Shepherds for Sale

This was commissioned by and originally appeared at The Stream

Omertà / ō mûr-tä’ / noun: 1. A code of silence that prohibits speaking or divulging information about certain activities known to be wrongful, lawless, or illegal. 2. Noncooperation in the face of questioning by outsiders.

The world of professional cycling is long known for being saturated with performance-enhancing drugs. Yet, there is an unwritten rule that the riders, directors, and owners never speak of it; it’s called Omertà. 

Despite the overwhelming suspicions and evidence, remember how fiercely Lance Armstrong professed his innocence and protected the forbidden source of his performance — until he spilled the syringes in a pivotal 2013 interview with Oprah?

Fast forward to today. Seated in Oprah’s chair is Megan Basham, author of the newly released book Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. Seated across from her is the object of her interrogation, Big Eva: The power brokers of the evangelical church in America.

In page after page, Basham’s expert examination unearths scads of emptied syringes as the reader beholds the irrefutable charges levied against Big Eva—and Big Eva’s subsequent barrage of mendacious criticisms against Basham indicates the impenetrable code of Omertà is cracking under the pressure of her investigative reporting.

Many biblically faithful evangelicals have frustratingly sensed something was terribly wrong in the ranks of church leadership but couldn’t quite put their finger on it. Basham has dusted the Church for prints, presented her evidence — and the perpetrators now are furious that someone broke the code and spoke up.

Is It Really All About Politics?

Shepherds for Sale is exquisitely researched and has over 50 pages of sources, citations, and supporting documentation to back Basham’s findings. Her critics currently are trying to convince us that the book is merely a policy platform of the Trumpian Right. However, the unifying thread throughout each chapter is how culturally progressive theology infects the Church the way yeast permeates dough. 

Basham shows us that when leadership permits even the slightest bit of this fast-acting agent through the doors, it quickly spreads into every pew.

Jesus sternly warns us in Mark 8, “Watch out! Beware the leaven of Herod!” By this, He is speaking of the political spirit. In each chapter, Basham exposes a different manifestation of the political spirits that currently are causing confusion and chaos in the Church.

She also proves that the old adage “Follow the money” still applies as she reveals the dark forces funding the injection of unholy substances into the Church: climate catastrophism, illegal immigration, abortion, the secular capture of Christian media, the Church’s mishandling of COVID and the vaccines, Critical Race Theory, sexual scandals in the Church, and the LGBTQIA2S+ movement.

Whatever You Do, Don’t Follow the Money

It is both confounding and revolting to learn that millions of dollars are flowing into Christian organizations from leftist sources with unsavory intentions. For example, when David French, Curtis Chang, and Russel Moore partnered with the once-prestigious (now infected) Trinity Forum this January to launch The After Party — a church curriculum meant to help “reframe Christian political identity from today’s divisive partisan options”—faithful congregants nationwide recognized it for what it was and wanted nothing to do with it. 

Basham uncovered that those leaders then turned to the secular left-wing Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors for sponsorship and move the curriculum into less-savvy churches.

This is the same foundation that gave $100 million to the Collaborative for Gender and Reproductive Equity to safeguard abortion rights and ensure “youth” would have access to “gender-affirming care.” (Remember that the newly mangled definition of “care” is the sterilization, castration, and mutilation of minors.)

Basham also discovered that the other prominent donor to The After Party was the Hewlett Foundation, the second largest private donor to Planned Parenthood.

Basham methodically lays out the unthinkable biblical collapse of Christianity Today. Founded by Billy Graham in 1956, this one-time beacon of traditional Christian thought has capitulated on topics like transgender hormonal treatment and surgery for children, racial reparations, the promotion of unfettered immigration, and the idea that “alt-right racism was responsible for making Donald Trump president.”

Basham’s meticulous probing divulges that the magazine’s major benefactors are far more political than pious. The overtly left-wing Lilly Endowment, founded by the famous pharmaceutical family, is one of Christianity Today’s most influential donors, and is more than eager to sprinkle yeast on the keyboards of the CT content creators.

Further investigation shows the politically biased flow of money traveled both in and out of CT.

Between 2015 and 2022, the outlet’s staff and board members made seventy-four political donations. Every single one went to Democrats. 

