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.”
The point of this article was to demonstrate how CT has drifted into the throes of theological liberalism, which is commonly defined as a philosophy that emphasizes human reason and experience over any doctrinal authority. The cultural/political examples you mentioned were pulled from just a few weeks of each other at the time of publication...sadly, there have since been many more examples from CT that would qualify for inclusion here.
I am not arguing for political conservatism here. Political liberalism and theological liberalism are not the same thing, I realize not everyone understands that. The paradigm here is not left/right, but up/down: do we exist under the authority of the word of God, or above it? Do we stand in judgment over it, or does it stand in judgment over us?
We may see this differently, but my argument here is taking what amount to clear partisan stands on cultural/political issues such as encouraging pronoun hospitality or the repeated ad hominem attacks on Trump (and not Biden, considering when the article was written) only make sense when seen as the byproduct of a deeper shift towards theological liberalism that is content to interpret Scriptural principals according to personal aesthetic preferences. My overall point was that Billy Graham originally founded CT to combat stuff like this, but unfortunately it has become the thing it aspired to stand against. Hope that helps.
Brother, thank you for your gracious response to my snarky comment. You have heaped burning coal upon my head.
I will attempt to respond thoughtfully. Your examples seem to be on the political spectrum vs. a theological one. For example, Jesus being Asian vs. European. I don’t see theological drift in such a declaration. Saying Jesus isn’t white doesn’t make you Rob Bell, it makes you Ken Burns. Your example of pronouns doesn’t necessitate theological drift. A orthodox believer may draw from the incarnation of Christ, or the doctrine of Condescension, and choose to employ people’s pronouns. This would not be an abandonment of Biblical Anthropology, but maybe an application of different doctrine. And the Trump/Biden stuff is purely political. Perhaps Christianity Today has left the American Church’s right political leanings, and not the ancient way of Christ.
You say you are arguing about up/down, but your examples fleshing this out aren’t conclusive.
Saying Jesus isn’t white / Anglo also just makes you correct. Could debate whether “Asian” is an accurate descriptor. But again, I think CT was simply trying to encourage American evangelicals (who are mostly white) to picture Jesus as an eastern, non white man.
I think the pronouns piece was framed more as “here’s how a few different Christians are navigating whether to use people’s preferred pronouns or list their own in certain settings”. Christians can approach that differently while holding more conservative views about transgenderism, sexuality, etc.
The author says “there are more examples I could cite” but that’s not the issue you are pointing out. The question is “Are there any examples of CT demonstrating theological liberalism or heterodox theology? Or ‘drift’?” Because none have been cited.
I was responding to Ernesto who was referencing one of the stories you cited in the piece.
Your piece implies that a CT story highlighting how Asian cultures (rather than Western cultures) have conceptualized Advent belies theological drift at CT somehow
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.
Now, as for this "sin of nuance," I would counter with the "sin of common-sense hermeneutics." In the article, Tradition, the Bible, and America’s Debate over Slavery," Dr. Paul Gutacker writes,
"A common-sense hermeneutic meant that simple interpretations of scripture carried greater weight. The proslavery argument was fairly easy to understand: there was no obvious “thou shalt not own slaves” verse, but there were plenty of passages that seemed to assume the existence of slavery (“slaves obey your masters”).
The antislavery case relied on more complicated exegesis. It always involved at least one step of inference. For example, people said that the “golden rule” prohibited slavery because no one wanted to be a slave. Because it always required at least one step of interpretation, the antislavery argument was necessarily less persuasive. "
As you can see, the slippery slope goes both ways. There are those who use nuance to justify the unjustifiable. There are those who oversimplify an idea, creating strawmen out of 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.” Bitter irony, indeed. Like a snake eating it’s own tale is the one who fears men. They’ve plagued their own thinking with “what will we be known for?” theology and like any sin, it’s self-devouring. Rigney calls this- what many of us can do and what CT is doing- “image management” and pretty soon what you’re known for is being obsessed with what you’re known for. The lack of substance and the pandering will of course continue to hurt them. In an attempt to stay relevant, they’ll continue to become irrelevant.
