Truth Unites - Responding to Megan Basham's Latest Claims

Episode Date: August 3, 2024

Gavin Ortlund responds to further critiques from Megan Basham. Jonathan David article: https://jonathansheadspace.blog/2024/08/01/in-defense-of-gavin-ortlund/ Gavin's response to Andy Stanley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6nlpijFz60 Gavin's reference article addressing marriage: https://truthunites.org/2022/02/26/evangelical-self-criticism-a-plea-for-openness/ 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/

Hello, everybody. Boy, this is not a fun video that I would ever want to make, as you will discover. When people mistreat you, that is unfortunate, when they further mistreat you for protesting the original mistreatment, that is even more unfortunate. And that is what is happening to me right now, as I will show in this video. Why am I doing this? Well, let me start with the Westminster Confession. This is, sorry, Westminster Larger Catechism from its discussion of the Ninth Commandment, which says, Thou shalt not bear false testimony. And it includes this section that speaks of the preserving and promoting of truth and the good name of our neighbor as well as our own.

I was thinking about this as I got counsel today about whether or not to respond any further. And this sort of weighs upon me. I actually believe that if I were to not respond to some of the further round of claims, are making in relation to Megan Basham's book, Shepherds for Sale, and my, basically responding to my concerns about it, if I were to let that go unanswered, I actually, basically reasonable good faith onlookers would be deprived of the truth. And therefore, I actually think I have a responsibility to respond, though I do not enjoy it. It's a no-win scenario. You respond to certain critics, and I know the dangers, and I'm not going to get into an interminable back and forth, all right? My

ministry is going to be mainly focused on constructive ends and so forth. But let me explain what's happening. Two days ago, I released a video expressing a series of concerns about truth and triage in Megan Basham's criticism of me in her book, Shepherds for Sale, how evangelical leaders traded the truth for a leftist agenda, which has just come out recently. And I said that would be my final word about that, but there have been new developments that I unfortunately need to address. Since my video came out two days ago, Megan herself has posted or reposted or commented, I went through and started counting them. I got to her on 150. So just in the last two days, she's posted or commented on X, about 150 times. I actually lost count because there were

new ones coming in as I was counting. The vast majority of these are about the book and many about, well, I think all are about the book. Many are about me and advancing a new range of claims such as that my video was very deceitful. Now, that would be one thing you could just ignore that, but unfortunately, this has galvanized a whole swarm of others to join in, and I regret to tell you, by the way, let me say one thing up front for people. I'm fine. I honestly am fine. For whatever reason, I kind of walk through it, and I don't know, maybe I'll feel differently six months for now, but I feel fine right now. So don't, no one needs worry about me in this. But, because I have people texting, say, are you doing okay? And it's like, no.

No one needs to worry, but there is, and I regret to have to tell you this, just a sort of pile on right now on X in relation to this whole episode. And people basically, you know, there's a range of different responses. I don't want to put all comments in the same bucket. In the worst expressions of it, it kind of has the feel of people trying to drag your name through the mud. kind of, it feels like a smear campaign, you know, just relentlessly cruel, whatever they can do to tear you down, that kind of thing. One website, despite not even knowing me well enough to know how to spell my last name, it's calling me a global warming, hysteric, and COVID-vax enthusiast who spent the last several years railing against conservative Trump voters in the church.

These charges will be humorous to anyone who's sat under my... preaching not once in any sermon ever. Have I made vaccines, Trump, or climate change a focus in other contexts, even I hardly ever talk about those things. And when I do, it's usually to try to triage them. But this website after introducing me in that ridiculous manner, then claims that I, quote, directed my fans to review bomb the book, even though none of them are verified purchasers who even read it. This would classify as slander. I have not asked anyone to review the book. I have not asked anyone to do anything about this situation, with two exceptions. One, somebody happened to send me a Lisa Childers, I think very highly of a Lisa,

