This week, several famous evangelical leaders posted endorsements of a new book by Paula White(-Cain).

At The Gospel Coalition, Joe Carter summarized who said what:

On Tuesday, several evangelical leaders drew criticism for promoting the newest book of Paula White, a prosperity gospel preacher who has repeatedly been accused of teaching heretical doctrines. Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said “you might want to check it out.” Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, said to “give it to anyone looking for hope!” Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, declared, “It is powerful. I highly recommend it!” And Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, added, “Paula’s life is an encouragement to so many and I’m sure this book will encourage you.” (It’s unclear whether these men have actually read the book or if they support White’s teachings.)

Since then, several of those endorsers have removed their original tweets, such as Franklin Graham’s.

But here’s one annoying secret about book endorsements: Sometimes the endorser has not even read the book being endorsed.

This apparently open “secret” leaked some time ago, thanks in part to author Randy Alcorn. In this article, he wrote:

I’m often asked to endorse an entire book based on one chapter, and several times I’ve been sent an-already written endorsement and asked if I would agree to have my name attached to it! Personally, I don’t think this is ethical. I’ve also been told by several Christian leaders they would be glad to endorse my book, and they were having a staff person read it and give me the endorsement under the leader’s name. I’ve had to explain I don’t believe in ghost-written endorsements, so no need to send me one because I couldn’t use it. That’s an awkward situation for everybody.

This is one of several objections Alcorn shared about “acceptable” practices in Christian publishing. He also critiques ghostwriting and other practices, such as paid celebrity endorsements for nonprofit groups. Alcorn calls these “the scandal of evangelical dishonesty.”¹

Earlier this week, I shared some of this info (along with a little speculation about one old, and since removed, celebrity endorsement of another book). Since then, blogger Julie Roys confirmed that, indeed, one endorser had not actually read Paula White-Cain’s book:

. . . When pressed about whether he’s certain that there’s nothing in White’s book that supports prosperity gospel, Jeffress said: “My schedule is so busy, I can’t read every book word for word. But what I did see was really her autobiographical account of her past and how God redeemed her life.”

. . . Yet when I asked Jeffress if he’s sure that White’s theology is orthodox, and that she is not a proponent of the prosperity gospel, Jeffress said, “All I can say is she claims not to be.” I asked Jeffress whether he’s investigated what White teaches for himself and he answered, “No, no . . . I’m too busy in my own ministry to launch an investigation.”

Sure, perhaps Christian leaders really are very busy. Perhaps they haven’t time to investigate another Christian leader, who has been reputably charged with promoting heresy. But in that case, perhaps you should—at minimum!—avoid endorsing the person’s book? Especially if you haven’t even read it? And even if you and the professing-Christian author share the same political fandoms?

On a personal note, in coming months, we’ll move into the endorsement phase for my coauthors’ and my upcoming book. Here’s hoping our endorsers actually read the book first.

Someone dropped this epic comment in my Joshua Harris article, apparently speaking from within (one of) the LGBTQ+ “communities.”

Because of my ongoing book work (and foster care work), I almost missed this comment.

Thank God I didn’t. You shouldn’t either.

Here’s a quick recap of this article, “Some Early Responses to Joshua Harris’s Confession of Apostasy.”

First, I explored several sympathetic aspects of Joshua Harris’s anti-faith statement. Then I addressed the falseness of his “apology” to sexual revolutionaries. Then I concluded that Harris seems to have joined the cabal of progressive Christians and/or “ex-vangelicals.” Despite any good intentions, these folks often use this era’s trendiest victim group as a therapeutic “avatar” or surrogate to express their own frustrations with the Church:

. . . The young Christian is not at first reasoned into advocacy for the victim group. Rather, young Christians identify with these victim groups because of personal empathy based on their own stories of conflict. . . .

[They] empathize with and effectively to use professing victim classes as an “avatar,” or surrogate victim, to express their own unresolved conflict with evangelical institutions, families, or churches. Similarly, they must cast “the evangelical church” as a surrogate oppressor, playing the role of the churches, institutions, or even family members who have caused the young Christian perceived harm in the past.

In this comment, Ahsoka Jackson summarizes her frustration with these supposed “heroes.”

I thought about simply excerpting her remarks. But you have to read the whole thing:¹

First of all, addiction and “queerness” are actually quite similar in multiple ways. What’s more, those in my community actually do, for various reasons, engage in substance abuse at disproportionately high rates, so the two are often not only similar but also concurrent. That’s also true of various mental illnesses, like bipolar disorder (the comorbidity).

Secondly, a distinction must be made between the impulse/tendency and the acts. People very often fail to do this, and it’s destructive for multiple reasons. One of which being how they’ll point to the more innocuous-appearing things in an effort to defend or glamorize, while conveniently ignoring the more obviously unpleasant, unethical, and cruel stuff that’s a harder sell.

I will briefly state that the inclination is harmful in factors like how it can drive the destructive behavior and also drive people to defend or promote such behavior.

‘Characteristic destructive behaviors’

Now, regarding the behavior itself, there are any number of types of it, but to summarize, the relationships and interactions are unhealthy and destructive from both psychological and physical standpoints. One way—and this is analogous to addiction again—is how it’s used as a false replacement for actually dealing with the deeper issues a person has. People in my community have significantly higher rates both of having been raped or molested in general and also of having been abused in that way by someone of the same sex. And some of the characteristic destructive behaviors of the community are common to those who have suffered that way.

But in my case, the biggest thing I center on when people make comments asking how it’s harmful, problematic, wrong, etc, is the physical aspect of some of these behaviors.

The body quite literally isn’t designed for certain stuff, and there are major consequences to subjecting it to such trauma.

Besides being unsanitary and degrading, some of this stuff is very damaging physically, causing a myriad of health problems: diseases, chronic infections, vulnerability to further disease, multiple forms of injury, loss of normal function of one’s body, and pain in a myriad of ways. The body quite literally isn’t designed for certain stuff, and there are major consequences to subjecting it to such trauma, especially on a repeated basis and over a period of time.

