Introduction to Stockholm Syndrome Christianity

The following article is excerpted from the introductory chapter of Stockholm Syndrome Christianity: Why Christian Leaders Are Failing—and What We Can Do About It by John West (DI Press, 2025).

Stockholm Syndrome: “the psychological tendency of a hostage to bond with, identify with, or sympathize with his or her captor.”

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Those of us who are Christians often regard atheists, agnostics, and secularists as the prime movers of America’s cultural collapse. Without question, they have helped spur our country’s descent into chaos, anger, loneliness, and despair.

But we need to face an uncomfortable truth: Christians who aid, abet, and even encourage the rejection of historic Christian teachings are also playing a key role in our disintegration.

If more Christians—especially Christian leaders—had been faithful to biblical Christianity, we likely would not be in our current mess. And if we want things to improve, we need to look at ourselves and get our own house in order.

I do not level these charges lightly. Much of my life has been spent participating in Christian institutions and observing Christian leaders at various levels. In addition to serving as a professor at a Christian university, I was ordained as an elder in two different Presbyterian denominations. I have served on the elder boards of two congregations. And I have spent nearly two decades working full-time as an executive at a non-profit organization that deals with science and faith issues, which has led me to consult with and observe the actions of Christian leaders at all levels.

Tragically, I have seen Christian belief and practice undermined time and again not by crusading atheists or secularists, but by Christian leaders. For anyone willing to look, the evidence has been all around us:

• The pastor of one of America’s largest evangelical megachurches says the Bible is no longer defensible in the public square. “The trustworthiness of the Bible is… not defensible in culture where seconds count and emotions run high,” he asserts. Accordingly, this pastor urges Christians to stop citing the Bible as an authority, even in their own churches. He further urges Christians to “unhitch” their faith from the Old Testament, which he thinks would be better described as “The Obsolete Testament.” We will delve into the views of this popular pastor in Chapter 1.
• 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.

Why are so many Christians—especially those in positions of leadership and influence—failing to uphold historic biblical teaching or defend their fellow Christians from persecution?

Part of the issue is undoubtedly fear. If you stand up for biblical Christianity in today’s culture, the consequences are undeniable. You can lose friends or colleagues; you can lose your job; you can be targeted for discrimination or persecution. Many leaders stay silent out of self-preservation.

But the problem goes much deeper: Many Christian leaders and laypeople who fail to uphold the historic standards of their faith do not think they are motivated by fear. They do not believe they are compromising with the world in the views they adopt. They sincerely believe that what they are doing is right.

They are Stockholm Syndrome Christians.

The “Stockholm Syndrome” takes its name from a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden in August 1973. One morning an escaped convict entered the bank with a submachine gun. For the next 131 hours, the convict (later joined by an accomplice) held four bank employees hostage.

Over the course of the crisis, something strange happened. The hostages began to bond with the criminals and view the police and government as their enemies. Even when the criminals threatened violence, the hostages expressed gratitude to them. At one point, the main bank robber planned to shoot a hostage in the leg to show authorities he was serious. The hostage later recalled: “All that comes back to me is how kind I thought he was for saying it was just my leg he would shoot.”

The term “Stockholm Syndrome” was later coined to describe situations where hostages end up identifying with their captors. Although it remains controversial as a diagnosis, the label has since been used to describe victims who end up adopting the point of view of their captors or abusers.

How is this relevant to today’s Christian community? Most Christians in America grow up in cultural captivity. They are immersed in a culture hostile to genuine Christianity at home, school, college, and the workplace. This is especially true of those who go on to be pastors, professors, ministry leaders, journalists, politicians, or work in the entertainment industry. After they have been immersed for years in an elite culture that rejects orthodox Christianity, they can easily start identifying more with those who hate Christianity than those who embrace it. They can become Stockholm Syndrome Christians.

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.

If you have already embraced Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, I doubt this book will persuade you to abandon it. But if you are one of the growing number of Christians troubled by the shocking failures of Christian leaders at all levels—and you want to become part of the solution—this book is for you.

This book is also for Christian leaders who are wondering whether and when to speak up. Maybe you aren’t a Stockholm Syndrome Christian, but you have been reluctant to challenge your fellow leaders who are. Perhaps you don’t want to be divisive. Or perhaps you are disturbed by the anger and lack of love you observe in some who claim to be fighting for truth. Those concerns are legitimate. But if you fail to provide a clear alternative to Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, you are part of the problem.

When ordinary Christians can’t find good examples of faithful leaders, they become cynical and desperate, vulnerable to being manipulated by demagogues on both extremes of the social and political spectrum. If you want to prevent this, you need to show them there is a better way. As you read this book, I challenge you to prayerfully consider what you are being called to do as a leader.

As you may have noticed, this book is going to be direct. There is a time for speaking in soothing tones. But matters have progressed to their current state in large part because too many Christian leaders have failed to live the truth clearly and consistently. If we are to rebuild our churches and communities, we need to be honest with each other how we got to this point—even if that honesty makes us uncomfortable.

Of course, being honest does not mean we should be unloving or unfair. Let me say it again: Most Stockholm Syndrome Christians believe they are doing the right thing. So we should be careful about attributing to them bad motives, and we should remember to treat those we disagree with as fellow creatures created in God’s image. We also need to resist the temptation to become consumed by anger or bitterness, even when dealing with what we consider wrongdoing (Ephesians 4:31).

Over forty years ago, as he was dying from cancer, Christian thinker Francis Schaeffer struggled to finish his final book. Titled The Great Evangelical Disaster, the volume offered a dire warning about how evangelical Christian leaders of his own day were accommodating the culture and compromising the truth. I was in college at the time, and Schaeffer’s book convinced me of the critical importance of standing steadfastly for the truth.

But as I grew older, I appreciated something else from the book. As its final chapter, Schaeffer included a booklet he had written years earlier called The Mark of the Christian. Schaeffer’s booklet emphasized the importance of treating genuine Christians with whom we disagree with love and respect. When I was a college professor, I assigned The Mark of the Christian as required reading in some of my classes. If you end up being convinced by what I write in this book, I’d encourage you to read The Mark of the Christian as you begin to think about how you can apply what you learn here. It may help you interact with Christian friends and family members who don’t yet understand the situation we are facing.

In the pages that follow, we will examine the root causes of Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, and strategies to overcome it. Most importantly, if you want to become part of the solution, this book will prepare you to become an agent for change. The final section will point you to a companion website that contains practical tools to help you resist captivity and, instead, stand for truth in your family, your church, and your community.

An online assessment will help you diagnose whether you or your church or school exhibit symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. Discussion/study questions will help you apply what you are learning and share your new knowledge in small groups and adult education classes. A recommended list of resources (books, articles, websites, videos, and key organizations) will enable you to equip yourself to deal with the challenges of Stockholm Syndrome Christianity before they become acute in your circles of influence.

But before we can repair the damage caused by Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, we first need to better understand its symptoms.