For being one of the few Christian outlets that was unwilling to bend the knee to Trump, I’ll continue to give CT the benefit of the doubt. They are not perfect, but are engaged in the culture and how Christians should thoughtfully deal with it.
Eddie, thanks for reading. I don’t think everything CT puts out is categorically bad, some of their writers have produced articles in recent years that I’ve found insightful. Obviously, I do think there is an undercurrent of liberalism that has swayed the perspective of their reporting. But that doesn’t mean they can’t produce anything true or helpful.
I’ve come to think how someone feels about CT is preceded by whether they feel the Christian witness is in greater jeopardy than the Christian message, or the other way around.
Can you say more about the greater jeopardy in Christian Witness v Christian Message? I have a sense of what you mean, but would love you flesh it out more, if you're up for it. My immediate reaction is you might be right.
All due respect, none of your critiques have anything to do with the Gospel or theology.
The examples you cite show CT offering a perspective - or in some cases simply holding space for Christian dialogue - on culturally pertinent or political topics. Some of the perspectives they offer are more center-right or center-left vs. the broader American evangelical church but would be middle of the fairway for the church in many other western nations (for example, the UK where I used to live).
It is a distinctly American evangelical phenomenon that Christians believe the Spirit bears witness with the work of say Daily Wire or Bill O’Reilly or Candace Owens or TGC, while CT has lost its way.
We should be at least as concerned about conservative political idolatry kneecapping our witness as we are about cultural progressivism. In my view, those who have conservative political impulses should be vigilant about the former. And vice a versa for those with more progressive impulses. Instead, we mostly worry about alternative political ideologies invading our churches and seek to root them out. So conservatives view progressivism as an existential threat to the church and our more politically progressive brothers and sisters “other” conservatives as small minded fundamentalists.
Not a recipe for a self reflective Church holding the gospel with white knuckles and our political views loosely. But alas, here we are.
My Daily Wire point was overstated to make the following point: If politically conservative Christians are more concerned about what they view as “unbiblical leftward drift” than they are about the potential for their own political priors to lead them (unknowingly) into “unbiblical rightward drift” - and vice a versa for politically progressive Christians - is that not a recipe for more self righteousness and division in the church?
Afterall, the lies we believe (whether knowingly or unknowingly) impact our formation & witness
far more than the “drift” we discern in others who do not share our political priors. Maybe I’m projecting, but that’s a fundamental challenge I have with pieces like this.
Thank you for clarifying your argument. But I am very much missing the connection between the stories you reference and theological drift of any kind. If that is the crux of your thesis I would address that explicitly as you further develop these ideas. By not addressing this head on, the reader is forced to make those connections on their own. And guess which readers will make that connection? Those who already agree with your thesis about CT. And again, that plays directly into my broader concern above.
Of course politics, culture, and theology are connected. But political arguments and theological arguments are not the same. And when your thesis is primarily theological but the examples bearing the weight of your thesis are primarily cultural/political you need to draw out the connections explicitly.
At any rate, thanks for your great work and writing. Keep it up and I hope this was constructive in some way!
Thanks for reading John. I think you may be conflating something you see elsewhere with what I'm arguing for here.
I'm certainly not saying anything about the Daily Wire or Candace Owens in this article. The ideal is not for a publication like Christianity Today to be "Fox News for Christians." Personally, I don't resonate at all with the "American evangelical phenomenon" or the Sprit bearing witness through conservative media you're expressing here. Maybe that's something you see in your circles, but that's not at all something I'm arguing for here.
CT is a news site that discusses cultural issues from a Christian perspective. Ostensibly, their job is to help people think about cultural issues through the lens of a biblical worldview. I'm making the case that these stories, through what they say and what they glaringly omit, suggest a philosophical shift towards a more theologically liberal understanding of the world, one that eschews the ultimate authority of Scripture for a more culturally palatable position under the guise of "a condition of low visibility," claiming neutrality and nuance despite Scripture speaking clearly to how we should think about human anthropology, justice, the person of Christ, etc. To me, that perspective is fair game for criticism.
