Evangelical Grift: Learning to Reject the Instability of Double-Minded Men

The Battle against "Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories" highlights the Evangelical Grift, and the sooner we avail ourself of grifters, the better.

Years ago at Pulpit & Pen, Seth Dunn used the term “draft” as a new Polemics Term, which we are always adding to our growing lexicon of vocabulary designed to help the theology’s re-birth become more understandable to ordinary Christians.

DRAFTING

Draft, as Dunn explained it, was a NASCAR term used to describe the act of “drafting” or riding closely behind the car in front of you, in order to cut down on wind resistance and increase speed. Essentially, the guy in front of you takes all the turbulence, and if done right, you can pass him at the last moment.

Drafting was when people with media ministries, particularly of the discernmenty variety (think WWUTT, for example), let Pulpit & Pen take all the heat on a topic for a year or two - usually while deriding us - but eventually come around to join our position and, if possible, take credit for it. Little did they know, we didn’t care about credit, but found the spectacle entertaining nonetheless.

When we criticized Lifeway in 2014-2015 for selling no shortage of abject heresy, WWUTT’s founder did an article claiming it was much ‘ado about nothing, claiming were were being H8rs and that Russell Moore was a pretty darn good guy. We blasted him back on the blog, and he soon called a truce, and asked us to delete the article because it reflected negatively on his church. We have an obvious soft-spot for Biblical churches and deleted it. But, low-and-behold, it wasn’t long before WWUTT was making a stance - identical to ours - on Russell Moore and Lifeway.

And that’s an example of drafting, in which somebody with a “controversial” stance (merely because they’re the first to publicize it), takes the heat off by becoming a virtual punching bag, and others swoop in to appear brave and courageous for taking the position once the other side had already expended their ammo.

Keep in mind that when I criticized Karen Swallow Prior and labeled her gay affirming, Tom Buck denounced me and told the world to never listen to us again. A few short years and a personal betrayal later, and Tom led the charge to remove the infamous KSP from Southern Baptist life. That’s an example of drafting.

In the scheme of things, drafting is no big deal. It’s mostly a matter of ego, and we’ll happily enough concede it’s a good thing if somebody storms the beach on Normandy a day late, because at least they put on their uniform.

DRAFTING IS OBNOXIOUS, BUT GRIFTING IS DANGEROUS

Drafting is merely an annoyance to the ego, because bravery to rise from the trench after the enemy already fired their mortars, is no bravery at all. But grifting - on the other hand - leads not toward delayed orthodoxy (as drafting does) - but to expedited error.

Grifting, so far as polemics is concerned, is when an evangelical “leader” borrows an idea from a niche faction of evangelicalism (or niche faction of heresy), adopts it as their own (often purporting to ‘redeem’ it from heterodoxy), profits in multiple ways from it, and then discards it as hopelessly heterodox (thus, profiting from it a second time, when he can then lecture those who still adhere to it). Let me explain.

Every niche evangelical idea has resources. These resources include a fandom (or people who strongly adhere to the idea), financial support from the fandom, and the appeal of novelty. Novelty, in evangelicalism or Protestantism in general, is as good as gold. When your theology is built upon historic orthodoxy, there’s not a lot of novelty to go around; in supply-side economics, when something is rare, it is valuable.

Theonomy 1.0 was largely dead in 2014, even before my debate with Joel McDurmon. American Vision was the last known bastion of the theology, and it was severely waning. But under the surface of dying institutional power - with Bahnsen and Rushdoony gone, and North having absconded after his failed Y2K prediction - there was still a robust market for Theonomy on the evangelical black market.

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Facebook groups were strong, burgeoning podcasts were out there, and Theonomy was essentially the clove cigarettes of Reformed Evangelicalism; it’s what you smoke if you want to look cool, but don’t want to get kicked out of school. With Gary DeMar at American Vision growing exceedingly boring, and Joel McDurmon flaming out at the Phoenix debate, the Theonomy sub-culture had nowhere to go.

And then, in came Douglas Wilson, who was already familiar with Reconstructionism, the less-retarded cousin of Theonomy, and rebranded himself as a “General Equity Theonomist.” It didn’t matter to Wilson that Theonomy was an idea widely repudiated by Presbyterian orthodoxy, because it never matters to Wilson if an idea is widely repudiated by Presbyterian orthodoxy. He’s not in the club, as Federal Vision demonstrated.

