Christianity Today was once a bastion for evangelical cultural and political commentary.
Founded by the late Billy Graham, the magazine has been a mainstay of evangelical culture for decades. But the outlet has more recently taken a decidedly leftward shift.
In the days before President Donald Trump was inaugurated, Christianity Today set out to resist the new commander-in-chief’s agenda of mass deportations and border enforcement, with executive editor Marvin Olasky sending an email blast out to contributors seeking stories related to immigration policy, according to Megan Basham, a culture reporter at The Daily Wire who obtained screenshots of the email.
“We have reporters in New York, Chicago, Washington, and other cities who will be covering what happens to immigrants and refugees beginning on Jan. 20, but I’d like to have someone on the ground in or near cities like Minneapolis, Denver, Tampa, Atlanta, Nashville, San Francisco, Boston and others,” he wrote.
Olasky added that he specifically wanted stories from cities that “may experience raids on businesses or schools, separation of parents and children, hurried flights out of the country, churches declaring themselves sanctuaries, etc.”
Basham noted the one-sided nature of that request.
“He is not asking for stories of families or individuals who have been negatively impacted by immigration,” she noted.
Nor is he expressing any “interest in reaching out to people who may see the raids in their communities as a positive thing,” Basham added.
Basham then commented on the particularly subversive nature of the request.
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“What these stories will do is create an impression that Christians stand opposed to the very immigration policies that they overwhelmingly voted for,” she wrote. “The secular media will then pick up these stories and amplify them, citing Christianity Today’s coverage as proof that Trump‘s Christian base is revolting.”
That is indeed a common line of attack from the leftist establishment toward Christians.
The progressives, who cannot stand the Christian faith and its implications for culture, seek to weaponize legitimate categories of Christian compassion and love for the stranger, flattening those categories to morally guilt Christians into accepting mass immigration while ignoring the natural and Christian duties of protecting one’s family, people, and homeland.
They rely on outlets like Christianity Today and figures like Olasky, who chided Christians last year to “understand the mourning on the other side” after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, to act as those agents of guilt and manipulation.
Christianity Today and similar leftward-drifting Christian publications also used those tactics to push COVID vaccines and promote critical race theory.
The magazine and its staff, by the way, may not exactly be promoting leftism out of the goodness of their heart.
Basham reported that just a few days before the inauguration, Christianity Today received a $5 million grant from the Lilly Endowment, a left-leaning nonprofit founded by the same Eli Lilly family which launched the pharmaceutical behemoth.
In other words, Christianity Today has a clear financial incentive to impose a left-wing frame on everything they do. They receive massive cash infusions, and the leftist corporate and political establishment receives the chance to undermine Christian conservative political consciousness.
The good news is that Christianity Today continues to lose credibility as a result, with conservatives realizing the grift and refusing to be emotionally guilted.
Most evangelical Christians, after all, would rather have an actual sovereign nation over the accolades of the leftist establishment, which is something the leadership of Christianity Today cannot exactly say for themselves.
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