Truth Unites - Megan Basham's Shepherds For Sale: The Problems With This Book

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Gavin Ortlund responds to the new book by Megan Basham, Shepherds For Sale, stating concerns that it is not truthful and fails to do theological triage. See the original video on climate change: https://youtu.be/XRDkBHUXNd0?si=CE5_5n59Wmk8SsoU Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

In this video, I'm going to respond to Megan Basham's critique of me in her new book, Shepherds for Sale. We'll talk about this book. These are not videos I love to make. Most of my videos, if you watch Truth Unites regularly or you look at my channel, you'll see most of them try to be constructive videos. I do apologetics and so forth, trying to promote gospel assurance. But it's appropriate for me to respond in cases like this for two reasons. One is truth, and the other is triage. So first, what she says in this book about me is,

not the truth. By the end of this video, or even just maybe a third of the way through this video, that will be abundantly clear to any fair-minded onlooker. Second, and more important, this represents a larger issue of triage in how we disagree in the church. Unfortunately, Megan's book is a huge influence, and I think it represents a way of how not to conduct disagreements in the body of Christ. I want to make a plea for a better way. I have no ill will toward Megan. Honestly, I've prayed for her. I pray God has an avalanche of blessing on her in every way. May the Lord bless her. I'm not responding out of anger here. But honestly, I'm responding because I think this book represents a whole movement of people right now. In the disintegration of evangelicalism,

a lot of people are lunging toward what I regard as more of a fundamentalism. It's very attractive right now in the chaos of the world. I want to say that is not the way, and I want to make a plea for a better way, and I'll explain this. So let's work through these two concerns. Number one, truth. So yesterday I picked up this book. Somebody mentioned I was in here, so I was kind of curious. I'm thinking I'm probably in a footnote or something like that. I'm reading through chapter which is about climate change, of all things. And I'm surprised to see that I'm the climactic example in chapter one, presumably of a shepherd for sale. She's talking about how people are selling out for a leftist agenda to infiltrate the church and so forth. And she introduces me

by referencing various liberal agendas and, or agencies, and their agenda to press for political action to use the church to produce a groundswell of evangelical demand for centralized government policy and so forth. And then this is what leads her to a discussion of me. Now, by the way, note those words in that quote, political action policy. We'll come back to that. But this leads her to a seven-page analysis of me and a video that I made a few years ago on climate change where she's trying to work me into this narrative that she's presenting. In a minute, we're going to work through point by point, page by page each of her claims, and I'll show the problems with them. Then she concludes by saying these are complex topics. It is not wrong for pastors and Christian leaders to weigh them and

debate them, but it is wrong. I'll never forget reading this sentence. I almost fell out of my chair. It is wrong for them to make agreement on environmental policies a test of biblical faithfulness. It is wrong to make climate change activism a measure of one's commitment to the gospel. Now, I have been misrepresented before, sometimes in pretty outrageous ways, but this one really takes the cake. If you go back and watch my video, you will see, not only do I not make agreement on environmental policies a test of biblical faithfulness, or, quote, make climate change activism a measure of one's commitment to the gospel. But I actually don't even mention any particular policy or political action. I deliberately didn't include that because I recognize how complicated that is.

I'm honestly not sure of what policies are the best. I would encourage people to watch my video. There's a link in the description. What I actually said in the video is finishing it off. I said, if you have a different opinion about this topic, that's fine. That's my appeal. Thanks for watching this video. I appreciate it. If you have a different opinion about this, that's fine. Let's just argue about it respectfully rather than just attack each other.

And so let me know what you think in the comments. Tell me your opinion on this and we'll work at it together. Hey, thanks for watching this video. God bless you. I started off the video saying that this video is like this on issues like climate change or political issues is not my main focus. I repeatedly said that I'm not an expert on the topic. Basically, if you watch my video, you'll see. I'm just trying to say, hey, look, we need to be able to talk about these kinds of issues in the church,

and we need to be able to work through them without attacking each other and this kind of thing. I'm saying the opposite of what she's putting on to me here. Here's an example of how I'm kind of starting off. It gives you a flavor for the kind of video I was making. I just feel that we can't avoid things. We have to learn how to have conversations about difficult topics. In fact, I think part of how we can commend the gospel, those of us who are Christians, is by having conversations about issues where we may disagree and doing so

in a respectful, charitable way, because that is so countercultural right now. So not only am I neither requiring nor even suggesting any particular policy action, contrary to Megan's depiction of me, but here's the actual conclusion that I did call for. Listen to how modest this is. That leads to my final comment in terms of what's a practical takeaway of what to do. I want to say something that is exceedingly simple and modest. And that's my fifth comment. Let's talk about this more.