so I expressed my dismay that she is still platforming and promoting this book on her video. And then I've asked for people privately for counsel to hold me accountable as I think about how to respond and to just give me counsel and prayer. I've not asked anyone to review the book. I've not asked anyone to do anything other than those two things. But now, someone will say, okay, fine, but you can't hold this website responsible. You can't, you can't hold Megan responsible for what this website is saying. Well, she is retweeting this particular article just cited in a tweet that has almost 900 likes last time I checked, and that's very much representative of just the kind of thing that's happening right now. So there's, in other words,

reason I got to come back to this, though I don't enjoy. this is two reasons. There's the wrong of the original book, which is I will now just work through and explain to good faith onlookers wondering about that. And then there's these further wrongs afterwards and new mistruths. Some of these are unfortunately serious enough that I kind of need to explain. So let me explain. Why is it necessary for me to respond to this? I don't, I know it looks bad. That's why it's a losers thing. Just for non-Christians looking on, you know, this is not how we want to function as the church having these kinds of things. But let me explain why it's necessary. And that is, when there are people who are attempting to discredit you, and it's in high selling

books, it's large numbers of people, it's high profile people, and it's met with large social media response and reception, it's appropriate at that point to defend yourself, not for yourself, but for your friends, for your church, for your institutional affiliations, and for all good faith onlookers, and ultimately for the Lord. Your reputation is very precious and fragile. It matters to protect it. And if there are mistruths, it's fine and actually fitting and sometimes necessary to point them out. So I sort of sympathize with someone who might look at this and say,

oh, just ignore it. Just ignore all this and just focus on apologetics and the other things you're doing. But the problem is the accusations are such that they actually impact. I think good faith onlookers can get swayed and confused. even see that happening, and I just want to bring clarification for good faith onlookers. And some particular matters I need to explain very clearly, and let me do one right up front. One of the dynamics is people are drudging up and circulating an old interview in which I was responding to rapid fire theological triage, you know, this topic, this topic, this topic.

And on questions of marriage and sexuality, I gave a second rank categorization. Now, at that time in my thinking, and I regret this, that was not, I've subsequently clarified this and so forth, that is not the way I would put it. What I was trying to do there is to leave space for someone maybe personally to be saved, even if they are confused on such things, and the ambiguity of what exactly was in view there, probably, basically I bungled the answer, and I apologize for that. I have since then clarified my views on that, both in writing and in video. I will put a link to an article and a link to a video.

you can see them both where I have been very clear. No, I think, I've always believed marriage is one man and one woman. And just to be totally clear, I think that's a first-rank issue. Okay, here's what I said in my video on this. Because I think clarity about this topic is really needed in our time. I've written a book on theological triage, which means ranking different doctrines. One of the questions I've wrestled with is where in ranking issues do we put some of these pressing issues in our culture about human sexuality, human identity, and I've come to feel that clarity is so important in maintaining the

conviction that sex is designed only for marriage between one man and one woman, and that that is not a sort of agree-to-disagree issue. So let me just clarify my view on that. One man, one woman is the definition of marriage. I've always believed that, and I do think that is a first-rank issue. It's just what people have done here, it has to do with how we use these numbers and rankings, first rank, second rank. And it's unfortunate, of course, that they will deliberately circulate the older interview clip and ignore my subsequent clarifications, but that is entirely in keeping with their tactics, unfortunately.

