An Open Response to Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale

I’ve gone back and forth over the last several days on whether to post a response to Megan Basham’s newly released book, Shepherds for Sale. I wasn’t sure I’d have anything helpful to add to a conversation with so many voices in it already.

In addition to that, God never calls us to defend our own reputations and, for what it’s worth, over the years Basham’s perspective and critiques have been personally helpful to me. 

That said, we serve a God of truth, and if the errors regarding me in this book are any indication of its broader accuracy, then the reader should be cautious about taking her claims at face value. 

Let me apologize in advance that this will be a marathon article. If you lose patience traversing through the weeds, at the end I offer some concluding thoughts, including a few things I want to say to Megan Basham—and would have said, had she reached out to me for clarification or confirmation of the accusations she was making in this book. My primary aim, however, is to make sure the people of The Summit Church are equipped to answer any question they might receive about me or our ministry, since the shepherd that Basham describes in this book is not the pastor they have known for more than 20 years.

Basham believes several pastors and ministry leaders have sold out the church for money, power, and influence, particularly with the left-leaning power structures in our society. This is a serious accusation. If those who are called to be pastors use that role to gain the things of this world, they are disqualified as pastors or leaders. 

Basham has recently said on Twitter X that she did not intend to say that every person named in her book was a pastoral sell-out, but she took pains in pre-book launch interviews to say that she was surprised to see how many of the “roads” of compromise led back to Raleigh, specifically to me. 

I bear no ill will against Megan Basham. We’ve actually never met in person that I can recall. In January of 2020, she and Nick Eicher interviewed me by phone for World Magazine about a podcast I had done two months prior on how Christians should handle the pronoun issue with those in their lives struggling with gender dysphoria. I thought she did a great job with the interview, and she pressed in with tough but fair questions. I addressed the issue again in 2022, explaining how my thinking had (I hope) matured and grown clearer, even as my basic approach remained the same—“speak the whole truth” and “stay in relationship if you can.” 

In early 2023, Basham asked a mutual friend if he thought I’d be willing to talk with her about how certain ideas spread throughout evangelicalism. I was hesitant (because of how she had misrepresented me and others in the past), but I was open to hearing from her. Our mutual friend encouraged her to reach out to me. My office has no record of ever receiving any request from her. I was also surprised that after what seemed like a rather general request about evangelicalism over a year and a half ago, her new book contains a litany of very specific charges against me.

Basham is asking many vital questions. Personally, I need them. If “love of this present world” corrupted some of the Apostle Paul’s companions, it can certainly happen to me, too. As iron sharpens iron, challenging questions help us see where we lack courage or fail to communicate with clarity. I believe this can be done while honoring truth and treating one another with charity, befitting the Savior whose name we bear. 

Unfortunately, Shepherds for Sale takes a different approach. Its reporting is neither careful nor charitable, and in many places, demonstrably untrue, as even the simplest of internet searches reveals. 

I’ve compiled some of the problematic claims made specifically about me, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), and The Summit Church, though time and space would not allow me to address all of them. (There were others about SBC politics, the COVID vaccine and more that I’ve chosen to leave aside for now.) 

One quick note: One or two of the errors I point out do not radically change the larger point Basham is trying to make. I don’t point out these kinds of errors to be pedantic, but because journalistic integrity is essential to long-term credibility, and both Basham and HarperCollins have failed in their professional duties to perform due diligence to ensure accurate reporting. The number of errors involving me (who is not even her primary target in this book) suggests this is not a careful work of charitable, journalistic reflection. 

Finally, I want to state up front and unequivocally that our church has never received funding from any political groups, and I have never received any financial incentives to take a particular position. The book never charges me with that specifically, but since that is part of its overall thesis, I want to be clear.

Now, let me address six of the most significant issues related to me and The Summit Church: 

1. Statements about the Bible “whispering” about sexual sin
2. Race, the SBC, and Black Lives Matter
3. Ethnic diversity and SBC committee appointments
4. The “Eleventh Commandment” and calling those who disagree with me “demonic”
5. Immigration
6. First Baptist Church of Naples, Florida

Alright, here goes …

1. Statements about the Bible “whispering” about sexual sin 

Megan Basham, Shepherds for Sale (MB, SFS): Though he reversed his position after two years of pushback, North Carolina megachurch pastor J. D. Greear, while president of the Southern Baptist Convention, encouraged his congregation to minimize speaking about sexual sins like homosexuality, saying they should not “shout about what the Bible whispers about”—as if the destruction of Sodom and Paul’s description in Romans 1 of the progression of societal depravity were mere murmurs.

J.D.: I suppose it’s fitting we start with this one, as it has become, by now, a very familiar critique. 

First, I have not changed my position on homosexuality or changed how I encouraged our congregation to engage with it. Multiple streams of evidence show that. I used a poor choice of words that allowed my meaning to be misconstrued, especially when those words were lifted out of context of the rest of the message. When it became clear that people outside of our church thought I was minimizing or denying the sinfulness of homosexuality, I took responsibility for my failure in communication and clarified my position. 

The sermon in question did not minimize speaking about the sin of homosexuality, mute homosexuality’s sinfulness, or encourage our congregation to do so (if you listen to the sermon you will hear that it refers at least seven times to homosexuality’s sinfulness). Just before the section of the sermon Basham pulled from, I had quoted in full Paul’s warning from 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 that those embracing or practicing homosexuality would not inherit the kingdom of God, and just after it I told gay and lesbian people that to go to heaven they must repent and be born again, which I said meant they must say something to God like:

God, I’m sorry for elevating my desires over your will. I’m sorry for attempting to define my identity apart from your design for me. I’m sorry for taking on myself the authority to declare what’s good. I’m sorry for seeking satisfaction in self-fulfillment rather than from giving glory to you. I recognize Jesus is Lord and turn over control to him. (See the actual transcript.)

