The Modern-Day Nicodemite Evangelicals

Jessica Bates was a mother of five, a woman who knew what it meant to love, to sacrifice, to open her home to those in need. She wasn’t asking for much—just the chance to take in a child from Oregon’s foster care system, a system that, incidentally, never seems to have enough willing families.

But Oregon had different plans. The state wasn’t looking for mothers, it was looking for ideological soldiers, caretakers who would pledge allegiance to the new moral order. Bates, with her old-fashioned belief that boys are boys and girls are girls, was unacceptable.

When she sat through the mandatory training for potential adoptive parents, the state's expectations became clear. Prospective parents had to “respect, accept, and support” a child’s gender identity and sexual orientation. Not tolerate. Not provide love and stability despite disagreement.

Support. Endorse. Celebrate.

A government-mandated catechism, with rainbow robes replacing priestly vestments. She could not, in good conscience, comply. For that, she was cast out, told she was unfit to provide a home for a child who needed one.

The irony, of course, is that the very same state that deems her too dangerous to parent is perfectly fine allowing children to languish in underfunded group homes, cycling through a foster system notorious for neglect and instability. Stability wasn’t the goal. Submission was.

As Bates’ legal battle unfolded, a certain class of evangelical voices sat in their comfortable chairs, nodding along with furrowed brows and concerned expressions but never speaking. They knew, of course, that this was wrong. They could see the injustice as plainly as anyone else. And yet, they remained quiet. They always do.

These are the men who claim to be “thoughtful,” the ones who insist that Christian conviction must be tempered by “nuance,” “empathy,” and “dialogue.” They issue statements filled with cloudy language, statements that condemn no one in particular and resolve nothing at all. They traffic in vague moralism, careful never to say anything that might cause discomfort at the next big donor dinner.

They are the Nicodemites, the shadow-dwellers, the men who, like their namesake from the Gospel of John, whisper their sympathies in private but dare not risk them in public. In the dark, they are troubled by the direction of the culture. By daylight, they are silent. Theirs is a peculiar cowardice, not the cowardice of the man who runs from the battlefield, but of the man who stays just long enough to feign participation.