Impact of "Shepherds for Sale" on Revival (pt.1)

All right, Matt Bennett here for the second episode of The Bennett Broadcast. The first one was great to do. Hope I'm going to get better at these and explain it well, but more than anything, I hope this is an encouragement for you to seek the Lord, to trust Him, to do great things in your life. And in our nation, we want Him to do something absolutely extraordinary, wonderful. We believe Him. We love Him. We honor Him. He is the great God, the King of King and the Lord of Lords. Something I'm looking at today has to do with a book that's been going around here lately. It's been, I think the highest it's gotten so far with Amazon is in the top 14 books sold on Amazon, which for a Christian book is a big deal. And it's getting a lot of back and forth online, especially on X and it's worth looking at. It's worth understanding because of its impact and the church more broadly, but especially of what it means to seek God and how to see lives changed and how to see revival come as well. So the name of the book is Shepherds for Sale, how evangelical leaders traded the truth for a leftist agenda by Megan Boschum. Now Megan Boschum, she used to be with World Magazine. Now she's with a daily wire. She has a popular daily podcast. I think it's most days called Morning Wire. She's doing well there. She does a lot of good reporting. And the subject that she covers in this book, which is the influence of money and maybe status or influence that's being exerted on some Christian leaders, I've met it's a concern and people are selling out in a negative way. So that's the thesis of the book and it's very well supported. Now a lot of these ideas I've been exposed to for a while, given my ministry with Christian Union, we minister a lot about the most influential universities in America. Also my work with pastors with heritage pastors association. I'm constantly in touch with pastors and so a lot of these occurrences in culture that she's noticed is bringing to the fore something that I've seen some up and I know some of the people she talks about in the book. I know them personally and so what she says largely rings true. Some people have quibbled with it somewhat here. There may be citations better this, but nothing has seriously challenged the overall thesis of her argument, which is very concerning. What I'm going to do here, this is the second Ben and broadcast episode, but I'm going to do just the first part of a review of Boschem's book and the overall thesis and what it means for us as we seek the Lord. But and then the next episode I'll do the second half of the book. I think it's key to look at the chapters and know what they're about, what they're largely arguing. So I'll look at each chapter briefly and then what the implications are, but I don't want to do it all in one video. I really, really recommend you buy the book for yourself, but if you don't, at least you have some sense of what the book is about. So that's a benefit of this podcast or this video today is getting a sense of what this book is about since it's rocking a lot of different parts of evangelicalism. So with that, hopefully it'll be helped to you and of interest to you as we dive into this. First of all, the first chapter is an introduction and it's the name of the chapter is introduction. How do you solve a problem like the Christians? So what's laid out in this chapter and this shouldn't be surprising anybody? What's laid out here is that there are forces at work and this society is at all society who want an increasing number of people to believe their views. Sometimes it's for voting purposes, but other times it's just for cultural influence. And if you believe strongly about something good or bad or neutral, sometimes there's that emphasis, that push to try to get others to believe it. So this first chapter points out that there are a lot of self-professed evangelicals in the United States. So it's a big block of people and if that block of people supports certain ideas in the culture or certain political views, then that could be beneficial to those who want to see that happen. That only makes sense. It's a large block. So there are, of course, lots of Christian leaders in the United States, some are more influential than others, a lot of ministries, a lot of publications, institutions, seminaries, these sorts of things. And so the idea is that there are people out there who are very purposefully seeking to influence this. And just being aware of this is very important because there are a lot of secular forces out there wanting to influence the church in some negative ways, anti-Christian ways. We have to be aware of that. That this is happening. A lot of it's happening behind the scenes, so we don't know what's going on, but we got to be aware of this. We got to be astute so that we can know what's going on here. Sometimes a Christian or a view is put forward and sometimes that view is completely non-Christian and should not even be considered. Sometimes it's a view that put forward, but it's what is presented as is not that it's the only view or rather not that it's so center of the faith that you're not a Christian, but this is really what Christians believe. So that's a concern that you have. And looking at all this is how are things being presented, how are they being pushed? And let's pull back and think about it. Now we want our Christian institutions, publications, pastors, leaders to do a lot of this filtering for us. But some of them aren't. Some of them are doing an amazing job. Some of them are not. And so all Christians, we should be aware of this. And pastors, we should be