Some of this stuff is also practiced in heterosexual contexts—though it tends to be less commonly, less frequently, and also with less extremity—and guess what? It’s harmful, painful, unsanitary, abusive, and degrading there, too!

‘People who claim to care just so much’

This is something that really disgusts and infuriates me in dealing with these various people who claim to care just so much about my community.

And this is something that really disgusts and infuriates me in dealing with these various people who claim to care just so much about my community.

Some of their support and normalization of it could be attributed to ignorance, to not realizing the destructiveness and harm of this stuff. But even in that situation, there’s an extremely basic level of sanitation that they’re showing disregard for, so what it suggests about their own cleanliness and decency level is severely disturbing. We’re talking about levels literally taught to young children, regarding both sanitation and normal functioning of the body. So what excuse do adults have?

But that aside, I’ve repeatedly found that it goes beyond just that. Because when you try to educate these so conscientious people who just love my community and are friends of ours and care so much about our wellbeing…they don’t care. They either refuse to listen at all or just dismiss or make excuses for or otherwise show a real lack of genuine compassion and love.

Do you have any idea how painful and staggering that can be? To talk to them about some of the appalling, grotesque stuff that goes on and about how much people SUFFER, and to see such an emptiness of love and compassion in response.

I feel like crying as I’m typing this. It’s not only painful—it’s enraging. And I think it exposes the selfishness and sheer dishonesty at work in some of these people. To be honest, I mistrust people in general now who claim to be “allies” of ours, because I’ve repeatedly been shown that they don’t actually care.

How can you talk about how much you love and care about people who are addicted to meth, but you actually encourage and normalize the use of it, and then when someone tries to, assuming that you actually cared like you claimed to, educate you and explain about the harm it does…things like rotting out your teeth, causing brain damage, causing psychosis…you don’t care or you make excuses, and you keep encouraging people to horrifically harm themselves and each other, all while continuing to claim how much you love them and support them and their wellbeing?

That’s absolutely sickening, and I consider it a massive betrayal.

(And speaking of meth, that’s one of the drugs disproportionately used by the community….)

‘The real motives and priorities’

And I think it reveals some of the real motives and priorities. I think people want to follow the popular trend, and to paint themselves as being “nice” and “loving” and “kind” and “ compassionate,” but without actually worrying about having substance and integrity and honesty behind those claims. Because their behavior demonstrates the exact opposite of what they profess. They’re enablers, not friends.

And another commonality is how they’ll use a friend or family member as an excuse. That should actually be GREATER reason for them to show genuine, honest compassion and concern, not an excuse to further the lies and harm! Your aunt smokes so you’re busy promoting cancer sticks?

See, I think this is again largely due to selfish motives. They don’t want to cause any disturbance to their social circle by being honest, and they’re more concerned about social enjoyment and making “friends” by enabling people rather than caring enough about those friends to either speak the truth or at least refrain from lying. It’s not like you are required to confront them. I don’t really expect that of people. But just be a half-decent person and don’t ENCOURAGE them to abuse themselves or others!

And that’s another aspect of how unethical this all is. Not only do people harm themselves, they also inflict harm on those they engage in certain practices with. Much like smoking harms both the smoker and those breathing in the secondhand smoke in proximity.

Sexually injuring people, damaging their bodies for some moment of sexual enjoyment, is a truly cruel, unethical act, and is not remotely “loving” or “kind.”

And people talk about things like respect for women and being kind and nice and loving, but then promote sexually harming those you supposedly love and whom you should be expected to treat better than average, if anything. It’s dehumanizing and objectifying to trash and misuse someone’s body that way. The sanitation factor also plays into the degradation, in several ways.

I’m guessing a site like this probably wouldn’t want me to be too graphic, and I’d rather not get too specific for now, anyways. But to talk about loving and respecting a person whom you’re subjecting to certain stuff is just laughable. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t care about them at all, but the actions and words don’t line up. It’s like a professed health nut who smokes, or a loving parent who locks their children in closets. Maybe you do care about health in other areas, and maybe you do love your children in other ways. But you’re also egregiously and unrepentantly violating the principles you claim.

‘These are often deeply wounded people acting out of their pain’

Which reminds me…one of the very reasons our relationships can fall apart is that we do get pricked by our conscience, because the more we do come to genuinely care for the other person, the less we’re able to stomach abusing them so! And no, the fact that they “allow” or even “enjoy” it doesn’t make it not abusive or unethical. There’s a lot people allow that isn’t right. Like women who choose to stay with men or women who beat them. And yeah, those men and women claim to “love” them, too.

It’s disturbing how people [claim] that you shouldn’t be violent in other ways in your relationships, but being sexually violent and causing sexual injury gets such a free ride.

Which reminds me—it’s disturbing how people get that you shouldn’t be violent in other ways in your relationships, but being sexually violent and causing sexual injury gets such a free ride. That’s appalling and contradictory.

And if you really care about things like harassment, and mistreatment of women, and respect for people, well, I feel supporting this kind of dehumanizing stuff is promoting just that. Treat women well and respect them…except when you’re sexually injuring them? I call so much bull.

There’s an apt proverb (not quoted from Scripture, mind you) about not tearing down a fence until you know why it was built. If people had listened, there’s a huge amount of suffering that could’ve been prevented. What’s more, time and other resources could’ve been devoted to things like investigating and problem-solving. (One concern relative to this is the effect that environmental contamination—which in some areas disproportionately affects Black, Brown, and poor communities, who are already suffering—can have on prenatal development and hormonal exposure. So basically, normalizing this is potentially like normalizing how people affected by substances used in warfare will have various medical issues and birth defects. You’re dismissing and further victimizing people, saying the damage is normal!)