In using “whisper” I was making a comparison with how Jesus talked about pride and religious hypocrisy versus how he talked with those he encountered in sexual sin (i.e., compare his tone in Matthew 23 with the tone of his conversations in John 4 and John 8). I was attempting to show that whenever Jesus dealt with someone in sexual sin in the Gospels, he spoke to them up close, with tenderness, as individuals with stories, even as he made clear their sin to them. In the sermon itself, in the statements that immediately followed, that is exactly how I contextualized what I meant by “whispers.”

As I’ve acknowledged multiple times, my use of the word “whisper” to make that point was confusing and could be misleading. I apologized for the word use in this blog post and in this podcast. I acknowledged that faults in communication are almost always the fault of the communicator, and that I was guilty of using unwise and unhelpful words. 

No one at the Summit that day and no one familiar with my ministry thought I was minimizing the sin of homosexuality or encouraging anyone else to do so. In fact, I received multiple complaints from people in the LGBTQ community after that message. 

Not only was the entire sermon in question dedicated to the sinfulness of homosexuality, but I’ve made numerous other statements about homosexuality before (including this one with Voddie Baucham and this 2015 one lamenting the Obergefell decision), following up from, and after that sermon—all of which said the same thing. TGC’s most read article in 2023 was my “Downplaying the Sin of Homosexuality Won’t Win the Next Generation,” where I make my position abundantly clear, and if you compare it to my 2012 article about how Christians should engage homosexuality, you’ll find they are remarkably similar. The above citations come from 2012, 2014, 2015, 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023—and they all say the same thing. 

As we all learned in basic geometry, if you have multiple points on the same trajectory you’ve got a straight line. I’ve cited seven, and there are at least that many more.

2. Race, the SBC, and Black Lives Matter

MB, SFS: In August 2020, then-Southern Baptist Convention president J. D. Greear took part in a panel discussion on the subject of racism. It has become rare in mainstream evangelicalism to hear in-depth theological teaching. Mega-church pastors of Greear’s variety wear not suits and ties, but checked sport shirts, the sleeves rolled up at the wrist, with maybe a fleece Patagonia vest in the fall. Their sermon style tends to be similarly informal, rarely taxing attendees’ attention by delving into theological terms like soteriology or hypostatic. Yet, in recent years, a new form of spiritual jargon—words like hegemony and cultural representation—has peppered their preaching. Out of the pulpit, many have taken up the same social activism that saw New York’s City Hall remove its statue of Thomas Jefferson and school boards across the country rename junior highs so as to disassociate from the likes of Patrick Henry and Francis Scott Key.

National outlets like PBS and the Washington Post had fawned over Greear as … an antiracist reformer. Among his highest priorities for the SBC in 2020—retiring the 150-year-old presidential gavel that had belonged to Robert E. Lee’s chaplain and the founder of the first Southern Baptist seminary, John Broadus, a man Charles Spurgeon once called the “greatest of living preachers.” Broadus’s repudiation of slavery in 1882 (he called it “impossible to justify” and denounced it as a product of greed) and his preaching to his fellow white Southerners, “You look with incredulous contempt or horror upon the worship of many negroes. Perchance the angels have a rather poor opinion of your worship,” were not enough for Greear to retain the artifact. That same year, Greear also made a heavy push to change the SBC’s name to “Great Commission Baptists” as part of what the media called as a “racial reckoning” that would give the denomination a “global” identity.

J.D.: There are a lot of problems here, so I’ll try to tackle each piece individually. 

• Changing the name to Great Commission Baptists. Contrary to Basham’s claim, I didn’t make a heavy push to change the SBC’s name. The SBC had itself decided several years prior to approve “Great Commission Baptists” as an optional alternate descriptor for those who would prefer to use it. Bryant Wright’s appointed task force, led by Jimmy Draper, recommended in 2012 that the SBC keep its legal name but adopt an informal name that churches could use if desired, and the messengers approved their recommendation. That task force was made up of 20 leaders from across the Convention, including men like Albert Mohler, David Dockery, and Paige Patterson (whose personal remarks about the matter can be found here).

This was not the first time in SBC history that a name change was suggested or considered—not even close! A deep dive of SBC Annuals will show motions over multiple years calling for a new name, beginning as early as 1903. SBC Life reported that between 1965 and 2004, the matter had been raised at least seven times. Additionally, when the 2012 task force began their process, they received a strong positive response, with 1,151 individuals submitting 586 distinct suggestions. Meeting in New Orleans in 2012, messengers approved the “Great Commission Baptist” descriptor.

Building on that, nine years later, I announced that the theme of the 2021 Annual Meeting would be “We Are Great Commission Baptists” and that The Summit Church would begin using that descriptor, which had been approved in 2012. I said straightforwardly, then, that I was picking up the advocacy that had been started nine years before. But I didn’t stop using the official name of the SBC completely, then or now. I still refer to the Southern Baptist Convention in my bio, and I use both the legal name and the descriptor at various times. I still believe that calling us to be Great Commission Baptists is a good thing. And even if I’m not in the majority when I use it, that’s fine, because use of it was approved by a Convention majority.

(This one has already been pointed out by others. Samuel James included it in his review of Shepherds for Sale, and others have discussed it on social media.) 

• The gavel. I did, in fact, use a different gavel for the SBC Annual Meeting in 2021, so that part is not technically a factual error. I’m confused as to how choosing a different gavel (which was my prerogative) makes me a progressive or a sell-out. After my first Convention, Adelle Banks wrote an article for RNS pointing out the contrast between our reverence surrounding the Broadus gavel and our focus on racial reconciliation at the meeting. She quoted former SBC Executive Committee (SBCEC) Vice President Sing Oldham who said that given the history of the gavel, it was worth considering the message it sent. 

The gavel used to preside over the Annual Meeting sits in a display case 363 days out of the year, and we bring it out annually with a certain level of pomp and circumstance. Leading up to the 2021 Convention, I was surprised to learn that there were actually multiple gavels in that display case, and for a long time SBC presidents would use several in the same meeting. (I really should have paid better attention in Baptist History class. Sorry, Dr. Harper!) It was only in recent years that the Broadus gavel had been used as the singular gavel for the entire meeting, and I was actually delighted to learn from SBCEC staff that I could choose what I wanted to use.

