Crossroads Podcast: Philip Yancey And ‘New York Times Evangelicals’
Believe it or not, the Urban Dictionary website does not contain a definition for the snarky term “New York Times conservative” or even “NYTS conservative.”
However, the microchip-minions at Grok were able to provide a short explanation for this political label, one that contained the same major themes I found with other AI programs.
It refers to a person (typically a columnist or pundit) whom The New York Times labels or hires as its "conservative" voice, but who holds views that many actual conservatives consider moderate, center-left, liberal-leaning, or insufficiently aligned with mainstream conservative principles (e.g., on social issues, foreign policy, or cultural matters). …
The phrase implies that the NYT's version of "conservatism" is watered-down or performative to maintain a facade of balance. … It's commonly used sarcastically to dismiss such figures as "not real conservatives" or as acceptable only to elite, establishment media outlets.”
Needless to say, the Urban Dictionary did not contain an entry for a similar grammatical construction linked to a church-history term that, during the past 50 years or so, has been very hard to define — “evangelical.” The struggle to pinpoint who is an “evangelical” played a major role in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, which centered on this stunning New York Times headline: “Philip Yancey, Prominent Christian Author, Admits to Extramarital Affair.” The overture:
Philip Yancey, a prominent evangelical author known for his work on the Christian concept of grace, announced this week that he would retire from writing and speaking because of a long-term “sinful affair” with a married woman.
“My conduct defied everything that I believe about marriage,” Mr. Yancey wrote in a statement first published by the magazine Christianity Today, where he was a contributor for decades. “It was also totally inconsistent with my faith and my writings and caused deep pain for her husband and both of our families.”
Is there such a thing as a “New York Times evangelical”?
Anyone who has followed religion news published by the Gray Lady in the years since January 22, 1973, knows that when debates linked to evangelicalism must be covered, The New York Times knows how to tell “good” evangelicals from “bad” evangelicals, as in the evangelicals who are worthy of respect and those whose moral, cultural and theological views are considered extreme, if not dangerous.
This has been true for decades, long before the rise of President Donald Trump.
Thus, the most important paragraphs in the must-read, carefully prepared Times piece state, concerning Yancey:
His books have sold more than 20 million copies in 49 languages, according to his official biography. President Jimmy Carter, an evangelical Christian and a fellow Georgian, once named Mr. Yancey as his favorite modern author.
Mr. Yancey was not a moral crusader or a political brawler. He wrote about the “scandal of grace,” the notion that God’s forgiveness and love are extended “not only to the undeserving but also to those who in fact deserve the opposite.”
He is best known for two books he published in the 1990s, “The Jesus I Never Knew” and “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” Both reached a wide audience and were named “Christian Book of the Year” by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, which presented Mr. Yancey with an award for lifetime contributions to the church and society in 2023.
It is also crucial to know this:
In 2021, he published a memoir that excavated his harrowing childhood, in which he was raised in poverty by his widowed mother in a household ruled by a fire-and-brimstone strain of fundamentalism. “My earliest memories all involve fear,” he wrote.
Much of Yancey’s fame was linked to his ability to explain — to evangelicals and to their critics — the difference between a healthy, loving, compassionate brand of evangelicalism and what he considered extreme forms of faith that were too judgmental and, especially, political. His major platform was in the pages of what, for decades, was the most powerful publication in American evangelicalism.
As the Times story noted:
At Christianity Today, he wrote a popular back-page column for 26 years starting in 1983, a period in which the magazine became arguably the most influential publication in mainstream evangelicalism, before the Trump era scrambled hierarchies of clout among many Christian leaders and institutions.
The Times story noted that Yancey, who is 76 and in 2023 was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, said that his “extramarital relationship had lasted eight years, and that he would not share other details ‘out of respect for the other family.’”
Yancey has, in recent years, continued to speak on the major themes in his career. For example, there is this podcast from this past September 3, when — with the Rev. Russell Moore, editor of Christianity Today at that time — he addressed: “The Problem of Pain and Suffering,” in which the “renowned thinker and writer reflects on his own pain and suffering in light of the book of Job.”
In addition to his own letter, Yancey released a public statement from his wife Janet Yancey.
In this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, I argued that it’s hard to follow social-media debates and public reactions to this stunning confession without noticing that defenders and critics of Yancey have radically different views of the degree to which he was a mainstream evangelical leader.
There is a simple reason for that: Historians, activists and journalists do not agree on what the word “evangelical” means.
As I noted, in a 2017 “On Religion” column on that topic:
All of this confusion wouldn’t surprise Billy Graham.
During a 1987 interview, I asked him to define “evangelical.” Graham said he wasn’t sure what the word means, since it has “become blurred. ... You go all the way from the extreme fundamentalists to the extreme liberals and, somewhere in between, there are the evangelicals.” In the end, he added, one man’s “evangelical” is another’s “fundamentalist.”
Based on his experiences with Christians around the world, Graham said it was important to keep trying to link this term with doctrinal orthodoxy. Thus, he defined an “evangelical” as someone who believes all the doctrines in the ancient Apostles Creed. Graham stressed the centrality of the resurrection and the belief that salvation is through Jesus, alone.
In other words, fighting about the work of Yancey and other progressive evangelicals has often focused on matters of doctrine, while news coverage of those debates have emphasized politics.
Thus, I suggest that journalists consider asking three doctrinal questions, when studying these divisions inside evangelicalism, as well as other major Christian churches, movements and institutions. Here are the “tmatt trio” questions from the GetReligion.org years, as stated in my conversations with the late pollster George Gallup, Jr., about these matters:
— Are biblical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus accurate? Did this happen?
— Is salvation found through Jesus, alone? Was Jesus being literal when he said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
— Is sex outside of marriage a sin?
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