Telling a Crooked Story: A Continuing Review of Shepherds for Sale

 

In a time of deepening trouble, division, lies, unfaithfulness, power grabs—that may become worse, the Church of Jesus Christ, her people, are called not only to love one another but to also lift up each other in prayer and thankfulness—they are also called to uphold righteousness and truth. Love “does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth (I Cor. 13:6).

I am reading Megan Basham’s new book, Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. My intention was to write a review of it, but after seeing how complex that would be for me, with a great deal of research, I have decided to write several posts on it. This first one will be on chapter 3. “Hijacking the Pro-Life Movement.” I will return to the earlier chapters in future posts.

In her usual method, Basham begins with a tale of someone she admires, and the lady is certainly admirable in her work for the Lord. But then she goes on to contrast that person with others she defames. And while we read the personal stories of those she admires we read few personal details about those Basham attacks.  

Basham chooses Karen Swallow Prior as the first pro-life person she feels sold out to the leftist agenda—and yes, Prior is very pro-life. Prior, who is a professor and author, has spent a good deal of time as a member of the pro-life movement. In a New York Times column, after Roe was defeated, Prior wrote:

  “Roe stripped from the prenatal child the right to continue to live and grow, safe and free from intentional harm. If you believe, as I do, that abortion unjustly ends the life of a being that is fully human, a life that exists independently of the will of the mother, is self-organizing and unique, developing yet complete in itself, then you will understand Roe not as a ruling that liberates but as one that dehumanizes, first the fetus, then the rest of us.” Opinion | The End of Roe, From a Pro-Lifer’s Perspective - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

She also wrote this:

I joined the movement decades ago. My friends and co-laborers in the movement across the political spectrum have over the years established and worked in pregnancy help centers. We have opened our rooms and homes to women who needed them. We have educated them about prevention, alternatives, resources, employment, schooling and empowerment. We have offered help at doctors’ offices and abortion clinics. We have held baby showers, attended weddings, kindergarten graduations and legislative sessions. We have cried with those who regretted their choices, and we have cried with those who didn’t (but cried anyway). We have marched and protested.

Basham did not include any of these quotes in her book, instead she found some quotes that made it seem like Prior was more interested in the “pro-abortion narrative.”

Basham quoted this: “Legalized elective abortion was the consolation prize given to women in 1973 for the centuries of inequality and oppression that stemmed from their sin of not being men.”

And then Basham skipped almost a page of Prior’s writing to put this: “it does take a village to become who we are. Thankfully, America’s romance with radical autonomy and rugged individualism is cooling. Roe gave our nation some of the most liberal abortion laws in the industrialized world and a high rate of abortion compared with that of many other industrialized countries, in no small part because of our individualist cultural and economic ethos.”

Basham skipped further to put this: “We can do better than asking women (and men) to choose between their children and themselves.”

Basham quoted only these paragraphs so she could write this:

Prior’s framing –that pregnancy forces women to ‘choose between their children and themselves’—sounded disconcertingly close to the pro-abortion narrative that babies are a fundamental obstacle to female fulfillment. It legitimized the erroneous and self-focused worldview that career achievement and material wealth provide women more satisfaction than starting a family.

But no. Not only is it not “framing’ it doesn’t sound like that. Basham can attempt to get by with her insinuation because she has left out Prior’s amazing words about life for the unborn baby and her work within the pro-life community.

Basham complains that Prior states that Christians need to now step up and add to the work of helping those who are in need and pregnant, which includes government programs. Pulling Beth Moore, the excellent Bible teacher for women, and her discussion with Prior about the needs for Christian helps, into her complaint, Basham writes as though they know nothing about the many pro-life Centers in the United States, and this is perhaps why she did not quote Prior’s words about working in Pregnancy Centers.

Basham has made or tried to make Prior seem to be a radical feminist. She is not and it is all lies.

Basham then mentions Mika Edmondson, a pastor who sometimes writes for the Gospel Coalition. In fact Southern Baptist Professor Albert Mohler praises Edmondson for an article he wrote for the Gospel Coalition, Is Black Lives Matter the New Civil Rights Movement? Mohler’s article is on the Coalition’s site also, Ugly Stain, Beautiful Hope: My Response to Mika Edmondson.

