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The Karol Markowicz Show: Faith, Family, and the Fight for Evangelical Culture with Megan Basham
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- [00:00]
Carol Markowitz
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
Commercial Announcer
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Mario Lopez
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- [03:03]
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- [03:08]
Megan Basham
Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. Cmn.
- [03:11]
Mario Lopez
Hey, what's up? It's Mario Lopez. Back to school is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions. Whether you're a parent, teacher, coach or neighbor. Check in, ask questions, stay connected. Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to report@dhs.gov blue campaign.
- [03:50]
Carol Markowitz
Hi, welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on iheartradio. My guest today is Megan Basham, daily wire culture reporter and best selling author of Shepherds for Sale. So nice to have you on, Megan.
- [04:03]
Megan Basham
Thanks for having me, Carol. It's great to be here.
- [04:06]
Carol Markowitz
I don't feel like we've ever met because now that I see you face to face, I'm pretty sure we haven't. But I've been a fan of your work for a very long time and I think you're just a fantastic writer and thinker and I'm really glad to have you on.
- [04:19]
Megan Basham
It's weird. Like the thing that's weird about the online social media world is I do feel like I know you. I know your avatar really well.
- [04:29]
Carol Markowitz
Exactly. Yes. And you've been very open about your fight with colorectoral cancer. How are you doing now?
- [04:37]
Megan Basham
Yeah, doing good. So I had surgery a little about a month and a half ago and we got clean margins, which if you know anything about cancer, that's a very good thing.
- [04:46]
Carol Markowitz
Awesome.
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Megan Basham
And so just had my first scan and no evidence of disease as right now. So we're really happy about that.
- [04:52]
Carol Markowitz
So glad to hear that. I've been praying for you. I'm really thrilled to hear that. So tell me about yourself. How did you get into this, this thing of ours that we do, this.
- [05:02]
Megan Basham
Media world, you know, it was kind of an accident. I was at Arizona State University during the years that it really earned its reputation as a party school. And I Did a lot of contributing to that. And I kind of. I was an English lit major. I didn't really know what I wanted to do with that, but I started working on my student newspaper. Enjoyed that. Enjoyed hanging out with, you know, the student reporters. And so when I graduated, my husband and I got married, and he was a broadcast journalist, which, if you know anything about that world, you move a lot. So you start in small markets and you move up. And so, you know, it wasn't really conducive to my holding down a full time job because, you know, I'm moving to places like El Paso and Tucson with him. So I started freelance writing, you know, and I was a conservative for National Review and Weekly Standard and places like that, Wall Street Journal. And then I just kind of fell into evangelical magazine writing because, you know, I'm an evangelical, and it made sense. And I met some friends on some junkets who were working for World magazine, which is a pretty well known magazine in the evangelical world. And they just gave me a perfect little niche to just hide away. And for years, I could work part time, I could write as much as I wanted or pull back when I needed. And so as I was having kids for, you know, 10 to 15 years, I was just very comfortably writing at World magazine in the evangelical space.
- [06:26]
Carol Markowitz
And that's how Shepherds for Sale came about.
- [06:29]
Megan Basham
It did, yes. Then, you know, right about 2019, when the woke war started, they very much came into the evangelical world too. So I experienced it in my personal life at our church and some of these big ministries that, you know, I worked in, was familiar with. And I experienced it at work a little bit. That's actually how I ended up going to the Daily Wire, because it was really hard to write about from the inside because there's so much associational networking, and nobody wants to burn someone that they know or be critical of someone that they know. And it felt like I couldn't say what I needed to say in house. So I happened to do an interview with Andrew Clavin at the Daily Wire.
- [07:11]
Carol Markowitz
He's so awesome. He's been on the show.
- [07:13]
Megan Basham
I love him. And he just painted this picture. And kind of on a whim, I was like, hey, you guys think you have any room for me over there? And, like, the next thing I knew, they were offering me a job. And so I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna go. And probably my only stipulation, because, you know, they really wanted me to write about culture and entertainment, which I wanted to do, but I Was my stipulation was, can I also write some church articles? I would like to write about what's going on in the church. And they're like, yeah, okay, sure. And that's how it started.