Saying my critique "doesn't have anything to do with the Gospel or theology" is interesting. I would argue that there are significant theological elements to the conversations surrounding each of the stories mentioned here, especially when you consider that political engagement is ultimately an expression of one's theology, however you slice it. If your argument is that I did not sufficiently express how those stories are reflective of theological drift in this article, I could understand that. But to say there are no theological components informing these political stories is probably a point of divergence for the two of us.
Guess I’ll chime in too seeing some of the comments here.
I think there is something to be said of CT’s shift from (probably) a center-right to a center-left position on several matters. Obviously this has something to do with Moore as its editor. If anything though I tend to think it tends to function somewhat like an academic circle in many ways and doesn’t quite do journalism like WORLD, which could explain a progressive lean left and explain why I think many are feeling it’s moving to some point of irrelevance.
However, it is worth saying that the mention of Rigney (whose book on empathy I find conceptually rather odd) and Wilson in your article says something about the point of view you’re coming from. Both of these names seem to point towards a type of Christian Nationalism lite that is drifting in an equally concerning opposite direction as CT. What I would propose is this (alt right?) version of Christianity has sought to set itself up as some sort of gatekeeper of conservatism in recent times. I’ve watched people like Meg Basham (who also seems to float around with these names) very much play a type-of “who is truly conservative” game show.
I admit my comment can sound a little scathing but in some ways I’m frustrated that a rising group of (loosely? Or maybe not?) connected people seem to want to dictate that if conservatism doesn’t look like their views of things then it isn’t conservatism. This is exactly the playbook the Christian Nationalists are playing, and that movement is very fast moving into ethnic nationalism (predictably).
It’s frustrating as people like me who otherwise are conservative are now not considered as such if we’re not on the Christian Nationalism train. But who made that decision? CT when it started was certainly much “big tent” but “big tent” is apparently now Left and not conservative. Well all that’s going to happen if this continues is in ten years a whole lot of young people are all just going to shift Left again because the Left may end up becoming “Big Tent” if the conservatives don’t stop trying to be so purist about who is in and who is out and increasingly narrow who can be in their club.
Thanks for this piece. CT’s decline has been evident for several years, and Russell Moore’s leadership has accelerated it. It’s hard to nail down just what happened, but I could tell something was going on with CT’s celebrated “Mars Hill” podcast. While the podcast was fascinating there was a subtext where it felt as if it was also about CT and its vision of staking out some sort of middle ground in American evangelicalism. A “Mark Driscoll is bad but we’re good” vibe. Since then, the decline has accelerated, to the point where a couple of friends and I would periodically comb through the magazine and count the number of times the word “lament” was used, since that seemed to be the virtue signal of CT’s purity. I’m not at all sure how CT makes it much longer as a viable publication. Its pop style of religious journalism can’t compete with the serious theological interaction of publications like “First Things.”
I do listen to a good amount of CT’s podcast production and read some articles each month. I find that most of their editorial team and regular contributors have some personal history of being pushed out of their denominational homes. That's true for Russell Moore, Mike Cosper, David French, and Beth Moore. I think that shared experience has them working towards some ‘third way’ which is theologically evangelical but politically/socially trying to squish somewhere in the middle. Sometimes it works as a way to engage the culture with grace, a Leslie Newbigin approach to the gospel in a pluralist society. Other times, it feels like taking the “middle way” as practice rather than for substance. That gets to questionable articles like you highlighted.
Agreed. Authors like this and other pro-Trumpers have just decided that CT is totally off the rails solely because of what they know about Russell Moore’s political stance.
The sad thing is I really WANT to like CT! There is occasionally a thoughtful article/idea. Every few years I take their bait and subscribe again via some super sale and then not too long later just feel blasted by their senseless progressiveness and arrogance. The undertone that if you disagree you're a moron is easily scratched under the pretty veneer, and then I get annoyed and cancel my subscription.
I've seen the drift too. Francis Schaeffer would probably nod his head with Machen on the comment of "Told ya." I think Tim Keller did a decent job at approaching cultural drift in a graceful manner. Life after the Fall is hard. Oy.
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.”
Hi Ernesto, thanks for reading.
The point of this article was to demonstrate how CT has drifted into the throes of theological liberalism, which is commonly defined as a philosophy that emphasizes human reason and experience over any doctrinal authority. The cultural/political examples you mentioned were pulled from just a few weeks of each other at the time of publication...sadly, there have since been many more examples from CT that would qualify for inclusion here.