I shared my reasoning in a First Person article about why, at our next Annual Meeting, I wanted to use the Judson gavel—made from the bedpost of Adoniram Judson—and the Annie Armstrong gavel. Adoniram Judson was one of the earliest missionaries sent out by Baptists, and Annie Armstrong was a trailblazer for domestic missions. Judson’s story had been a key part of my calling into ministry, and I named my son after him. In the article, I acknowledged that Broadus had changed his views on slavery later in life, and I expressed gratitude for that (statements Basham may have been unaware of, as her citations for that did not include my original statement). But, I also made the case that “given the role that slavery played in the formation of the SBC, mixed messages were still being sent” and that I believed it prudent to make clear that our primary purpose in coming together, our primary defining identity, was for faithful gospel mission: 

As we continue coming together for the sake of missions and church planting, keeping the Gospel above all our secondary and tertiary issues and uniting in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, retiring the Broadus gavel sends a symbolic yet tangible message that we are a convention of all people, made in the image of God, and who matter deeply to God. 

Contrary to what Basham claims, while I did say I thought it was time to retire that particular gavel, I never said that it was one of my highest priorities for the SBC in 2020. As I said, starting in 2020 I didn’t even know it was an option! Furthermore, after explaining my choice for the 2021 Convention, I knew that subsequent presidents would get to make their own choice. I was only doing what I thought was right for that moment.

(BTW, I’m fully aware some of you are still stuck in the above paragraph that SBC presidents have a case full of historic gavels to choose from. Ah, yes, we Baptists have a lot of eccentricities. Sometime, let me tell you about the stained-glass exhibit of modern Baptist heroes.)

• “Antiracist reformer.” I’ve tried my best, and I’ve even had a couple members of my team look into this too, and I can’t find any record of PBS, Washington Post, or any other credible outlet calling me an “antiracist reformer.” 

• New spiritual jargon, removing statues, and Patagonia pullovers. Basham’s introductory paragraph moves from a specific reference about me to general references unrelated to me at all. I admit I do like the $10 word as well as the next guy, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve used the word “hegemony” in the pulpit. I’m only 60 percent sure I can pronounce it correctly. And I didn’t participate in any of the social activism surrounding statue removal or the renaming of schools. I have never addressed those things from our pulpit or in any other public context that I can remember. What to do with statues and naming rights is one of those areas that, as a pastor, I feel neither called nor competent to address with the authority of the pulpit behind me. So I don’t. And I don’t own a single thing from Patagonia. But I’d like something … I’m an XL, and my birthday is May 1. My wife says I have a “true summer” palette, if that’s helpful, so stay away from saturated colors. 

• One last note here about Critical Race Theory (CRT), which is a key theme of this chapter: I’ve interacted directly with the topics of systemic racism and CRT in several sermons (like this one here) and podcasts (here and here), but NONE of those sources were utilized for this book. On a related issue, the book’s introduction cites comments I made in June 2020. Basham states: 

Knowing they don’t have the backing of their claimed constituencies, these evangelical leaders turn their pulpits and platforms into vehicles for shaming the rank and file because they will not agree that supporting, say, the Black Lives Matter movement is a “Gospel issue,” necessary to show the world what it means to be faithful followers of Christ. 

Her citation at the end of this paragraph in the book indicates that she was talking about me. This was in a virtual address that I gave after the SBC Annual Meeting was canceled. You can find the transcript of the entire address in the 2020 SBC Annual, beginning on page 53. I said:

We, as Christians, want to hear our brothers and sisters, feel their pain, enter into that pain, and bear that burden with them. Black lives matter. Also, I realize that the Black Lives Matter movement and website have been hijacked by some political operatives whose worldview and policy prescriptions would be deeply at odds with my own, but that doesn’t mean the sentiment behind it is untrue. I do not align myself with the Black Lives Matter organization. I think saying bold things like “defund the police” is unhelpful and deeply disrespectful to many public servants who bravely put themselves in harm’s way every day to protect us. But I know we need to take a deep look at our police systems and structures and ask where we are missing the mark; and I’ll say we do that because black lives matter.

As this paragraph shows, contrary to what Basham claims, I explicitly distanced myself from the BLM movement even as I said Christians could affirm the three words. She further stated that I shamed those who do not support the BLM movement, but I did not even myself support the BLM movement or its official goals and said so.

I understand that Basham (and others) may question whether it was wise to even use the three words “black lives matter,” given that many may confuse affirmation of those words for support of the movement. That is a fair point. But that’s not what she criticizes me for. She says I supported the movement and shamed others if they didn’t. This is untrue. I made clear at the time that I do not align myself with the BLM movement.

3. Ethnic diversity and SBC committee appointments 

MB, SFS: Greear, however, as president of the SBC, was in the best position to fundamentally transform American evangelicalism with a DEI-based hiring philosophy. In May 2019, he delivered a sermon in which he outlined one of his tasks as the national leader of the denomination: appointing people to committees who make further appointments that “end up shaping the institutions,” (those institutions being the SBC seminaries that educate a plurality of pastors of all Protestant denominations; the North American Mission Board that plants churches, provides pastoral training, and supplies chaplains all across the U.S.; and the International Mission Board that sends American missionaries throughout the world). Greear noted with some pride that he took pains to ensure that “two thirds of them [were] either women or they [were] people of color” because “we need their wisdom.”

There are many wise black pastors and women in positions of influence from whom the church benefits, of course, but Greear (in contradiction to Galatians 3:28 and Romans 2:11) was suggesting they had a special wisdom because they were black or because they were women. Theologian Voddie Baucham, himself black, addressed this well with his coinage of the term ethnic Gnosticism. “[It] is the idea that people have special knowledge based solely on their ethnicity,” he wrote in Fault Lines, a book on CRT’s devastating impact on the Church.

J.D.: It was never a secret that diverse committee appointments would be a key goal of my presidency. I made it clear when I ran for SBC president in 2018 that I would focus on six priorities, one being ethnic diversity in leadership (see examples here and here), and I affirmed that again immediately upon being elected (see examples here and here).

