Perhaps the oddest defense of white evangelicalism in recent weeks has been to acknowledge much of the harm they’ve caused while claiming it’s not due to their theology, but due to their ignorance.
During this second Trump administration, patriarchal Christianity has escaped the walls of the white evangelical church and seeped its way into the halls of Washington, D.C., in support of policies that are dehumanizing or exiling millions of people.
As we’ve noted in a number of articles recently at BNG, there are plenty of books available by historians, sociologists, theologians and journalists, many of whom identify as committed Christians who can help bring much-needed awareness of this problem. But according to Christianity Today deputy editor Bonnie Kristian’s new book In Defense of Evangelicalism: A Response to Its Cultured Despisers, along with evangelicalism’s cultured apologists who are celebrating her work, apparently Christians being informed voters is too much to ask at this time.
The sincerity of normal evangelicals
In a recent interview with Skye Jethani of Holy Post Media, Kristian proposes the problems with evangelicalism are bugs rather than features. To be fair, Kristian agrees with critics of white evangelicalism that the system has been compromised by politics that harm their neighbors. She’s not trying to defend the Trump administration’s policies. Unlike many white evangelicals, she’s an egalitarian and a pacifist.
But despite her significant differences with most white evangelicals, Kristian describes to Jethani that evangelicals are simply people “who are sincerely trying to study Scripture, sincerely trying to follow Jesus, to tangibly help their community both within the congregation and more widely.”
She adds: “The depictions that we see in so much of this discourse, while yes, sometimes they do name real wrongs, frequently treat those things in disproportion to their actual influence and import in ordinary evangelical life. And so ultimately, while again, sometimes there may be critiques we need to heed, present a caricature that is not reflective of how ordinary evangelicals live and worship and work together, including with people outside of evangelicalism.”
‘The biblical illiteracy is alarming’
Despite Kristian’s claim that evangelicals are sincerely studying their Bibles with the desire to follow Jesus, Jethani points out: “There’s other parts of the book where you … look at the data around ordinary evangelicals, which is not particularly good. And especially the Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway research about doctrinal beliefs shows that ordinary evangelicals — CT reported on this — hold inconsistent beliefs to the point of contradiction. The biblical illiteracy is alarming.”
“The biblical illiteracy is alarming.”
Kristian admits in response: “Yes, we do have a biblical illiteracy problem. That is real and it’s a big deal.” Then she adds, “But also again evangelicals are not exempt to sort of the ordinary human foible, the kinds of things that Christians have always been subject to.” She suggests that compared to the biblical illiteracy of Catholics, evangelicals are “actually doing pretty good.”
‘Walmart is full of idiots’
During one point of their conversation where they discuss evangelical ignorance around edits to the GOP platform on abortion, Kristian shares the illustration of a conversation she had with an older evangelical relative when the Access Hollywood tape came out during the 2016 campaign. When Kristian mentioned what Trump said about grabbing women by the genitals, she said her relative hadn’t even heard about the story. As a result, Kristian argued, “I would similarly question the idea that the average evangelical voter who knows sort of what the Democratic position (on abortion) is, is aware of edits to the GOP party platform.”
In one passage from Kristian’s book, she quotes her former colleague Daniel Silliman writing about shopping at Walmart and thinking, “Oh man, there are some idiots and some crazy people here. And evangelicalism is the Walmart of American Christianity.”
Then referencing that part of her book during their interview on Holy Post, Jethani suggests that perhaps evangelicalism’s idiots are now no longer simply shopping at Walmart but are managing Walmart.
With Kristian repeatedly responding to Jethani’s questions by suggesting evangelicals are just sincerely ignorant, Jethani said: “I don’t want to be too disparaging. But you did quote Daniel Silliman saying that Walmart is full of idiots. The argument you’re kind of making is most evangelical voters are ignorant and they don’t know what’s going on.”
Blaming it on ‘Americans in general’
“I think it is tough to say most voters are not terribly well informed without coming off as elitist,” Kristian admits. “But what I’m saying is not that evangelicals are particularly ignorant voters. I’m saying that Americans in general are particularly ignorant voters.”
Jethani counters, “Is it wrong for us to expect evangelicals — who claim allegiance to Jesus Christ, authority of Scripture, and to base their decisions, morals and lives on the teachings of Jesus — is it wrong to expect them to be better than the average American when it comes to decisions around casting a vote? And even if we don’t expect that of ordinary evangelicals, shouldn’t we expect that of their leaders? That their pastors, their leaders, their publishers, their journalists, the influencers in the evangelical movement ought to be closer in alignment to Scripture and Christ than the average American?”