aware what's happening as we look to influential people at our seminaries and attend there and everything else. I went to seminary myself, we got an MDiv and I am mindful of what could be happening at all seminaries because of that because it's very, very influential. So after the introduction, you have chapter one. And it's called climate change, sneaking past the watchful dragons. So this is the issue. I think the issue that we have to be aware of in this chapter and what Megan Bosch and Miss Sang here is that there are some forces out there that are pushing forth the climate change narrative and saying basically if you're a Christian, you need to think about climate in this way. And this is where it gets very troublesome because of course, as Christians, we all care about the environment, it's our job from Genesis to care about nature. The Lord has established us as vice regents over the whole earth that we can care for His creation, animals and everything else. So this is our responsibility. Some things nobody, people don't quibble about such as, hey, let's not put a lot of pollution in the air or let's clean up our after ourselves. But then there's a whole issue of man made climate change and some people believe quite strongly that this is not just a theory, but absolutely increase CO2 admissions from humans is making the earth warm and that's very bad and that's going to cause a lot of destruction. But other people, Christians and non-Christians alike think that the evidence isn't quite there or even if it is there, that we got to be very cautious about what policy prescriptions we put out there because it could be such that the so-called cures is worse than the disease and it causes more trouble what we're trying to do. So the part of it that's definitely Christian is the part that we should care about creation. That's right in Genesis and it makes sense. But what we don't want to do is to say, well, you have to have this particular view on man made climate change or so called man made climate change or else you're not really a Christian or this is the only acceptable Christian view because of course that's not the case and people go back and forth on this issue. The question is, I mean, everybody agrees that there has been increased CO2 and the atmosphere over the years. I think it's gone over the last 30, 40 years from about 300 parts per million. I think maybe 420 parts per million now and the atmosphere, but the question is, is that having an effect is the earth warming and if it is warming, is it being caused by that or by the sun or by other factors and even then the question is, is that bad? Certainly the earth has been warmer than it is right now and what are the implications of that. So there's a lot there far more than we want to look at this chapter. I'm not looking to dive into a scientific discussion of this. I've enjoyed looking at this subject years ago. I read a whole bunch of books, pros and cons on the issue to try to get my own view and think about it and keep up with the science. I did notice I remember this happening a few years ago that I was at a party here in New York City at a friends place and there's a person there who's a leader of a Christian environmental organization and we're in a circle and we're talking and as we're talking, it became such that as this person kept putting forward that the way he was speaking and talking inviting conversation was the mindset, well of course we're all Christian and therefore absolutely we believe in this hypothesis that it's caused the the things that I just mentioned and pre-CO2 is making the earth warm and therefore and it's bad and therefore we need to do some things about it. But after a while I felt a little disingenuous because I'm skeptical about it because I'm just sitting there and going along and I volunteered and just said, well just so you know I'm not sure what other people here feel but I'm not on board with this. I'm not quite persuaded and I mean the reaction was very very weird. It was a very very just red face rage is the only way I could talk describe it. I mean it was really really shocking and what could possess them to be and then even later on we're at dinner and there's a bunch of us at a dinner table and kind of pixified from down the end of the table. Watch the go at it again and I enjoy talking about issues like this but I really enjoy it when I feel like you can talk to somebody who's going to work through the arguments bit by bit and not fly off the handle and go into a rage and I think what it is and I think this goes into so much of the thesis of Basham's book is that in my view this person I could be wrong but I think was so interested in the approval of the larger scientific world and wanting that approval of Christianity and then therefore Christianity would be more widely accepted and maybe more people will come to faith and it would be better for all society if Christians went along with this because of it. I'm sure he believed in the science as well. We did later on have a chance to go back dialogue back and forth and as I went back and I tried to narrow on those specific issues he more or less just said that he viewed it the way he did because of a Christian scientist friend of his who believed in this hypothesis and that was it and that was a little disappointing given that he was a leader of a ministry I thought he would really dig down into the actual scientific arguments more of it but that was his decision and that's how he saw it but I think a lot of people are influenced by how their perceived Christians are influenced by how they're perceived in wider society and not wanting to be at odds with