- [07:40]
Carol Markowitz
So what do you trace down in the book? What's the path you take?
- [07:45]
Megan Basham
So, you know, for those who aren't super familiar with the evangelical subculture, it's obviously really important to American politics. We represent roughly 25 to 30% of the American electorate. The Atlantic has rightly called evangelicals America's most powerful voting bloc, but because they tend not to be in the elite intellectual spaces, a lot of times, people don't think about them. I started writing about it because as I was noticing this wokeness come in. And by that, I mean things like in my denomination, which is the Southern Baptist Convention, it's the largest Protestant denomination in the us, Second denomination only to Catholics.
- [08:25]
Carol Markowitz
Wow.
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Megan Basham
I saw things like suddenly they were promoting a resolution. And that kind of sets the tone. We have this big meeting every year. Resolutions are brought up and promoted and voted on. And a resolution was brought up to adopt critical race theory as a helpful analytical tool.
- [08:43]
Carol Markowitz
I remember this. Yeah.
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Megan Basham
And that was kind. That was in 2019. And at that point, I was still at world. And that was when I really noticed it and went, what's going on? And you saw it trickle down in small ways to. I mean, what you have to understand is that these seminaries in the Southern Baptist Convention educate a plurality of Protestant pastors. So even if you're, you know, Presbyterian or Anglican or something else, your pastor may be getting educated in these seminaries. So these things do set the tone of. For culturally what they're adopting. And so these were the things I was seeing. I mean, we had our president of the Southern Baptist Convention at that time institute racial hiring quotas, basically saying, I want to ensure that 60% of the people that I appoint to committees or hire are women or minorities. So all the things you saw happening in the culture were happening in the evangelical subculture, which at least doctrinally is supposed to be conservative.
- [09:38]
Carol Markowitz
Right, right.
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Megan Basham
So, you know, I was going, what's happening here? And as I started reporting, porting it out, then Covid happened, and I wrote an article on how all of these influential evangelical platforms and personalities were promoting lockdowns, church closures, masks, even vaccines, like, to the point where it was, you know, there was a push to say, love your neighbor, get the shot. If you didn't get the shot, you didn't love your neighbor like Jesus says. And so when I did that story, it went very viral. And at that point, a publisher approached me and said, hey, have you thought about doing a book on some of these things you're writing about? And that gave me the opportunity for like a year to just dig deep. And then, you know, you come to find out, oh, there's a reason that some of these big ministries are doing things like promoting open borders policies when it comes to immigration, and it's because they're in bed with groups that are funded by George Soros or the Clinton foundation or the Gates Foundation. So you started to find out there's actually all this big money coming in from the secular left and it's being used to move that all important evangelical voting block.
- [10:47]
Carol Markowitz
Absolutely. And, you know, it's very reminiscent of, you know, when I hear people in red states or red areas say, like, oh, the teachers in our community are not going to be crazy leftist. And I'm like, they all get taught at the same teacher's college. You know, they're all getting the same kind of curriculum and indoctrination. So I don't know, I don't think you should feel particularly safe. But do you feel like there's been a shift in the, the right direction in the evangelical world in the last few years? Like, I mean, there's definitely been a vibe shift culturally.
- [11:17]
Megan Basham
Right.
- [11:17]
Carol Markowitz
Has it kind of seeped into the evangelical world as well?
- [11:22]
Megan Basham
Yeah, absolutely. But what's funny about it is what you're hearing now is this conversation about the rehab tour. So you have a lot of guys who push this stuff. For example, the former president of the SBC convention was one of the guys, like I said, who was promoting the crt, promoting the racial hiring quotas. And it was like they kind of went silent for a while and now they're speaking again from a much more conservative viewpoint. And it's kind of the, let's pretend that didn't happen. And you're seeing their friends who maybe didn't go as far as they did or weren't out as front as they were in those years, but they're kind of helping them to go, oh, look at this great material that J.D. greer or someone you know is promoting now. And it there's an internal discussion amongst us going, so these are guys who are trying to reassert the status quo of saying, you know, we're the leadership without being held to any accountability for what they promoted during that time by sort of just burying it and pretending like that didn't happen. So it's there's definitely been a vibe shift, but not in the sense that anyone's coming out and saying, hey, I own that I screwed up there. We shouldn't have done that. It's more like, let's just have amnesia and pretend that, you know, those Covid years never happened.