And one thing about those who are in my community is that while it often is hard to be patient, especially for those lacking remorse and not attempting to change their behavior, there’s also the balance that these are often deeply wounded people acting out of their pain. That molestation thing I mentioned is an example.

And I also understand how extremely difficult it can be to extract yourself from stuff once you get involved in it.

‘With friends like these, we’ve no need of enemies’

What’s the excuse for the supposed allies?. . . . They’re not the addicts themselves, yet they want to keep the addiction going.

But what’s the excuse for the supposed allies? Those who should be able to see much more clearly, but refuse to. They’re not the addicts themselves, yet they want to keep the addiction going.

I’ve been through Hades dealing with people like that and watching them put on these acts of being nice and sugary sweet and claiming friendship while showing horrific levels of callousness, dishonesty, and cruelty.

And people want me to be forgiving about it and let it go, but so far…I’m not in a forgiving spirit. And again, it’s one thing if someone is regretful and trying to be better. I tend to be Ms. Cheerleader and very proud of people like that in various situations. But those who blatantly and brazenly continue, like those who normalize “consensual” sexual slavery (and this is extremely offensive racially, by the way…) and other abusive, demeaning practices, and while still claiming friendship and spewing lies about love in the midst of this mishegoss they’re fostering…they are lucky that karma hasn’t inflicted on them the same pain, injury, and loss of function that they cheerfully encourage people to inflict on themselves, and worse, each other. Those they “love.”

Anyways, I think this article actually does an excellent job of analyzing and discussing one of the factors behind some of these people taking up banners, and I’ve seen similar ideas suggested before: that in some cases it’s really more self-concerned and not about the people the cause is supposedly about.

How badly do we have to suffer to garner [our allies’] supposedly abundant compassion for us that mysteriously vanishes when it comes to what results from these lifestyles?

Because with friends like these, we’ve no need of enemies. In fact, I prefer those who are openly hostile and at least don’t claim to care about use versus those who claim it while so deeply betraying us and furthering our hurt and self-destruction and exploiting our pain and vulnerability to paint themselves as something they’re not.

Just how badly do we have to suffer to garner their supposedly abundant compassion for us that mysteriously vanishes when it comes to what results from these lifestyles? Because I’ve seen them stonily unmoved by some heavy stuff.

Read the original comment here.

I replied:

This is an absolutely epic comment, though it is born of real tragedy and trauma. Thank you, Ahsoka. I hope you see my reply (even a few weeks late). And I will take other steps to ensure that you do see my reply.

Everything you’ve written here, apparently from an insider’s perspective, aligns and fleshes out what I’ve read elsewhere about the real emotional, physical harm in the movement.

That includes the very detailed descriptions of the physical harm. Many of these I’ve seen described at length elsewhere, particularly from Joseph Sciambra. (This is the original link, though I see the site has apparently been down for maintenance for some time.) To be sure, one must be very careful with such details, but sin thrives when it’s done in the darkness and painted over with melodrama and sentimentalism. I believe the benefits of exposing these unfruitful works of darkness (Ephesians 5:11) outweigh the risks.

That Joshua Harris article took off. I thought it said all I wanted to say.

Still, in light of another plot twist in the case of The People vs. Joshua Harris, it’s worth revisiting this point from that piece. Speaking in general of young Christians who believe they’re suffered from the Church, I suggested that they tend to:

empathize with and effectively to use professing victim classes as an “avatar,” or surrogate victim, to express their own unresolved conflict with evangelical institutions, families, or churches. Similarly, they must cast “the evangelical church” as a surrogate oppressor, playing the role of the churches, institutions, or even family members who have caused the young Christian perceived harm in the past.

Joshua Harris, with his expressed “regret” to “the LGBTQ+ community,” seemed to be another example of this surrogate victim-casting.

At the same time, many people are doing a similar thing to Harris. They’re casting him as the surrogate “oppressor,” and blaming him for the sins of people whose bad teachings or spiritual abuse they have suffered.

Columnist David French: Joshua Harris = that bad youth pastor I knew in that church that one time

In point 8 of Friday’s article, I issued some mild challenges to those who accused Harris’s works of solely assassinating their love lives.¹

But just today, none other than National Review’s (and Time‘s) David French stomped these critics’ sour grapes into a cheap whine.

In Whither Evangelical Purity Culture? Thoughts on the Legacy of a Lost Pastor, French summarizes I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Then he takes a drastic swerve into some real personal pain:

[The book] was part of the foundation of Evangelical “purity culture,” and it revolutionized parenting and dating for countless Christian parents and families.

I remember it well. I was a youth pastor for a few memorable months at the height of the courtship craze. The year was 1998, I was a youth volunteer at a small church in Georgetown, Ky., when our youth pastor left. . . . The youth ministry had gone all-in on purity culture. The previous youth pastor had even declared “no date ’98,” placing a moratorium on every kid in the youth group: not even a single date for the entire year. . . .

Did you catch the swerve? French only briefly mentions Harris’s book and its setting. Then, French immediately veers to a describe a bad personal situation in a church where he ministered. Yes, he accurately describes the bad results that many Christians have seen, when bad teachers make “purity” into an idol, ignore or assume the gospel, and keep blithely ignorant while the kids flail about in failure.

However, French does not even mention if this bad youth pastor he knew had even read I Kissed Dating Goodbye, or whether the pastor’s bizarre beliefs were influenced by the book. There’s no nuance, no attempt to show the consequence.

French simply presumes: Joshua Harris = “the courtship craze” = “purity culture.”

If we really believe in grace, let’s show some to Joshua Harris

Other Joshua Harris critics assume and do not prove this equivocation. They do not actually engage with what Harris wrote in his first book. (Which had good parts and poor teachings side-by-side.)

They also do not separate Harris’s actual ideas, from the notions of some dysfunctional parent or youth pastor who banned dating.