them and that's too bad we got to be willing to be our own people even if the world around is doesn't like it or supposedly they don't become Christians because of it well that's between them and the Lord we got to go after truth is best that we can but I think it's something Christians can disagree about and look at and consider so that this is the first chapter and so taking away from this there are forces there are influences there are people putting money into causes to really persuade Christians that this is the Christian doctrine that this is the only acceptable Christian doctrine and it is not there are Christians with different views and it shouldn't be presented as that as a quote gospel issue meaning you're really not Christian if you don't believe it in this way that's of course is ridiculous so that's the first chapter now let's look at the second chapter and that's on the issue of illegal immigration chapter two illegal immigration strangers neighbors and aliens so for those who have been watching the news the last number of months and especially years you see that there's a lot of controversy over a lot of illegal aliens crossing the border or what does that mean and this has been going on for years so there's discussion but there are some funded from secular sources some front groups that presented as basically if you love your neighbor if you're a Christian then of course you support all of this immigration now right now in the US about every year every year about a million people become citizens legally the naturalization process and maybe it should be more maybe it should be less I know a number of people here in New York who've been working on becoming citizens for years and the red tape and the problems I mean many years even though these are people that we would want in our country very smart and very dynamic people but the process can be very slow and so some may argue we should up that if a million or two million or three million and that's an argument to be had but it's not necessarily more Christian or less Christian and then you have the many millions who crossed over the border illegally and Christians should say this isn't cool this is going against the laws of our country and we should support the rule of law in this country now the counter argument is that well if you love these people they need help and they're desperate and we should help them well the thing is what we have to consider is that when we have a lot of illegal aliens are aliens in general especially their low skilled come to the country but who suffers and who pays the price is not the middle class or wealthier it is the poor people because their jobs get replaced and wages stay low because there's a high demand for low school jobs because of all these people coming in so they're more likely to be unemployed and then the schools get overcrowded in public schools whereas wealthier people can send their kids to a boarding school or send them to a private school or something like that and so if you have twice as many people now here in New York in the last few years that have been over 100,000 people that have come in and so I hear stories from pastors and their churches working over time to help and welcome them in schools that are overcrowded and we do have a very big public education problem the country already with many graduating from high school and they can't even read at any decent level and now you're going to have all these additional people in these schools many of him whom do not speak English and not just Spanish but they'll speak all languages from all over the earth so it's a real detriment to the poor people in this country so we got to think about them as well all that to say is it's something that Christians can consider pro and con how many should we have in the country should have been more than a million it's not necessarily Christian and it doesn't mean you're not loving your neighbor if you don't want even more immigrants because arguably you're not loving your your real neighbor here the poor people in the United States and the negative impact on that so Basham delays us all out in her chapter it's really well done and talks about a lot of the actors and all of this who's getting funding to do what's very important to see and know that those who are putting forth these arguments that this is a Christian well a lot of times they have multiple motives in terms of why they're doing that they don't necessarily even fully believe it maybe they do maybe they don't but certainly it's not the Christian position that all Christians need to adhere to all right so the next is chapter three we're going to go up to the first five chapters of the book here today so we're looking at chapter three here now this one is called chapter three hijacking the pro-life movement now what Basham does in this chapter is put forth the thesis and I think she documents it well that many of the more known Christians or leaders Christians in publications like Christianity today that they're very muted about abortion even though it is a unique horror with over 50 million dead it's unbelievably wicked by far the most wicked thing that's happened in this country since it's founding even though there's been other wicked things like slavery of course but it's really really horrible and so to push it down not consider or not talk about it much she goes examples and magazines and people when the issue gets brought up different Christians they'll sidestep and say what the real issue is we've got to provide more for the single mother as well we do do that and she documents how they're over 3,000 pregnancy centers across America and