Stockholm Syndrome Christianity

What if American culture isn’t collapsing because of crusading secularists? What if it’s failing because leading Christians identify more with secular elites than with their fellow believers? Those are the provocative questions posed by Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, which exposes how influential Christian leaders are siding with their anti-Christian cultural captors on everything from biblical authority and science to sex, race, and religious liberty. Going beyond critique, the book identifies root causes and — most crucially — offers practical tips and strategies you can use to help your family, church, and community stand for truth. Read this book to become part of the solution.

Praise

In Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, John West skillfully tackles the most important cultural dumpster fires threatening Christian institutions and offers detailed examples (and convincing explanations) of how these organizations succumbed to cultural capitulation. If the church is to have any impact on the culture, we need to first protect our own institutions, which are supposed to uphold the biblical worldview. This may mean dying to career advancement, academic prestige, or cultural prominence. But some hills are worth dying on, and West compellingly makes the case for why. Every pastor, elder, Christian board member, or influencer needs to read this book to understand how to stop the theological drift that is taking over our institutions.

Hillary Morgan Ferrer, president of Mama Bear Apologetics, editor and author of Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies and Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality and Gender Identity

Stockholm Syndrome Christianity is a monumental achievement. Like Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale, it will infuriate precisely the right people. Every thinking Christian has an obligation to read it to see exactly how ravening wolves entered the fold of Christendom — with the blithe complicity of many shepherds. John West gives us their names and the gruesome details. Will those guilty repent? That is the question.

Eric Metaxas, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and Is Atheism Dead?, founder and host of Socrates in the City

Jesus condemned the religiously comfortable for their inability to “discern the signs of the times.” Dr. John West’s Stockholm Syndrome Christianity is a must read for every Christian seeking to heed Christ’s warning. A tour de force of outstanding research and exceptional writing. Everyone should buy and read this book. 

Everett Piper, PhD, President Emeritus Oklahoma Wesleyan University 

It is one thing to complain that evangelicals too easily capitulate to worldliness and embrace false ideologies. It is quite another to meticulously document this phenomenon, to give careful case studies making the point, to explain how and why it happens, and to offer correctives and advice on preserving biblical truth in evangelical hearts, minds, lives, and institutions. We are in John West’s debt for this courageous, kind, and much needed book.

Douglas Groothuis, PhD, Distinguished University Research Professor of Apologetics and Christian Worldview, Cornerstone University 

In every generation God raises up Church watchmen to guard the faith from compromise and dissolution. In this courageous tradition, John West has come forth with an insider’s sharp but gracious defense of biblical truth in a clashing evangelical environment. In a book with over 700 footnotes, West, a scholar with the Discovery Institute, confronts the sacred cows of the accommodationist wing of evangelicalism.

Robert Case, founding director of World Journalism Institute

Stockholm Syndrome Christianity is a much-needed gift to the 21st-century American church from someone who has experienced its consequences firsthand in multiple spheres of life. With the mind of a scholar, the engagement of a public intellectual, and the heart of a local church elder, Dr. West ably identifies the problems and offers real solutions for the church as we move forward. Pastors and laymen alike will benefit greatly from this work.

Ryan Polk, Associate Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church, Norman, Oklahoma

C. S. Lewis called it “passion for the Inner Ring” that results in “making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.” Many of our evangelical leaders and institutions have betrayed us. Stockholm Syndrome Christianity chronicles the drift toward cultural acceptance, a current that has drawn some into identifying more with secular culture than biblical truth. What should Christians do? Begin by reading the book.

Rich Hamlin, Founding and Senior Pastor, Evangelical Reformed Church, Tacoma, Washington

John West has written a searing, prophetic account of evangelical elites in America, especially in higher education. Stockholm Syndrome Christianity will undoubtedly drive many evangelical families to reconsider their support for some Christian colleges, given that so many evangelical administrators freely check their moral probity at the gates of their institutions to chase after the latest intellectual fads. Drawing from his own experience in evangelical higher education, West not only challenges current academic pieties but names names. A thoroughly engrossing read. 

Reed Davis, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Seattle Pacific University; author of A Politics of Understanding

If you’ve wondered why so many Christians and Christian institutions have lost their way, you’ll find the answer in Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. John West offers an incisive critique of Christian leaders — many personally orthodox — who have surrendered the scandal of the gospel for the approval of men. This is no simplistic jeremiad. His diagnosis is consistently fair and nuanced, even when recounting his own painful experiences in his religious and academic life. That alone makes the book worthwhile. But his detailed advice to Christian parents and leaders makes this a guidebook on how to stop and even reverse the spiritual decay in our churches. Every thoughtful Christian should read this book.

Jay​​​​ Richards, PhD, co-author of Fight the Good Fight: How an Alliance of Faith and Reason Can Win the Culture War; Director, Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family and the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in American Principles and Public Policy, Heritage Foundation

Many faithful Christians find themselves looking around and asking, “What in God’s name is going on?” They’re not using God’s name in vain; they’re wondering about what Christian leaders and Christian institutions they’ve prayed for and supported are doing in God’s name. They rightly feel betrayed. My friend John West has diagnosed the problem: It’s Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. I couldn’t agree more. Like John, I’ve watched with growing dismay as church leaders, Christian colleges, and other Christian institutions have betrayed the faith once entrusted to the saints and are now flirting with apostasy. The good news is John does more than point out the problems, he directs us to the solutions.

C. R. Wiley, author of In the House of Tom Bombadil; Senior Pastor, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Battle Ground, WA