Within hours of Christianity Today announcing that longtime pastor and scholar Nicole Massie Martin had been elected its next president and CEO, a familiar chorus of online racist and patriarchal critics declared the flagship evangelical magazine is no longer really “Christian.”
Their evidence? Martin is a Black woman, an ordained pastor and “woke.”
On Nov. 19, CT’s board announced that Martin, who has served Christianity Today since 2023 as chief impact officer and, most recently, chief operating officer, had been unanimously elected president and CEO following a five‑month search that considered 130 candidates worldwide.
In its official press release, the board praised Martin’s 25 years of nonprofit, academic and ministry leadership and called her a “dynamic Bible teacher and author” with a “commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
“CT’s announcement framed her appointment squarely in the legacy of Billy Graham,”
Martin holds degrees from Vanderbilt University, Princeton Theological Seminary and Gordon‑Conwell Theological Seminary. She is founder and executive director of Soulfire International Ministries and has held leadership roles with the American Bible Society, the National Association of Evangelicals, Fuller Theological Seminary and other organizations.
CT’s announcement framed her appointment squarely in the legacy of Billy Graham, who founded the magazine in 1956 “to see the church more faithful to Christ and the world more drawn to him.”
Martin’s appointment comes during a season of turnover and turmoil at the flagship evangelical magazine.
Last week, senior news editor Daniel Silliman — widely respected for his investigative reporting — resigned, citing “significant disagreements with the new leadership, both practical and philosophical.” His departure followed the transition of Russell Moore from editor‑in‑chief to editor‑at‑large and the appointment of veteran culture‑war journalist Marvin Olasky as editor‑in‑chief.
Marvin Olasky
Olasky, 75, is best known for championing a form of “biblical worldview” journalism at World magazine that explicitly rejects traditional notions of journalistic objectivity, once telling other journalists that “the right way to do journalism is to let the Bible teach reporters how to view any event and report on it accordingly,” a philosophy that endeared him to conservative evangelicals and alarmed others committed to more traditional reporting.
Against that backdrop, Martin’s elevation to CEO places a Black woman with a track record in the academy, trauma healing, evangelical institutions and women’s leadership at the top of evangelical organization that has drawn intense ire and vitriol from the flagship evangelical journal’s former base.
If CT’s board saw Martin’s appointment as a way to steady the institution and broaden its reach, many of its critics saw something else entirely: capitulation to “woke” and “DEI.”
The conservative website Not the Bee — a sister site to the satirical Babylon Bee that brands itself as highlighting “insane but true” stories — published a piece with the headline, “Christianity Today names woke Black lady pastor as new president and CEO.”
In the article, writer Harris Rigby calls Martin “as woke as the day is long,” mocks her support for former President Kamala Harris in a past op‑ed and suggests “Billy Graham is turning over in his grave.”
Rigby quotes at length from Martin’s writings on racial justice and police violence, including her description of George Floyd’s murder and the persistence of racist hate crimes, to argue CT has become a political rather than Christian publication.
“It’s not like Christianity Today has been a serious publication for years anyways,” he concludes before mockingly predicting the magazine will soon “drop ‘Christianity’ from their name.”
The article’s racialized and gendered framing was explicit from the headline down, with “woke,” “Black,” “lady” and “pastor” all presented as disqualifying (and even sinful) attributes.
On social media, responses to CT’s X announcement of Martin’s appointment quickly filled with racist, misogynistic and vile comments, along with accusations that the magazine had abandoned the Christian faith.
“Y’all are unserious. Please stop pretending to be a Christian publication,” wrote Hunter Wade, a self‑described conservative Christian from Kentucky.
“Responses to Martin’s appointment quickly filled with racist, misogynistic and vile comments.”
Andy Webb, a conservative Presbyterian pastor, declared CT has finally “taken the plunge” into liberalism. He invoked fundamentalist J. Gresham Machen’s 1923 book Christianity and Liberalism to argue CT, as an evangelical organization, has become indistinguishable from Mainline liberal Protestantism: “Why you thought the world needs yet another version of The Christian Century is beyond me,” he wrote, predicting financial ruin and lamenting “a sad end to Carl Henry’s vision for a thought provoking conservative Evangelical publication.”
Ironically, Christianity Today was founded in part as an alternative to The Christian Century.
Another pastor, Bill LaMorey, offered sarcastic congratulations on what he called “a successful Democrat takeover of a once cherished institution.”
In one of the most overtly racist responses, a user posting under the handle “@thatbrian” fixated on her appearance: “She’s trying with all her might to be white. The lighting. The makeup. The hair. … She wants to be white.”
Sadly, these overwhelmingly virulent responses to a well-qualified candidate taking the helm of the evangelical magazine surprised no one and were entirely predictable, given that the overwhelming majority of CT’s subscription base from, say, 20 years ago, has fallen into the trap of virulent white ethno-nationalism (although some would say these characteristics have been endemic to white evangelicalism as long as it has existed).
The reaction to Martin’s hire illustrates a well‑known pattern where “Christian” is defined as white, male, conservative and Republican, and anyone who falls outside that mold is marked as suspect.
On the other hand, Russell Moore, CT’s former editor‑in‑chief and now editor‑at‑large, praised the move on X, calling Martin “amazing” and lauding the board’s decision as a “great choice” in a tweet that limited replies to accounts he follows or mentions — an implicit acknowledgment of the predictable pile‑on that would follow.
Martin inherits an institution with a complicated recent history: an aging donor base, internal debates over editorial direction and intense scrutiny from the evangelical right who love to pile on anyone who doesn’t toe their lines of political and theological orthodoxy, including and especially Republican politics and complementarian beliefs.
The debate over her appointment says as much about the state of evangelicalism as it does about the new CEO herself.
David Bumgardner is a writer, theologian and educator living in Columbus, Ohio. He is a former BNG Clemons Fellow and a graduate of Texas Baptist College at Southwestern Seminary. He is a licensed commissioned pastor and holds an evangelism license through the Anglican Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Diocese of Boga, and Missio Mosaic, an ecumenical missional society and religious order. He is awaiting the conferral of his master of arts in practical theology degree from Winebrenner Theological Seminary.
Related articles:
More turnover at Christianity Today
75-year-old Olasky named editor of Christianity Today