Let's talk about climate change more. That's the only goal for this video. So my whole goal is just to get people to engage on this issue more. Yet Megan is trying to paint me as this environmental activist accusing others of being too political for resisting this narrative. This is how I'm introduced in the book. And then she references my supposed insistence that those who hold views that differ from mine can be doing so only because they are motivated by politics. But the whole point of my video repeatedly stated throughout was just to encourage study and dialogue on this topic without attacking each other. And I made it very clear.

If you have a different opinion about this, that's fine. If you have a different opinion about this, that's fine. So how does somebody get to this summary charge at the conclusion of this section about? me. Do you see how backwards this is? The irony here is that actually, unfortunately, I'm going to be just blunt and candid in my concerns about this, but again, no ill will in it, but it just needs, people need to see this, I think. It's fine to just point out the problem here. This is so backwards. The irony is that she's the one making climate change a test of gospel faithfulness. This is her opening chapter in a book about pastoral sellouts.

So whereas I'm saying explicitly, we should be able to disagree about this without attacking each other. It's fine to have different views about this. She's making this the lead-off topic in a book accusing pastors of trading the truth for a leftist agenda. You see how backwards her charge is here? So in other words, it's unfortunately Megan who is making agreement about this, a test of biblical faithfulness. That's exactly what this chapter is doing, and I'll say more about that in a moment when we talk about theological triage. So the big picture here to start off with is just the fundamental claim she's making is just wrong. I said the opposite of what she ascribes to me. I said, this isn't a test of

gospel faithfulness. We can disagree in the church. She pretends, I said, it is a test of gospel faithfulness. And she presents it like that to her readers. This is pretty cut and dry misrepresentation. I think anyone following along can immediately see that. That's the big picture. Now, let's work through point by point, and I just want you to see the tactics that she employs to try to give the presentation of me that she does. I'm responding about me, by the way, just because I know most about where she's wrong in her criticisms of me. I assume that I'd be happy to defend others in this book as well, but these are the charges that I know are, I have the most knowledge are wrong. So that's why I'm responding to her criticisms of me. Unfortunately, I suspect. I know some of the other

criticisms like her criticisms of Tim Keller in this book, I think, are similarly misleading and inaccurate. But let's work through this point by point because I think readers need to be alerted to the tactics going on in this book. So here's a good example. At one point, she references my discussion of the scientific consensus and says, to not accept that consensus, Ortland says, is to buy into conspiracy and hoax. It is a failure to take a responsible posture. Now I'm going to leave this quote up on the screen for a second. Do you notice how only some of the words in this sentence are in quotation marks? You've got these three words in quotation marks, conspiracy and hoax, and then at the end of the sentence, you've got these four words, take a responsible posture. The other words,

she took the liberty of filling in for herself. And that's because there's a very shady tactic of distortion here going on. I never said this. She's concocting a sentence of her own and placing it in my mouth. I had to go back to the transcript and try to figure out what is she even talking about. What are these quoted phrases even from? I couldn't find them in my word document script. So I go to YouTube, pull up YouTube's transcript, hit command F, and I'm searching for these words. So finally I find the words responsible posture, this phrase came up at 1034 of my video, in reference to shooting from the hip and coming to a conclusion without studying this topic. That's what I said is not a responsible posture.

