What is Big Eva, Exactly?
We Need to Clarify - or Retire - Our Terms
I really don’t want to wade into the recent dustups over what seems to me a very silly smear campaign attempt on the part of a certain journalist with a certain new book. If you know, you know, and if you don’t, who cares?
But I do want to offer a word about language. Specifically, I want to take a microscope to the phrase “Big Eva” (or “Big Evangelicalism”). This phrase has always struck me as an incredibly weird choice for those who want to criticize Evangelicals who don’t affiliate with MAGA (and yes, most people using the moniker Evangelical are only “Left” in the sense that they are “Left of the Far Right”). The phrase has struck me as weird because, in comparison to like phrases - let’s take “Big Pharma” for example - the critique can’t possibly be doing what people think it’s doing.
I think, as far as I understand, the way the “Big Pharma” critique goes is something like this:
Pharmaceutical companies in America charge vastly more money than other countries, creating unfair price barriers for folks who need life-saving drugs.
These pharmaceutical individuals in charge of these industries collectively absurd salaries by doing this.
These companies have a monopoly on the market, so others offering fair prices can’t compete.
The lobbyists of these pharmaceutical companies have millions of dollars invested in lobbying, so that politicians have incentives to keep this barriers in place, and sustain the monopoly.
These aren’t any sort of well-researched positions on my part, but it’s my best understanding of the phrase, “Big Pharma”. So my question is this: when we use the phrase “Big Eva”, are we comfortable insinuating that the evangelicals under fire are…anything at all like the pharmaceutical companies, above? Are we really ready to say:
“Big Eva” pastors charge people for their ministry in ways that make people’s spiritual life unsustainable?
“Big Eva” pastors are getting filthy rich off the backs of these people?
“Big Eva” voices have a monopoly on the market, so that other Christian voices are smothered when the “Big Eva” voices are challenged?
“Big Eva” voices have millions of dollars invested in politicians’ pockets, protecting their own interests?
As I was writing those lines above, several names and faces did come to mind. Every single one of them is a health and wealth MAGA hawker, as Warren Cole Smith’s recent article points out. Cole argues that the big money and political lobbying all do exist in Evangelicalism…but basic numbers show us that this is almost exclusively happening on the Far Right.
So my question is, why does Cole use the phrase “Big Eva” in reference to his critiques of moderately paid pastors who specifically aren’t interested in political ties to the Left or the Right? Cole’s critique of “Big Eva” seems to be that certain evangelical pastors are cozying up to the “elites” of society in ways that compromise the gospel. That is certainly a danger, always, and I think it’s fair to name that danger and warn of it. But this is NOT “Big Eva”, by any means, and using this term to refer to those Left-of-Far-Right is an unhelpful equivocation which strongly implies accusations which Cole surely doesn’t mean, based on his other findings. I think Basham’s recent book at the very least owns up to the baggage of the phrase “Big Eva”, though when she tries to cash in on this claim, the book really falls apart. Basham really DOES mean that she thinks these Left-of-Far-Right pastors are guilty of the bullet points above: she believes these folks are taking advantage of people by getting incredibly wealthy while charging for their services, using this money to control the U.S. Capitol, and smothering voices who disagree. But even those on the Right have taken issue with her journalistic integrity, in this regard.
As Kristin Du Mez has written, much of Basham’s book is the climax of evangelical rhetoric. We made this monster, and it’s too late to stop it. But at the very least, we can stop feeding it by using racketeering language to refer to those whose evangelistic strategy differs from ours. So, I think it’s time to drop the label. Unless we really mean it. And in that case, someone is going to need to do a better job than Basham to prove it.
By the bye, if you’d like a clear cut case for Big Eva on the far right, I’d highly recommend Tim Alberta’s book, “The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory.” It’s all there, notes and all.