The Rise and Fall of Christianity Today
The flagship publication of evangelicalism has more than lost its way: it has become the very thing it was created to expose.
Introduction
The English word “apologist” originally comes from the Greek word apologizesthai, which means to give an account of something. It is the same word from which we get our word “apology.” Both words retain the basic idea of locating responsibility, but with very different ends in mind. While the aim of the apologist is to protect and defend something, the apologizer seeks to make amends for a perceived indiscretion on their part. The posture of the former is dauntless and resolute; the latter is inherently deferential and reactive.
I want to begin with this clarification because, as Christians, we know we are called to contend for the faith, to always be ready to give an answer for the hope within us. Jesus was clear that the world would hate his disciples simply because they belonged to Him, so naturally we should be prepared to give account of our actions so others can understand why we would choose to live in this way. But a modern method of accountability has come to look more like producing an apology than an apologetic. Leaders believe they can effectively distance themselves from previous regimes by both denouncing their predecessors and renouncing their association with any of their previous decisions. While this is still a form of accountability, it is one that protects the apologizer first and foremost; their statements say less about the thing being discussed than it does about the one discussing it. To put it in emotional terms, we tend to see the apologist as argumentative by definition, but the apologizer (or the apology itself, at least) as intrinsically virtuous.
Whether in business, in Hollywood, or in the church today, we can expect to see far more apologizers than apologists. Which brings us to the sad state of Christianity Today.
Famously founded by Billy Graham himself in 1956, CT has long been the flagship evangelical publication in circulation. As
has noted, the 1950’s represented something of a high-water mark for evangelicalism in American history. “In God We Trust” first started showing up on our currency in 1957; the phrase “under God” was added to the pledge of allegiance in 1954; about half of all adults attended church on Sundays, compared to 33% in pre- Covid 2020.1 Thus, the timing couldn’t have been better for the reverend. For Graham, the establishment of Christianity Today in the 1950’s was about thoughtfully engaging the evangelical community and defending the church from the steady drift of theological liberalism that had begun to take root in some of the mainline denominations at the time. Graham hoped that the magazine would become a “flag to follow” and ““restore intellectual respectability and spiritual impact to evangelical Christianity.”The following is excerpted from a CT editorial from its very first issue, dated October 15, 1956 (emphasis mine):
“Theological Liberalism has failed to meet the moral and spiritual needs of the people. Neither the man on the street nor the intellectual is today much attracted by its preaching and theology. All too frequently, it finds itself adrift in speculation that neither solves the problem of the individual nor of the society of which he is a part.
“For the preacher, an unending source of wisdom and power lies in a return to truly biblical preaching. For the layman, this same Book will prove to be light on the pathway of life, the record of the One Who alone meets our needs for now and for eternity.”
The full editorial is fascinating to read, even if only to bear witness to how far the publication has fallen since its inception. Were they around to see what their company had become, Billy Graham and the late Carl Henry would today find it totally unrecognizable.
A Rundown of Recent Events
In just the past three weeks, the magazine has produced the following content:
December 22: On CT podcast The Bulletin, editor-in-chief Russell Moore states that removing Trump from the Colorado ballot doesn’t represent a break from any established legislative norms, comparing the former president to a Confederate leader during the Civil War.
December 24: An article is published on Christmas Eve discouraging people from conceiving of Jesus as European while simultaneously encouraging them to imagine Him as Japanese, Indonesian, and/or Indian:
December 28: An August article is reshared on X, stating the importance of giving grace to others regarding the practice of pronoun hospitality, claiming that “everything is changing so fast” and “we’re figuring it out together”:
January 5: Moore publishes a newsletter criticizing a faction of evangelicalism under the heading “Evangelicals Shouldn’t Criticize Evangelicalism (Unless the Evangel Really Matters).”
January 5: an article is published suggesting the statement produced by the Harvard student body following the October 7th Hamas attacks only became a national news story because “we’re obsessed with Harvard” rather than for how “truly reprehensible” it was.2
Needless to say, the responses to these stories have been, shall we say, less than favorable from other Christian leaders. But sadly, CT have been trending in this direction for some time now. What I’m interested in exploring here is how does this happen? How does a publication as tenured as Christianity Today become the very thing Billy Graham created it to stand against?
While there is much we could say at this point, I want to point out what I think are three points of error that I hope will act as cautionary tales for us as we consider our own walks with Christ.
A Failure to Lead
Let’s return to the apologizer/apologist distinction from earlier. Every leader is charged with deciding how they will be held accountable, and Christianity Today is no different. When presented with a choice between apologizer and apologist, CT have made their choice abundantly clear. The conscious decision to “punch right” while regularly platforming progressivist ideology leaves the publication in a position where, in order to maintain the favor of their patrons, they must consistently project the meekness of the apologizer above all. They must apologize for anything that is evangelical-adjacent: for Trump, for being white, for the Crusades, for that mean-spirited friend you have who isn’t a very good Christian. They must remain in this posture of abject shame, because that is the delivery system by which they have legitimized their voice. But as anyone with a friend who’s always apologizing well knows, it can be a challenge to ever really take them seriously.
