What happened when a Christianity Today reporter turned his focus to his own newsroom.
It’s been a lot. People are upset, people are sad. There’s a whole group of people who are interested in reforming evangelicalism, and they want to talk about what we can learn from this kind of report. There’s another whole group of people who reject evangelicals more generally, and they want to use the evidence as an argument for why all evangelicals are toxic, or why a particular kind of theology should be burned to the ground.
And then inside Christianity Today, obviously a lot of people knew, and they were relieved. There’s some sadness, there’s a lot of people who didn’t know the bigger picture. And then of course, there’s pushback. There are people who were close friends with the HR director, and are like, “I don’t know if it was his fault.” Or people who maybe wanted a particular executive to take more of the responsibility. But pushback is part of what you’re signing up for.
There’s a reckoning happening. The stuff that I’m reporting on is part of it, but right now, the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest Protestant denomination, is having thisIt really does seem like one of those moments. And there’s a larger conversation about reforming evangelicalism. There are a lot of people saying, yes, we need reforms, but I don’t actually know how. For me, at least, this kind of reporting is my answer to the question: We need to learn to be self-critical.