Perhaps strangest of all, French (and other, less-formal Harris-hatewatchers) act as though Harris simply vanished off the scene, between 1997 (IKDG‘s publication year) and the year 2019.

Here, French seems unaware of Harris’s followup book, the much more rational Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship (2000).

He doesn’t heed the fact that Harris spent years as a trainee pastor, and then pastor, for many years (in an interesting denominational arrangement). And to top off the strangeness, did French utterly miss the fact that Harris, pre–apostasy declaration, was already out and about recanting his own message? No, not just last year, but as far back in 2005 when Harris preached a sermon called “Courtship, Schmourtship” and took other steps to resist the legalism?

See here. I won’t defend Harris’s previous bad teachings. In fact, I might write about book messages that were directly unbiblical and harmful. And I certainly won’t defend the motive or plainly absurd “regret” tone of Harris’s apostasy statement.

However, even if Harris never took these steps, does it make any sense to hold him liable for that one bad youth pastor?

Or that manipulative, spiritual abusive parent?

Or that jerk of a patriarchalist father, who refused to give that good homeschooled boy a courtin’ chance with his daughter?

If we claim to be such fans of grace, why would we speak with such legalistic condemnation again one man? As if to make that one man bear the sins of an entire “purity culture”?

Let’s not blame the book author for the sins of his fans. And, literally, for God’s sake, don’t lump everything bad about a “purity culture” into one presumed ball of gross, and then throw that on top of the head of one poor wandering soul. You wouldn’t want to be associated with the sins of your people. In fact, this kind of association-with-evil is exactly what happens when bad youth pastors declare that all dating is bad.

I’ve also heard accounts of dysfunctional families, churches, youth groups, etc. that turned “purity” into idols apart from the grace of Jesus Christ. But by this same grace we ought not punish authors for the sins of their fans! Joshua Harris ≠ that legalistic youth pastor. 3/

— E. Stephen Burnett (@EStephenBurnett) July 29, 2019

Addendum: ‘We just want That One Person to be held accountable’

My friend Frank Sun made this highly astute comment.²

I feel bad for Harris in many ways. In the grand scheme of things, his own role in the whole “purity culture” was pretty small. At first, all he did was write a book with some bad teachings in it. Sure, it had a bit of a provocative title, but still, at one point, I Kissed Dating Goodbye was only a single book, among many on shelves, trying to offer love advice to Christians, as prone to ultimately being ignored as any other.

The “culture” only came about because of countless other people who latched onto that book, using it and twisting its message in order to gradually form what could be called a culture. From there Harris was basically sucked into the culture as its figurehead, when he was, as I see it, wholly unprepared and unwilling to be such. In fact, it felt like to me that, for all that the culture practically idolized him, his own voice in the culture felt very small; it almost felt like people knew him more just for “starting” the movement than for the specific teachings in his books.

(I wonder how many even knew that he had re-written IKDG with more moderate teachings.)

In the end, there are so many forces at work behind purity culture, just as there are with any other cultural movements.

Unfortunately, people want to be able to blame a specific name and face for their problems. They don’t like having to spread that blame over a nebulous “culture” of people that they can’t hold accountable.

—Frank Sun

Unfortunately, people want to be able to blame a specific name and face for their problems. They don’t like having to spread that blame over a nebulous “culture” of people that they can’t hold accountable. So the unwilling figurehead gets dragged out into the streets and beaten as he’s paraded down for all to see, while the many others who contributed in small ways watch quietly in their homes.

Unfortunately, this is the way of the world: pin the blame on a specific name and face and hope that makes all your problems go away. Whether it’s an author, actor, or president, we just want That One Person to be held accountable for our problems. And when That One Person does leave but the problems continue, we just find the next person to blame.

My friend Adam Graham also remarks:

When I was 15 and a half, someone gave my parents an audio cassette series on courtship the year before I Kissed Dating Goodbye was published. Harris didn’t start the fire.

Last week, former pastor and I Kissed Dating Goodbye author Joshua Harris announced that he and his wife, Shannon, were separating.

Today comes the latest plot twist. My skeptical friends saw this coming a mile away. I originally wanted to doubt it. They were right.

From @HarrisJosh on Instagram:

The information that was left out of our announcement is that I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is “deconstruction,” the biblical phrase is “falling away.” By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.

Click to read all of Joshua Harris’s announcement.

I’m someone who grew up familiar with Joshua Harris. Because of the Harris family of homeschool advocates, I knew of his name even before his books I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Boy Meets Girl. That last book introduced the now-former Mrs. Harris. And yes, I read both books, and yet my wife and I quickly discovered they provided only a little help in our exact dating/courtship challenges.

Since then, I followed Harris’s career as a pastor with Sovereign Grace Ministries, which has been (to put it mildly) under the weather since accusations of sexual abuse and cover-ups.

So I’m somewhat qualified to offer some early, though partial and very brief, thoughts about Harris’s new confession of apostasy.

1. Yes, apostasy is an appropriate word for what Joshua Harris has said.

This is simply the technical term for “falling away” from faith in Jesus Christ. Harris himself uses the phrase “falling away.” He’s been a pastor; he is fully of the evangelical culture, and he does not use the phrase lightly.

2. Joshua Harris’s story is not over; Christians don’t believe in “once un-saved, always un-saved.”

The world is full of people who claim to be former Christians. The world is also full of people who are former former Christians.

For those who were truly in Christ, “he who began a good work . . . will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

For those who never were in Christ, well, the apostle John soberly warns of an apostate group, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19).

3. This means that, for now, we may need to say “Farewell, Joshua Harris.”

I’m not among those who guffawed when John Piper famously said of another famed apostate, “Farewell, Rob Bell.”

