Equivocating the Equivocations: A Critique of Neil Shenvi's Critique of Megan Basham's "Shepherds for Sale"

Preface: Neil Shenvi recently added his contribution to the list of critics poking holes in Megan Basham’s wildly popular book, “Shepherd’s for Sale“. I am a BIG Neil Shenvi fan. I promote him often. I’ve read/shared his books, articles, interviews, etc… And in this recent article, I think that Neil’s conclusions are mostly right concerning Basham’s “Shepherds for Sale”. But I’m disappointed and a bit confused about some of his criticism. I’ll say it again: most of this is good… but let me give you an example of what I think isn’t hitting the mark:

Neil criticizes Basham’s attack on Karen Swallow Prior.

He begins by saying that Prior actually has in the past (wrongly) pushed the claim that being “pro-life”, while also being “anti-vax” or “anti-mask” is hypocritical (the linked tweet from Prior in 2021*). [1]
Then he shows the commentary by Basham (note: I think this is an excellent example of something that is wrong with Basham’s book… she is very hyperbolic and presumptuous without having the citations to back up the strong accusations with which she characterizes her opposition… this is classic “more heat than light”) [2]. He provides both screenshots the citation from Basham’s book and links the complete article. [3]
Then he gives his commentary concluding that: “the article in question supports none of those claims…” [4]

So, I read the “article in question“.
And it absolutely supports Basham’s claims.

Now, I think that I get why Neil says that the article doesn’t support the claims… it’s because Prior’s article ends with this caveat:

“By no means am I arguing that the willful, intentional destruction of the life of an unborn child is morally equivalent to inadvertently passing on a virus to someone vulnerable…. *But we know this virus has brought about the deaths of nearly 1 million people in our country in just two years, and we who believe all human life is sacred are called to protect human lives in many ways.”

Let me translate that for you…
Prior’s Caveat: ‘So, I know that I’ve spent this entire article arguing that pro-lifers should support masks and vaccines because to do otherwise conflicts with being ‘pro-life’… but let me CYA by giving this one sentence caveat. And then in this next sentence… I’ll make the claim again that you’re a hypocrite if you call yourself ‘pro-life’ while you’re also anit-mask/anti-vax‘.

The Prior “article in question”, from which Basham’s cites, is from 2022…
The tweet, that ‘concerns’ Shenvi, is from 2021….
Lemme show you that tweet…

I think it’s fair to assume that the 2022 article, in light of the 2021 tweet, can and probably should give readers the understanding that Prior is indeed saying that if you’re pro-life, but anti-vax/anti-mask, you’re a hypocrite.

Further, Shenvi makes a pretty bad equivocation in an attempt to exculpate Prior’s equivocation when he writes:

“In precisely the same way, we can assert that our commitment to honesty entails that we shouldn’t embezzle $10 million dollars and also that we shouldn’t steal gum, without in any way implying that those actions are morally equivalent.”

Nope. That’s ridiculous.
You can say ‘stealing gum is wrong’ without ever bringing up embezzling $10M… especially if you have zero intention of implying that the gum you stole is anywhere near as bad as embezzling $10M. Likewise, Prior should have made her pro-vax/pro-mask argument without bringing up pro-life… but only if she never intended to imply that being pro-life while also being anti-vax/anti-max is hypocritical. And based on the evidence… we have plenty of reasons to conclude that this is precisely what she intended.

