The Age of Alignment Is Upon Us

Purity Must Give Way to Prudence

It’s no longer 2015, and right-leaning Christians must act accordingly.

For at least the past two decades, one of the tendencies I’ve seen on the Christian Right is a search for purity in pastors, churches, institutions, and parachurch ministries. I’m not referring to the purity culture of the late 20th century. Instead, this is a trend to seek people and places that line up perfectly with one’s every preference on apologetics, eschatology, and the status of the Mosaic law, among many other sometimes extremely esoteric areas of theology. 

This is understandable in light of the string of nonstop losses Christians have racked up in the culture war. After getting pummeled by endless punches thrown by the media, the political class, and Hollywood, many Christians decided to search for personalities and institutions that could be a bulwark. They sought pastors and ministries that shared their theology in its totality. Under attack and seeing a set of evangelical institutions that were mostly nonresponsive to their needs, they were understandably looking for individuals and institutions they could trust to be their champions in an increasingly perilous world. 

Right-leaning Christians also began a campaign of excoriating evangelical institutions, some of which were once solid and others that were squishy from the start, that they saw as drifting with the cultural tides. Social media accounts were started that are wholly devoted to exposing the antics of big box churches, well-known pastors, and parachurch organizations that have essentially baptized modern liberalism, from race to COVID to Donald Trump. This is also completely reasonable, as the evangelical establishment generally sidles up to the Left and castigates those an inch to their Right. 

As professors and public theologians debate the finer points of classical theism, they’ve simultaneously drawn up the gates. They’ve made it ok to be egalitarian, inviting a woman pastorix to write a chapter in a volume that purports to teach orthodox trinitarian theology. They run pieces making the case for Hillary Clinton and have nary a positive word to say about Donald Trump. They’ve accused Christians who had any pause at the government’s COVID response as being overly enamored with Western ideas of individualism and preaching a false view of freedom. They helped promote the “hands up, don’t shoot” lie in the aftermath of the justified shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and mimed the conventional narratives on George Floyd during the riots that engulfed the nation in 2020.

To deny the clear leftward drift of evangelicalism is to bury one’s head in the sand.

With all of that said right-leaning Christians should look for ways to use these institutions for their benefit. 

Though the search for purity made some sense in 2015—politics on the Right then was also consumed with purity, which can be seen in the never-ending search for the most seemingly conservative candidate—that outlook in 2025 is shortsighted. It guarantees our continued minor league status, meaning that widespread success will be forever out of our grasp. In its most cogent form, the Benedict Option was a prudential strategy, not a permanent way of life for all times and places. The dissident phase was always only supposed to be temporary.

The quest for purity—in the sense of seeking institutions and people who line up with our every preference—must be rejected in favor of aligning with growing coalitions on the most important issues of the day. While there are fundamental doctrines we cannot compromise over—the Trinity, Christ as God, Scripture as the Word of God without any error—third- and fourth-tier preferences need to be set aside as the measuring stick. 

The Center for Baptist Leadership’s William Wolfe taking part in a meeting at the White House on Wednesday with other evangelical leaders is what this looks like in practice. He laid out his policy recommendations and prayed over President Trump. The problem for some was the presence of Paula White, who leads President Trump’s White House Faith Office. While the purity test would’ve denied this opportunity, the alignment test says “Yes!” Opportunities to have influence in the halls of power and push for policies, such as repealing the FACE Act, are things Christians should take up. (Michael Clary gives an excellent defense of Wolfe’s taking part in the White House meeting in this post.)

Increasing numbers of Christians understand the stakes and are attempting to meet the sizable challenges of our day. The almost sole focus on aesthetic trappings—for example, the popularity of beards, bourbon, and cigars in the Reformed world—has given way to productive pursuits at scale. 

Buying property and real estate, taking over existing businesses on main streets or establishing new ones, starting well-produced podcasts, undertaking serious resourcement, and translating great works in the Reformed tradition are now becoming markers of right-wing Christians. They shun those who give away all their wealth (look at the nearly uniform reaction to the recently deceased Gene Hackman, whose three kids were not the beneficiaries of his $80 million). Generating prosperity and handing it down to future generations is seen as normative—something that’s not worldly but vital for reestablishing Christian communities and, ultimately, a Christian nation. 

The ways of purity are gone: now is the time for Christians to act. Champions still must be raised up, but instead of endless tests and shunning people for third-tier disagreements, everyday Christians should work together in their communities to take dominion. The energy is clearly with us, and the culture has shifted in remarkable ways, where even the idea that we live in a Negative World is being re-evaluated. 

Ten years ago, David French wouldn’t have been disinvited from a panel at the PCA’s annual General Assembly. There wouldn’t be noticeable resistance to the idea that former NIH director Francis Collins was anything other than an exemplary public Christian. The tide is with us.

Of course, we must create new institutions, such as what New Founding is doing—but we must also work to use existing institutions for our benefit. Existing networks cannot be overlooked as one strategy to promote our message.

For example, I didn’t think I’d see The Gospel Coalition publishing a piece “commending one of the major influences (Jacques Ellul) of the radical right-wing movement,” in the words of Grimké Seminary and College Professor Joe Holland. I’m glad that TGC’s audience will encounter a thinker who, especially if they read his books, presents serious challenges to their worldview. The Protestant Ellul delivers a devastating critique of the modern world they inhabit, thereby drawing them even more to hold fast to Christ and His promises.

It’s easy to think your favorite band sold out when they go from clubs to playing 20,000-seat arenas. But usually, they’ve become popular because they’ve honed their craft, cut the dead weight, and realized their potential. In the same way, Christians on the Right should want to have mainstream success, which is not always a marker of giving in to the reigning orthodoxies of modern liberalism. Just think of Wesley Huff, the Christian researcher and apologist who may have delivered the Gospel to more people at one time during his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast than anyone previously in human history.

We must see it as a resounding victory when we are covered by The New York Times. As much as the Right’s default is to excoriate the Times in the fashion of Rush Limbaugh (his protégé, Mark Levin, memorably calls it The New York Slimes), whether we like it or not, it remains the paper that sets the tone of our politics and culture. As William Voegeli notes in the most recent issue of the Claremont Review of Books, “With more than 11 million subscribers, The New York Times not only has a far larger audience than Fox News, which averaged 2,384,000 prime time viewers in 2024, but has an unmatched capacity to influence the form and substance of the nation’s political debates.”

Right-wing Christians must get over their love of purity and understand that this is the time to win through prudential alignment. The opportunity is here, and the time is now.

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