And I'm aware they will not stop this, and that's fine. I'm not, I'm going to ignore them. I'm speaking here today to good faith onlookers who deserve the truth about just a couple things real quick. So a couple quick clarifications for people looking on, and then I'll give three clarifications for people looking on, and then three suggestions for sort of moving forward, trying to push this in some kind of constructive direction. Number one, misdirection. So people need to be aware of this. Megan and others are now emphasizing all manner of statements from my original video about climate change that have little or nothing to do with the concerns at hand

about misrepresentation. And this is what I suspect she will continue to do, perhaps, in in further reactions. And so I just want to alert people to be discerning about this because, you know, you can see how people kind of get swayed and they're kind of like, oh, wow, well, you know, especially people who really disagree with me about climate change, then I say, well, I really disagree with Gavin about climate change. So maybe he's in the wrong in this circumstance or something like that. But this is very simple. Okay. My views about climate change have nothing to do with this dispute. Let's assume for the sake of argument that I am 100% wrong on that issue. Fine. As I made clear in my initial video, my views, my concerns here are

about telling the truth and doing triage. Okay, that's the issue. And so I want to alert people to be discerning about misdirection because they're going to quote all these different statements that I made about climate change and try to make it about that. Okay, these are the issues that we need to tell the truth about each other and that we need to triage issues well. second thing I want to alert good faith onlookers to is that the responses thus far to my concerns about misrepresentation have been totally inadequate. And I just want to show that so a good faith onlooker can see it clearly. Because people get kind of confused and dismayed when there's a social media swarm against someone. They think, wow, maybe there must be something right in all these comments.

Maybe Orkland isn't who he thought he was. Maybe he's a wolf, you know, lots of stuff like this. just ask yourself, does that smell like the Spirit of Christ? Does that smell like, oh, yeah, this is really building the kingdom of God? Again, I hope people will be discerning. Most people are. But people can get swayed. That's why I want to offer this clarification. Let me give an example.

Okay. The distinction between how you form a view and what view you form is not a complicated distinction. This is not deep philosophy. This is not conceptually opaque. This is very clear. I could explain this to my younger kids and so forth. People have pointed this out many times over and over to Megan on X in response to her failure or unwillingness to understand that distinction. Neil Shenvi laid it out in a very clear way.

Many others have as well. I'll put up an example or two here. Unfortunately, she appears to not accept this distinction, which means, she has not adequately responded to the concerns about misrepresentation, where on page 26, she's saying, Ortland says, and she's just completely putting words in my mouth. Let's just be really crystal clear about this for the record going forward, and I'll ask people to remember this and be discerning

and not allow this to be dislodged by the noise of the avalanche that comes against me. Here's what I initially said. 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. So you can see that that is about how you form a view. And here is Megan's quote of me. To not accept that consensus, Ortland says,

is to buy into conspiracy and hoax it is a failure to take a responsible posture. So anyone can plainly see here that the words Ortland says do not refer to a sentence of mine, rather two phrases of mine were quoted and put in Megan's sentence and then put in my mouth, in so doing, she thereby switched from my claim about how we derive a view to her representation of me of what view we derive. I think that's pretty crystal clear. I think that's pretty cut and dry. Now you might say, okay, fine, there's this one little example. Don't be nitpicky, you know. But if someone is claiming to have receipts and in fact does not have receipts in certain contexts, it is appropriate to have to get really granular to document that. But I'm giving that

as one representative example. There's other examples of misrepresentation in that very sentence, and there's many others similar to that, that sentiment and many others that are different from that. This is representative of her entire manner of treatment of me in this book. It would be very taxing to both me and to you for me to document every single example again that I already went through. Another example I'll just mention in her tweets about me is that she takes statements about how it is important to engage this issue and makes it sound like it's saying, like I'm saying, oh, it's important to come to a particular conclusion about this issue, even though I explicitly

said the opposite at the climax of that whole video. If you have a different opinion about this, that's fine. So you can see how the concerns will come up here about misrepresentation, about Ninth Commandment violation, and so forth. If you want to see, I'm not going to go on and on here. Again, for good faith onlookers, I'm trying to give a representative example. If you want to see other clear examples of misrepresentation, see this article written by a person I do not know and whose views do not align with mine on climate change, but it's very clearly written and makes the truth very plain. And it's worth noting how he introduces himself by saying Megan's overall thrust is one that fits my own views.