I listened to Basham’s book, read Shenvi’s article, and this.
This is so frustrating. It’s so frustrating when we fight each other when everyone is right. Megan is right that evangelicalism is functionally lurching left, and that many ministers that trained to be Carl F.H Henry sophisticated, contextualized evangelical leaders have not seemed to see how leftism pragmatically co-opts movements and makes “useful idiots” of the non-vigilant. Seeking to contextualize to the world, without a strong anti-leftist vaccination, will produce slippage. As one of these ministers myself in the JD Greer generation, I have had to constantly vaccinate myself to not slide worse than I have. Basham’s book is one of those vaccines- ironic as that may sound. And further, lie Shenvi, I don’t really besmirch Megan’s tone all that much. This message has to be given in a full throated way, since it critiques the effects of the Progressive Gaze and the “punch right, coddle left” (a phrase I ironically first heard form D.A. Carson in class in 2000, someone Megan takes a couple shots at- that may have been deserved).
However, I also think that Shenvi is right. Some of Megan’s documentation of her characterizations didn’t have enough “there there”, and insufficient characterization of who is a wolf and who made a mistake, and who got caught up in a zeitgeist, and who believed the wrong person, and so on. As someone that sued our county’s school system in federal court to keep our Christian schools open, I feel I was able to make the right decisions about service closing, masking, vaccines, and so on. However, it wasn’t because I had better science from the future. It was because I have the right biases and bigotries. I didn’t trust the people making the government’s claims, and neither did people close to me. I have been paying attention to who had been wrong consistently over the last 25 years, and I’ve tried to keenly observe human nature. I had stayed connected to conservative news sources, even “far right” ones that talked about what no one else reported on. Facts I had to keep hidden from some of the people I served, and even other pastors I worked with. But it gave me more insights. So I stuck to my guns and took the heat.
However this was partly because I have never been offered the right hand of fellowship by #bigEva. As a somewhat scattered ADD student, I was not the pride of my seminary faculty, and no one was interested in my carrier. It hurt my feelings, but it also spared me numerous temptations. I’ve seen the difference in family vacations between pastors like me and those with less ministry success but more book deals. However, I have also felt the rush of flattery dangled in front of me, and I know that flesh needs a lot of John Owen style mortifying.
Last, I think this author is right. Though I really liked how full throated Swallow-Prior was in her defense of pro-life logic (and it was frankly QUITE good), she was implying that, by her lights, not wearing masks was inconsistent moral thinking. Thus, by the lighter definition, it would make one a hypocrite. That is, hypocrisy of inconsistency, not a bad faith hypocrisy. Yet there is no doubt she was seeking to persuade people that moral consistency meant wearing a mask.
However, I end with Shenvi in this: What is Swallow-Prior supposed to do? She believed, in apparent good faith, that her moral argument was sound. She thought mask, vaccines, and distancing made a difference. So she thought we should use them. Is this Leftism? Do we need to postulate bad faith leftism, or useful-idiocy to make sense of Prior’s argument? I don’t think so. Limited news pipeline? Maybe. Listening to the wrong people to give you summaries? Maybe.

In the final analysis, I felt like some of the weaker places in Basham’s narratives are real Weaknesses in her book. I blame her for that and I don’t. I’ve written a few books, and good lord are they a ton of work. She seems to have labored intensively to get this to publication, and I would be satisfied for corrections in the second addition. I think the section on Gavin Ortlund should be cleaned up. Maybe a few of these other characterizations. I think that would be doable, and would strengthen her argument.
But let me tell you the key problem for evangelical pastors. We can’t know all we need to know to know what people want us to know about. We are out here by ourselves. We have no magisterium. WE don’t have close relations with our seminaries. So something like “#big Eva” had to naturally arise through some dynamic of free associations. But in the Gen X generation, there was a real move to the left. As evangelicals sought to enter intellectual spaces to counter the “long march through the institutions” as Henry, Kantzer and others called us to- some of us lost our way. Worse, those of us that were able to work through some of these areas of nuance were not able to re-simplify it for the pulpit and pew. WE got mealy mouthed as our cultural institutions radicalized from undergrad down to kindergarten. Now, coddle left, punch right yields all of the field.
But Shenvi, Grear, Olasky, Butterfield and Basham and I are on the same Evangelical team. We have to find a way to stand together or we will perish.

