In one of the most truly bizarre stories of the week, Julie Roys reported yesterday that Doug Wilson’s Canon Press attempted to buy Christianity Today for $10 million.
To which my first response was: “How did Doug Wilson come up with $10 million?”
Wilson, for the uninitiated, is a far-right Calvinist chauvinistic pastor in Moscow, Idaho, who has been working to take over his town and now the nation for theocratic rule. His theology is so far outside mainstream Christianity that it’s in the next county. Except in a Venn diagram of today’s American political and religious landscape, there’s a significant overlap in Wilson’s embrace of Christian nationalism and the evangelical world of MAGA.
Mark Wingfield
Remember that old saying that an enemy of my enemy is my friend? That’s where Wilson and garden-variety MAGA evangelicals find common purpose: They both loathe Christianity Today and believe it has gone apostate because the magazine will not carry their political water. Even though Christianity Today leaders are bona fide conservatives by anyone else’s standards: Russell Moore and Marvin Olasky among them.
Problem is, these old-school conservatives like Moore and Olasky still value truth. And they are not rabid Calvinists who seek to take control of the seven mountains of culture. In the eyes of Wilson and his supporters, that makes them the enemy.
And then there’s the ever-present boogeyman of George Soros, whom Wilson and allies believe is funding the evangelical magazine and directing its editorial policy to be “woke.” This accusation apparently is because of a $1 million grant to Christianity Today from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation over a four-year period.
“This is another case of guilt by association, which is a favorite pastime of the far right.”
This is another case of guilt by association, which is a favorite pastime of the far right. No one can be as pure as they are. And George Soros is seen lurking behind every organization they don’t like. And it’s all about abortion.
But there’s so much more behind this odd story of an attempted takeover of the most revered publication of old-school evangelicalism.
First, Christianity Today was not and is not for sale. Interim President Thomas Addington told The Roys Report: “We recently received an unsolicited offer by a third party to purchase Christianity Today. Christianity Today is not for sale and has never been for sale.”
Second, the arrogance behind this attempted takeover is astounding but not surprising. Perhaps because they believe so firmly in predestination, these Wilsonites are always certain they alone know the divine will of God and have been uniquely called to enforce God’s will.
In what also should not be a surprise to anyone paying attention, Megan Basham is involved in this. The flame-throwing Gonzo journalist who often ran offense for John MacArthur is the one who announced the failed acquisition, explaining that Christianity Today “has been captured by worldly ideology.” She said Canon Press would restore the magazine to the “intended purpose” of its founder, Billy Graham.
She asserted Christianity Today “is being heavily funded by a massive left-wing organization that spends millions to support the nation’s leading abortion advocate, Planned Parenthood.”
Basham and Wilson each are so arrogant they know the will of God and the will of the deceased. Basham is author of the problem-plagued book Shepherds for Sale, which purports to document how evangelical pastors have sold out to the safe and liberal agenda of Big Evangelicalism.
Basham is a self-proclaimed expert on all such things, writing for the far-right media outlet Daily Wire.
Third, this gets tied back to Charlie Kirk. Of course it does. Basham claims — insanely — that Kirk “carried the torch” of Billy Graham. Charlie Kirk is to Billy Graham what Megan Basham is to Walter Cronkite.
In reality, Billy Graham helped found Christianity Today in 1956 as the flagship publication for a big-tent evangelicalism represented much more by Russell Moore than Doug Wilson. Never ever was Christianity Today intended to tout the narrow and cruel Calvinistic ideological line of today’s TheoBros.
“Never ever was Christianity Today intended to tout the narrow and cruel Calvinistic ideological line of today’s TheoBros.”
In its letter to the magazine offering $10 million to purchase the media empire, the Wilson group claimed Canon Press could grow the magazine to “reach a larger audience and increase its impact, all while preserving (Graham’s) legacy.”
To say that is dubious is hardly enough. Canon Press has a much smaller and narrower audience than Christianity Today. The publishing house founded by Wilson has published about 100 books with titles such as It’s Good to Be a Man: A Handbook for Godly Masculinity and The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits.
Fourth, the financial offer makes no sense. Of course, we have no professional valuation on the assets and brand of Christianity Today — because it is not for sale — but the magazine has a print circulation of 110,000 and claims to reach 4.5 million Christian leaders every month through its websites, podcasts and print publications.
The Roys Report explained: “According to its latest IRS 990 filing, Christianity Today has nearly $10 million in net assets and generated more than $18 million in revenue in 2023.”
You do the math and determine if $10 million is a fair offer for this media conglomerate.
More importantly, we’ve got to wonder where Canon Press would come up with a spare $10 million. And Basham is concerned about “dark money” influencing Christianity Today?
Finally, if Doug Wilson and his followers want to publish a magazine espousing their views, they can start their own publication. But that’s not what they want. They want to take over an existing and trusted brand and benefit from its history. This is not unlike what Donald Trump has done to the Republican Party. The MAGA mindset never could have won a national election on its own merits; it had to leverage the support of lifelong Republicans to get power.
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global and is the author of five books, including Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves and Why Churches Need to Talk About Sexuality.
Related articles:
Here’s the real context for understanding Charlie Kirk | Analysis by Rodney Kennedy