- [12:32]
Carol Markowitz
Is this a battle that's being kind of pushed down the road, or is. Is this going to be a fight internally?
- [12:40]
Megan Basham
Yeah, I think it's an ongoing fight. So, I mean, it feels like the peak of the fight was maybe last year, but the ongoing debate about it hasn't stopped. And in a certain extent, you know, I have sort of counseled friends, like, look, when you see some of these guys who are known as weather vanes politically, so even though they're pastors, they may bend with the winds of the culture, and suddenly they're striking a much more conservative tone. You kind of have to take that as a win. Like, okay, yes, we notched a win here, that we have moved the Overton in a different direction. But at the same time, understandably, there's a lot of lack of trust, of saying, okay, but are we going to leave these people in these positions of leadership that really do matter, that really are influential in some of these large institutions? So that's kind of the debate that's going on now is what is accountability going to look like? And are we going to have any.
- [13:31]
Carol Markowitz
Do you feel optimism? Do you think it's going to turn around?
- [13:34]
Megan Basham
You know, I do, in the sense that I don't think those institutions are going to change. So if you look at, like, large publishing platforms, like something called the Gospel Coalition, which were a lot of pastors in the previous era, really relied on it as a place to exchange ideas, to, you know, dive into thinking that maybe they were going to use in their own teaching or Christianity Today, which, you know, is still kind of known as the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, it was founded by Billy Graham. I think that there's been a total lack of trust now in those institutions. I don't think those institutions are going to change. They've kind of gone that way. I think they're going to continue to go that way. But I think you have a new generation that just kind of sees them as irrelevant. So, I mean, it's interesting to see how the same debates that we're having on a national political level are playing themselves out in this little subculture, because aren't we doing this politically as well? Going, are we going to have any accountability? Is that really think that we will But I do think that the positive is that I think a lot of people no longer put their trust in those institutions. And that's a good thing.
- [14:43]
Carol Markowitz
Yeah, that's, I guess, as hopeful as we can be about it. We're recording this. I record these a few weeks in advance, but we're recording this. The week that the New York Times ever so casually dropped that crime rates kind of developed from the COVID lockdowns, and maybe the antisocial stuff that we pushed during COVID wasn't actually harmless. It's like, yeah, yeah, it wasn't.
- [15:02]
Megan Basham
Go figure.
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Carol Markowitz
But there's no apology or anything. There's no, like, New York Times being like, and it was our fault. We're the ones who actually pushed that. They're like, yeah, somebody pushed this antisocial stuff. I don't know how it happened. So I'm not waiting for an apology. But as somebody, you know, I'm Jewish, and in the Jewish world, they. Two parts of the Jewish world, of the three have, like, veered very, very heavily to the left. I hope that the evangelicals don't follow us off of, you know, off that cliff, because I've always had a lot of hope in evangelicals. You know, like, they were always kind of the voice of sanity for conservatives in America, and they were doing things their way, and they didn't care about popular opinion, and they didn't care about being liked by the New York Times. And if you guys are heading in a bad, bad place, like, what does that mean for the rest of us?
- [15:51]
Megan Basham
Yeah, and I don't think that you will see that. I mean, I think, you know, there was a moment where there was maybe this sort of grasping at elite respectability at the top of these institutions. But I think that's why they have lost so much of their credibility, because they went along with the New York Times and all of these other sector organizations that were happy to, you know, light a bonfire to their credibility. So, you know, I really don't see that. In fact, I think part of the reason my book became a bestseller, because I'll be honest, when. When I was working on it, we thought it would, you know, gain an audience.
- [16:23]
Carol Markowitz
Right.