He added, “I’m angry with their leaders for not helping form them in the gospel and in a public vision of Christianity that would do something higher than just what the average white American does.”
Kristian says: “If we’re talking about a busy mom going and voting, should we expect better? I don’t know. She was asked her opinion. ‘Who of these two guys should be president?’ And she answered. There’s all kinds of things broken here that aren’t her fault.”
Power players sacralizing the empire
Of course, there are systemic issues at play here that go beyond laying the blame at the feet of a busy mom walking into the voting booth while toting her five kids behind her. The authoritarian Christianity harming our nation is led by men who sacralize their power with the gospel.
One such example is Kevin DeYoung, pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Charlotte, N.C., who writes for both Desiring God and The Gospel Coalition.
In a piece for Desiring God in 2022 titled “Death to the Patriarchy? Complementarity and the Scandal of ‘Father Rule’,” DeYoung argued: “Except that where patriarchy is already absent, dysfunction and desperation have multiplied. That’s because patriarchy, rightly conceived, is not about the subjugation of women as much as it is about the subjugation of the male aggression and male irresponsibility that runs wild when women are forced to be in charge because the men are nowhere to be found. What school or church or city center or rural hamlet is better off when fathers no longer rule? Where communities of women and children can no longer depend upon men to protect and provide, the result is not freedom and independence. Fifty years of social science research confirms what common sense and natural law never forgot: As go the men, so goes the health of families and neighborhoods. The choice is not between patriarchy and enlightened democracy, but between patriarchy and anarchy.”
In other words, DeYoung is aware how empire works. He knows empire harms people through violent, entitled men. But he says the only solution is to entitle Christian men to rule over everyone. If Christian men aren’t entitled to power, then society will devolve into anarchy.
“If you don’t lead your nation, Satan will.”
Similarly, Mark Driscoll recently released an ad for a new book titled The Biblical Case for Christian Patriotism. “It’s not a sin to be a political Christian. It’s a sin not to be,” the ad argues. “If you don’t lead your nation, Satan will.”
Besides the obvious false dichotomies here, DeYoung and Driscoll are essentially accepting the terms of empire. They’re admitting the way of the world is men being entitled to power. But rather than subverting the underlying assumption of entitled male power at its root, they entitle Christian men to even more power.
Salvation as a healing liberation from the empire
As Kristian might put it, by accepting the terms of the empire, evangelicalism’s cultured apologists are behaving like “Americans in general.” They’re creating a modern day Pax Romana, a Tower of Babel with straight, white Christian men at the top. And the masses of sincere white evangelicals just ignorantly go along with it all.
But ironically, when one actually studies the Bible and grows in awareness of its original context, the fingerprints of empire are everywhere within its pages. The biblical authors were constantly processing their wounds at the hands of one empire after another. This is why Jesus subverted the assumptions of empire by blessing the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the hungry and thirsty. He wasn’t accepting the terms of the empire in general and then proposing the emperor be replaced by Christian men. He rejected the empire’s rules altogether, deconstructing it to the ground.
Similarly, the Apostle Paul spoke of the empire as well. In 2 Corinthians 6, Paul announces, “Now is the day of salvation!” And how did he explore that? He did so by naming the experiences of those on the underside of empire, such as afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, being dishonored, treated as imposters and being unknown, punished, sorrowful, poor and having nothing.
Since we’re all assuming evangelical ignorance here, I’ll take the opportunity to point out that the people being imprisoned, dishonored, beaten and treated as imposters today are not white evangelicals. They’re nonwhite immigrants, LGBTQ people, women, Black people, Muslims; and they’re also persecuted Christians from around the world whose only sin is not being white.
They’re the ones having their health care taken away, visas revoked or being sent to countries where they’ve never been with no record on file for what happens to them. Or in American Crusader Pete Hegseth’s words, they’re “fatties, trannies, beardos, weirdos, wimps and radicals.”
Heterosexual white conservative Christian men are not the American empire’s “least of these.” They’re the imperial family. And in three weeks, we can take one small step toward the long road of holding them accountable and bringing healing liberation for those they’ve harmed.
First-century followers of Jesus, like the writers of the Hebrew Bible before them, knew how the empire’s sacralization of power affected its “least of these.” Then they subverted it accordingly by creating a Communion table where hierarchy dissolved and everyone belonged. At the Communion table, the early church refused to become complicit in empire. And when the fingerprints of empire made its way to the Communion table, the apostles didn’t throw their hands up due to them simply being ignorant Roman citizens. They wrote strongly worded letters.
Rick Pidcock
Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a bachelor of arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and is the author of a forthcoming book, Weapons of Worship: How the Songs of Evangelicalism Form the Soundtrack of Extremism. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.