Don't just shoot from the hip. You know, study it and make sure that that's a wise thing to do because I see a lot of people reacting instinctively rather than really hitting the books. And I don't think that that's a responsible posture for Christians to take. Now that's just true. I don't think that's a responsible posture

for Christians to take. But Megan switches it to make it about not accepting the scientific consensus. So, you see, I'm talking about the method of deriving a conclusion. She makes it about the conclusion derived. In other words, I didn't say those who take this or that position fail to have a responsible posture. I said those who come to their conclusions apart from study fail to have a responsible posture. Those are pretty clearly, obviously different things. But by the selective use of these quotation marks of a little phrase that

I said and then concocting her own sentence and placing it in my mouth, she's able to make me fit the caricature that her narrative requires. It's the same thing that not quite as bad, but pretty close to as bad, with the words conspiracy and hoax, which she quotes here. These came up at 1620 of my video to describe what it would be if every scientific body of national or international standing was cooperating to mislead us about climate change. I didn't say the responses to scientific claims that an individual may come to are a conspiracy or hoax. I said it would be a hoax if all these scientific entities, these were in cahoots with each other. I think that's pretty true. So put up her quote again and read it.

Here's what she's trying to make me say. To not accept that consensus, Ortland says, is to buy into conspiracy and hoax. It is a failure to take a responsible posture. Now, this is, again, it's pretty cut and dry here. We're not, by the way, in this video, I'm not even going to make any case for any view of climate change whatsoever. My concerns are not about climate change in this video. It's just about how we talk about each other. Again, truth and triage. Those are my concerns. We need to tell the truth, and we need to triage issues. The triage issue is the more important one. We'll get to in a second, but first you need to see what she's doing here. This is like really bad. So, you know, when somebody says, Ortland says dot, dot, dot, dot, but Ortland didn't say dot, dot, dot,

unfortunately, that is bearing false testimony. And that is, there is so much of that all throughout her description of me in this book, and again, I assume it's probably not just me that is targeted in this way. The amount of distortion and spin here is thick, okay? So, for example, all throughout, she's trying to make it sound like I'm sort of shaming and scolding people who disagree with mainstream science. At one point, she faults Doug Mu and myself for not speaking with a calm assurance. And she's going on and on saying this leads to despair and fear among young people and it causes damage and so forth. So I found this amusing because even though I'm not speaking with calm assurance here, she also goes on about how I on and on about my soothing tones and

my hushed voice, my laid back Ventura County style and my preppy guru vibe, which I don't know what any of that really means exactly. I assume it's some sort of insult, but it's funny that, you know, I guess I'm not speaking with assurance, but I am speaking with soothing tones. I don't know. So make sense of that. I don't know. But it's kind of funny. But the point is here she's trying to make it sound like I'm, you know, shaming people, scolding people, putting more anxiety and despair on people. Okay. The idea that we don't shame people and we don't need to despair was one of the major headings and conclusions of my video.

You can go watch my video and see in the timestamps under the heading don't despair. This issue for some reason is such a judgmental one. So many people just feel condemned. So many people feel alienated by the way others talk about it. You have to leave people with dignity, shaming people, scaring people, that never works, that never helps anything. So what Megan is doing is she's plucking little snippets out here and sometimes not even plucking out, it's just completely projecting things onto me that fit her narrative and then leaving everything out that doesn't fit the narrative, including the many points where my position on climate change deviates from many leftist ones.

Like, for example, my affirmation that having children is good, bringing image bearers into the world is good and so forth. She distorts my perspective in a lot of ways. She includes her interviewees odd comment that, quote, I can almost guarantee you that Gavin Ortland has never read any significant portion of the scientific reports of the IPCC. False. Yes, I have. Back when I was in seminary, I went there. I've done like three or four rounds of study on this.

I read through various sections of it at that time. Not an expert on it, but yeah, I've read that. And it's so, I never understand why people make these speculative, unverifiable criticism. criticisms like this. It's so strange. But like so many of the claims in this book, you know, it's just simply not truthful. It's like, yes, I did read that. This is a matter of fact. It's not a matter of interpretation. I don't know why people aren't embarrassed by this kind of stuff. You know, it's like, this is bad. Then she claims that my take on the consequences of climate change are, quote, as hyperbolic as anything coming from United Nations climate star Greta Thunberg.