One reply on “Equivocating the Equivocations: A Critique of Neil Shenvi’s Critique of Megan Basham’s “Shepherds for Sale””

Nic Gibson says:

August 16, 2024 at 10:50 am

I listened to Basham’s book, read Shenvi’s article, and this.
This is so frustrating. It’s so frustrating when we fight each other when everyone is right. Megan is right that evangelicalism is functionally lurching left, and that many ministers that trained to be Carl F.H Henry sophisticated, contextualized evangelical leaders have not seemed to see how leftism pragmatically co-opts movements and makes “useful idiots” of the non-vigilant. Seeking to contextualize to the world, without a strong anti-leftist vaccination, will produce slippage. As one of these ministers myself in the JD Greer generation, I have had to constantly vaccinate myself to not slide worse than I have. Basham’s book is one of those vaccines- ironic as that may sound. And further, lie Shenvi, I don’t really besmirch Megan’s tone all that much. This message has to be given in a full throated way, since it critiques the effects of the Progressive Gaze and the “punch right, coddle left” (a phrase I ironically first heard form D.A. Carson in class in 2000, someone Megan takes a couple shots at- that may have been deserved).
However, I also think that Shenvi is right. Some of Megan’s documentation of her characterizations didn’t have enough “there there”, and insufficient characterization of who is a wolf and who made a mistake, and who got caught up in a zeitgeist, and who believed the wrong person, and so on. As someone that sued our county’s school system in federal court to keep our Christian schools open, I feel I was able to make the right decisions about service closing, masking, vaccines, and so on. However, it wasn’t because I had better science from the future. It was because I have the right biases and bigotries. I didn’t trust the people making the government’s claims, and neither did people close to me. I have been paying attention to who had been wrong consistently over the last 25 years, and I’ve tried to keenly observe human nature. I had stayed connected to conservative news sources, even “far right” ones that talked about what no one else reported on. Facts I had to keep hidden from some of the people I served, and even other pastors I worked with. But it gave me more insights. So I stuck to my guns and took the heat.
However this was partly because I have never been offered the right hand of fellowship by #bigEva. As a somewhat scattered ADD student, I was not the pride of my seminary faculty, and no one was interested in my carrier. It hurt my feelings, but it also spared me numerous temptations. I’ve seen the difference in family vacations between pastors like me and those with less ministry success but more book deals. However, I have also felt the rush of flattery dangled in front of me, and I know that flesh needs a lot of John Owen style mortifying.
Last, I think this author is right. Though I really liked how full throated Swallow-Prior was in her defense of pro-life logic (and it was frankly QUITE good), she was implying that, by her lights, not wearing masks was inconsistent moral thinking. Thus, by the lighter definition, it would make one a hypocrite. That is, hypocrisy of inconsistency, not a bad faith hypocrisy. Yet there is no doubt she was seeking to persuade people that moral consistency meant wearing a mask.
However, I end with Shenvi in this: What is Swallow-Prior supposed to do? She believed, in apparent good faith, that her moral argument was sound. She thought mask, vaccines, and distancing made a difference. So she thought we should use them. Is this Leftism? Do we need to postulate bad faith leftism, or useful-idiocy to make sense of Prior’s argument? I don’t think so. Limited news pipeline? Maybe. Listening to the wrong people to give you summaries? Maybe.

In the final analysis, I felt like some of the weaker places in Basham’s narratives are real Weaknesses in her book. I blame her for that and I don’t. I’ve written a few books, and good lord are they a ton of work. She seems to have labored intensively to get this to publication, and I would be satisfied for corrections in the second addition. I think the section on Gavin Ortlund should be cleaned up. Maybe a few of these other characterizations. I think that would be doable, and would strengthen her argument.
But let me tell you the key problem for evangelical pastors. We can’t know all we need to know to know what people want us to know about. We are out here by ourselves. We have no magisterium. WE don’t have close relations with our seminaries. So something like “#big Eva” had to naturally arise through some dynamic of free associations. But in the Gen X generation, there was a real move to the left. As evangelicals sought to enter intellectual spaces to counter the “long march through the institutions” as Henry, Kantzer and others called us to- some of us lost our way. Worse, those of us that were able to work through some of these areas of nuance were not able to re-simplify it for the pulpit and pew. WE got mealy mouthed as our cultural institutions radicalized from undergrad down to kindergarten. Now, coddle left, punch right yields all of the field.
But Shenvi, Grear, Olasky, Butterfield and Basham and I are on the same Evangelical team. We have to find a way to stand together or we will perish.

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