over 300 million raised every year for these and so many people I know many people maybe you do too volunteer to help these pregnancy centers there's only one in Manhattan pregnancy center and they are attacked and lobby against the government activist groups are always against them it's really really often they do extraordinary work and are true true saints many of them are Christian most of them are Christians but it's a real hard thing so didn't then to have a leadership vocally in different publications to ignore the issue not be glad that Roby Wade was overturned this is really really weird and really really bad and so why is this again what's happening is it money influencing sometimes it's money that's coming their way but sometimes it's just they want the respectability of the larger culture and that's what goes on and let me tell you what it reminds me up I lived in Princeton New Jersey for a bunch of years working with another ministry and then I started Christian Union there as our first student chapter and being around there for many years you got the seminary in the same town as university now they're not the same institution they're both in the same town both named after the town so they have the same name Princeton seminary and Princeton University and a friend pointed this out to me who's a student there I think is exactly right and that is a bunch of the professors there at the seminary they are so desire of respectability they want more than anything the respectability of high academia represented by the university and they wanted so bad because the way many in the university professors and others look at seminaries in general is that oh people go there they really can't cut it in high level academia and those are stepped down etc etc and this drives a lot of these academics mad especially if they're not Christian and so a lot of them in the seminary they want the prestige they want the recognition the acceptance and so to do that they'll basically throw out many of the doctrines of the faith they think if they are some of the leaders on some of the wild social movements or throw out doctrines like the resurrection other such stuff that they therefore they therefore they can gain the applause of the world and these other academics but the sad thing is it never happens they're still looked down upon and honestly almost kind of even despise them all the more they don't have the courage other convictions after all they're at a seminary so it's a sad thing to see now it's not the case with everybody of course there are some saints that even some of the more wayward secular seminaries some good professors there but a lot of them are overrun with people who don't know God not Christian all sorts of problems but that's what it's like in these larger on these larger issues too like on the pro-life issue nationally some of these are Christian leaders they won't openly speak about these matters hoping for favor sometimes they want to do it for evangelism I mean you might even know if you ever watched the TV show The View that you'll have courageous people like Ben Carson or others openly talk about the horrors of abortion whereas sometimes you might have a pastor they are going to quote and they'll dance they'll pull back they won't talk about it they won't do this I think supposedly for the case of evangelism but I think the problem is as the Lord said is we sometimes may come twice the sons of hell as they were before we don't really teach them the full gospel what it means to know the word so it's a it's bad way to go so this is what chapter three how you jack in the pro-life movement is about everything it becomes if you're like for instance you're only a pro-life if we take the vaccine and that's what pro-life is it's all these kind of word games and dancing around by some Christian leaders so Lord have mercy all right chapter four the Christian media and the money men now this is mostly centered on Christianity Day and she makes the case the Christianity Day is pretty much only interested in highlighting ethical issues of it's more identified with the left side of the political and not the right on side so she talks about this the abortion issue but other issues as well they do receive money from secular organizations doesn't necessarily mean anything bad but it does make you wonder and put your eye on it and consider it and the magazine they also partner with the religious news service and openly the RNS they are against the doctrine of the family may promote all these sexual perversions that are common today and yet they'll use them as a news service why would a Christian magazine do that it's it's really troublesome and then also Christianity Day the issue of drag queen story hour and also child mutilation and what's so called you know sex change mutilation that happens with children even adults it barely speaks about even though it's been in legislatures across the country it's a big Christian issue barely touches it and it's really really weird it's really odd it seems like it's more of a tool of elitist or maybe leftist sort of thought I suppose which if some of the left stock turns are good I think they're on the right as well but these aren't good in any case so she makes the case that that money might be influencing him or prestige she even quotes a former editor of Christianity Day saying how Mark Ali and how the newsroom or the group there at CT they're very very excited when they get recognized or picked up or acknowledged by mainstream publication something like New York Times or Washington Post or something like that which is too bad you can't let these organizations you can't let