“The details of each chapter vary. In the case of COVID, for example, evangelical leaders platformed a guy (Francis Collins) who was literally paid by the government to message their political agenda, and then those same leaders turned around and called evangelicals ‘conspiracy theorists’ if they didn’t accept what Collins (and, by extension, the government) was saying. That is the most direct case of evangelical leaders being misled by political money.”
(Jesse Johnson – The Cripplegate) Inside of American evangelicalism is a paradox: many of the most respected leaders use their influence to steer denominations and institutions in a direction that is significantly more liberal than the people those leaders ostensibly represent.
There is no shortage of examples of this. Congregations who would reject critical race theory have CRT spoon-fed to them by their leaders. While those in the pew eschew the LGBTQ+ movement, some of the most influential evangelical pastors in the country are exposing their congregations to “affirming” curriculum. The ERLC provides a great illustration of this paradox: while the government closed churches and banned singing during COVID, the “religious liberty commission” of the Southern Baptist convention commended court rulings siding with the government, which was in direct defiance of not only the ERLC’s supposed mission, but the will of many Southern Baptists.
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