Okay, I have no idea who this is. I have to look her up. Evidently, she's a Swedish environmental activist. It's true that I discussed various severe consequences of climate change in the long run, but this is an exaggeration, and she neglects to tell her readers about my conclusion to that section. Let me just say this. I don't know exactly what's going to happen. Okay, I'm not a scientist. I'm just doing my best. I don't know. I'm not trying to scare people. I'm not trying to be a doomsday person and paint this apocalyptic thing. I'm just trying to say it's important enough to take this issue seriously. This really matters. In other words, I'm just trying to deflect that feeling of people saying, well, but that's not that important.

So hopefully you can see the kind of tactics going on here. Not to go on and on. I won't belabor things beyond that point. That gives you, I'm just trying to give you a flavor of the misrepresentation, the spin. Frankly, the dishonesty. I don't use that word lightly, but at the end of the 11th hour, sometimes you're driven to say, yeah, that's what this is. That's really too bad. The strangest thing, though, is that for all this, where Megan and I actually disagree about climate change is not even clear from what she wrote in this book.

Because astonishingly, at one point, she concedes, quote, the vast majority of scientists agree that temperature averages have increased slightly in the last 150 years and that man-made greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to some of that rise. What many don't agree on is how much humans are contributing or how serious a threat this poses. Now, I think that's a problematic summary, but even so, that's not that far off from what I'm arguing. What would have been more useful in this book is if Megan actually made an argument for her view on how much humans are contributing and how serious a threat she thinks it poses, and then contrasted that with my view so that readers can see, okay, they both agree that the planet is heating up, they both agree that humans are

doing some things to contribute to that, but they disagree on how much, they disagree on how urgent this is, and then people would be able to see where these differences lie. That would have been productive. Instead, what it seems like she's trying to do is just ring the alarm bell as loud as possible to make me seem like some kind of liberal activist. It also would have been helpful if she reached out before she, you know, she could have written me an email and said, hey, I'm writing a book. It's called Shepherds for Sale. You're one of my examples in my first chapter of the concerns I'm getting into in this book. Let's talk and see through where we disagree and come to clarity about those things before I go in print on this. That would have been helpful. But since she's just plowed

forward and now it's just out there in this book, which is selling well and going to influence a lot of people, I would at this point invite her to retract these various erroneous statements. The truth matters. Talking about people accurately, it just matters. You know, these these obvious concoctions and projections are just wrong. This is not good journalistic practice. It's pretty simple. You know, this isn't even that, we don't even need to have any view of climate change or something. It's just a matter of, I say A, she claims I say not A, and it's verifiable to anyone who goes

and watches my video. A lot of people who promote this book, I'm dismayed at the lack of discernment. I respect a lot of people who are promoting this book, and surely they want to see errors be corrected and truth be told, right? So when there are errors, the best thing to do is just acknowledge them. And I think that's what Megan should do at this point. However, for the sake of this video, let's assume that wherever we actually do disagree on climate change, which is not clear to me, that I'm totally in the wrong and she's totally in the right. Let's assume that for the sake of argument. that leaves on the table what is actually my primary concern, and that is triage.

Now, just think about this. Megan is mincing no words in this book. The title reflects the accusation of this book, Shepherds for Sale. That is about as ugly and slanderous a thing as you can say about someone, to call them a sell-out, to call them basically a Judas Ascariat. That title is entirely consistent with the front flap and the content of this book. She opens the entire book with a quote of Matthew 15, 9. This is what Jesus says about the Pharisees.

In her introduction, she raises concerns about wolves and says, oh, you'll have no trouble pinpointing them as we go. Her stated prayer for the book is that opposition to these leaders in the church that she's trying to attack would increase. She wants to turn the temperature up. She ends the entire book in the second to last paragraph by saying we're in a civil war as the church. She basically says, well, we shouldn't welcome civil war, but it's here.

She quotes the Lord of the Rings, open war is upon us, whether we would wish it or not, whether we would risk it or not. So she's saying this is not war with the culture. She's saying we're in civil war against the leadership of the church. This is why I'm astonished that people are promoting this book. And I'm thinking, is this really what you want to promote? That's what she's calling for. So that's the framing. That's the heading. This is the nature of the gauntlet she's throwing down, you know. And so you're thinking, wow, Shepherds for Sale. Okay, what is the issue that is generating this level of concern and rhetoric? Have these pastors and church leaders that she is targeting denied the deity of Christ?