What Basham fails to acknowledge, however, was that Southern Baptists had themselves repeatedly called for this for decades. It’s difficult to argue that I was “transforming evangelicalism with a DEI-based hiring philosophy” when Southern Baptists started advocating for this before I could talk. Here is just a digest of official SBC resolutions, statements, and recommendations communicating a collective desire for more diverse appointments: 

• In 1973, the SBC passed “Resolution on Use of Ethnic Groups on Agencies.” 
• In 1974, the SBC passed “Resolution on Minority Groups Representation on Boards.” 
• In 1986, the SBC passed “Resolution on Involvement of Blacks and other Minorities in Southern Baptist Convention Life.” 
• In 1989, the SBC passed “Resolution on Racism.” (I was interested to learn that the 1989 Committee on Resolutions was chaired by Dr. Mark Coppenger, who has been active in current conversations about this topic. He actually made the motion in the meeting to pass this resolution. One clause specifically stated, “Be it further RESOLVED, That our agencies and institutions seek diligently to bring about greater racial and ethnic representation at every level of Southern Baptist institutional life.”)
• In 1996, the SBC’s Inter-Agency Council (IAC) appointed a Racial Reconciliation Task Force, to be chaired by Dr. Richard Land. According to Baptist Press, “In establishing the task force, the IAC called for SBC agency heads ‘to strive for representation on our boards of trustees, our staffs and faculties, and all other bodies, based on biblical qualifications and embracing the ethnic diversity of the Southern Baptist Convention and its churches.’” 
• In 2008, the SBC passed a resolution “On Celebrating the Growing Ethnic Diversity of the Southern Baptist Convention” that had three separate clauses about pursuing a balanced representation of our ethnic diversity in denominational service. 
• In 2011, the SBC approved recommendations by the SBCEC after a study group’s review of ethnic church and ethnic church leader participation in the Convention. The SBCEC specifically stated that these recommendations were “designed to foster conscious awareness of the need to be proactive and intentional in the inclusion of individuals from all ethnic and racial identities within Southern Baptist life.” (The entire report can be found in the 2011 SBC Annual, beginning on page 138. Not only did this report receive overwhelming support from the messengers, but leaders praised its adoption as well, which can be found in media coverage at the time—one example here. The New York Times covered the story, including a quote from Albert Mohler in which he called such steps “a moral responsibility.”
• In 2015, the SBCEC took up the matter again when they published “A Review of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Progress on Racial Reconciliation, 1995–2015.” This can be found in the 2015 SBC Annual, beginning on page 143. 

My point is, I am hardly the pioneer here (you can even see some of my predecessors sharing their own goals and accomplishments in this area here, here, and here). We desire our leadership to reflect both our current membership as well as the communities we feel called to reach, which we believe to be all Americans, not just one socioeconomic slice. Our desire is to reflect the diversity of our membership and proclaim the diversity of the kingdom. In holding this up like a smoking gun, Basham is calling us away from something we have consistently determined to be, not back to something. 

And, contrary to what Basham claims, acknowledging that someone’s background can bring with it certain helpful perspectives is not epistemological “gnosticism.” Is everyone who wants our leaders to include not only megachurch pastors, but pastors of small churches too, guilty of small-church-gnosticism? 

Is pursuing representation of all size churches in our leadership a Galatians 3:28 violation, since in Christ there is neither “small church pastor nor megachurch pastor”? 

Of course, there are some within the critical theory and intersectionality camps who claim that a white male like me is incapable of understanding injustice, oppression, or even Jesus himself. These are egregiously unbiblical and divisive ideas, but the reasoning I gave for pursuing diversity in my appointments bore no similarity to these toxic ideas. There’s an old Scottish proverb that for every mile of road, there are two miles of ditch. The intersectionality crew is in one of the ditches. This book is in the other one, which seems to argue that certain backgrounds or experiences cannot endow us with helpful perspectives.

I made clear that this was not tokenism or a quota system, as we never compromised qualifications in the slightest bit in order to pursue diversity in representation to fulfill some kind of worldly virtue-signaling ideal. My conviction then, and now, was that there were numerous, qualified leaders of color that many of us making the appointments simply weren’t as familiar with because they were not in our immediate networks.

Basham’s assertion that such a priority makes me a “shepherd for sale” is an insult to the many leaders whom I have come to know and respect, men and women who may have never been identified for participation had our Convention not proactively pursued that goal for decades. I’m a better leader today for having worked with those individuals. I say that without apology. 

4. The “Eleventh Commandment” and calling those who disagree with me “demonic”

MB, SFS: When they do respond, leaders like J. D. Greear, then president of the Southern Baptist Convention, have wielded the Eleventh Commandment like a rocket launcher, firing descriptors like “divisive” and “demonic” at any who raise objections to the promotion of critical race theory, feminism, or LGBTQ ideology in SBC ministries. Greear went on to liken those leaving churches over woke teaching to a “synagogue of Satan.”

J.D.: This paragraph reads like it all came from one speech. But the pieces in quotes here came from two talks that were about a year apart. It also implies that I use strong statements like this for people who merely asked questions or who disagree with me on these things, which I did not and do not.

Both within The Summit Church and outside of it, I have always welcomed those bringing questions in good faith. Unity is built upon the art of agreeable disagreement (Romans 14). I constantly solicit input from a variety of people for every message I give and article I write, from people on both sides of whatever issue I’m discussing. I can’t remember the last time I gave a message without doing this. I do it because I know I have blindspots. As Proverbs says, “In a multitude of counselors, there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14).

I have a podcast in which I invite and engage with tough questions from my listeners. In some of those podcasts I talk about where we can agreeably disagree. I’ve invited dialogue, engaged with pushback, and at times adjusted my presentation because of the feedback. See, for example, here and here). Contrary to what Basham says, I have not “fired descriptors like ‘divisive’ and ‘demonic’ at any who raise objections to the promotion of critical race theory.” In fact, in several of those podcasts I have myself issued very serious warnings about the corrosive impacts of CRT (such as here and here) and even spent a section of a whole Sunday morning message discussing it!

