The Unsaid Lesson of Francis Collins

He gets is both barrels from Nate Fisher at the American Reformer:

Collins has long been celebrated by evangelical influencers, and upon his departure those praising him included Russell Moore, Tim Keller, and David French. The well-credentialed  evangelicals who populate urban churches like Keller’s have been taught to aspire to a “faithful presence” in elite institutions, and Collins is often viewed as epitomizing this. He succeeded not just at an elite level, but in the scientific world, a domain where Christians have a particularly hard time gaining respect.

Yet Collins’s record over his 12 years atop the NIH shows serious and repeated moral compromises. That he continues to be praised as a model by elite-adjacent evangelicals suggests that what matters is the “presence” in elite circles far more than faithfulness to any clear Christian moral standard.

If there’s one thing shocking about American Evangelicalism, it’s its blindness to the moral hazard of getting into the upper reaches of a society. Having been brought up in the upper reaches of this one, that moral hazard was definitely apparent.

And yet, with the “have it all” and “move up” mentality that permeates American Evangelicalism, there is a general blindness to that moral hazard. I’d be the first to admit that Francis Collins’ rise is amazing—and objected to by secular types–but the things which Fisher lays out should be expected in an era when moral corners are to be cut, especially in the biomedical field.

I think Evangelicals should be more careful about the way they lionise people who move up the way Collins has, and more importantly quit encouraging people to constantly push themselves into positions where they have to make decisions and compromises such as Collins has had to do. Do we really need to push our children into elite schools? Did we think about the compromises we would have to make in a major political movement? Questions like these and many others go unasked and unanswered in the Evangelical world, which is a major reason we ended up with Donald Trump. Many of the same elite-adjacent evangelicals (such as those listed above) who have blubbered about the support for Trump have pushed people into aspiring for high positions and secular success, which in turn encourages successful political action, which in turn…

You can’t have it both ways; make up your minds.