- [16:23]
Megan Basham
We thought it was kind of a niche topic. And when it turned out to have wider interest, I think it was because it wasn't like I was telling people something that they didn't know. It wasn't like they went, wait, what, you're saying that our leaders are compromised and aren't representing our views?
- [16:38]
Carol Markowitz
Right.
- [16:39]
Megan Basham
It was more like I was Just coming along and telling them, here's what's been going on in the background of this thing that you already noticed. And so, you know, for that reason, I think you see the rank and file just choosing new leaders. And I mean, look, in some ways it's good. It's also going in kind of a weird, fractious direction right now. And I don't know how it's gonna play out. Like, you've got a lot of little tribal skirmishes happening right now. I don't know if you saw like on cnn, they're interviewing, you know, Doug Wilson, who's known as the Christian nationalist pastor. And will people get behind that or will they get behind, you know, this more normie mainstream vision of maybe 20 years ago or what is this going to look like? So, I mean, that's a debate that's playing out. But what's interesting is to see that these guys who were not a part of that elite circle before are suddenly gaining a following in a way that they didn't.
- [17:35]
Carol Markowitz
Right.
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Megan Basham
And you know, I don't know what the end game of that is, but I, I'm entertained sitting back and watching it.
- [17:41]
Carol Markowitz
Well, I'm rooting for you guys more. Coming up with Megan Basham. But first, it was nearly two years ago that terrorists murdered more than 1200 innocent Israelis and took 250 hostages. Today, it seems as if the cries of the dead and dying have been drowned out by shouts of antisemitic hatred. And the most brutal attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust has been forgotten. Yet as the world looks away, a light shines in the darkness. It's a movement of love and support for the people of Israel called Flags of Fellowship. And it's organized by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. And on October 5, just a few weeks away, millions across America will prayerfully plant an Israeli flag in honor and solidarity with the victims of October 7, 2023 and their grieving families. And now you can be a part of this movement, too. To get more information on how you can join the Flags of Fellowship movement, visit fellowship online@ifcj.org that's ifcj.org Time for a sofa upgrade.
- [18:49]
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- [19:48]
Carol Markowitz
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- [21:16]
Mario Lopez
Hey, what's up? It's Mario Lopez. Back to school is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions. Whether you're a parent, teacher, coach or neighbor. Check in, ask questions, stay connected. Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to report@dhs.gov blue campaign. You guys know I'm always up for a good MVP story, and one of the best is the story of Wasabi Technologies. Wasabi is purpose built to free businesses from skyrocketing storage costs and unpredictable egress fees from old and top heavy legacy providers. You know, the big guys. Wasabi is the world's hottest cloud storage company, becoming the go to provider for professional and collegiate sports teams and leagues around the world. And here's why. From Wasabi's AI enabled intelligent media storage, Wasabi Air, to the industry's only cloud storage service with triple protection against cybercriminals, data deletion and ransomware. Wasabi's taken the lead in driving innovation in data storage, eliminating overhead where it matters to deliver you results you can count on and won't break the bank. In fact, Wasabi is up to 80% less than those other guys and doesn't charge a cent for businesses to access their own data. Wasabi another championship story. Check them out for free@wasabi.com.
- [22:52]
Carol Markowitz
America is changing and so is the world.
- [22:57]
Mario Lopez
But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
- [23:05]
Megan Basham
I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
- [23:07]
Mario Lopez
Tristan Redman in London, and this is the global story.
- [23:11]
Carol Markowitz
Every weekday we'll bring you a story.
- [23:13]
Commercial Announcer
From this intersection where the world and America meet.
- [23:17]
Mario Lopez
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [23:24]
Carol Markowitz
What do you worry about?
- [23:25]
Megan Basham
You know what's funny? Okay, so I'm a Christian. I'm a person of prayer. And one of the number one things in my prayer journal, like every night is I worry about who my girls are. I have two daughters. I worry about who they're gonna marry because I, because I cover the culture beat. I spend a lot of time on this dysfunction between young men and young women and how they're not finding each other. And, you know, you and I spent a lot of time on X and it's just sad. Yes. And I used to feel like back in the day, you know, the gender wars were kind of almost a cute, flirtatious thing that we all did. And now it feels like there's something very real and angry underneath it from both side.
