Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham’s new book “Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda” hit the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists on Wednesday after the book was released last week. 

“Shepherds for Sale” reached the #12 spot on the New York Times bestseller list and the #109 spot on the USA Today list among all books, competing with new releases such as Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” and Erik Larson’s “The Demon of Unrest.” It’s the first time Basham has hit the bestseller lists.  

“Seeing ‘Shepherds for Sale’ hit the New York Times bestseller list is incredibly encouraging,” Basham said. “Despite Big Eva and today’s establishment powerbrokers’ efforts to dismiss the truth exposed in the book, Christians all over the country are waking up. There is a hunger for genuine biblical truth and newfound courage to resist conforming to the world’s gospel of leftism. Thank you to everyone who has backed this book and embraced this vital discussion.” 

The book, which hit the shelves at the end of July, “documents how progressive powerbrokers — from George Soros, to the founder of eBay, to former members of the Obama administration — set out to change the American church. Their goal: to co-opt evangelicals for political purposes.” Basham’s book quickly jumped to the #1 bestseller in the Christian Church Leadership category on Amazon. 

“Shepherds for Sale” also details how a megachurch pastor pushed fellow pastors to move their views on sexuality to the Left and how leftist talking points on climate change and “systemic racism” have crept into American churches. Following the book’s release, Basham urged evangelical leaders to “get serious about tracing the secular Left influences in any number of evangelical institutions.” 

Basham’s book caused a stir on social media after its release as some of the evangelical leaders exposed in “Shepherds for Sale” have pushed back against the Daily Wire reporter. One pastor, Gavin Ortlund, even released a podcast episode on Basham’s book after she highlighted some of his troubling comments on climate change in “Shepherds for Sale.” Despite some pastors’ efforts to discredit Basham’s work, many Christians have heaped praise on the book.

“When church leadership does not know who is behind an organization, they should not agree to sign their public statements or participate in their coalitions. Also, the time for politely ignoring what is going on has come to an end,” Basham said. “It is time to follow the model of J. Gresham Machen in the 1920s and begin to directly call out compromise, capitulation, and infiltration. As he has stated, liberalism is an altogether different religion than Christianity.”

ESPN sportscaster and College GameDay analyst Kirk Herbstreit made it clear he thinks that men do not “belong in women’s sports,” calling the idea “ridiculous.”

In a post on X on Tuesday that’s since gone viral, a person posed a question to Herbstreit that read, “Do men belong in women’s sports? Time for influential men in sports media to stand up, Kirk,” OutKick reported.

The broadcaster saw the post and replied, retweeting the person’s question and answered, “Of course not. Ridiculous question.”

His comments were met with praise by others who agreed that it’s wrong for men to compete against women in female sports, including former ESPN host Sage Steele, who left the network in 2023.

Of course not. Ridiculous question https://t.co/SpwZ07zewv

— Kirk Herbstreit (@KirkHerbstreit) August 6, 2024

Steele shared Herbstreit’s post and added an “applause” emoji.

“Thank You for speaking up Kirk Herbstreit,” another person wrote.

While a third person wrote, “Thank you, Kirk.We need to be more outspoken about this nonsense, it’s maddening.”

His response was similar to ESPN host Pat McAfee who recently spoke out about men competing against women in a women’s competition, calling it “unfair,” the outlet noted.

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It was during a conversation about two boxers at the Olympics — Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan — both of whom previously failed gender eligibility tests by the International Boxing Association (IBA) but have been allowed by the IOC (International Olympics Committee) to compete against biological women in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

During a press conference on Monday, the IBA announced the findings from past gender chromosome tests they did of both Khelif and Lin Yu‑ting, revealing that “the blood results look and say — the laboratories — that this boxer is male,” as previously reported.

IBA CEO Chris Roberts said during the presser that test results for the fighters “demonstrated the chromosomes we refer to in competition rules that make both boxers ineligible.”

Roberts further explained that Khelif and Yu-ting were informed that they tested for XY chromosomes and were given the opportunity to appeal the findings to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The IBA, he said, offered to pay the majority of the appeal; Yu-ting did not appeal, and Khelif appealed initially, but then withdrew the appeal.

Amanda Prestigiacomo contributed to this piece.