Leadership means protecting those entrusted to your care, those who need you to do what only someone in your position can do. CT has elected not to hold the line on key theological issues, reducing their credibility for their patrons to a dangerous low in the process. We can see the same failure of leadership playing out in the Roman Catholic Church currently. Pope Francis’ strategic ambiguity enables him to circumvent direct accountability, instead forcing Catholics who desperately need his clarity to endure questions they should not have to deliberate on. When a leader abdicates their role as an apologist, it’s those who look to them for clarity and protection that really get the shaft.
Unbound Heart, Unbridled Head
Second, we can trace CT’s path to cultural irrelevance by noting the many capitulations that were required to happen over the years in the name of simply “being nice.”
In response to the aforementioned CT article on pronoun hospitality, theologian Joe Rigney offered up his diagnosis of CT’s problem as “the sin of empathy meets the sin of nuance.” For Rigney, the sin of empathy stems from unregulated emotions and passions; the sin of nuance comes from making simple things complicated and complicated things simplistic.3 If the former is compassion when separated from love, the latter is wisdom when untethered from truth. Both produce a person whose senses have rejected an orthodox, biblical worldview. Such a person desperately needs the Body of Christ to love him enough to set him straight.
As an example, consider CT’s article on Asian Jesus. Although the writer is attempting to make her point about art and cultural identity markers, what is inferred throughout the story is the subtle notion that the idea of Jesus carries a greater importance than the reality of Jesus. What really matters is the “with-us-ness” we can glean from our appreciation of the art depicting Indonesian Jesus, though one cannot help but wonder why this same logic is not similarly applied to the art depicting a European Jesus. This requires a handling of the truth so nuanced that only a very educated person could hope to arrive at such a misguided conclusion. But it’s a take that feels kind and charitable, so no warning bells go off in the CT editor’s head before pressing “Publish.”
This is how theological liberalism takes root: it challenges orthodoxy by playing fast and loose with the Word of God, just as we see in the Garden. It may feel charitable for CT to offer olive branches to fellow believers who want to practice pronoun hospitality, but that feeling has been corrupted by sin and ought to be rebuked.
This is why it is so essential that the people of God remain inextricably tethered to the word of God, and not to trendy ideas about what God ought to be like. Without the clarity of the Gospel we find in Scripture, man cannot help but act religiously, except he must now place himself at the center and not the Almighty. When the doctrines of secular progressivism tempt us to push our God-ordained boundaries just a little further, with the promise that “you will not surely die” and “you will be like God,” may we then be prepared to respond in confidence with “The Lord, he is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves.” (Psalm 100:3) When we lose the centrality of a high view of Scripture, perspectives on Jesus’ Asian-ness and the wisdom of pronoun hospitality become not only permissible, but obligational.
A Brief and Fleeting Reprieve
Finally, I fear CT will find the supposed goodwill they are building up within their patronage will have an exceedingly short shelf-life. When so much of your position is informed by the immanent, anything less than being completely in-step with the zeitgeist will immediately wipe away any of the good faith you worked so hard to cultivate. In essence, CT has gone and played itself; they cannot really say “ok, here and no further” at a future juncture, because such a stance would at such a point be the very definition of arbitrary. The goalpost will always move whenever the next issue comes up. If you’re out of sync, you’ll be discarded like yesterday’s news. Not that they’re likely to be very worried about it anymore, but CT will be trapped in a rat-race for years to come trying to keep up with the culture while still having to reckon with the Bible. The irony here is that their voice will necessarily matter progressively less as time goes on, because the average person will ultimately be unable to distinguish what CT thinks from what the world in general believes.
(Just as an aside here, it is interesting to contrast the recent editorial decisions of CT with WORLD Magazine naming J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity & Liberalism its Book of the Year…100 years after it was first published. One of these publications is paying attention. The other thinks Jesus was Asian.)
In the end, as others have already pointed out, the future of Christianity Today will come down to which part of the company’s name will serve which. As
recently put it, shall Christianity bow down to Today, or shall Today bow down to Christ? The temptation to live as prisoners of the moment is not unfamiliar to the people of God, and even an established institution like Christianity Today is not immune to very publicly and spectacularly ruining its own integrity like we’re seeing now. But perhaps we can receive this as a reminder and a warning to remain vigilant as we seek to preach Christ and Him crucified wherever we go.May we all be apologists (and not apologizers) in a manner that brings glory to Almighty God.
In case you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, check out my previous article on the October 7 attack here ⬇️
For a more extensive write-up of the sin of nuance, see this post by
on the educated fool below.
Your examples seem to be cultural/political as opposed to theological/biblical. Maybe your article should be called, “How Christianity Today stopped pimping for conservatism.”
I read the CT article on pronouns, and the knee-jerk reaction to condemn it on Twitter/X is disappointing. Once again, Christians are quick to pounce on perceived threats or jump on the bandwagon.
The article is a survey of different perspectives not a wholesale endorsement on any position. If anything, the main thrust of the article is simply Christians need to pick their battles carefully and not view each other as enemies, but Heaven forbid that one approach this issue with nuance and thoughtfulness. It's either, you're for us or against us, right? This begs the question, is it that CT has gone heretic, or are its critics dogmatic?
I, for one, have noticed a trend to intellectual disinterest and mob-mentality within Christianity. Many Christians cling to black-and-white paradigms, calling anything that doesn't conform to it heretical or blasphemous. Of course, that is not to say that heretics and blasphemers don't exist. Nuance, once again, is critical to the conversation. Sweeping judgements and hasty generalizations don't make for good apologetics.