The Changing of the Evangelical Guard

On the loss of Dobson and the future of institutions

Photo by Mathew Browne on Unsplash

With the news yesterday of the passing of James Dobson, I have been thinking about the future of institution building in evangelicalism. This is part of the topic for my next book, tentatively titled, Shoring Up the Ruins (undoubtedly it will be retitled, so stay tuned for that in a few years). I’m not going to go into an analysis of the legacy of Dobson here. There are many things I could say. But I’m going to refrain for the time being, except to point out that the loss of Dobson is the loss of one of the main leaders of a major evangelical institution. When you add to that the loss of Tim Keller and John MacArthur in the last couple years, both of whom built institutions of their own, we’re seeing a changing of the evangelical guard. It’s not that these institutions have gone away. Focus on the Family still exists, but how long it exists and how influential it will be remains to be seen.

Of course, in addition to those leaders who have stepped in to fill the roles at the institutions once led by figures like Dobson, there are new evangelical institutions which have popped up. I think we have to consider Doug Wilson’s entire Moscow project to be one of them. And there are a few, even newer “institutions” that I won’t mention directly because I don’t want my Twitter feed to be trolled by their overly-online fans. What I fear is arising is a belief that the goal of evangelical institutions is to protect western civilization from the decay of the woke mind rot by promoting the family and Christian values in our nation. The gospel is preached, but in practice, it’s often relegated to of secondary importance compared to fighting the culture war against wokeness.

Now, I’m not here to debate if this is a change from the previous movement of evangelical leaders. I want to bracket off that question for a moment. Instead, my argument is simply this: whatever new institutions evangelicals build, and I believe we need institutions, must be grounded first and foremost in the power of the gospel, and then allow that truth to inspire advocacy for other values.

If the changing of the guard just means new evangelical institutions more devoted than the last to the protecting of a particular way of life, identity, or nationality, then we will have build a new Christian culture, not helped build the Kingdom of God.

There is a lot of fear today. Fear of immigrants, fear of different religions, fear of minorities, fear of sinners. Fear of contamination by these Others who may not look like us and don’t vote like us. Underneath this fear, I suspect, is the recognition that there is very little that holds our country together except negative solidarity: a union around distrust of others in this case. But you can’t hold a massive country together very long around such a negative emotion. It’s unsustainable.

The desire is for an ordered, homogenous society that feels safe and secure. And while it is righteous for us to pursue justice which leads to order, there is a kind of pursuit of justice that is inordinate, that is in fact unjust, intemperate, opposed to the rights of others. I’ve written about that before. So justice and order are not wrong to desire, but not all order is just and not all pursuit of justice is in fact just. This is important when we consider the goals of the institutions we build.

We need institutions that are centered on the truth of the gospel, that understand that the ultimate need of humankind is not to have their civilization preserved but to have their soul preserved, not to have their nation’s ethnic identity preserved but to have their soul preserved. And only Christ can do that.

Which is not to say that we cease advocating for the good, the true, and the beautiful. Christian institutions still have a responsibility, I believe, to advocate for good things in western civilization: democracy, liberty, rule of law, great literature and art, and so on. I try to help preserve these things in my Christian institution every day. And we still have a responsibility to defend the unborn and the good of marriage and the elderly, among many other values. For all these reasons we still need Christian institutions.

The distinction, I think, is that we don’t defend these goods out of fear of a woke domination; we don’t hold a combative and hostile stance. We don’t need to. Instead, we advocating for these good things because God saved us to glorify him. And we glorify him through living righteously and by delighting in what is good. We can even do this joyously! We are set free to pursue justice and advocate for the oppressed and for beauty and goodness because God has saved us and loves us and set us free from sin!

So we are not driven by a spirit of fear to resist refugees or our neighbor from another country who brings a different culture with him. We aren’t driven by fear when people sin or dye their hair or build idols or don’t share our customs. We keep the main thing the main thing: Christ crucified for sinners. We build institutions that seek justice for all who are oppressed. We build up the Body by preaching the Word, teaching sound biblical ethics, cultivating wisdom and virtue, and meeting together regularly. We preserve what is good and true and beautiful from the past without guilt or shame, but with courage and responsibility. We build up the Kingdom, not our own little fiefdoms.

The need for evangelical institutions is not going to go away. We will need political institutions to advocate for life and liberty, ministry and family institutions to guide families on how to live righteously in a world where pornography is everywhere and sexuality is confused, ethical institutions that offer wisdom in fast-changing technological landscapes, educational institutions to train up our young and produce work for other institutions, and so on. The question is, what will the vision of those institutions be? Will it be a vision of preserving a certain kind of nation or culture? Or will it be building God’s Kingdom? Will it be winning a temporal and worldly culture war, or will it be glorifying God with our lives?

We’re at an interesting moment in evangelical history (we always are). A leadership handoff is taking place, and it’s not clear to me who will lead in the future. I see a few figures desperately clawing their way toward the top, but I don’t say that that is good for them or us. And there are others who are not recognized but who are gifted. I don’t know what God has in store. Thankfully, he does. What I do know is that the World is not going to suddenly become a hospitable place for the Church unless Christ returns soon. Which means that we will need institutions to support each other during these trying times, chief among them, the Church, but others as well. We’d all do well to pray that God raises up a new, greater generation of leaders who seek after his heart.