Farewell is a firm yet endearing and even well-wishing term. It doesn’t automatically mean, “Good riddance, heretic.” It does mean, “Fare well.” It’s an expression of parting, yes. But it’s also an expression of optimism. “Though you go out from us, at least for the time being, may you fare well.”

4. I prefer that if we say this, we also add, “Come back soon.”

I don’t know Joshua Harris. But I hate to lose a family member. Especially one whom, despite his flaws, God used in my life.

Farewell, Joshua Harris. Come back soon. Your family in Christ misses you.

That’s what he needs to hear.

5. Let’s remember that Joshua Harris experienced much ministry trauma in between his dating books and his recent recanting.

One way or another, Joshua Harris counts as a wounded shepherd. Those who identified him mainly as “that no-dating guy,” then caught wind of him again when he started recanting his “anti-dating” content, missed a lot of his story.

In short: Joshua Harris joined Sovereign Grace Ministries. He trained under a different sort of pastor called C. J. Mahaney at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Eventually, Mahaney stepped back to run the church’s quasi-denomination, Sovereign Grace Ministries, leaving Harris as the church’s full-time pastor. (Even then, Mahaney was still overseeing the family-of-churches group from the church itself. That’s an interesting arrangement.)

In the last fifteen years, Harris had already spoken against legalistic courtship. He’d also mentioned his own struggles with the issue of child abuse and sexual abuse. Those themes must have been even more painful after similar scandals rocked Sovereign Grace Ministries.

The church and Sovereign Grace parted ways. Some time later, Harris announced he and his family were stepping back from the place.

Joshua Harris became a pastor who, by all accounts, tried to do the right thing. More recently, he was trying to recant his own message (or the perception of his message) in his relationship books. He even urged the publisher to stop printing the books. And they said they would.

6. Christians need to talk about how we care for wounded shepherds.

Christians have a hard enough time dealing with pastors or leaders who fall into publicly revealed abusive behavior or other scandals. At present, for these, we seem to have polar-opposite reactions: (A) try to keep them in ministry, or get them back into ministry, ASAP; (B) just make them disappear, like failed Mafia hit men sank to the bottom of Lake Michigan in cement overcoats.

Surely for these people, our various denominations and groups can come up with some forms of firm discipline but also restorative compassion.

How much more so should we do this for leaders who step back from pro ministry, in something like “disgrace,” but weren’t accused of scandal at all.

I’m not involved in this situation personally. But viewing this long-distance, it appears to me that Joshua Harris, and his family, simply fell through the cracks. Their whole lives were tied up in one church and one denomination. Once that was gone, or compromised due to scandal and/or moral failing, what was left? Did the Harris family have other family or churches to take them in? Did they have Christian friends and counselors who could help them as equals, and naturally avoid giving them undue honor due to their lingering “professional evangelical” platform?

This we don’t know. And it would be wrong to suggest that because something bad happened (divorce, apostasy, etc.) then this means that some foolproof method would have helped to heal this wounded shepherd and his family.

But the fact that Joshua Harris hasn’t spoken about anyone like this is sadly telling.

7. We must always be careful whom we as Christians set up as spiritual leaders.

I first heard about Joshua Harris’s divorce news while I was attending the Christian fantasy writers’ conference Realm Makers.

An hour or so later, at lunch, a Christian publishing professional remarked on the news. He carefully questioned whether it was wise to allot to a twenty-year-old author so much influence and responsibility for spiritual guidance.

Now, Harris is responsible for his own decisions. He’s responsible for his own teachings and, to some extent, their consequences.

At the same time, it’s worthwhile to ask this: Have our Christian leadership structures, our denominations, and our formalized celebrity-making industries (publishing, music, and so on) contributed to Harris’s very public struggles?

In the name of resisting the sexual revolution and endorsing purity, should our “gatekeepers” have pushed Harris’s work so hard?

What similar problems exist in evangelical publishing—say, with letting the words of small children inform our beliefs about the afterlife?

8. Joshua Harris’s books alone did not hurt people; false teaching and/or dysfunctions are also at fault for that.

Without exception, every person who blames I Kissed Dating Goodbye or Harris’s related works cannot actually blame these things as solo assassins of their faith or romantic lives. In every case, the complainant must honestly blame the books as (at worst) accomplices.

The real perpetrator appears to be family dysfunction, or church dysfunction, or just plain personal dysfunction.

Someone who says, “Harris’s books ruined my relationships” may also need to consider her own possible immaturity as a cause.

Someone who says, “Harris and the ‘purity culture’ drove me away from church” may need to listen to his own memories about that shallow youth-group leader, or consider whether “youth group” is really the best method of biblical discipleship among God’s people anyway.

Or, someone who claims, “My parents made me follow Harris’s books!” may–carefully and with godly respect for parents!– need to admit that parents can sin, too. It’s sinful to accept the beliefs of any Christian leader without comparing them with Scripture.

Notice I said may in all three cases. People are too complex to blame either themselves or a popular author who influenced them in the past.

9. Joshua Harris’s expression of “regret” to “the LGBTQ+ community” is sinful and inexcusable.

Later in his post, Harris offers this:

To the LGBTQ+ community, I want to say that I am sorry for the views that I taught in my books and as a pastor regarding sexuality. I regret standing against marriage equality, for not affirming you and your place in the church, and for any ways that my writing and speaking contributed to a culture of exclusion and bigotry. I hope you can forgive me.⁣⁣

This is wrong.

As my friend and Speculative Faith colleague Mark Carver responds:

We also shouldn’t be enraged that a Christian celebrity has fallen away from the faith. Perhaps God is setting him up for an even more dramatic return to the church.

We should, however, be enraged at the public proclamation of heresy. There is *no* place for homosexuality in the church, there is *no* marriage except between a man and a woman, the Bible is absolutely inerrant and God-breathed and every word is truth. Lies about tolerance and avoiding perceived bigotry at the expense of the truth should be condemned to its face.

I can’t put it any better than this.

