake in supporting Megan Basham. They are my siblings in Christ and are both doing fantastic work for God’s glory. I do think that the way Basham handled the video lacked decorum in some sense, but I do not believe she blatantly misrepresented Ortlund in the video as many claim. I simply believe that she likely mishandled some quotes to make her point. So, what should be done? Personally, I believe the book is unscathed, that while I disagree with some of the wording used in reference to Ortlund, that Basham gets his posture and message mostly correct and her overstatements help to highlight the seeming subversiveness of the message. With that said, I also believe that Basham could extend an olive branch and grant herself more credibility if she came to this same realization publicly.  If she were to say something to the effect of:

 “I could have handled the wording better in this section to clearly indicate that it was commentary on Gavin Ortlund’s disposition and seeming (witting or unwitting) subversiveness and not necessarily the exact words he was using. My lack of clarity in that regard led to confusion and unfortunately distracted from the rest of the book which I still stand by.”

Perhaps I am incorrect in what she was trying to do, and she genuinely thinks she quoted him accurately without referring to the subtext of the video. I would love to ask her in person at some point. The request has been made. Bottom line: it seems to me that what Megan Basham is really trying to point out with her discussion of the Ortlund video is that good intentioned pastors (such as Ortlund) can come to such conclusions because they often still rely on--and trust--mainstream media along with academic outlets and institutions that have been taken over by left-wing ideologies. In so doing, they may start to believe and teach the false narratives they espouse. Albeit, often, unwittingly. Let us continue to reason together (Isaiah 1:18).

This article was updated on 8/9/2024 to more accurately depict wording and adjust an illustration for accuracy.

Notes

https://a.co/d/gp1CHk8https://x.com/philvischer/status/1819156807002345777https://x.com/jimpfaff/status/1819388962512761264https://x.com/JoelWBerry/status/1819201622808895947https://www.christianpost.com/news/pastor-quits-congregation-to-minister-to-millions-on-youtube.htmlhttps://youtu.be/-3ClEkfP8pM?si=GjpIznymdZY8g30lhttps://youtu.be/LPUlwF379yA?si=tgNuaCYW895L-J_nhttps://x.com/NeilShenvi/status/1820793309121388712https://a.co/d/5EbxtNxhttps://cornwallalliance.org/https://climateaudit.org/2011/03/31/disinformation-from-kerry-emanuel/