The recent success of Megan Basham’s Shepherds For Sale is not without opposition, even from strange places like supposed discernment ministries and bloggers. People like Janet Mefferd, Tom Littleton, and perhaps a few others embody a bitterness for the success of Megan Basham’s success.
Coming out with a book might have me feeling competitive with Megan Basham, but although I am competitive by nature, I am not the slightest miffed by Basham’s commercial success. Rather I think a rising tide lifts all boats. What matters more: market share or size of the market?
Evangelical Dark Web operates in a niche newsgathering and commentary space appealing to however many, or few, Christians want discernment. We broke the story of Alistair Begg’s compromise on homosexual weddings. And while that would ultimately result in lasting consequences for Begg, it’s not as though Evangelical Dark Web became a marquee Christian news site as a result. Discernment is often thankless. And many warriors of the past have lived long enough to become villains. This is the sentiment embodied in Protestia’s recent column, “Basham Attacks and Sour Sacks: An Appeal to Mortify Polemicist Pride.”
Protestia, and before it, Pulpit & Pen, was among the first (if not the very first) to raise the issues cited by Megan Basham in Shepherds for Sale. It has been far more than a decade, for example, since we first wrote about Russell Moore. When we did, a friend and well-known conservative Pyromaniacs blogger contacted the founder of our website and told him that criticizing Moore would be the death of his influence (and should be) because Moore was a Calvinist and, therefore, solid.
Protestia would benefit from this risk, but it is far from an overnight success story.
This is the natural, fleshly feeling that we believe some have tapped into to become angry caricatures of their former selves. This is because, although we were mostly alone, we were not entirely alone. There were others among the seven thousand straight-kneed evangelicals. These include, but are not limited to, Brannon Howse, Janet Mefferd, Tommy Littleton, Alan Atchinson, Michael O’Fallon, and more. Few, if any, big-namers got into the game to any serious degree. Heavyweights like John MacArthur’s short retorts would make headlines for “Go Home” or “Unqualified,” but he largely avoided the skirmishes setting fire around us, preferring instead to send surrogates who could not pack quite the punch. We were alone back in the days before G3, before Sovereign Nations, before The Dallas Statement, before the Conservative Baptist Network, before Founders focused on anything besides Calvinism, or James White opined on much besides apologetics (as thankful as we are for all of the above).
Janet Mefferd, a come-lately conservative critic of Basham, will be our example. JD Hall, Protestia’s Founder, was a guest on Mefferd’s radio program in 2019 to discuss the FBC Naples situation that Greear attempted to exonerate himself of due to ignorance. Mefferd was in agreement at the timewith his assessment (which is the same as Basham’s assessment) of the situation. The leftward trajectory of the Greear-led SBC was certainly not in contention. Discussed in that podcast between the two were the very issues written about in Shepherds for Sale. It was clear then what side Mefferd was on. Mefferd has criticized, at length, nearly every single leader highlighted in Shepherds for Sale and for the same reasons as Megan Basham.
Writing a book with the pages necessary to cover all the ways Mefferd preemptively corroborated the overarching truths of Basham’s book would be a voluminous bug-killer because she sounded the alarm on liberalism’s encroachment into evangelicalism more loudly than almost anyone with a polished radio program. So what changed?
Again, judging our own hearts is hard enough, but Mefferd is not the only example of someone who appears unreasonably bitter toward Basham in an unreasonable and unexpected way. There are a number of others, albeit small in number. Unfortunately for the Cause, each and every absconder from our side is used as propaganda by the enemies of our Savior as a reason to throw Basham’s baby out with the bathwater.
So this was a rather bold few paragraphs by Protestia, but they further highlight the irony of someone who had no qualms targeting JD Greear until Megan Basham came along, or perhaps Christian Nationalism broke her.
I found this paragraph to be personally encouraging.
Caricatures exist because there is a certain truth within them, albeit exaggerated. For those of us still nursing trench-foot from the days we were alone in the foxhole, we have had to consistently strive not to be the caricature the left has made of us. We are not doing this just for the thrill of controversy. We are not doing this just to build a following. We are not doing this to make a name for ourselves. We do not revel in the excitement. No friends, we are fighters for a cause that is bigger than ourselves. We do this not for ourselves but for our children and God’s children.
Lastly, it’s worth noting that the work of discernment ministries is what piqued Megan Basham’s interest in stories that expose corruption in Evangelicalism which she gave a much larger audience. Her success is our success.