- [24:05]
Carol Markowitz
Yeah.
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Megan Basham
And so I worry that I'm like, are, are young men even going to approach them, to pursue them for, you know, relationships and marriage? Because, you know, the other thing I know is the research that I've done on a lot of these marriage and family topics is this is so important to women's happiness that if they don't have husbands and children, whatever they do in their professional lives, they're not going to achieve that same level of happiness, most likely that they would have if they had, had those things. So I mean, that's probably what I worry. I mean, I literally pray like God, just bring them good husbands someday.
- [24:41]
Carol Markowitz
Absolutely. Yeah. I, I, I mean, I, I'm absolutely concerned about that as well. And I think the message to women in a lot of mainstream ways is like, you no longer need a spouse, you no longer need a partner. And I think that's just so corrosive. And this is where again, religion comes into play. Right. If you have stronger, tighter religious bounds, then you're, you're kind of all heading in the same direction where you understand what kind of spouse you're supposed to be and what kind of marriage you're supposed to have and that you are supposed to get married and that it, you know, don't, don't listen to the liberal media saying that it's so amazing to be single and that's really what you want to do. But if you don't have that strong religion, it all kinds of falls apart and it's filled in by these other sources that are not reliable and not trustworthy.
- [25:28]
Megan Basham
You know, and I've wondered if, and I don't know if this is happening in the Jewish subculture, but I can tell you in the Christian subculture, we're talking so much about how young people are coming back to church and they suddenly have an interest in religion that they didn't have before. And I have wondered how much of that is being driven by this sense that, you know, the secular professional world isn't offering these deeper things of home and family. And the only way you're finding other people who want that in the same way you do is to come back to church, come back to synagogue.
- [26:00]
Carol Markowitz
Right? Yeah, yeah. It's different in the Jewish world, but I mean, I would say that marriage was always why people turn to religion, not, not why that played a big role. But it is interesting because I don't think that there are a lot of other ways for people who are marriage minded, young people who are marriage minded to meet each other. So I'm with you. I, you know, when I talk about what I want my kids to be or what I want them to do, I'm always like, I want them to get married and have children, like career or whatever is a distant second to that. And I get surprised takes from people. People are like, you know, don't you want them to succeed? Don't you care about what they do? You know, professionally I do, but not even in the same realm as I care about them getting married and having kids.
- [26:48]
Megan Basham
Yeah. And I kind, I mean, and I feel like I'm the. We're the opposite is that most people think and the family and marriage stuff will work itself out. It's the career you got to focus on. I'm like, actually, I don't think that's true anymore.
- [26:57]
Carol Markowitz
Not at all.
- [26:57]
Megan Basham
I think you gotta focus on the family and marriage and the professional stuff. You'll figure out what you're good at. You'll take things in college, you'll work that out.
- [27:05]
Carol Markowitz
Totally.
- [27:05]
Megan Basham
Yeah.
- [27:06]
Carol Markowitz
And it gets much easier to do that when you have a stable situation. You know, I talk about it a lot on this show, but married men, I've made more money than all other men, you know, for years and years. And now married women make more money than single women. It's because you have this comfort and security that you can take chances. You could take professional risks and you don't have to do the thing you went to college for. You can take chances because somebody's rooting for you and somebody's able to kind of support you. Should it not work out?
- [27:37]
Megan Basham
No, I think that's absolutely true. And I was just listening to an episode of the all in Pod, I think, and they were talking about kind of the economics of it and home buying and how part of the reason that we're seeing this new generation, that one, they are being priced out of the housing market. But also if you don't have those two incomes combined, it makes it a lot harder to buy a home. So they're not getting in. And as the home prices are going up, it's, it's too late for them to get in and they're single and they can't afford it. And that's part of the bitterness that's growing and you know, that's part of what we have to address. And you can't really extricate the marriage and family component out of that.
