I subscribed to Christianity Today for several years. For more than half a century, the magazine and its accompanying website have been the best source of news about what’s happening in mainstream Christianity, not just in America but around the world. Billy Graham founded the magazine in 1956 as an evangelical response to the mainstream magazine The Christian Counterpoint.
Vital reporting, fascinating features, and thoughtful book and music reviews characterized what Christianity Today was all about. One of the most important things about the magazine was that it remained primarily apolitical but theologically dominant.
Rarely did the magazine become explicitly political, except when dealing with presidential scandals. In 1974, the magazine did not make an appeal Richard Nixon to resign A 1998 editorial criticizing bill clinton after his dismissal called him “morally unfit to lead”, while in 2019 editor-in-chief Mark Galli, who later faced a harassment scandal magazine, he said he might have “crossed lines” — wrote that Congress should suppress donald trump of office after his dismissal.
But over the years, I began to notice a drift to the left in Christianity Today. From articles about “care for creation” that were not much different from the rhetoric of believers in another environmental phrase containing two words that begin with the letter C to heavily presenting and defending women in pastoral roles (ignoring millions of of complementary Christians everywhere). the world), Christianity Today began to sound more politically and theologically liberal.
Galli’s outpouring of Trump was enough to cancel my subscription, but a magazine podcast about another scandal was more problematic. “The rise and fall of the hill of Mars” told the story of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church and the troubling leadership of its pastor, Mark Driscoll. The story was riveting and heartbreaking, and the production values made it all the more compelling. The problem with the podcast came in the analysis, which was based on anti-male feminism and put various digs at Trump and conservatives in general.
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Two articles this summer make me question which direction Christianity Today is going. An August piece performs Oliver Anthony’s hit song “Rich Men North of Richmond”, which has touched people across the country. Author Hannah Anderson admitted that she had high hopes when she first heard the song.
“I was excited for a song in the tradition of Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie: music that calls out the inherent dignity of the poor, protests against the excesses of the establishment, and echoes the calls of the Old Testament justice, such as God’s condemnation in Jeremiah 5:28 of those who “have grown fat and glittered” but “do not promote the cause of the fatherless” or “plead the righteous cause of the poor,” Anderson writes.
As a Christian and a fan of good music, I completely understand the hope for a Johnny Cash-type song, and I would appreciate it. But Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie? Sorry, but no one outside the far left would accept a song like this these days.
What is Anderson’s problem with the song? He says he “doesn’t love his neighbors” because Anthony stands up to welfare abusers. The author quotes these letters:
Sir, we have people in the street, we have nothing to eat
And the welfare of the obese milker
Well, my goodness, if you’re 5-foot-3 and 300 pounds
Taxes shouldn’t pay for your bags of candy rounds
He then recounts his time on food stamps and how undignified it was. Later, he teaches readers that “protest against wealthy elites and government corruption, however justified, cannot ride on the backs of others who are also suffering. The price of accessing food through SNAP or a church food pantry should not be the dignity and self-esteem of the poor.”
But the truth is that even Christians should have a problem with people abusing the system. Yes, it is good that we have a safety net for people, but the Bible does not call for government welfare programs to be the primary solution to society’s problems. Anderson praises churches and other Christian organizations for helping people in need, but he’s wrong to say that calling out those who abuse the system robs people of their “dignity and self-worth.”
Seeing Christian authors lose their minds to progressivism isn’t all that uncommon these days, though another article, also from August, can blow you away. Author Beth Felker Jones compares the crowds that gather to see Taylor Swift, Beyonce and the movie “Barbie” to church communities. Jones expresses delight at the “theological themes” in “Barbie” and takes a cheap shot at conservative Christians when he notes that “Swift has expressed public frustration with the ways in which American Christianity has become intertwined with politics partisan”. (I can only imagine that Swift has no problem with progressive Christians.)
“Kids want community meaning,” Jones concludes. “So I’m going to keep waiting, hoping that, maybe, what they want is the body of Christ.”
Instead of waiting, why not try to bring these children to faith in Christ? Instead of taking a jab at Christians whose politics Taylor Swift might disagree with and praising a movie that alienates half the kids who need Jesus, boys and men, by saying they all abuse women , why not show them what a truly vibrant Christian community? looks like?
I would like to know what happened to Christianity today. Remember what we have seen in so many great Christian organizations. Skillet’s John Cooper, himself a committed and outspoken Christian, says that the biggest Christian organizations end up “leaning left and punching right,” meaning they are so afraid of being labeled “evil conservatives” who will go left- bend positions and attack conservatives to avoid criticism. I feel like this is what has happened to Christianity today, and it makes me angry and sad.
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