What I was critiquing was something else—not objections made in good faith, but attacks from people who refuse honest dialogue, who walk with a divisive spirit, or put primary emphasis on secondary issues. The context of my statements makes that clear. 

The first reference (“demonic”) was in my SBCEC address from February 2021 (before about 100 people), which did not refer to people who “raised objections” at all, but rather those who deliberately stirred up division. Below is an excerpt from my transcript of the address. It is lengthy, but it shows that who and what I was talking about is not as Basham presents it. I was addressing a number of untrue accusations that had been made about me, including that Nancy Pelosi had my number on speed dial and I flew around on George Soros’ private jet:

I was recently asked what is the most surprising thing that you have encountered or learned after being president, now, for these more than two years. And so I asked the interviewer, I said, “Well, are you looking for a positive surprise or a negative surprise?” And they said, “Well, give me both.” And I said, “You know, positively, it is the incredible and encouraging and amazing unity that God has given the—let’s just call them the rank-and-file Southern Baptists in the 47,000 churches across our nation.” 

I have been to state conventions—I think I’ve gotten to almost every one that has invited me, though maybe not all of them—but I’ve been at them all across the United States, and I’m telling you from the most southern and the most country to the most metropolitan, I am greeted by pastors and people who just want to see the gospel lifted up. They want to see the main thing stay the main thing. They want to see churches planted and people won to Jesus and missionaries sent. They understand that our country is changing, and because of that, it means that how we talk about things in our leadership is going to change. It’s been something that has been surprising to me and something that has been pleasant and so deeply encouraging. 

The flipside of the surprise, the negative side of the surprise, is how loud and how dominating that relatively small cacophony of voices that seems bent on sowing division and anger in our midst can be. Sometimes I go to local associations and state conventions assuming I’m walking into a place where no one likes me, only to find a spirit of warmth and unity. It’s felt like that scene in the “Wizard of Oz” where, you know, Dorothy pulls back the curtain, or Toto, somebody pulls back the curtain and there, you know, the Wizard of Oz is just this scrawny little old man with a huge microphone. And you’re like, “That’s it? You’re the one that’s making all the noise?!?!” 

What I’ve understood is that there is a vast majority of Southern Baptist people who just want to see people brought to Jesus and want to see the gospel go to the ends of the earth. And it is often people that are dominating the conversation that are not representing the Southern Baptist people, and God has put you and me as leaders in a moment like this so we can say, “That is not what the conversation is going to be about.” 

Southern Baptists are ready to walk into the future, but we’re spending a lot of time dealing with people that are trying to rip us apart. Brothers and sisters, let’s just call it what it is. These things are demonic. The wisdom that comes from above, James says, is first pure. And then it’s peaceable—that’s how you know it’s real—filled with the fruits of the Spirit, gentle. It is compliant, full of mercy, unwavering, and without pretense. 

But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and deny the truth. That kind of wisdom doesn’t come down from above, even if you’ve got all your doctrine right. That wisdom doesn’t come down from above. It’s earthly. It is unspiritual. It’s demonic. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and every evil practice (James 3:17, 14–16). 

We know this, that when Satan cannot destroy the church from without, he capitalizes on the sin within. Do we as a Convention of nearly 50,000 independent, autonomous churches, 12 independent, autonomous entities and agencies, 41 independent, autonomous state conventions, 1,100 independent, autonomous associations—do we need reform? Absolutely. Is doctrine important? Of course. These are not idle words. They are our life. Is eternal vigilance the price of doctrinal integrity? Of course. Should we ever forget the painful battles won on our behalf, for most of us, in the 1980s and 1990s? Oh, may it never be. 

The problem is that many of our divisions today are based on 90 percent misunderstandings, distortion, and, often, outright lies. And it has grieved me more than you can imagine—not mainly for me, because I’m not going to be president in a few months—I’m mainly grieved for many of our entity leaders, and some of you, who have been slandered and lied about. It is not what I expected us to be spending our time on. It’s not what I ever wanted. 

Every lie weakens our resolve in getting the gospel to the nations. And every moment you or me or Dr. Floyd engages in a silly argument or spends time debunking untruths is a moment that I’m not focused on the Great Commision. And I think we need an attitude like President George W. Bush called for in 2001, “We make no distinction in those committing terrorism and those who harbor terrorists.” 

I will say it again: In the 1980s, we repudiated the leaven of the liberals, a leaven that threatened to poison the gospel. By God’s grace, are we going to repudiate the leaven of the Pharisees, which can choke out the gospel just as easily?

Brothers and sisters, we’re in the midst of a crisis, and yet, I am hopeful. 

The “synagogue of Satan” line was from a chapel message at SEBTS in January 2022, and was referencing Revelation 2:9. Here’s the context of that statement, again from my transcript:

I think the hardest thing to reckon with as a pastor is the persecution that comes from inside your church, from those that you know ought to stand with you, who do not. I know many of you are preparing for ministry, but some of you already know what I am talking about. That deacon, that staff member, that you have invested so much time with, that turns on you. The Absolom to your David. The Demas to your Timothy. The John Mark to your Paul. That person whose belief structure you share so much in common with who turns on you because you won’t acknowledge or bow down to their idol. 

I’ll tell you that having been—what, 20 years now, I celebrated my 20th year at The Summit Church this year—it used to be that most of the criticism I got from the religious community came from so-called Christians on the left who criticized our naive commitment to inerrancy or our supposed clinging to outdated sexual ethics. But what has been more surprising and hurt even more has been the criticism that started to come from our friends on the right—those whose belief systems I share so much in common with—who could not bear to have their own political idols challenged. 

2020 was a difficult year for many, many reasons. But maybe for me as pastor, and as SBC president, the most difficult was that 2020 revealed that for a lot of people in our churches, their primary identity was political. It wasn’t that it wasn’t also Christian—they were also Christian—but their primary identity was political. We know that because a lot of church people left their churches—not just Summit Church, but a lot of them—because of some disagreement over a relatively small political disagreement, at least small in light of the gospel and in light of eternity. 