them these influential promises of the world influences as Christian and as a minister by the way Christian Union we minister at nine of the most influential universities in America we start at Princeton we're at Harvard Yale Stanford Dartmouth Cornell etc and we work very hard to present the full and complete gospel and not allow to be influenced or co-opted by the university because we got to stand strong for the Lord and some of our peer ministries there do the same some do not allow themselves to be a more or less boss around by the universities and quiet about the gospel but some are strong and good but if you want to support the cause go to christianunion.org slash cornerstone and become a cornerstone partner help with this movement and we ministered also to alumni of these schools and anybody else who wants to be part of our program so you can see at christian union America the programs we do across the United States to advance the gospel encourage people to seek the Lord wholeheartedly so please take a look all right then there's chapter five so this one is called gracious dialogue how the government used pastors to spread COVID-19 propaganda and this has really really rough to read really tough to see because it looks like so many famous Christian leaders simply allowed the government to tell them this is the narrative and if you want to quote love your neighbor then you have to do these things but there are a lot of questions about some of these scientific directives that were given by the government and it's becoming more and more plain over the months and years since covid and for instance the whole idea that we should love or participate in or and go along with lockdowns and it's been shown to caused a lot of trouble and so I think a UN study in the book showed that thousands of people died I think a few hundred thousand because it threw the economies down and affected them negatively and people died of starvation worldwide because of it that has to be taken in and then a lot of the studies that show that students lost years of learning this is a factor now there's a Christian professor Jay bought a chariot at Stanford who teamed up with professor at Harvard and at Oxford and they put forward a document saying we shouldn't go with the lockdowns instead we should have focused protection for the vulnerable but they were dismissed as marginalized by some of the senior leadership in the government and Christians should have been alerted to this because it's a different Christian I mean just a different scientific view but even one of them is a Christian maybe the other two but they weren't considered they weren't allowed it was just fringe stuff and so a lot of the Christian leaders just went along whatever the government said about lockdowns about mass and social distancing about not doing any early treatment like Ivory Vermeckdown or even taking the vaccine and just parroted whatever the government said and as Christian leaders we should not do that we should say hey go with your conscience we here to look at this issue from a Christian spiritual lens and use your conscience in deciding what of this you should consider from a scientific perspective too and what you should take because a lot of studies have come out showing that the vaccine killed people caused a lot of disability that early treatment could have happened for many and many lives could have been saved through Ivory Vermeckdown and others that mass never did anything but it did cause damage for some people especially children but it didn't help prevent the virus at all so so many Christian leaders just went along and said whether the government said and said if you love your neighbor you'll do this and we can't let ourselves to be co-opted and I don't know how many or if any of them have apologized this but they owe the country an apology they really really do for allowing themselves to be manipulated that way so that's the fifth chapter so we'll stop there in this review so far but I want to have a few takeaways for us already and the first is that we need to be on a guard in all these sectors of society there are influences on institutions on Christian leaders sometimes it's outright grants and money sometimes you'll get invited to the club if you go along with something and as a ministry to quote unquote elite spaces myself I've often been invited or sought to be pressured to go along with certain views so that people secular forces could have their views presented and through our ministry in different ways so the the pressure can be quite strong sometimes so we got to be on our guard and aware and alert of what's going on now secondly what we want to do is to be and remember to be okay with being our own persons and even that means the ridicule of the world around us and it makes me think I heard a lecture recently by Tom Holland you might have heard of him he is the he's not Christian he's agnostic but he hosts our co-host the largest history podcast in the world I think called the rest is history now is an event recently in England and it was a Socrates and the city event really great event and he was one of the lecturers and it was really interesting because he did a book recently on Christianity called Dominion and the influence of Christianity throughout the last and it's the world and it's unbelievable all the influence and all how the world has changed because of Christianity he didn't quite really fully appreciate that until he did this deep but he was asked by someone the audience this says hey from afar looking at America looking America evangelicals what would be your view what would be your recommendation or your