The scandal of compromising evangelical elites

For the past several decades, American evangelicals have heard a constant refrain from within their own ranks: We need more evangelical elites. More Christian scholars in the academy. More believers in the arts. More evangelicals at the highest levels of government, journalism, science, and business. The argument goes something like this: If Christians retreat from the commanding heights of culture, then we forfeit the opportunity to shape the broader moral imagination of our nation. If we fail to cultivate leaders who can compete intellectually and professionally, then our faith will come to be seen as anti-intellectual, backward, and provincial.

There is some wisdom in this instinct. Cultural presence matters. It matters that Christians write good books, compose beautiful music, and develop groundbreaking technologies. It matters that we take our place in the institutions that help form public life. The lament that evangelicals have often been anti-intellectual or culturally withdrawn is not wholly unfounded. At the same time, I know many so-called evangelical “elites” in these sectors—whether in business, law, think-tanks, government, or academia. But here is what is worth noticing: None of the evangelicals I am talking about is self-consciously preoccupied with being an “elite.” They are preoccupied with excellence and conviction.

But the evidence of recent years suggests that producing elites is not the silver bullet it was promised to be. If anything, the elites we have managed to produce have, more often than not, ended up as disappointments.

Consider the parade of examples. Francis Collins, the celebrated Christian scientist who headed the Human Genome Project and later served as director of the NIH, was lionized as a model of evangelical engagement with secular power. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, Collins enthusiastically used his post to marginalize dissent, favor ideological conformity over free debate, and downplay the moral hazards involved in research and public policy. His leadership oversaw debauched research, yielded to LGBTQ degeneracy, and revealed the subtle corruptions that accompany power more than the redemptive possibilities of Christian presence in elite institutions. So much for being a “faithful presence,” to use James Davidson Hunter’s term for how elite evangelicals could influence institutions.

Or take N.T. Wright, the brilliant biblical scholar, whose scholarly and popular writings shaped a generation of evangelicals. Wright’s commentary on political and cultural issues often lands with a thud—not because it lacks erudition, but because it frequently sounds indistinguishable from the progressive consensus of the educated Western intelligentsia. Not only that, his posture toward American evangelicalism drips with condescension. Just recently, he made appallingly shallow comments granting the legitimacy of abortion in certain instances. That was compounded by an incredibly reckless comment that his resurrection-denying friend, the late Marcus Borg, is a Christian. The fact that Wright can write the magnum opus of our day defending the bodily resurrection while treating it as a secondary matter really is as astounding as it is confounding.

One is left wondering whether the point of rising to elite status was to offer a distinctly Christian voice or simply to earn a seat at the table by accommodating the reigning orthodoxy of leftism and secularism.

The problem, I would submit, is not chiefly “the scandal of the evangelical mind”—Mark Noll’s famous and now overused phrase that diagnosed evangelical anti-intellectualism in the 1990s. If anything, today’s younger evangelicals are more credentialed and culturally aware than their forebears. The problem is rather the scandal of compromising elites. Too many Christians, having achieved access to elite institutions, seem to lose their nerve. They crave acceptance more than they embody conviction. They confuse proximity to power with cultural influence, only to eventually find themselves being the ones influenced. They mistake a good reputation among the secular intelligentsia for faithfulness to Christ.

Why does this happen? One factor is the old and persistent evangelical inferiority complex. American evangelicals have long looked over their shoulders at the mainline Protestants and the secular elite, longing for validation from those who see them as rustic outsiders and provincial plebes. That insecurity breeds a deep temptation: Once a young evangelical finally gains admission to Harvard, the Times op-ed page, or the NIH, the pressure to conform—to be seen as reasonable, sophisticated, and nuanced—becomes overwhelming. Convictional clarity begins to erode under the acid rain of elite deference.

Another factor is the failure of the evangelical community itself. We have not trained our would-be elites to understand that cultural power is not an end in itself, and that Christian fidelity will always, in some ways, be at odds with the spirit of the age. We cheer when one of our own gains influence, but we rarely provide the theological and moral formation necessary to withstand the spiritual hazards that come with that influence. We need elites who see themselves first and foremost as servants of the church and witnesses to the truth—not as sophisticated players in elite networks.

None of this is a call to withdraw from cultural engagement. On the contrary, it is a call to raise up a new kind of Christian leader—one who understands that bearing witness is more important than earning accolades, and that public influence is a stewardship, not a status symbol. We do need more Christians in the elite spaces of culture. But we need them to be the right kind: clear-headed, morally courageous, unashamed of the gospel, and willing to be thought of as fools for Christ.

Until we form such leaders, the scandal of compromising elites will continue to haunt us.