This is why it is wrong when people try to discredit complaints and criticisms of this book by saying it's just Ortland fans or it's just Big Eva or its other institutions circling the wagons. I have not asked anyone to do anything except my request to Alisa because of my profound respect for her as a sister in Christ. just from a previous dialogue we've done and so forth. And I just happened to see that and wanted to encourage her to consider that. But I've not asked anyone to do anything. And my fans, whoever they are, they are, are not the main ones raising concerns. Everybody is doing this.

If you go and look online, you will see a lot of people saying these exact same things, even people that I don't know and aren't really all that similar to me. So Megan will somewhat insultingly try to say this is about me as a guru, and my fans and stuff like this. But it's not that, and that's actually a way of just dismissing the concerns. The people criticizing this book are just normal people with normal concerns. And there's no conspiracy here. People just see what is happening.

You can read their comments in various places. And accusations of Big Eva do feel ironic to me in light of the fact that in this storm against me on Twitter now, I am very small and institutionally vulnerable, and these people have massive mega platforms with all these tweets getting hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of likes all piling on more and more and more. But Big Eva, you see how backwards this is? The third thing I want to alert people, good faith onlookers, too, to be discerning about is the gaslighting that happens here.

When Megan was asked about this situation in an interview, she and her host laughed at my lament of the seriousness of this misrepresentation, and then Megan referenced my tactic of being deliberately over-literal, and then addressed only one of my concerns about her final paragraph, and said, oh, that paragraph had nothing to do with him. He says that you misrepresented him, worse than he's ever been misrepresented. He says that you accuse him of making this a gospel issue, and he says he does not make it a gospel issue. He said, it's fine to disagree, but we just need to talk about climate change. So how would you respond to what Gavin said? Well, you know, when I watched that video, I was surprised to see that so many of the things I said as general summary at the end of

the chapter that were not specifically about him, that were in fact about a speaker at Southeastern Seminary who directly said that to be faithful to the gospel, we need to take up the issue of creation care, which means taking up the issue of climate change. And it came in the very last paragraph. It was clearly not referring to him. And he was saying, well, she says, I do this. And it wasn't about him. And he said, well, she said, I'm a shepherd for sale. And I mean, I think a little bit that this is a tactic to be deliberately over-literal

to say every single person in this, she is saying is bought by George Soros. Now this, let's just work through this again. For good faith onlookers, here's the facts. This summary paragraph comes at the end of her seven pages devoted. to criticizing me. I am mentioned all throughout and write-up, including on that very same page, without any indication of a change of subject. Furthermore, this paragraph recapitulates nearly word-for-word multiple criticisms that have just been explicitly given to me at the beginning of those seven pages and in them. Let me give examples. You see the critique in this paragraph about the charge to love

your neighbor, which is exactly what she said about me a few pages earlier. Erroneously, by the way, That's one of many other points of misrepresentation, I could point out. You see also in this final paragraph the idea that I'm insisting on this issue as binding and I'm binding consciences over this issue. This is what I'll try to say because I'm saying it's really, you know, in this video I did back in like 2021 or 22. I was kind of, you know, I was studying this. I was kind of thinking about it and I was really reflecting about it.

I don't think about this issue every day anymore. I do think about it a lot still though, but not every day, but a lot. But one of the things I'd said in this video is, look, it's really, I admittedly really emphasizing the importance of engaging and studying and so forth, but I made it very clear. I'm not saying it's really important to come to a particular conclusion about it. So they're always going to gloss over that. But this is the charge that's in that final paragraph, and you can see it in various other spots like when she introduces me. This is how I'm framed in the whole book as a creation care activist who accuses others of being political,

who resist the policy that she just recounted, the various policies, and then the very next sentence. California pastor Gavin Orton, that leads into the discussion of me. She makes that point throughout about me being insistent that the... And note these words in this quote, can be doing so only. These are many of the examples of where

