Christianity Today’s Gospel of Guilt and Ideological Compost Heap
Amazingly, in the broad field of journalism and opining, there are people so self-satisfied, so enamored with their own perceived cleverness, that you can almost hear them sniggering while typing out their next piece. Andy Olsen's "Invasion Theology," published in Christianity Today, is exactly that kind of piece—a passive-aggressive scolding masquerading as a horticultural devotional.
The article is really just another apologetic for open borders policy, guilting Christians into believing that if you don’t support it, you’re not loving your neighbor. It begins with kudzu and ends, predictably, with a veiled rebuke of political conservatives and, of course, Donald Trump. Because… of course it does.
To the unsuspecting reader, the article seems innocent enough. There are thorns and thistles, honeysuckle and kudzu. There are nods to Augustine, Spurgeon, and Genesis. There's even a bit of old-timey chainsaw drama. But the moment the piece veers from vines into politics, the facade crumbles like ivy-strangled drywall. What starts as a reflection on invasive species becomes a sanctimonious finger-wagging at anyone who believes national sovereignty is something worth defending.
Olsen's central thesis, if you can call it that, is as follows, (Paraphrasing mine):
The real problem isn’t the invasion of foreign weeds, ideologies, or criminals. The problem is you. Your heart. Your inner Pharisee. Your unchecked internal sin. Because apparently, if you have concerns about cultural decay or border integrity, you're just projecting your own spiritual failings onto innocent azaleas.
Yes, according to Olsen, America isn’t suffering from a flood of imported corruption. It's suffering from you noticing it. That’s the kind of intellectual mastery that comes from Russell Moore’s and Mike Cosper’s publication.
Olsen takes aim at the conservative worldview with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer dipped in the compost at China’s Smithfield pig farms. Any attempt to describe the moral decay of the nation in terms of foreign invasion is immediately dismissed as scapegoating, fearmongering, or garden-variety bigotry.
The grand irony is almost impressive. He writes an article about plants—literal foreign invasives overtaking ecosystems—only to scoff at the idea that anything else could ever invade a culture.
No, no. It’s not the Marxist ideologies flooding public schools. Not the foreign-funded NGOs (like the ERLC) pushing for open borders, amnesty, and even smuggling people across the border.
Not even the erosion of biblical morality or the dissolution of objective truth. It’s your attitude. Your lack of introspection. Your obsession with political weeds instead of spiritual ones. Because nothing says pastoral wisdom like weaponizing botany to shame voters.