observation he said something that was really interesting he said so many Christians and I think he was particularly talking about adopting the views of government during a COVID but it could have been more broadly but he said Christians today have lost their wildness and what he means by that is that as he studied history and the impact is he saw how Christians were so just radically different than the culture around them culture around them just thought they were nuts or mad but that's part of what it means to be a Christian as the scripture say we are not citizens of this world we're longing for the our citizenship in heaven and to have that fulfill every true Christian has and so he lamented that Christians have lost their wildness because he saw what an extraordinary positive force it's been in human history and this is from an agnostic so how extraordinary is that so I say to you and all Christians listening to this don't lose your wildness do not go along with something even there's a lot of pressure or in ice myths to be invited to certain events or to adopt certain positions just because there's a favor behind it or an easier path beside of it and the last kind of takeaway I want to give for this is and this is how this is so centered in on this particular podcast vision and mission and that is well revival all these matters addressed but Basham they need to be a draft they need to be fixed we need to make sure that people don't think you have to have a certain view of the climate to be a true Christian or we need to remember that abortion is a terrible evil and needs to be stopped so all these things need to be fixed in any money coming influence that's coming from secular forces into Christian institutions and leaders etc needs to be watched and perhaps stopped in different ways however that doesn't mean we're gonna see revival in the United States when this happens or as this happens and the reason why is is that the Lord pours out his spirit and we get outpouring the spirit and revival and great cultural change when we seek him with great eagerness now it has a little bit of overlap here or maybe a lot but some overlap with what's been discussed here but what we need to do is to pray fast repent of our sins intake tons of the scripture obey the Lord moment by moment and seek him wholeheartedly these promises in the Bible are for us when we seek the Lord but not when we seek him partially or as what's comfortable or what's easy but what he requires at the time in the moment and so I encourage you to see a larger series on this christian union dot org slash seven keys at seven keys to came in advancement or go to Daniel spirituality dot org and look at that too to see what the scriptures teach about what's required in order to seek him it's much more than what the average american does today and it's why we are in the spiritual funk that we are in because we don't seek him like we used to in this country nor like the international church does they seek with great energy and so many people coming to faith in these places in East Asia south america africa it's amazing so and even here in New York city most of the strength of the church is in the immigrant church and they are the ones who seek the Lord of great energy i mean if you drive around Brooklyn at early in the morning you might see some Koreans walking to go to their church to pray for two hours before they go to work it's this sort of thing so may the Lord help us with this so these these matters important to look at and to address and i'm very very glad that Megan basham wrote this book it's a great gift to the body price we need to stop these secular influences and at the same time we need to realize even if all those are stopped it's not going to get us what we want if we want to see widespread change we got to radically radically seek the Lord as he requires so that's how it pertains to the theme of the bit of broadcast and thank you for taking time to consider all of this and i appreciate you listening to this and watching this i means a lot to me the Lord bless you and i'm going to pray for us as we close out here so lord you're awesome and good you're blessed and holy and wonderful make your name great in this country Lord raise up many many many thousands hundreds of thousands millions of Christians to seek your face at day and night with the devotions and all night prayer and fasting for many days and fasting regularly a few times a week and depending of all sense and obeying you moment by moment trust to you loving you praising you Lord it's strengthened all the Christian leaders all the pastors across this country have a very hard job give them faith and strength especially that they would have time to go away for days to draw close to you made this come about we ask in Jesus name and so for all of Christians out there i would encourage you to encourage your pastor to go away to seek the Lord and tell him to drop some of these committee responsibilities are this for that or even people that may need to be visited in the hospital have some deacons or others do that but your senior leadership pastors gotta be strong in the Lord and that means days away with the Lord either with other other pastors or on their own and praying reading the bible worship being praying again repenting of sins all day this is how they get the filling of the spirit strength and faith that come back with the strength to handle all that comes at them in the spiritual realm so i encourage you help them with that so any case that is conclusion of the review of part one review of Megan Basham's book shepherds for sale thank you for listening the Lord bless you you