- [28:12]
Carol Markowitz
Right. It almost feels like tough love saying that to people. I know you have to pair up in order for your life's economics to work, but it's not, it's true and it's real. And that's what we should tell people.
- [28:25]
Megan Basham
I know, I know. And sometimes, you know, they get mad at you for saying it, but you're like, I want the best things for you. That's why I'm saying. Right.
- [28:31]
Carol Markowitz
It's because I want the best for you that I think that you should take the most obvious best path and take it from there.
- [28:38]
Megan Basham
Yeah, absolutely.
- [28:40]
Carol Markowitz
What advice would you give your 16 year old self. What would Megan of 16 years old need to know?
- [28:48]
Megan Basham
I would tell her, that's a good question. I would tell her to take her ambitions and skills seriously. I think when I was that age, and I think probably all the way up until like practically 30, I just kind of always felt like whatever I was doing was not really that serious or whatever I was pursuing was just kind of a lark. And I think, you know, it wasn't until probably my 30s that I started to go, no, you know, this thing that I'm interested in, this is serious and I should take myself and what I'm working on seriously. And I don't know why I didn't. But I, you know, you.
- [29:21]
Carol Markowitz
Sometimes it's not like imposter syndrome.
- [29:23]
Megan Basham
I mean, I guess it is a little bit like imposter syndrome, but more in the sense that I didn't pursue it with the intensity that I wish I would have some of these things that I wanted to write about because I think I felt sheepish. For example, writing about marriage and family or church things, because those didn't feel like serious. They're not economics, it's not foreign policy.
- [29:42]
Carol Markowitz
You know, which turns out to be like the biggest joke topics ever.
- [29:45]
Megan Basham
Right, right. And so I think I kind of felt like the things that I was interested in weren't that serious. And now I, you know, with the, the hindsight of years, I go, no, these are actually the most important things. And I should have never been embarrassed that this is what I'm interested in.
- [30:00]
Carol Markowitz
Right. Yeah, I love that. I love that actually, like telling your younger self, like, take yourself seriously and what you're interested in matters. I haven't gotten that answer before. It's a question I ask all of my guests, so I really enjoyed that. I love this conversation. I think you're a beautiful writer and I just, I love following you on X. I think you're really smart and so much about what you do is just excellent, excellent work. Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
- [30:31]
Megan Basham
Same to you, Carol. Thank you. Best tip on. I'm gonna do the church lady thing because that's in my bio. So I'm gonna say go to church. Start going. If you're single, it will, you know, you may find your person there and you'll certainly find someone who's hopefully more like minded than swiping left on some app. You're married. It'll strengthen your marriage. So go to church.
- [30:52]
Carol Markowitz
Love it. She is Megan Basham. Check her out at the Daily Wire. Buy her book Shepherds for Sale. Thank you so much for coming on, Megan.
- [30:59]
Megan Basham
Thanks for having me, Carol.
- [31:05]
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- [32:34]
Mario Lopez
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- [33:12]
Megan Basham
Why is this taking so long?
- [33:14]
Carol Markowitz
This thing is ancient.
- [33:15]
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Carol Markowitz
Whoa, this thing moves.
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Mario Lopez
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- [33:49]
Megan Basham
In the shadows, in flames, primals will fall.
- [33:52]
Carol Markowitz
And from the blood and ash, new gods will rise.
- [33:54]
Megan Basham
Poppy was never meant to awaken and consequences are devastating.
- [33:57]
Carol Markowitz
Stirring ancient powers from their slumber, transforming.
- [34:00]
Megan Basham
Castile and Kirin in ways the fates couldn't foresee.
- [34:03]
Carol Markowitz
The great conspirator has returned to stop the Primal of Death. The gods have awakened, harboring blood soaked secrets.
- [34:09]
Megan Basham
And every choice can undo everything.
- [34:11]
Carol Markowitz
The Primal of Blood in both Perfect for fans of Sarah J.
- [34:14]
Megan Basham
Mass and Rebecca Yaros.
- [34:16]
Carol Markowitz
Available September 23rd pre order today.
- [34:19]
Commercial Announcer
This is an I Heart podcast.