10. Joshua Harris (and other “falling away” evangelicals) are over-empathizing with sexual revolutionaries, casting them as “surrogate victims” to express their own conflicts with the church.

This last statement may seem more complicated, and perhaps even mean.

But it represents my attempt to understand the emotional appeals of apostatizing or compromising Christians, and answer them in kind.

I am trying to understand the very emotional causes that lead to their rejection of Christianity (or particular flavors of it), and their unqualified embrace of professing victims who reject the Bible’s insistence on purity as a response to the authority and grace of Jesus Christ.

The following is edited from a work in progress.

I’ve interacted with several Christians with “progressive” leanings, and I keep seeing this tendency. For a while I’ve wondered why these folks seem to be (1) so willing to think the best of sexual revolutionaries (and other victim groups, including the gospel’s religious competitors), (2) equally willing to demonstrate bad-faith responses, anger, and frustration with the contemporary Church or other evangelicals.

In one sentence, here’s what I think is going on:

These folks are using contemporary victim classes mainly as a “surrogate victim”—as an avatar, or language, mainly to express their own personal conflicts with their parents, churches, or ministry partners.

I don’t know how to describe it other than with the terms “surrogate victims” and “surrogate oppressors.”

But what I see goes like this. Speaking of young evangelicals who end up rejecting their faith, and/or buying into anti-Christian substitutes for biblical truth:

1. They have grown up in evangelical churches and their cultures.
2. These folks may have unresolved conflict with ancestral family (parents, grandparents).
3. They likely saw (or think they saw) conflict or hypocrisy in church(es) as a youth.
4. For Christian evangelical leaders, they’ve likely had more recent conflicts with ministry partners or supporters. (This could go a long way to explain the volatile behavior of some Christian leaders on social media.)
5. They have a lot of hurt and wounds for which they have not sought healing. (For a pro evangelical, his ministry leadership role depends on his strength in the faith and ability to lead others. If it got out that this person is a “broken shepherd,” who has experienced oppression by other Christian leaders that has accumulated into real wounds, his lifelong career is over.)
6. Quietly they begin to feel a greater (and likely legitimate) hurt of victimhood. This is where the victim-surrogacy begins.
7. They have not practiced biblical peacemaking with spiritual family members he knows in person (per the words of Christ in Matthew 18). He/she has not been able to “leave [the offense] to God” who avenges unrepented wrongs, per the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 12. (If our young Christian has heard this taught, it has been mixed up with unbiblical notions such as “just forgive,” which ignore the need for repentance and God’s promise to avenge all un-repented evils in God’s own time.)
8. Without this person’s “wrath” being laid at the foot of the Cross, our struggling young believer must find another surrogate. The quiet “drama” of victim-versus-oppressor must be played out in some way, leading to the semblance of healing from the trauma.
9. Enter the surrogate victim. Our young Christian hears of many other groups who also claim to be victims of the Church. This can include members of the LGBT community, or political leaders.
10. No matter the victim group, the important factor here is that the young Christian is not at first reasoned into advocacy for the victim group. Rather, young Christians identify with these victim groups because of personal empathy based on their own stories of conflict.
11. This means that the Christian’s other motives (such as not wanting to be thought a bigot, or wanting to make progress in elite institutions) are all secondary. So are any beliefs the young Christian adopts in place of biblical Christianity.
12. All these motives are a means to an ultimate end: to empathize with and effectively to use professing victim classes as an “avatar,” or surrogate victim, to express their own unresolved conflict with evangelical institutions, families, or churches. Similarly, they must cast “the evangelical church” as a surrogate oppressor, playing the role of the churches, institutions, or even family members who have caused the young Christian perceived harm in the past.

The only difference is that Harris is not like some other evangelicals, who empathize with anti-Christian victims (or “victims”) and yet profess faith in Jesus.

Instead, at least for now and as far as we can tell, Joshua Harris has rejected the faith. Apparently in his view, it’s all one and the same. He clearly feels like you can’t purge your head and heart of false beliefs, or manipulative religious systems, without also purging Jesus Christ.

It’s not true. It’s a damned lie.

But for a wounded shepherd, it’s not enough for him to hear it’s a damned lie. Especially at a distance from some long-range Christian.

May Joshua Harris find Christ’s comforting and correcting presence in this season, even of apostasy, and may it only be a season. Then, may the Holy Spirit, who is all-powerful and yet absurdly patient, bring back Joshua Harris (and his family, together with him or separately) to a renewed embrace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Until such time, let’s firmly yet graciously wish Joshua Harris “farewell.”

On day 3 of the Realm Makers conference in St. Louis, I’m connecting with friends and networking and pitching projects. I’m losing sleep and gaining energy. I’m working and enjoying recreation all at once.

Yes, it’s all paradoxical and it’s all good.

Look for my longer update this Tuesday at Speculative Faith.

Meanwhile, your best sources for updates are Realm Makers on Facebook and on Instagram. Stop by my Instagram feed and/or my Facebook feed for more photos and updates. We’re also sharing plenty at the Lorehaven page on Facebook.

 

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Ready for @RealmMakers 2019 with @lorehavenmag! http://estephenburnett.lorehaven.com/on-the-road-for-realm-makers-2019/

A post shared by E. Stephen Burnett (@estephenburnett) on Jul 18, 2019 at 9:08am PDT

 

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With @steverzasawriter and @majacobs_author for Brent Weeks’s keynote address at @realmmakers 2019! #RealmMakers2019

A post shared by E. Stephen Burnett (@estephenburnett) on Jul 18, 2019 at 5:07pm PDT

 

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At @realmmakers with Terry Brooks. #RealmMakers2019

A post shared by E. Stephen Burnett (@estephenburnett) on Jul 18, 2019 at 7:57pm PDT

 

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In which @maryschlegelauthor is prepared to clean out the many rejections of Steve Laube of @enclavepublishing. #RealmMakers2019 @realmmakers @trissinalovesbooks

A post shared by E. Stephen Burnett (@estephenburnett) on Jul 19, 2019 at 5:12pm PDT

 

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At last! I have met the gifted author @RachelStarrThomson, who is also a former writer at Speculative Faith. So glad she could make it to last night’s @RealmMakers banquet, where her book Seeds was nominated for an award. Explore Rachel’s repertoire at http://speculativefaith.lorehaven.com/author/rachel-starr-thomson/ .