Have they been caught in a financial scandal? What is the behavior that would justify this level of language? Well, in my case, so far as I can tell, I am included in this book called Shepherds for sale because out of my 361 videos on my YouTube channel, I made one a couple years ago about climate change. And in that video, I argued for my view, and then I talked about how we need to talk about these issues, but we should be able to have different views in the body of Christ and so forth. You can watch my video. It's pretty mild. I believe in biblical inerrancy. I believe in substitutionary atonement. I'm a complementarian. I believe in male-only elders. I believe in a traditional view of sexuality and marriage. I am pro-life. I'm on record for all these things. But

I made a video about climate change. So I'm the climactic example of a shepherd for sale in chapter one. Or if she doesn't, if she's saying, oh, no, I meant other people. I just threw you in there for some other reason. I would invite her to clarify that. Does Megan think I am a shepherd for sale? Does she even think I'm a Christian? I mean, if she's starting off with Matthew 159 and J. Gresham-Machin,

the J. Gresham-Machin quote, she starts off with talking about liberals who aren't even within orthodoxy, these are live questions of does she think the people she's calling for civil war against our Christians? Fair question that any, you know, responsible reader will be asking by the time they're done with this book. So you can see the impact of this book and why I'm speaking to it and why I'm concerned about it, I don't expect to convince Megan necessarily in this. That would be great. I mean, if we could come together in some way, that would be terrific. But mainly I'm concerned about those in her chain of influence. And I just want to make a plea to the church, now. This is not the way. This is not how we do it. The problem here is simple, and it's an issue of triage. We are allowed to disagree about complicated scientific topics like climate change

without coming to the conclusion that the person on the other side is for sale, a wolf or at least a fool, and now we're in civil war. This is what you call an ever-so-slight miscalculation of theological triage. Differences about climate change of all issues do not warrant that kind of response. You know, at one point, it's interesting. At one point in the book, Megan references these various figures from church history and commends them. But these people would not be. They are not well represented by the ethos and the content of this book. C.S. Lewis, whom she mentions, had a very similar posture to science to what I have. Anyone who is not aware of that betrays that they have not read a lot of his writings.

Read about his views on evolution, for example. I have appealed many times to J. Gresham Machen and his views on creation and his approach to theological triage in Christianity and liberalism. That book is totally different from this one. That book is actually really generous. Read what Machen has to say about Roman Catholics. He does triage really well.

He's saying, here's liberalism. This is not orthodox, but then he's very careful to have a spectrum of different options that aren't that extreme. He's nuanced about... He's actually a good, Jay Gresham-Machin's Christianity and Liberalism is actually a great model of theological triage.

It's very different from this book. Francis Schaefer, she mentions. Well, Schaefer is a personal hero of mine. The relational ugliness that he saw in the church that caused him to rethink his faith from the ground up and led to the wonderful book, True Spirituality, where Schaefer recounts this. This led him to treat people with kindness and dignity.

That's one of the great emphases of his apologetics career. even though I don't follow Schaefer on every single interpretation he takes and his method and so forth. I just think he was a wonderful man. And this emphasis upon treating people with kindness and dignity, I think is absolutely thrilling and wonderful. This book is not like Francis Schaefer. It doesn't have that kindness and treating people with dignity amidst polemics and so forth. Charles Spurgeon is another one she mentions. Charles Spurgeon would almost certainly be branded by Megan Basham and others in her tribe as a woke social justice warrior.

even though he was not. Just Google that, look into it. I've talked about those things elsewhere. What I'm trying to point out here is the naivety about how the views expressed in this book about what is faithful. What does it mean to be a faithful Christian? There's naivety about how much this is shaped

by the sociology of contemporary American politics rather than by historic Christian orthodoxy, even if you just look around at other places in the world today. There's many places where climate change, is not a liberal issue in the way that it is in the United States. So I'm speaking out on this, not just to defend myself, but more importantly, to make a plea for young people, especially right now who are disillusioned with the church. They're trying to find a way forward. I agree with Megan that there's an encroaching secularism and liberalism. That's a real problem. But there's also

other problems. And, you know, lunging in the opposite direction is not a problem. I understand that a fundamentalist posture is very—I see how that can be so attractive right now, but this is not the way. and the reasons are simple. We've got to tell the truth. Number one. It's that simple. You just got to tell the truth about people. And number two, we've got to triage issues.