“Well you didn’t say enough about this particular cultural issue, so I’m leaving.” Or, “You said too much, so I’m leaving.” And I would say to these people, some of whom had been at our church for years, for a decade, and I would say, 

“We agree on every point of gospel doctrine. We believe in the authority and inerrancy of the Bible. We believe in the sanctity of life and marriage. I married your children. I walked with you through the tragedy of a death of a loved one. And now you are leaving because—you disagree because—we said too much, one too many things, about George Floyd. Or because we said not enough about him. Or because we asked you to wear a mask for a season. Or because we did not keep the mask mandate in place long enough.”

We Christians say that we hate “cancel culture,” but it was amazing to me how so many of us canceled our church over a relatively small disagreement. And I kind of look at that, and I say, “No wonder. Because we pastors get to disciple our people about one hour a week, and Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow get them for three hours a night. 

And when the church gets in bed with politics, the church gets pregnant. And the offspring does not look like our heavenly Father. It looks like the synagogue of Satan. I know the slander of those who say they are Jews, and they are not. They’re actually from the synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9). They don’t have satanic worship rituals. They don’t put Satan on the roof. They don’t sacrifice kittens. But they’re from the synagogue of Satan. 

Friend, I’ll just tell you right now—and I realize I’m kind of cruising over this at about 30,000 feet—but when somebody tells you that just loving your neighbor, just being willing to listen to them, just taking a humble posture toward those who are hurting, and not being quick to speak, or just trying to listen twice as much as you’re making declarations—when they say doing those biblical things make you a liberal, you know you are listening to somebody out of step with the spirit of Christ. 

Or when somebody tells you that your refusal to put biblical authority behind a good, but secondary, political issue—when that makes you a liberal, they are speaking out of the synagogue of Satan. 

I’m not saying they are necessarily are from Satan, or that they are not a Christian, just that conflating allegiance to Jesus Christ with allegiance to secondary world powers is a tactic of our Enemy. 

Now, when you get this kind of criticism, you always remain humble. Sometimes there’s truth in it, and sometimes you can learn from it, even if it’s not given in the right spirit. But the point I’m trying to make is that opposition doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. In fact, if I could be so bold, it probably means you’re doing something right. 

In our particular culture, in this moment, when right and left are coming after you, that doesn’t prove that you’re not doing things right, or that you don’t have your convictions in place. It’s probably a pretty good indicator, though, that you are doing things right. Jesus’ opposition came from left and right. If we’re going to stand with him in our day, we ought to expect it from both directions also. 

Does that really sound like I am labeling all who raise objections to the promotion of CRT “divisive” and “demonic”? I am baffled as to how it could be summarized that way. It’s just not honest journalism.

Basham then switched back to my address to the SBC, which her wording seems to imply is from my presidential address at the Annual Meeting in June, but was still from the February 2021 SBCEC Meeting (I understand that could have been an easy mistake):

MB, SFS: ‘We should mourn when closet racists and neo-Confederates feel more at home in our churches than do many of our people of color,’ he thundered from the platform of the SBC’s national convention in 2021. Of course, the megachurch pastor did not back up this shocking accusation with evidence or identify these rank and unrepentant sinners.

In the very next sentence, I pointed to specific calls and emails I had received, and of course it’s not appropriate to reveal personal names on stage and via livestream when someone has written me a private letter. But if there is an actual question as to whether this is really a reality in some of our churches, I can share personally: Many friends I had in seminary could recount a time they heard a racist joke offered by someone in their church. 

This does not mean, however, as I emphasized, that this kind of closet racism characterizes the vast majority of our people, and it certainly does not reflect who we aspire to be. The point was not that the SBC is full of racists; the point was and is that the sin still lurks within our congregations and, tragically, many who harbor that sin have felt more at home in our churches for the last 175 years than many people of color. This was my personal observation then, and it is still my observation now. Here is the full section:

Let me state this very clearly, as clearly as I can: Critical Race Theory is an important discussion, and I’m all for, as I hope you would be, robust theological discussion about it. For something as important as ‘what biblical justice looks like,’ we need careful, robust, Bibles-open, on-our-knees discussion. But we should mourn when closet racists and neo-Confederates feel more at home in our churches than do many of our people of color. 

And, to be sure, for the vast majority of our churches, that is not true. And if that is not true of you and your church, praise God. But I have received the emails and phone calls from people in our Southern Baptist churches who do fit that description.

The reality is that if we in the Southern Baptist Convention had shown as much sorrow for the painful legacy that racism and discrimination has left in our country as we have passion to decry Critical Race Theory, we probably would not be in this mess. It’s not that clarity about the dangers of Critical Race Theory is not important; it is. It’s that, as Jesus said, we’ve ignored some of the weightier parts of the law—justice, and mercy, and compassion.

The context here is key, as is the caveat I offered: “For the vast majority of our churches, that is not true,” etc. That caveat was repeatedly omitted from media coverage about the speech, beginning as early as the day after the speech, so I realize that as Basham cited only news articles she may not have read those next lines from the isolated quotes she saw. But the video of the entire speech has been online for three years now, and the entire context is available. 

5. Immigration

MB, SFS: [The Evangelical Immigration Table] made a particular target of the Southern Baptist Convention, highlighting how many Southern Baptist leaders had become involved with its work, including then-president J. D. Greear, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary president Danny Akin, North American Mission Board head Kevin Ezell, and “many others.”

