John West’s latest book, Stockholm Syndrome (Discovery Institute 2025) should create a bit of a stir because it is a blast directed at the seemingly secure evangelical church leaders in North America.

First, what is Stockholm Syndrome?

According to Britannica, Stockholm Syndrome means a psychological tendency among abused captives to begin to identify with their captors and see things their way:

The most infamous example of Stockholm syndrome may be that involving kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. In 1974, some 10 weeks after being taken hostage by the Symbionese Liberation Army, Hearst helped her kidnappers rob a California bank. But it was during the hostage crisis in Iran (1979–81) that the Stockholm syndrome worked its way into the public imagination. The syndrome was also cited after the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847. Although passengers underwent a hostage ordeal that lasted more than two weeks, upon their release some were openly sympathetic to the demands of their kidnappers. Another example involved Westerners kidnapped by Islamist militants in Lebanon. Hostages Terry Anderson (held 1985–91), Terry Waite (1987–91), and Thomas Sutherland (1985–91) all claimed that they had been treated well by their captors, despite the fact that they had often been held in solitary confinement and chained up in small, unclean cells. Similar responses were exhibited by the hostages held at the Japanese embassy in Peru in 1996–97. – Laura Lambert

The fact that the terrorist could kill the victim but does not do so is thought to generate unjustified feelings of gratitude which end up playing out as support for the terrorist’s cause or behavior.

West, managing director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, sees many evangelical churches in the United States as anxious to appease a larger culture that despises them. From his Introduction:

* The nation’s most prominent evangelical Christian scientist has spent his career advancing policies incompatible with historic Christian morality and theology. Under his leadership, a federal agency spent millions of tax dollars to harvest body parts from late- term aborted babies for use in medical research, and it has funded removing the breasts of girls as young as thirteen to facilitate gender transitions. This same scientist spearheaded efforts to denounce and marginalize Christian scientists who believe that living things show evidence of intelligent design. We will explore this scientist’s views and his impact in Chapter 2.

* The nation’s most notable “born again” Christian politician during the past century insisted that “Jesus would approve of gay marriage” and “I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else.” We will learn more about this politician and others who share his views in Chapter 3.

* With the admirable goal of fighting racism, many churches and their pastors are platforming speakers and spreading ideas that run counter to the gospel’s message of salvation. Speaking at a church in New York City, a prominent antiracist scholar denounced what he called “savior theology,” the idea that “the job of the Christian is to go out and save these individuals… who are doing all of these evil, sinful things.” He tied this view to “racist ideas and racist theology.” According to him, true salvation comes by recognizing that “Jesus was a revolutionary, and the job of the Christian is to revolutionize society.” We will look at how some Christians are adopting anti-Christian views on race and poverty in Chapter 4.

* A widely beloved Presbyterian pastor and author blamed Christians for provoking their own persecution. Predicting that “ten years from now, if you have evangelical convictions about sex and gender, you may not be able to work for a major university or for the government or for a big corporation,” he claimed that “we brought it on ourselves” because “the Christian right” was not loving and “vilified” gays and Democrats. We will learn more about this influential author in Chapter 5.

Note that the persons referenced, who will be introduced later, are not random individuals who chose the wrong career and will soon drift away from the ministry. These are prominent Christians who seem arrayed against historic, foundational Christian teachings and the welfare of individual Christians in civil society.

It isn’t unique to Christianity either. It could be happening in any venue where a gulf develops between the people who, say, drive long-haul truck for a living and their local elite in airy common rooms:

I’ve seen this attitude again and again— among church leaders, among Christian scientists and academics, among Christians in government, and among Christians in the media.

At the Christian university where I taught, it was common for my colleagues to express their disdain for ordinary Christians in the pews. They didn’t know as much as the professors, after all. They were crude. They were gullible. They were unsophisticated. They were annoying embarrassments who put everyone in danger because they attracted the attention and wrath of the anti- Christian majority.

Among crisis intervention workers, the attitude that West describes is called blaming the victim. It’s common in comfy bureaucracies. Blaming the victim of an assault is usually much easier and safer than doing something about the assailant.

But West warns,

This hurts fellow believers and, eventually, the culture at large. But it also hurts Stockholm Syndrome Christians themselves. Later in these pages I’ll give examples of people who turned their backs on biblical teaching in favor of what is fashionable, only to discover that they had been sold a handful of nothing.

They are lucky if it is only a handful of nothing. Another possibility is, sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.

Those who pre-order Stockholm Syndrome on Amazon will get the Introduction free, as well as his book on C.S. Lewis’s approach to science, The Magician’s Twin (2012).