Edmondson is a black pastor in the Presbyterian Church of America, a conservative Reformed church, and he fervently advocates for social justice. I believe this might have created a problem for Basham. She quotes from his X (Twitter)feed. She writes “…Mika Edmondson sounded downright apologetic [writing after the end of Roe] suggesting like Prior, that outlawing abortion would only be morally legitimate if accompanied by an expanded welfare state.” (First one needs to say that is not at all what Prior said.)

This is what Basham quoted from Edmondson:

Now that roe is overturned, I pray that we will provide the access to healthcare childcare, living wages, education and job opportunities that well support the lives people in desperate situations.

I have to add that Basham likened that to Lincoln with the Emancipation Proclamation promising the freed slaves a mandatory minimum wage and scholarship program.  The historical truth is they were offered something they wanted badly although it was soon taken away from them. For a very interesting story about this read, The Truth Behind ’40 Acres and a Mule’, written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Basham added other tweets that Edmondson made that sounded too socially left to her. But she did not use these quotes, perhaps she could not understand them:

For many, the constant news coverage, countless articles, and heated debates about Roe v. Wade dredges up the painful memories of some of the very worst moments of their lives. May the Lord comfort you with his grace and healing during this hard season.

And:

National discussions about abortion often press us to choose whose rights to speak up for: the rights of vulnerable unborn babies *OR* the rights of vulnerable mothers. But Christ calls us beyond this false dichotomy. In Christ’s grace, nobody’s rights & dignity are expendable.

Next Basham goes after Dr. Russell Moore new editor of Christianity Today and her biggest complaint is that he did not write anything about the ending of Roe for many weeks, and that he refused to call President Trump a pro-life president but mentioned that one of the judges that concurred with the decision was appointed by Bush.  Moore is pro-life, that is not in doubt. This pro-life chapter is very political.

The final person I will write about, but not the last Basham wrote about in this chapter, is Pastor Tim Keller. His views about abortion includes the understanding that there are several ways abortion could be at least lessened in the United States.

Basham quotes his tweet:

Here are two Biblical MORAL norms: 1) It is a sin to worship idols or any God other than the true God & 2) do not murder. If you ask evangelicals if we should be forbidden by law to worship any other God than the God of the Bible—they’d say ‘no.’

We allow that terrible sin to be legal. But if you ask them if Americans should be forbidden by law to abort a baby, they'd say ‘yes.’ Now why make the first sin legal and NEVER talk about it and the second sin illegal and a main moral/political talking point?

The Bible tells us that idolatry, abortion, and ignoring the the poor are all grievous sins. But it doesn’t tell us exactly HOW we are to apply these norms to a pluralistic democracy. … I know abortion is a sin, but the Bible doesn’t tell me the best political policy to decrease or end abortion in this country, nor which political or legal policies are most effective to that end.

While Basham does leave out some of the first part of the tweet which doesn’t matter. Keller is simply making a point that the Bible does tell us what is sin, but doesn’t always tell us how to solve them when they become political problems. But Basham does leave out the last part of the tweet which matters because she is angry that Keller is not promoting Trump as president. In that last part he writes:

The current political parties will say that their policy most aligns morally with the Bible, but we are allowed to debate that and so our churches should not have disunity over debatable political differences! It is also why I have never publicly or privately told Christians who they should vote for. I have also never told anyone they should vote Democrat or Republican. Depending on the policy we can find more or less alignment with Biblical morals. I believe all Christians should be active in politics, but it is unwise to identify Christianity with any particular party.

This is the bigger problem with at least this chapter on abortion. Basham has two goals, to make it seem like the people she is writing about have leftist leanings and that those in the Church should be voting for Trump. Basham doesn’t seem to realize that much of what she sees as woke or leftist is simply a desire to follow the beatitudes of Jesus and all of the moral teachings found in the New Testament. All of these Christians she is aiming at, are faithful followers of Jesus and committed to Him because of His great gift of salvation.