A post shared by E. Stephen Burnett (@estephenburnett) on Jul 20, 2019 at 7:53am PDT

 

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At last night’s @realmmakers banquet, writer and @lorehavenmag columnist @majacobs_author debuted her costume six months in the making! #RealmMakers2019

A post shared by E. Stephen Burnett (@estephenburnett) on Jul 20, 2019 at 7:58am PDT

 

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With award-winner Kerry Nietz at @RealmMakers. He always backs up his rage with facts and documented sources. #TheCredibleHulk

A post shared by E. Stephen Burnett (@estephenburnett) on Jul 20, 2019 at 8:03am PDT

Today I’m in St. Louis for the seventh annual Realm Makers conference.

I’m representing Lorehaven magazine at the Realm Makers Bookstore. We’re open Thursday through Saturday at the Sheraton Westport Chalet Hotel.

You’ll find all our magazines on display, including the new summer 2019 issue. We’ll share print copies and more information about the Lorehaven mission. Oh—and we’ll be giving away at least one, possibly two copies of the newly released Light from Distant Stars from novelist Shawn Smucker.

In the bookstore, you’ll also find the best in fantastical fiction from many Christian authors.

This includes, of course, many titles positively reviewed by Lorehaven magazine.

On Thursday and Friday, I’ll attend several classes about writing and marketing fantastical fiction.

Then on Saturday, I’ll join several panelists for a discussion about how (or whether!) Christians can create stories about “PG-13” content. That panel starts at 3 p.m., and I’m looking forward to exploring what has become a favorite topic for me.

P.S.: Update on that book about Gospel-hearted parenting and popular culture

Finally, just yesterday, my coauthors and I locked down the title for our pending nonfiction book from New Growth Press.

Want to slip me a twopence? If so, I’ll write this title on a slip of paper and secretly pass it your way.

Next up: cover design. From here the fun begins.

We’re all rightly exploring the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission, during which man first set foot on lunar soil.

Because I’m busy wrapping up packing for the Realm Makers 2019 conference, I thought I had little time for exploring this topic.

Fortunately, past-me has this covered, from this 2015 article at Christ and Pop Culture.

Here I started with a retrospective on the Ron Howard film Apollo 13. This movie explores not just the ill-fated moon mission, but the nation’s already-waning boredom with the space program altogether. Then I considered movie–Jim Lovell’s (Tom Hanks) line:

“I look up at the moon and wonder, when will we be going back, and who will that be?”

From “Apollo 13: When Will We Be Going Back?” (July 3, 2015):

If we’re refusing to go back, why is that?

Reason 1: We are fallen. Lovell was part of the crew who read, on Christmas Eve during the Apollo 8 mission, Genesis 1’s account of God’s creation. But we are broken reflections of what God created. We are fallen. That means we want to exalt ourselves above God. Instead of wanting to bear and reflect the fire of His glory, we crave to steal the fire from His heaven.

That also means we reject or abuse God’s order to fill the earth with His glory by creating culture (Gen. 1:26-28). Do we suspect that if Adam and Eve had never rebelled against God, they and their children would have stayed in the Garden forever, naked and bored? Perish the thought. Instead for years and decades and centuries they would have made culture: clothes, travel, agriculture, architecture, stories, songs, games, science, technology. They would have built engines and ships. Later, they would have spread God’s glory to the stars.

Reason 2: Now violent creation is punishing our cultures. If humans had not sinned, the heaven of space would not be our enemy. This heaven could have been as the medievalists imagined it: a spiritual realm of æther in which musical spheres floated between earth and God’s dwelling place. Now space is a cold vacuum. Its music has been turned to groaning.

In real-world space, one bad O-ring, one damaged coil, and purging flames blast us back into dust.

And in our stories, outer space is not populated by singing heavenlies. It becomes a killing field of humans versus nature, technological breakdown, insanity, and invading demons.

Reason 3: With some exceptions, such as this week’s near-conjunction of Jupiter and Venus that has captivated many, our rebellion lowers our eyes from heaven and its wonders to the dust we walk on and from which we came. We don’t desire to discover more of infinity. We’re in lust with ourselves. Thus our science becomes devoted to making more shrunken baubles that help us expand our own glory. And thus our stories, having stripped our sense of awe or dismissed it as “just fiction,” leave us uncovered.

No longer do real fantasy beings exist. There are no benevolent spirits among the stars. They were all fairy tales. So we dress up in cheap rubber spirit-creature suits. We would not just exalt ourselves among the stars, but become the exalted stars of our own fairy tales.

Yet while our real-life efforts to shine flickers of that old glory beyond Earth are limited, our stories stubbornly reflect this ancient vision in films such as Apollo 13, Interstellar, or even Tomorrowland. That’s why we need these kinds of stories, and need to find, prize, and even make more of these stories with God — exalting beauty, excellence, realism, and power.

Christians, let us not show high regard for these magical going-to-the-moon tales but reduce them to abstract symbols, saying those are all very well and good but our true citizenship is in Heaven. But read God’s promise that Heaven and Earth are both due for a fiery remodeling, after which His city, like a beautiful bride descends from heaven to Earth.

