The Dish

from LA Review of Books: The Great Evangelical Recession

TGC Interview with John Dickerson

Dickerson, whose op-eds have appeared in USA Today, The New York Times, and elsewhere, does not hesitate to lay blame where he thinks it belongs. He condemns evangelicals’ foray into national politics as an unqualified disaster: it divided churches, won scant political gains, and earned Christians a hard-to-shake reputation as hypocritical, hard-hearted bigots. He is withering about megachurch pastors’ embrace of corporate-style growth strategies, which he asserts squandered their moral authority and deprived worshippers of essential pastoral care and faith formation. It’s no surprise, he writes, that Christians are abandoning such a shallow, divisive faith: “Somewhere along the way, our focus on programs and techniques, dollars, ministry size, and perhaps even powerful worship distracted us from the basics. […] [W]e have failed to take care of Christ’s sheep. Now we are losing them.”