Not All Evangelical Pastors Are Alike
What happens when you prime a group of people to believe that every four years is the most crucial election in history, and if the right party does not win the presidency, wickedness will reign? Writing for The Atlantic, Tim Alberta chronicles the seismic shift undergoing in the American Evangelicalism Church as a result of this kind of thinking. As we have covered before, Tim points out that Evangelicalism is becoming a political identity. And as a result, America's pastors have become more political.
For some, the rise of politicization of American churches and pastors has lit a fire of misinformation and disinformation. Alberta followed and interviewed Bill Bolin, a pastor at FloodGate Church, which is located in the Detroit suburbs. Bolin has regular "diatribes" where he rants about all the day's topics on the Far Right. Vaccines causing deaths, Covid being overblown, election fraud, and the righteous heroes of Jan. 6th (some of whom attended FloodGate) are topics you're likely to hear Bolin rant about before his sermon begins. And while many churches have shrunk during the pandemic, FloodGate has seen its membership swell and its giving grow sixfold.
But not all pastors who get political resemble Bolin. Tim Alberta also spoke with Ken Brown of Community Bible Church in Trenton, MI, another suburb of Detroit. Brown planted Community Bible 20 years ago and has been its lead pastor since then. While Bolin has been riling up his congregation with disinformation, Brown has tried to combat conspiracies and is trying to keep his church from falling apart. Rather than being apolitical, Brown feels it is his job as a Christian and pastor who cares about truth to speak the truth wherever it leads, even when his congregants do not always want to hear what he has to say.
Brown and Bolin are the perfect microcosms of the Evangelical Church in America today. On one side are the folks, like Bolin and FloodGate, who look at society and see nothing but wickedness and evil and will do whatever it takes to keep those who supposedly fight for them (like Trump) in power. On the other side is Brown who is striving, with mixed results, not to let fake news and conspiracy theories taint the witness of Community Bible and its congregants.
Right now, FloodGate and those like it are the churches and communities growing. But this should only serve to encourage those who care about the truth, like Pastor Ken Brown, to be more vocal. But Pastor Brown demonstrates that speaking out is best done in a community where all sides respect one another. Even then, not everyone will listen. And while combatting disinformation and conspiracies may fill us with a sense of urgency and self-righteousness, Christians should ignore those impulses as they are the same ones that helped land us in this predicament.
4 More Things
1) Carrying the theme of churches in turmoil, Ruth Graham profiled Pastor Kevin Thompson and his church, Community Bible Church, in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Pastor Thompson's story differs from Pastor Bolin's or Pastor Brown's. Instead of constantly speaking out, Pastor Thompson chose to leave Community Bible Church in Fort Smith for a different congregation in California. Still, the message is clear: American churches are struggling.
2) Christiane Northup, the New Age health guru made famous with Oprah's help, is back in the news again thanks to her promotion of QAnon conspiracies and anti-Covid vaccine stances on social media and Youtube. While Northup is no longer a medical doctor (she let her license lapse in 2015) this has not stopped her from attempting to appear as an "expert" on health issues with a QAnon/Far Right flair.
3) Vigilantes at the southern border with Mexico are nothing new. Still, Miriam Jordan of the New York Times has new reporting on QAnon members working at the border to save immigrant children from sex trafficking. At least, that is what Jason Frank, a QAnon influencer, claims he is doing by passing out food and “Let's Go Brandon” shirts to immigrant children when they cross the border. Jordan's reporting does not touch on the legality of Frank's work, but this story does show the continued reach of QAnon, even as many of “Q's prophecies” have never come to pass.
4) AVC’s core concern is highlighting radicalization and disinformation that affects those on the Right. However, Alec Dent of The Dispatch has reported on a story showing how even well-meaning people, in this case on the Left, can fall prey to sharing misinformation that leads to radical acts like protesting outside the home of Justice Alito. You may have heard the phrase "domestic supply of infants," as Justice Alito used it in the leaked draft opinion. Dent traces how this phrase is 1) not original to Alito but to a CDC paper on adoption and 2) that Alito is not calling for an increased domestic supply of infants, but instead to note that there is already a large number of families who wish to adopt. However, none of this is clear from several high-profile tweets. To a lesser but still dangerous degree, the phrase "domestic supply of infants" has become akin to the Jan 6 insurrectionists shouting, "Stop the steal!". Both expressions are only helpful when the facts are ignored or misunderstood.