NYT Column: His Reasons for Opposing Trump Were Biblical. Now a Top Christian Editor Is Out.
THE MEDIA EQUATION
His Reasons for Opposing Trump Were Biblical. Now a Top Christian Editor Is Out.
A clash over culture and politics comes to World, a groundbreaking journalistic institution that covers evangelical Christians.
Marvin Olasky’s World magazine has delivered hard-hitting investigative articles under a journalistic philosophy he calls “biblical objectivity.”Credit...Montinique Monroe for The New York Times
By Ben Smith
- Nov. 14, 2021, 8:20 p.m. ET
When Marvin Olasky gets angry emails from readers — more often than not about an exposé of wrongdoing at an evangelical church, or about a story that reflects poorly on Donald Trump — he has a stock reply.
“We think this is useful to the Church,” he tells disgruntled readers, “because we are also sinners.”
As the longtime editor of World, a Christian news organization that has a website, a biweekly magazine and a set of podcasts, Mr. Olasky has delivered a mix of hard news and watchdog articles about the evangelical realm under a journalistic philosophy he calls “biblical objectivity.”
It involves taking strong stands where the Bible is clear, which has led World to oppose abortion rights and support refugees, he says, and to follow reportable facts where the Bible doesn’t provide clear guidance.
The concept served Mr. Olasky well from 1994, when he became the editor of World, until Nov. 1, 2021, when he submitted his resignation.
He had, he said, received an effective “vote of no confidence” from World’s board, which had recently started a section of the website, World Opinions, without fully consulting him. The new section offers opinion essays on religious issues with the kind of commentary on secular topics like mask mandates, inflation, race and President Biden’s spending plans that can be found on any number of other conservative websites.
At one level, Mr. Olasky’s departure is just another example of the American news media sinking deeper into polarization, as one more conservative news outlet, which had almost miraculously retained its independence, is conquered by Mr. Trump.
It also marks the end of a remarkable era at a publication that has shaken evangelical churches and related institutions with its deeply reported articles. The far-right writer Dinesh D’Souza resigned in 2012 as president of the King’s College after World reported that he had attended a Christian conference with “a woman not his wife.” In 2020, World reported that several young women had complained that a North Carolina Republican running for Congress, Madison Cawthorn, had exhibited “sexually or verbally aggressive behavior toward them when they were teenagers.” At a time when hot takes get the clicks, these articles offered something old-fashioned and hard for any community to take: accountability reporting.
“I am not interested in the project of a conservative opinion magazine — there are lots out there already and that’s not my vision of World,” Mr. Olasky, 71, told me Thursday in a telephone interview from his home in Austin, Texas.