I am not arguing for political conservatism here. Political liberalism and theological liberalism are not the same thing, I realize not everyone understands that. The paradigm here is not left/right, but up/down: do we exist under the authority of the word of God, or above it? Do we stand in judgment over it, or does it stand in judgment over us?
We may see this differently, but my argument here is taking what amount to clear partisan stands on cultural/political issues such as encouraging pronoun hospitality or the repeated ad hominem attacks on Trump (and not Biden, considering when the article was written) only make sense when seen as the byproduct of a deeper shift towards theological liberalism that is content to interpret Scriptural principals according to personal aesthetic preferences. My overall point was that Billy Graham originally founded CT to combat stuff like this, but unfortunately it has become the thing it aspired to stand against. Hope that helps.
Brother, thank you for your gracious response to my snarky comment. You have heaped burning coal upon my head.
I will attempt to respond thoughtfully. Your examples seem to be on the political spectrum vs. a theological one. For example, Jesus being Asian vs. European. I don’t see theological drift in such a declaration. Saying Jesus isn’t white doesn’t make you Rob Bell, it makes you Ken Burns. Your example of pronouns doesn’t necessitate theological drift. A orthodox believer may draw from the incarnation of Christ, or the doctrine of Condescension, and choose to employ people’s pronouns. This would not be an abandonment of Biblical Anthropology, but maybe an application of different doctrine. And the Trump/Biden stuff is purely political. Perhaps Christianity Today has left the American Church’s right political leanings, and not the ancient way of Christ.
You say you are arguing about up/down, but your examples fleshing this out aren’t conclusive.
Again, thank you for your most gracious answer.
Saying Jesus isn’t white / Anglo also just makes you correct. Could debate whether “Asian” is an accurate descriptor. But again, I think CT was simply trying to encourage American evangelicals (who are mostly white) to picture Jesus as an eastern, non white man.
I think the pronouns piece was framed more as “here’s how a few different Christians are navigating whether to use people’s preferred pronouns or list their own in certain settings”. Christians can approach that differently while holding more conservative views about transgenderism, sexuality, etc.
The author says “there are more examples I could cite” but that’s not the issue you are pointing out. The question is “Are there any examples of CT demonstrating theological liberalism or heterodox theology? Or ‘drift’?” Because none have been cited.
At no point in the article did I argue Jesus was white.
I was responding to Ernesto who was referencing one of the stories you cited in the piece.
Your piece implies that a CT story highlighting how Asian cultures (rather than Western cultures) have conceptualized Advent belies theological drift at CT somehow
Yes, this. Also the idea that CT was promoting an Asian Jesus is a total misrepresentation of that article.
CT reader who continues to appreciate the publication here.
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.
Now, as for this "sin of nuance," I would counter with the "sin of common-sense hermeneutics." In the article, Tradition, the Bible, and America’s Debate over Slavery," Dr. Paul Gutacker writes,
"A common-sense hermeneutic meant that simple interpretations of scripture carried greater weight. The proslavery argument was fairly easy to understand: there was no obvious “thou shalt not own slaves” verse, but there were plenty of passages that seemed to assume the existence of slavery (“slaves obey your masters”).
The antislavery case relied on more complicated exegesis. It always involved at least one step of inference. For example, people said that the “golden rule” prohibited slavery because no one wanted to be a slave. Because it always required at least one step of interpretation, the antislavery argument was necessarily less persuasive. "
As you can see, the slippery slope goes both ways. There are those who use nuance to justify the unjustifiable. There are those who oversimplify an idea, creating strawmen out of 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.” Bitter irony, indeed. Like a snake eating it’s own tale is the one who fears men. They’ve plagued their own thinking with “what will we be known for?” theology and like any sin, it’s self-devouring. Rigney calls this- what many of us can do and what CT is doing- “image management” and pretty soon what you’re known for is being obsessed with what you’re known for. The lack of substance and the pandering will of course continue to hurt them. In an attempt to stay relevant, they’ll continue to become irrelevant.