she'll try to back off that kind of language in order to defend this erroneous statement about me. So, the point is this. Are we seriously now being asked to believe that a reader will somehow be able to discern that from this seven-page summary to this summative paragraph, somehow Megan, without telling us, is no longer thinking of me as at least one of the people being discussed in this conclusion,

even though the criticisms there are just recapitulating the same criticisms earlier, and that for me to protest that is now me having a tactic of being deliberately over-literal. You see how backwards this is? My wife was telling me about the phrase Dharma, telling me to look that up for what's happening to me right now. I didn't even know what it is. I'm just a naive theologian trying to work through the sociology of all this in an honoring way. But anyway, so let's see how backwards it is, is the point. To try to put the most charitable spin on this possible, Megan is being at best unclear in what she's saying here, in who is in view. okay and in advancing a book like this she's responsible to be clear about who are you talking about

at worst she's sort of giving an implication and then evading responsibility for that by saying oh no no that wasn't about you even though most readers will think it was about him so this is a form of gaslighting when you know just think about it it's a book called shepherds for sale are we to be judged for wondering if the shepherds criticized in it are, in fact, shepherds for sale? You know, this is not a wild deduction that one person might draw. Did Megan not expect readers to take her criticisms in light of the framing of her book in its title, front flap, back cover, introduction, conclusion, etc. Imagine someone doing this to you. They write a book. It's called sellout doctors. Let's say you're a doctor.

People write a book, sell out doctors. At the beginning of the book, they say some of these doctors I'm going to discuss are actual butchers and thieves. Others are just clumsy and have bad practice. Okay, this would be analogous to Megan's categories of wolves versus just fools and other categories. But they don't tell you which are which. Well, if you're a doctor and you're targeted and criticized at length in the book, of course you're going to wonder. Well, which am I? but she actually is saying it's manipulative of me to now wonder about that. So there's a lot here. I'm not going to go on and on and on, but I'm trying to highlight some of the major issues. I'll speak at a personal level and say it hurts to be criticized,

but it hurts way worse, to be gaslit for responding and to have a discrediting smear campaign mobilized against me. All right, so what do we do now? How do we respond? I would say three things. and these are directed, I'm not speaking to those who are platforming Megan, promoting Megan, that's between them and the Lord.

I'm speaking to good faith onlookers who are trying to figure out, what do we do about this? I would say three things. Number one, don't be discouraged by it. As I said earlier, I'm actually, I'm fine. I mean, it's a little taxing, it's frustrating at times to read comments when they feel like they're gaslighting you and manipulating things against you. It is unfortunate to have to spend a lot of time on it, but I don't wear it too bad. doing fine. It's not, honestly, to me, it's not the end of the world. I also think when people say,

I understand people say, oh, it's just so discouraging to see this public disagreement and so forth. And I would say, I agree. This is not great. This is not good that this is happening. However, public disagreements can be turned to a redemptive end. You know, for better and worse, you know, to more or less degrees. In other words, there can be some good things that come out of them. And so what I would say is don't be discouraged. I'm trying to respond with integrity to this. I sincerely am, despite how people are trying to chop me up into pieces. I would encourage others. Respond with integrity. Don't mock anyone. Don't insult. Don't judge motives. You know, keep it above board.

And then be discerning. I think basically one good thing that can come out of public disagreement is it's an occasion for the truth to be clarified. It's an occasion for the truth to be sharpened. And unfortunately, we live in a time in which discernment is really clear. I mean, people need to know. Who's a wolf? Who's a fool? Who's for sale? Who isn't? The charges of this book are sufficiently forceful, and it's having a sufficiently large impact that it's actually important to figure out the truth. So public disagreement can serve the end of people being discerning about these claims. So don't be too discouraged about this. It's okay. God allows these things to happen, there's bad in it, but one good thing can be a clarific. People can say like,