J.D.: I did sign on to the “Evangelical Statement of Principles for Immigration Reform,” which was drafted in 2012 by the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT). It states:

As evangelical Christian leaders, we call for a bipartisan solution on immigration that:

• • • Respects the God-given dignity of every person
    • Protects the unity of the immediate family
    • Respects the rule of law
    • Guarantees secure national borders
    • Ensures fairness to taxpayers
    • Establishes a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents

The wording struck me then as biblical, balanced, and fair, and it strikes me that way now, too. And I wasn’t alone in that, by the way. Richard Land, then president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, was an original head of the EIT. Other leaders who signed this statement include: Mac Brunson, Ronnie Floyd, Jack Graham, Phil Roberts (CBN Steering Council), Dan Heimbach, Dwayne Milioni (Founder of the Pillar Network), Johnny Hunt, Bryant Wright, Jim Daly, David Allen, David Dockery, Timothy George, Timothy Tennent, Malcolm Yarnell, Jim Richards, Tony Evans, Crawford Loritts, and Ben Mitchell.

Hardly a list of woke progressives boasting George Soros tattoos.

At the Summit, our sending team met with EIT leadership a few times, but we never formally endorsed or partnered with them, other than maybe having a rep at some refugee and immigration ministry specific events or initiatives. I understand that Basham is arguing the EIT was itself an effort of left-wing progressives to infiltrate evangelicalism. I wasn’t aware of any of that, although I trusted Richard Land’s leadership on this issue, and still do. 

This seems to be one point where Basham isn’t pointing to me as a major instigator, but rather saying I was influenced by people with nefarious motives. I can only say that I still believe the substance of those principles. Christians can disagree about things like the helpfulness of creating a path to citizenship, how many to let into that process, what the process should entail, or even whether to create that pathway at all in certain situations. I think there is room for disagreement on those things in the body of Christ. I said that then, and say it now. But that’s not how Basham presented it.

Later, Basham gives a more direct challenge to me, questioning my motivations based on when I speak about things and when I don’t. She begins the section pointing to something I posted on Twitter in June 2018.

MB, SFS: Quoting Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), J. D. Greear called Trump’s border policies “wicked” and said “Americans (should be) better than this.” He then appeared on PBS’s Firing Line, arguing that any believers who voted for Trump must speak about the “dignity of immigrants” lest they damage their Christian witness. Again, not just any believers, period, but those who voted for Trump. While Greear’s ire toward Trump’s six-week-long policy of family separation might have been a legitimate point of debate, the megachurch pastor never indicated that it bothered him when the Obama administration sometimes employed the same tactic.

And where was Greear’s clarity on Cuba or when the Biden administration maintained Trump’s refugee cap? Though he was happy to sign and promote Russell Moore’s ERLC statement demanding Congress maintain Obama’s deferred action on Dreamers, he uttered not a word about the crisis in Cuba or the Biden administration’s ghastly bungling of immigration in general that has led to significant suffering at the border.

J.D.: A quick note– the tweet in question referred specifically to forced family separations, not “Trump’s border policies,” which represent an entire suite of other policies I was not weighing in on. I was commenting only on forced separations. A few months later, in September, I was interviewed on PBS as the newly elected SBC president. The interviewer asked a specific question about the family separation policy at our southern border, and I responded that those who supported President Trump should be proactive to speak up about the dignity of immigrants. 

My argument here is one that people at the Summit are familiar with, as I’ve made it many times: If you support a political party or candidate, you should be the first to call out problematic elements of their platform. 

It is certainly not true that I only criticize the Republican party. In fact, I took quite a bit of heat from our community in the 2016 election cycle for so emphasizing the wickedness of abortion and the importance of religious liberty that (some said) I failed to acknowledge the deficiencies in the Republican candidates. 

I did not make a statement in July 2021 when there were protests over President Biden’s policies related to Cuba. This was, however, not because I had no opinions on the event, but because it happened after I completed my term as SBC president—and very few were asking my opinion on these matters anymore. 

More specifically, however, the answer to Basham’s question: “Where was Greear’s clarity on Cuba or when the Biden administration maintained Trump’s refugee camp?” is, 

“He was on vacation with his family with his phone turned off after three years of being SBC president, which had been 30 of the longest three years of his life.” 🙂

If you look at my Twitter feed from that July you will see a few personal posts with my family and from student camp, as well as some links to pre-planned blog posts. But the truth is, I really had unplugged from the world during that season.

The point is, contrary to what Basham claims, there is no shortage of me speaking out on things like this. If anyone is curious about my views on national immigration policies, I think they will find them biblically straightforward. I always make clear that I speak as a pastor and not an immigration policy expert, which means I am neither called nor competent to give instruction on these things with the authority of the pulpit behind it, an authority I take deadly seriously. Instead, I say that the Bible teaches principles we must agree on: 

1. Secular authorities are ordained by God and we must uphold their rule of law unless they violate conscience, and 
2. We must respect the dignity of the stranger in our midst and care for him so far as we are able. I have numerous times said that exactly how we regulate national immigration is not directly addressed in Scripture. 

I have consistently maintained that The Summit Church’s primary focus is not to offer political solutions on these things. That’s not our calling. Yes, where there is a straight line between a Bible teaching and a public policy (as with abortion or the sanctity of marriage), I robustly advocate for the policy. But where there is only a dotted line (e.g., immigration policy, social safety net, marginal tax rate, etc.), I teach the biblical principles and encourage members to connect the dots with Christian wisdom. And I have told our church that regardless of how we parse the governmental immigration question, we want to love the immigrants who live among us, treating them with dignity and taking every opportunity to share the gospel. 

I will say, given that I am registered as a Republican and known as a political conservative, I do feel sometimes more compelled to call out inconsistencies in the party I’m associated with so that the unbelieving world doesn’t confuse those falsities with the gospel itself. 

At the end of the day, my primary concern is the clarity of the gospel. God has not called me, primarily, to save America. He has called me to preach the gospel to Americans and make disciples of them. As Americans trust and treasure Christ, that will save America. That doesn’t mean I ever back down or compromise on truth, but it does change my posture and approach.

6. First Baptist Church of Naples, Florida

In chapter 6, Basham tells a story about a pastor search process at the First Baptist Church of Naples, Florida. The whole story is rather lengthy, so I will not put the entire thing here, but I think it is important for me to respond about my part in that situation. 

