A centralized network of celebrity pastors controls conservative evangelical infrastructure

Evidence

By 2019, the Acts 29 network founded by Driscoll had planted over 700 churches on six continents, churches committed to upholding “men as responsible servant-leaders in both home and church.” Meanwhile, The Gospel Coalition, founded in 2005 by Tim Keller and D. A. Carson, grew into “a towering, thundering goliath,” a network of nearly 8000 congregations. TGC’s website hosted a battalion of conservative bloggers and garnered around 65 million annual page views on thousands of posts, and TGC organized dozens of conferences that distributed and amplified their message throughout American Christianity and beyond. A hub for the expanding network of conservative evangelical leaders, TGC brought together men like Driscoll, Piper, Mohler, and other men of prominence within American evangelicalism such as Josh Harris, C. J. Mahaney, Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, Denny Burk, and Justin Taylor. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 454

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete scale data (700 churches, 8000 congregations, 65M page views) supports the ‘cultural apparatus’ infrastructure she documents throughout. — connects to: Free travel and fellowship lure pastors into organized political lobbying. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 406; Pastor networks recruit politically connected congregants to lead voter-turnout teams inside churches — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 66; Church, media moguls, and politicians formed a mutually reinforcing segregationist power system — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 124