Imagine a world in which everything truly reflects God’s glory! At last in this Afterworld, His redeemed pilots and engineers will have new hearts, new bodies built of better stuff than dust, and will use both to worship Him in their cultures. I am sure that only then can we answer Lovell’s question, “When will we be going back [to the moon?]” like this: “Now that Christ has returned, we go there every day, and beyond.” The old wonder of spreading His glory among the stars—the longing barely hinted in Lovell’s awe, Howard’s directorial vision, and [James] Horner’s soundtrack—will be fulfilled for eternity. All the poems and symbols will become reality. Adam and Eve’s children will literally explore the cosmos for the glory of the Creator, no longer fighting to survive but dancing and singing among the stars.

This week, I signed a contract for my first book.

This work of nonfiction will release next year, 2020, from New Growth Press.

Our title is technically pending. Yet I can say that the book explores this question:

How can gospel-centered Christians raise their children to engage popular culture, to glorify God, serve in the church, and connect with our neighbors?

I’m joined by two coauthors, Ted Turnau and Jared Moore.

Ted Turnau wrote the book Popologetics and teaches in the Czech Republic.

Hey everybody! Big news. We just signed with @newgrowthpress to do a book about how to engage popular culture with kids and teens! I, @EStephenBurnett, and @jaredhmoore are excited about finally getting this resource into the hands of parents and youth/children’s workers!

— Ted Turnau (@TedTurnau) May 11, 2019

Jared Moore pastors a church and cohosts the Pop Culture Coram Deo podcast.

I’m excited to announce that I just signed a contract with @newgrowthpress to publish a book on parents engaging pop culture with their young children & teenagers. I’m writing with co-authors @EStephenBurnett & @TedTurnau. Look for it in May-June of 2020.

— Jared Moore (@jaredhmoore) May 11, 2019

Indeed, we look forward to sharing this book with Christian parents and leaders, to help equip families and churches.

Many great articles, books, and podcasts already help Christians explore popular culture. Yet this may be the first book of its kind to help Christian grown-ups engage popular culture with their children, finding a popular cultural work’s common graces and idols. Best of all, we explore how to know and teach how Jesus alone perfectly fulfills the good “promises” that no story could ever fulfill.¹

From my new publisher’s website:

New Growth Press (NGP) is a growing Christian publisher, producing a wide variety of gospel-centered resources for individuals, families, and churches. NGP publishes books, minibooks, small group, and Gospel Story for Kids resources that provide churches, families, and individuals with gospel-driven publications for all ages.²

Please pray, and watch for more updates as we move into this publication journey.

Before my wife and I began our vacation last weekend to New Mexico, I kept having this feeling.

Hey. You’ll be driving in the desert. What if your car breaks down in the desert?

. . . breaks down in the desert?

. . . down in the desert?

. . . breaks down . . .

Our car broke down in the desert, in the late afternoon of Friday, May 3.

Earlier that day, we had just seen the splendors of Carlsbad Caverns. Taken dozens of photos. Marveled at this natural wonder.

Then as we drove toward El Paso, another certain ground-based resource secretly leaked all the way out of the engine.

Yes, that’s right. Within minutes, our 2007 Kia Optima’s engine had roasted itself. Like a terrible, tragic, broken comedy.

Of course, the car stereo, air conditioner, and everything else kept going merrily along. While we sat there in shock, left without even a cellular phone signal. Seriously: we had no cell phone signal, no running vehicle, no way to escape the situation. Total nightmare fuel.

Literally—just as if we had entered the parallel universe of an evangelical men’s devotional—all we could do was pray.

Sometimes those ‘cheesy’ devotional stories do happen

And I am not making this up: within minutes, help arrived.

His name was Joe. He lived in El Paso, worked for a company near Carlsbad. It’s one of those companies where you have to drive for hours, then live on-site Monday through Friday, coming home only on weekends.

“This road is usually empty,” Joe told us. “Only on Friday night does everyone start driving home.”

So if we had broken down in any other area, at any other time of day, we might have fared even worse.

Joe had an amazing story to share: A youth of family conflict, drugs, false accusations, trial and forgiveness. He’d returned to the faith of his youth, gotten saved, joined a church. Gotten married just this past year; he and his now-wife already have three precious boys.

He told us he had just been driving by himself, listening to a radio-show swap meet. Then he had switched over to Christian music.

A moment later, he saw us by the side of the road and knew he had to help.

Not only that, but Joe said he had broken down in this similar area not long ago. As an El Paso native, he knew just what wrecker to call, where to get a rental car, and what repair shop may/may not be open the following day.

It’s not often you get this kind of deus ex machina in real life.

We’re still connected with Joe. In fact, I’ll likely send him this article.

Since then: please pray for our treasonous vehicle

My wife and I spent the next day working around car shop claims and swelling expenses. Rental and towing expenses grew and grew.

We ended up strapping the Kia’s carcass to a U-Haul trailer.

Then we dragged the sorry thing with us, all the way to Roswell, New Mexico, and then, the next day, on to home.

Yes, we had scheduled ourselves to be in Roswell on May 4 (as in, “May the Fourth be with you”). Secretly, I wanted the “geek cred” of doing so. (We still got there in time, though we barely saw the community while driving through to our AirBnB.)

Here’s what I wrote in the AirBnB guest book—alongside the very excellent Bible they’d placed nearby for guest benefit.

I’ve redacted some details.

So, as for what happens next:

• For now, I’ll temporarily step back writing new content, both here and at Speculative Faith.
• Please pray we can either find a new-used, excellent car, or (unlikely) somehow fix the traitorous Kia.
• Please also pray for a Secret Project (redacted above) and Lorehaven magazine. Even more importantly, please pray for my wife’s and my upcoming foster-care venture. Because you seriously need a well-working vehicle to take care of precious children.

Breaking news: Literally, just after I finished that last sentence, my wife returned home from work. She’s been driving our emergency backup car. Which, we just learned, is now leaking coolant into the engine.

So. We may actually need two cars. At the same time.

Those prayers I asked for? Please double them.