Wilson, to the credit of his genius grifting spirit, similarly walloped McDurmon in a debate on the death penalty for Sodomites, and took his followers. It was like defeating the Night King, and then being able to rule the White Walkers. And suddenly, Theonomy 2.0 - a version of Theonomy that is not, in fact, Theonomy, one that conforms to the Westminster Standards rather than negates it - suddenly emerged with Wilson as its Federal Head.

Wilson (1) took the fanbase, (2) took the funding of the fanbase, and (3) benefited from the appeal of novelty, as he made a doctrinal position that was not at all new, look new, because it had a new name.

This is an Evangelical Grift.

THE SOCIAL JUSTICE GRIFT

“What was that crap I just heard on Mefferd?”

That was the question I asked one of the originators of The Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel after hearing Josh Buice be interviewed on Janet Mefferd’s program.

My question wasn’t pertaining to Buice saying anything wrong, necessarily. But, I just had a frantic conversation with my friend about his efforts to get a few evangelical leaders - Buice and James White included - to comprehend the connection between Social Justice and Marxism. He was trying desperately to catch them up to speed with what we had been warning about for several years by that point, and I had given advice on how to avail their ignorance to make their influence useful to our cause.

The “What was that crap I just heard on Mefferd?” question was pertaining to why someone who had to be tutored on the subject literally just a few weeks before, was being trotted out as an expert on the subject. What he put forward had clearly been recently coached. It was not, in the slightest bit, informed. It was like listening to Harry Sisson (a Gen Z leftist social media influencer) try to explain tariffs.

Soon, a whole Avengers of anti-Social Justice crusaders were activated to lead the movement, who I was quite aware were ill-informed and, I thought, dubiously committed.

In a moment of anger at this, upon Tom Ascol saying something I perceived as dumb and unhelpful, I went to Twitter to ask, “For the love of all that’s good and pure, please let the experts lead this fight. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But the Dunning-Kruger effect (a cognitive bias that makes people who are experts at one thing, think they are experts at everything) is strong in evangelicalism. People mocked me ruthlessly, especially James White, for suggesting that an expert on Calvinism might be less than an expert on intellectual philosophies related to Social Justice’s complicated roots in Marxism.

I eventually apologized, if for no other reason than I wanted to be charitable to those who at least mean well.

BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW IT’S A GRIFT?

How you know it’s a grift is very simple; it’s quickly discarded for another, new grift.

If this was something a leader engages in only occasionally - the adopting and quick discarding of doctrine - it might very well indicate the changing of one’s mind. But if it’s repetitive and ongoing and continual, it’s likely a grift.

Some who (supposedly) led the Anti-Social Justice Movement in evangelicalism just a few years ago, are now attacking those who brought their attention to it. And even weirder, they’re doing so while using woke tactics. Their accusation - that questioning the post-war consensus is antisemitic - was indeed the accusation lobbed against them only a few years ago for their work against Cultural Marxism.

To the woke, every idea that’s contrary to their worldview is antisemitic, racist, homophobic, or misogynistic. Largely, these accusations lost their effect somewhere around 2020 to 2021, simply because of the frequency and frivolousness of their use. We learned to ignore them.

Consider the following:

Of course, Cultural Marxism is no “far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory.” In 2019 I explained at Pulpit & Pen that the notion of Cultural Marxism being an antisemitic concept was invented by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2003, here. I explained the origins of the term, which was invented by an actual Marxist, Trent Shroyer, in 1973, in his commie book, The Critique of Domination: The Origins and Development of Critical Theory.”

It is a fact that the Frankfurt School of Marxists fled Germany during Hitler’s opposition to the Weimar Republic and settled in New York, and developed a cultural version of Marxism more compatible in the West.

It is a fact that the Frankfurt School Marxists were almost entirely Jewish, and fled Germany on account of Hitler’s persecution of the Jews.

It is a fact that economic Marxism, the type and kind endorsed by those who created Cultural Marxism, was conceived almost exclusively by Jews and promoted by Jews in first Germany, and later the Soviet Union (and later in the United States).

But just a few years ago, Douglas Wilson (or James White, Tom Buck et al) didn’t care about peddling what we were told was an anti-semitic conspiracy theory. But now - all in a sudden - they are on a Jihad to castigate those who engage in other fact-based arguments christened “anti-Semitic” by the SPLC. It’s crazy to see the transition.

I feel no need to document here the 180-turns of Douglas Wilson on Judaism. They are evident enough. They are not only evident, but dramatic swings of opinion. They are, in every since of the word, repudiations of very his very public stated opinions previously.