For being one of the few Christian outlets that was unwilling to bend the knee to Trump, I’ll continue to give CT the benefit of the doubt. They are not perfect, but are engaged in the culture and how Christians should thoughtfully deal with it.
Eddie, thanks for reading. I don’t think everything CT puts out is categorically bad, some of their writers have produced articles in recent years that I’ve found insightful. Obviously, I do think there is an undercurrent of liberalism that has swayed the perspective of their reporting. But that doesn’t mean they can’t produce anything true or helpful.
I’ve come to think how someone feels about CT is preceded by whether they feel the Christian witness is in greater jeopardy than the Christian message, or the other way around.
Can you say more about the greater jeopardy in Christian Witness v Christian Message? I have a sense of what you mean, but would love you flesh it out more, if you're up for it. My immediate reaction is you might be right.
All due respect, none of your critiques have anything to do with the Gospel or theology.
The examples you cite show CT offering a perspective - or in some cases simply holding space for Christian dialogue - on culturally pertinent or political topics. Some of the perspectives they offer are more center-right or center-left vs. the broader American evangelical church but would be middle of the fairway for the church in many other western nations (for example, the UK where I used to live).
It is a distinctly American evangelical phenomenon that Christians believe the Spirit bears witness with the work of say Daily Wire or Bill O’Reilly or Candace Owens or TGC, while CT has lost its way.
We should be at least as concerned about conservative political idolatry kneecapping our witness as we are about cultural progressivism. In my view, those who have conservative political impulses should be vigilant about the former. And vice a versa for those with more progressive impulses. Instead, we mostly worry about alternative political ideologies invading our churches and seek to root them out. So conservatives view progressivism as an existential threat to the church and our more politically progressive brothers and sisters “other” conservatives as small minded fundamentalists.
Not a recipe for a self reflective Church holding the gospel with white knuckles and our political views loosely. But alas, here we are.
Thanks for the response.
My Daily Wire point was overstated to make the following point: If politically conservative Christians are more concerned about what they view as “unbiblical leftward drift” than they are about the potential for their own political priors to lead them (unknowingly) into “unbiblical rightward drift” - and vice a versa for politically progressive Christians - is that not a recipe for more self righteousness and division in the church?
Afterall, the lies we believe (whether knowingly or unknowingly) impact our formation & witness
far more than the “drift” we discern in others who do not share our political priors. Maybe I’m projecting, but that’s a fundamental challenge I have with pieces like this.
Thank you for clarifying your argument. But I am very much missing the connection between the stories you reference and theological drift of any kind. If that is the crux of your thesis I would address that explicitly as you further develop these ideas. By not addressing this head on, the reader is forced to make those connections on their own. And guess which readers will make that connection? Those who already agree with your thesis about CT. And again, that plays directly into my broader concern above.
Of course politics, culture, and theology are connected. But political arguments and theological arguments are not the same. And when your thesis is primarily theological but the examples bearing the weight of your thesis are primarily cultural/political you need to draw out the connections explicitly.
At any rate, thanks for your great work and writing. Keep it up and I hope this was constructive in some way!
Thanks for reading John. I think you may be conflating something you see elsewhere with what I'm arguing for here.
I'm certainly not saying anything about the Daily Wire or Candace Owens in this article. The ideal is not for a publication like Christianity Today to be "Fox News for Christians." Personally, I don't resonate at all with the "American evangelical phenomenon" or the Sprit bearing witness through conservative media you're expressing here. Maybe that's something you see in your circles, but that's not at all something I'm arguing for here.
CT is a news site that discusses cultural issues from a Christian perspective. Ostensibly, their job is to help people think about cultural issues through the lens of a biblical worldview. I'm making the case that these stories, through what they say and what they glaringly omit, suggest a philosophical shift towards a more theologically liberal understanding of the world, one that eschews the ultimate authority of Scripture for a more culturally palatable position under the guise of "a condition of low visibility," claiming neutrality and nuance despite Scripture speaking clearly to how we should think about human anthropology, justice, the person of Christ, etc. To me, that perspective is fair game for criticism.