oh, man, I need to look into this more. You know, if no one was disagreeing about this, then a lot of people would just say, oh, terrific. This all must be true. So don't be discouraged. This is first thing. Second thing, some people have said, oh, you guys just need to get together and talk and do a dialogue. I would welcome opportunity for a positive relationship with Megan. I believe she is my sister in Christ. And despite my concerns with her, how she is treating me, I would welcome opportunity for a peaceable relationship with her. At this point, what I am experiencing as a lack of receptiveness and a lack of softening in her replies gives me the impression that that would not be productive right now. That is just my opinion. Combined with the lack of reaching out

beforehand, another thing people attack me for on Twitter is saying, oh, you know, I didn't say you always have to do that for any time you interface with someone. In this case, given the book and the seriousness of it, that would have been helpful and courteous. Nonetheless, at this point, I don't think a dialogue would be productive. I think it would be better just to wait on that a bit and see if there's a better context in which that could occur and have a really happy, good outcome. So thirdly, that leads to the question of, well, what should we do? And I have a very simple and happy answer to that.

Move on. As I've already indicated, I'm not asking anybody to really take any actions. I'll even go back on what I said about Elise, if she keeps it up, that's fine. That won't be a barrier in my relationship with her as far as I'm concerned. What I am asking people to do is, you know, go take your daughter out to ice cream, take your son out to throw the frisbee, read a great novel,

get to know your neighbor, you know, have a great day. In other words, I think what would probably be most productive for the body of Christ right now is to move forward. I don't regret making this video. even though I don't enjoy it, but I don't regret doing it. I have peace in my conscience about this video. I have peace in my conscience about the last video. I think it's appropriate to defend yourself.

But I feel that at this point, what would be most edifying is to try to move, just move on. I get various kinds of criticism from atheists when I defend Deuteronomy and from Christians, you know, for other reasons like this. I'm going to try to just move forward, ignore it all, unless I can't. learn something from it. If it's good faith criticism, totally different, but ignore bad faith criticism and keep my eye on the price and spend my life however I can, even though people are also questioning my calling and my ministry and all that. But I feel called to truth unites in what I'm doing, and I believe it's good, and I'm seeing fruit in it, and I feel joy about it, and I'm going to just

give myself to that. One quick note about blocking people. When I block someone, that is not a personal attack or an indefinite statement about them as a whole person or something like that. Some people say, oh, he's trying to shut down criticism and things like this. Now, people are still free to say whatever they want. Blocking someone sometimes is appropriate because it creates a buffer between you and that person, so they are not allowed to quote, tweet you, and so forth. I try not to leap to that conclusion too fast, but when there's someone who's clearly just trying to demean you as much as possible, it's appropriate to create that buffer for their sake as well as yours. So, So for those who have already blocked and for anybody I will block, I'm explaining my philosophy

of blocking for a good faith onlooker who might wonder about that. Don't expect to say anything else about this. The only reason I would is if some huge new thing emerged that I needed to clarify, I don't expect that to happen. My intention is to just move forward on other positive things. What will I be focusing on? Woo-hoo, not... Well, I have a book coming out.

So I want to think about this a little more. I'm flying out tomorrow morning to do a great interview with my friend Austin Sugg, as I can't wait for that. My book is about Protestantism, and I would love to share more about that in future videos. I have one specifically devoted to it, and I'm excited about that. It's just coming out in a couple weeks. You can still pre-order it, so I'm going to be trying to focus more on interviews and things for that.

And then I have several videos coming out. One that I forgot to mention will actually be my next video. It'll come out Monday morning, so you'll all kind of see, ah, Truth Unites, it's back on normal track here. And that's going to be about, is there an idea of the afterlife in the Old Testament, specifically the earliest portions of the Old Testament? Because this is one criticism from on higher critical scholarship and other quarters, that basically this is a later idea.

It's an afterthought, that there was no conception of heaven or hell or any sort of afterlife in the earliest times of redemptive history. And I think we can push back against that. And I think it's helpful to think about that. So that's the next video that'll come out on Monday morning. Other than that, let's all move forward and have a great weekend.