And just like that, Douglas Wilson has done it again. He commandeered a seat on the bandwagon of Social Justice opposition, (1) took the anti-Social Justice fandom (2) collected the anti-Social Justice financial resources, and (3) enjoyed the appeal to novelty in embracing the Social Justice Contra movement early on, back when when it was controversial. It’s a textbook grift.

Now, he’s moved on to another grift; this one is tied Tucker Carlson and Andrew Klavan, and consists of who - in Wilson’s estimation - are a better class of losers. It is a step up in the world, and that step is the forehead of his previous followers.

If this was only a single time Wilson had done this, we can presume he only has changed his mind which is - in and of itself - an honorable thing to do when someone believes they’re wrong. But Wilson has done this with the American Civil War, his flirtations with Kinism, his embrace of a non-Theonomic bait-and-switch Theonomy, and many more positions over the years. But going from “the Jews run the pornography industry” to “Merry Judeo-Christmas” is a crazy about-face and was done in record time.

BUT I DIGRESS ON WILSON

Wilson is only an example for us in this article, not the whole point. As you see in the featured graphic, there are many others who are routinely shifting the grifting to another issue.

I really like Driscoll 2.0 (although the 2.0 is squared, because he’s done this more times than I can count). He was Emergent Church adjacent, until they started to die off. He was a regular critic of Joel Osteen, until he apologized to Osteen in an interview with Bill Houston of Hillsong (and then he took a much kinder, gentler position toward heretics of all stripes). Driscoll was an apologist for all things charismatic, until he recently got booted off the stage at James River Assembly for providing a lascivious worship experience. Driscoll had a hands-off approach to political opinionizing (which might have been necessary in the Left Coast’s capital city of Seattle), and now he’s jockeying for position as a lead spokesman for MAGA Christianity (suddenly).

Joel McDurmon was prophesied to be the Second Coming of RJ Rushdoony, the new standard-bearer for Theonomy. He enjoyed that position in the hard-right. But then, as sudden as the Me Too Movement arose and George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose, he shifted to a version of Christianity more resembling Kyle J. Howard than Grandpa Rushdoony.

Albert Mohler is easily the most skilled at the Evangelical Grift, at least that I’ve ever seen. Before he took the reigns at Southern Seminary, he sided with the pre-Resurgence Consensus, and held to an egalitarian ecclesiology…strongly. But whatever bargain he made with the devil to run SBTS resulted in him immediately - and over night - changing his position and upholding Biblical gender roles. Mohler then became the convention’s arch-Calvinist and fired SBTS professors who wouldn’t sign onto the Doctrines of Grace as laid out in the Abstract of Principles, before - suddenly and over night - declaring the Abstract of Principles a “three point document” and going on to hire non-five pointers almost exclusively for a period of several years. Mohler put into place Russell Moore and many other leftists, and from his position with The Gospel Coalition endorsed no shortage of leftist political thought. And then - as sudden as the wind shifts - he jumped on the anti-woke bandwagon and is now trying to appear a leader in Christian Nationalism Lite.

Mohler is so adept at the Evangelical Grift that he can hold two opposite positions at once, like when he declared that no one at Southern Seminary would keep their job if they promoted Critical Theory, and within weeks, renewed the contract of Matthew Hall, who promoted Critical Theory extensively and passionately.

DENOUNCING THE GRIFT, AND AVOIDING IT

The Bible tells us how to avoid the grifters. It tells us, “A double-minded man in unstable in all his ways (James 1:8). ” We are, as James points out, avoid them.

We should not be quick to accuse everyone who changes a belief or two, over a long career, of grifting. When MacArthur changed his views on Romans 13 amid the government lockdown, he wasn’t grifting. He was adapting. While I wish a thorough statement of repentance, for previously held false belief, would have been forthcoming, I’m happy enough to see a change of mind. As Trump would say, “Many such cases!”

MacArthur actually provides for us a good example of a non-grifter. His positions have barely changed over his long tenure. With the exception of disavowing his previous error on Eternal Sonship and his change on Romans 13, his body of work requires little editing.

So far as Wilson, Driscoll, McDurmon, Mohler (and many others) are concerned, their marginal asterisks of changed opinions would be larger than the book itself.

What grifters really want, as I explained before, is to adopt ideas that they can use, and then quickly discard, and take with them whatever influence or clout they obtained by taking the position to begin with. Evangelicals would be wise to show caution in embracing someone who acts as “doctrinal tourist” to their niche, because no matter the benefit of having them join, they can do exceeding damage on their way out.