Climate change as a chapter one about shepherds for sale. This is really odd. So let me just wrap up here by sharing my own story on this topic. I know people, you know, I know people get curious and suspicious like, wow, whatever's views about this or my other views on science matters like creation and the flood and these things. Maybe I could just share a little bit about kind of where I'm coming from and, you know, what's motivating me and how this all came up for me. It's not because, I know it's to be shocking,

I know, but it's not because I have any billionaire Democrats funding me. I know my video, my obscure philosophical videos and my Protestant apologetics videos, you know, they really seem like they were the push on a leftist agenda, but it's not, that's not the reason. I got interested in climate change for a very simple reason. I watched a documentary. It wasn't Al Gore's. It was another one that came out around 2005. That was, when I watched it. And I just got curious. I thought, hmm, what's the truth about this? I'm not sure. I started reading books. And I went to museums. And over the years, a couple times, you kind of, you know, you keep your eyes open and your ears open and you're just listening and you're studying and

talk to people about it, read about it, study it, you know. And over time, it just kind of seems like, yeah, it does seem like since the Industrial Revolution, consumption of huge quantities of coal, oil and natural gas do emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. That does lead to more heat energy from the sun being trapped, and that does seem to have bad consequences over time. The basic mechanics of it seem plausible to me. Now, look, I'm not a scientist. I could be wrong. I'm not trying to coerce anyone else. I'm just trying to follow my conscience and seek the truth. And certainly, I recognize that there are people who weaponize that data for bad policies. That's why I didn't advocate for a policy despite people saying, despite her saying,

I make policies a requirement for the gospel, which is, again, just so off. But so I recognize, you know, people weaponize that data, but the data seems correct to me. Now, it could be wrong, but that's just how it seems to me. And so basically, the posture I have on this issue is I'm just trying to think about it. And I think we should be able to do that in the church. Without people coming along and, you know, branding you as a shepherd for sale. This is, this is not the way. We got to do better than this. All right. Done with this one. Back to normal programming soon. Here's what's just around the corner. I'm going to, I'm not going to dwell on this or really do anything. You know, I was even thinking, should I try to do any sort of interaction or dialogue?

No, I'm not interested in even thinking about this anymore. I'm moving on. Here's what's around the corner at Truth Unites. I'm going to do a video on the Apostles Creed. I'll put up the thumbnail for this. The Apostles Creed, I'm going to do. a word-by-word explanation of every word in the Apostles' Creed. I'm really excited about that. I'm going to have a video. I've been working on this. This would be the next one. Is the Trinity an accretion? I'm going to basically make a biblical and historical defense of the doctrine of the Trinity from the New Testament and then in the early anti-Nicene era trying to show, no, no, no, this is a part of the apostolic deposit. Then I've got other videos coming out, video on 1st Timothy

315. What does it mean that the church is the pillar and buttress of the truth? And then my argument from eternal truths. This is an argument for the existence of God I'm developing. I'm really interested in. So those are four topics you can expect to see on Truth Unites in the weeks ahead. Thanks for watching. If this topic is not your cup of tea, I totally get it. I'm not, I won't do videos like this too often.

Again, the reason to respond is because of the influence this book has and the genuine concern that this is in the midst of the disintegration of our times, a lot of people are looking for a way forward. And unfortunately, a lot of people are looking at a book like this as kind of representative of this is where we need to go. This book represents a stream within evangelicalism slash fundamentalism.

And I don't think that is the answer. And I'm trying to encourage people, no, there's a better way. You can resist secularism and liberalism without lunging in this direction. And that will involve triaging and telling the truth. Those are the basic, simple concerns I'm kind of raising here. All right, thanks for watching everybody. We'll see you in the next video.