Saying my critique "doesn't have anything to do with the Gospel or theology" is interesting. I would argue that there are significant theological elements to the conversations surrounding each of the stories mentioned here, especially when you consider that political engagement is ultimately an expression of one's theology, however you slice it. If your argument is that I did not sufficiently express how those stories are reflective of theological drift in this article, I could understand that. But to say there are no theological components informing these political stories is probably a point of divergence for the two of us.
I hate that so many people interpret anti-Trump as being pro liberal. Objectivity has become an artifact.
Guess I’ll chime in too seeing some of the comments here.
I think there is something to be said of CT’s shift from (probably) a center-right to a center-left position on several matters. Obviously this has something to do with Moore as its editor. If anything though I tend to think it tends to function somewhat like an academic circle in many ways and doesn’t quite do journalism like WORLD, which could explain a progressive lean left and explain why I think many are feeling it’s moving to some point of irrelevance.
However, it is worth saying that the mention of Rigney (whose book on empathy I find conceptually rather odd) and Wilson in your article says something about the point of view you’re coming from. Both of these names seem to point towards a type of Christian Nationalism lite that is drifting in an equally concerning opposite direction as CT. What I would propose is this (alt right?) version of Christianity has sought to set itself up as some sort of gatekeeper of conservatism in recent times. I’ve watched people like Meg Basham (who also seems to float around with these names) very much play a type-of “who is truly conservative” game show.
I admit my comment can sound a little scathing but in some ways I’m frustrated that a rising group of (loosely? Or maybe not?) connected people seem to want to dictate that if conservatism doesn’t look like their views of things then it isn’t conservatism. This is exactly the playbook the Christian Nationalists are playing, and that movement is very fast moving into ethnic nationalism (predictably).
It’s frustrating as people like me who otherwise are conservative are now not considered as such if we’re not on the Christian Nationalism train. But who made that decision? CT when it started was certainly much “big tent” but “big tent” is apparently now Left and not conservative. Well all that’s going to happen if this continues is in ten years a whole lot of young people are all just going to shift Left again because the Left may end up becoming “Big Tent” if the conservatives don’t stop trying to be so purist about who is in and who is out and increasingly narrow who can be in their club.
https://open.substack.com/pub/poetpastor/p/what-if-justice-was-normal?r=5gejob&utm_medium=ios
Thanks for this piece. CT’s decline has been evident for several years, and Russell Moore’s leadership has accelerated it. It’s hard to nail down just what happened, but I could tell something was going on with CT’s celebrated “Mars Hill” podcast. While the podcast was fascinating there was a subtext where it felt as if it was also about CT and its vision of staking out some sort of middle ground in American evangelicalism. A “Mark Driscoll is bad but we’re good” vibe. Since then, the decline has accelerated, to the point where a couple of friends and I would periodically comb through the magazine and count the number of times the word “lament” was used, since that seemed to be the virtue signal of CT’s purity. I’m not at all sure how CT makes it much longer as a viable publication. Its pop style of religious journalism can’t compete with the serious theological interaction of publications like “First Things.”
I’ve been wondering about this…
I do listen to a good amount of CT’s podcast production and read some articles each month. I find that most of their editorial team and regular contributors have some personal history of being pushed out of their denominational homes. That's true for Russell Moore, Mike Cosper, David French, and Beth Moore. I think that shared experience has them working towards some ‘third way’ which is theologically evangelical but politically/socially trying to squish somewhere in the middle. Sometimes it works as a way to engage the culture with grace, a Leslie Newbigin approach to the gospel in a pluralist society. Other times, it feels like taking the “middle way” as practice rather than for substance. That gets to questionable articles like you highlighted.
Agreed. Authors like this and other pro-Trumpers have just decided that CT is totally off the rails solely because of what they know about Russell Moore’s political stance.
The sad thing is I really WANT to like CT! There is occasionally a thoughtful article/idea. Every few years I take their bait and subscribe again via some super sale and then not too long later just feel blasted by their senseless progressiveness and arrogance. The undertone that if you disagree you're a moron is easily scratched under the pretty veneer, and then I get annoyed and cancel my subscription.
I've seen the drift too. Francis Schaeffer would probably nod his head with Machen on the comment of "Told ya." I think Tim Keller did a decent job at approaching cultural drift in a graceful manner. Life after the Fall is hard. Oy.