“mRNA” Means “Love Thy Neighbor” in Biblical Greek

I personally discovered Basham’s art for clearing brush with her machete-like keyboard early in the COVID lockdowns. As prominent pastors compliantly closed their houses of worship and chided congregants that “Jesus would take the vaccine,” hers was a loud voice warning us not to trust what we were hearing. 

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Anthony Fauci’s forcibly released emails prove that he lied to the public about the gruesomeness of gain-of-function testing, withheld evidence that would have proved the virus came from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, pretended there was a scientific basis for masking and social distancing, and shamed the world into taking a dangerous vaccine that didn’t work.

She also uncovered the wickedness promulgated by Fauci’s boss, the head of the NIH and one-time evangelical darling, Francis Collins. Thanks to Basham’s early reporting and the testimony of numerous virological experts, we know Collins funded and managed the murderous creation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Wuhan. This included the harvesting of organs from babies whose hearts were still beating after their late-term abortions. These organs were then surgically spliced onto lab rats to ensure the virus’s virulence.

Collins is what you’d get if Josef Mengele and Mr. Rogers had a kid. Yet, he was sent out by the hidden game makers to influence shepherds to convince their sheep to roll up their wool and take the shot.

Saddleback Church celebrity pastor and World Economic Forum minion Rick Warren demanded that believers “Trust the science. They [the pharmaceutical companies] aren’t going to put out a vaccine that is going to hurt people.”

Thanks to the reports on Pfizer released by FOIA combined with mounting medical evidence, we know that the COVID vaccines cause heart damage, blood clots, strokes, fertility anomalies, unprecedented fetal malformations, turbo cancers, and excess death rates that exceed those of the pandemic itself. Few evangelicals would believe this if Basham and a few brave others had not already documented it.

This is why rabid progressives like Duke Divinity Professor Curtis Chang wholly lack any gift of discernment when they contort sacred Christian realities into despicable secular jargon:

This is why we need images of redemption in the world . . . Yes, the vaccines may have a distant origin story in abortion, but that past has been reworked and redeemed into something that saves life. We can point to the vaccine and say, “Jesus’ redemption is kind of like that.

Basham was bashed for her reporting during COVID, but time has proven that she was spot on. The same will hold true in the face of her ferocious opponents now attacking Shepherds for Sale. Lies have a horrible shelf life, but the passage of time is truth’s best friend.

I’m Not the Head of the Church, and Neither Are You

Before I knew I would be asked to write this review, I was engaging with some of Basham’s castigators on X (Twitter). What is remarkable to me is how the preponderance of these attacks totally ignored the evidence presented. Instead, the attacks are hyperpersonalized and focused almost exclusively on citations, context, and perceived offenses delivered in the genre of Cream the Carrier.

This mode of cultural warfare waged against Basham comes right from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: 

Pick your target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

None of these malicious censurers who protectively strive to preserve their reputations seem open enough to objectively weigh the effect these political spirits might have on the Church. Because a monumentally crucial reality is now visible for believers and unbelievers to see: The current version of the American evangelical Church little resembles the supernatural heritage of our first-century, post-resurrection gatherings. This should be an instantly unifying warning for all of us.

Because while we flail against one another, thundering away at what we deem to be true or false, left or right, or biblical or unbiblical, the malevolent enemy of the Church is landing catastrophic blows from the unseen realms against the Body of Christ. And the Church has become weaker for it.

Jesus’s idea of church is simple yet powerful:

As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The Kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, cast out demons. (Matthew 10:8)

When did you last see someone delivered from a demon during worship on a Sunday morning?

It is imperative that once the prosecution makes its case and the defense rests, we all stop and gain the awareness that we are not fighting to preserve an institution, although we are. We are not preaching to promote a worldview, although we are. And we are not gathering to hear a great message, although we are.

As a pastor I admire once said: 

Each Sunday, churches across the country gather around a sermon. Israel gathered around the Presence.

This is all about a Person. A Person who is Creator, a Person who is Savior, a Person who is Spirit here with us — and can be in us — right now.

Seeing the charges in Shepherds for Sale levied against the Church is disturbing and disheartening. But we must be confident enough that when we see something, we are compelled to say something. Omertà is not an option for those who see the Church being weakened, deceived, and misrepresented.

The Good Shepherd is never for sale; He gives Himself away for free.