Compromised Leaders and Eroded Beliefs

Tim Keller, Justin Welby, and the Way We Talk (and Don't Talk)

In a culture that loves sin and hates judgement, underplaying the consequences of sin and judgement will make a leader many friends and few enemies.

Regardless of whether a leader likes and/or emphasises judgement, we know that leaders in the Church will themselves be judged with greater strictness (James 3:1). This is because they exert the greatest impact upon the strength and/or the erosion of the Church’s beliefs over time.

The world likes the kind of evangelical leader who keeps talk of judgement to a minimum, the kind of whom Louis Theroux would never even think to make a damning documentary. It has been a hard time these last few years for many of us who have come to the realisation that a large quantity of the mainstream evangelical leaders—whilst not necessarily becoming unorthodox—opened the windows to future compromises by the way they have spoken (or not spoken) about what most needed to be spoken about.

Why was Tim Keller asked to speak at Google? Why was Justin Welby first appointed Archbishop of Canterbury? They were the right sort. They were safe. They were nice. And it’s nice to be nice, right? Well, it depends. Both leaders displayed the savvy balance of sounding not too much like “an extremist” in their Christianity whilst still exhibiting enough technical “evangelical” credentials to keep the more prominent churches and leaders onside. In order to remain publicly savvy such leaders tended to undermine how they spoke about sin at just the time such sins were invading the churches.

Challenges for Keller

Tim Keller’s approach to mission has been the dominant approach within mainstream evangelical church planting within the last two decades. Even prior to his death in 2023, the negative implications of his missional legacy had been “debatable” for the last half-decade or so. The strongest critiques were catapulted into wider consciousness by James Wood’s viral 2022 article in First Things, “How I Evolved On Tim Keller”, and Aaron Renn’s influential “negative world” schema. These newer perspectives enabled numerous breaths of fresh air which many had not felt they were permitted to breathe.

Those who, for years, had sensed nagging doubts about the seaworthiness of Keller’s missional paradigm in increasingly aggressive anti-Christian times, did not feel they were allowed to disagree with him, at least not too strongly. The general attitude has shifted rather dramatically since this time. An increasing number of leaders are beginning to embrace the new pioneering horizons ahead of them where they might adopt a wholly different approach more germane to the more combative ways Scripture calls us to engage with our ideological opponents.

It is by no means a “settled” case, of course. Most evangelical churches still will function in a Kelleresque way, whether they even know who he is. Those who do may still cling to his model because it is all they know, or because they believe some of his critics have been too harsh on him. Several weeks ago the prominent Christian journalist, Megan Basham, faced all sorts of flak for once again bringing up Keller’s “track record” of not confronting the front line sins and compromises of our age. She was castigated by some as though she was mercilessly exhuming the uncorrupted corpse of the Lord’s anointed!