First of all, I was not involved in a coordinated effort to advance a progressive agenda by manipulating a pastor search process. My connection to the search process itself was quite minimal. I wrote a reference letter upon request for a pastor friend in my state. He texted me when the vote didn’t go his way, and I texted back the kind of encouragement I would want if I had been in that situation. 

I respect church autonomy, and when duly elected church leaders published an open letter to the SBC saying that some of those who had voted against the candidate “did so based on racial prejudices,” I accepted their account and supported their public statement in good faith. I think it was reasonable for me to speak up about the character of my friend, whom I knew well. But, when people began to raise questions about what actually happened, I regret not acknowledging publicly that I didn’t know all that happened, given how far removed I was from the situation. I still can’t say with certainty all that went down, so I should have refrained from commenting.  

I am sorry that a member of that church apparently wrote to me and did not receive a response. I cannot locate that letter now and must be honest that today I do not remember it, but I know that many people reached out back then and it was a challenge to keep track of and answer them all. If anyone was falsely accused, I’m sorry I contributed to that. 

Conclusion

In his critique of the American left, Shelby Steele laments a concept he calls “poetic truth,” by which he means the propensity of the left to misconstrue facts or selectively report evidence in order to affirm a truth they believe is more true than even the facts themselves. Strangely, he says, dispensers of poetic truth feel justified in their distortions because they know the bigger narrative is true even if not all the facts support this particular case. For many left-leaning reporters, facts only exist to support a poetic, presupposed narrative. 

Unfortunately, Basham’s book demonstrates that this impulse is just as seductive to those of us on the right, too. 

But we who take the name of Jesus and stand in the tradition of the Apostles should be different. God doesn’t need manipulated narratives to advance or protect his truth. As Hudson Taylor said so long ago, “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.” 

As I said at the beginning, I hope Basham will keep asking the questions she is so gifted at asking, but that she’ll do so with a commitment to integrity and charity. 

One of the things I appreciated about Basham’s book is that she pointed out the cultural pressure to appeal to elite progressives. That pressure exists in an educated, cosmopolitan place like RDU. Nearly 70 percent of our community votes Democratic, and these are the people God has called us to reach. Since I am known as a political conservative, I do sometimes go to lengths to criticize my own political tribe because I don’t want there to be any encumbrances to the gospel. I need to heed the warning she offers and stand squarely on Scripture, saying exactly what it says, regardless of who it offends. That said, it is simply untrue that I don’t publicly criticize the Democratic party or critique the sins of the left. I’ve preached repeatedly on the sin of abortion, the sinfulness of homosexuality, and the destructiveness of gender confusion. Even just this year, I read from the Democratic platform in church and called it evil. The people of The Summit Church, who hear me week by week, know where I stand.

At the end of the day, it seems that what many in Basham’s book are criticized for is not making culture war issues the center of their ministries. I want to be very clear: As I have said in numerous places, I believe we are responsible to teach the whole counsel of God, and that means proclaiming the most unpopular truths to our generation. But at my core I’m a missionary and an evangelist. And while that doesn’t ever mean compromising truth, it does change my posture of engagement. As Marvin Olasky, Basham’s former boss, says, “Few apparitions are uglier and less useful than a red-faced, vein-popping, clamor-voiced defender of a religion that emphasizes loving our neighbors” (Standing for Christ in a Modern Babylon).

Basham’s book is, sadly, a product of our times. She exemplifies the tendency to respond to anyone outside of our tribes with bad-faith, cherry-picking hostility. This doesn’t fortify the church and make it stronger; it makes it weaker, keeping us blind to things that the Lord wants us to see. What fortifies the church is always mission in the way of Jesus. For 2,000 years Christians have sought to faithfully represent the gospel in secular places, which has meant being in relationship with others, engaging them with charity, humility, and clarity. Think Daniel in Babylon, Paul in Athens, Adoniram Judson in Burma, William Wilberforce in England, and Billy Graham in America.

Jesus led with relationship and grace, even as he spoke unflinchingly about truth. For Basham (and many in her tribe), it seems that if you position yourself that way—as a missionary seeking to win people rather than a culture warrior championing Republican politicians—then you are a liberal, no matter what you believe or how clearly you state it. 

Being conservative in our theology and worldview is essential, of course, but it’s not enough if we are to be faithful followers of Jesus. 

Following him means following him in his mission to seek and save the lost, and that requires both a certain posture and a gospel-shaped methodology. Jesus summarized his whole agenda on earth as coming to seek and save the lost, and in multiple places, he demonstrated that other agendas, even good ones, come secondary to that. The Apostle John says Jesus was filled with both grace and truth. Like sodium and chloride—each side of that equation, if consumed by itself, kills. Put together they become salt, something that enables and accentuates life. 

In other words, it’s possible to speak truly about every moral issue of the day and still falsely present Jesus. I believe my primary responsibility as a pastor is to point people towards the primacy of the gospel message and mission. Truth without grace is deadly fundamentalism, just as grace without truth is empty sentimentality. Only grace and truth together bring life; only together do they present Jesus. 

A Personal Note

Based on how this conversation has gone over the past week, Megan Basham may respond to this article by saying it is just another example of “Big Eva” mobilizing against her. But I’d humbly encourage you to consider the context. She is a reporter for a conservative political news outlet writing for one of the biggest names in publishing, HarperCollins, ironically one of the largest Christian publishers through Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, which it owns. For me, I’m not interested in “Big Eva” versus “Big Publishing,” though I am interested in the truth. I am posting this on my personal blog primarily for the sake of the people in the local church I serve, who might be confused that the man Basham describes in her book seems so wildly different from the one they’ve heard in their pulpit for the last 20 years.

On a personal level, some have asked how I’m processing all this. Whatever Basham’s motives, I realize God has ordained this—in part, to remind me how little any of this is about my reputation, and so I can acknowledge whatever truth is in her observations regarding my multiple shortcomings, whether a lack of clarity in how I say things or through wobbling in courage when I should have stood more brazenly. If God wants to highlight my flaws as a communicator or as a Christian leader, even through the vehicle of an inaccurate and uncharitable spirit, I want to receive that correction.