American Reformer
Protestant Social and Political Thought
On November 19th Christianity Today (CT) announced that they had selected a new CEO and President to replace Tim Dalrymple who left CT to lead the John Templeton Foundation:
Dr. Nicole Martin has been unanimously selected by the Christianity Today Board of Directors to serve as its next president and CEO, bringing more than 25 years of nonprofit, academic and ministry leadership experience to this role. Dr. Martin has committed to reaffirm Billy Graham’s vision for CT by serving the church through creative and redemptive storytelling, informative journalism from an Evangelical Christian worldview, and resources and convenings that foster flourishing.
Just as Billy Graham created CT for believers who did not “feel at home in progressive mainline congregations or reactionary fundamentalist settings,” Dr. Martin brings a collaborative and unifying ministry leadership approach to this role that will bring together all parts of the global evangelical Christian family. During a time in our culture that is filled with relativism and a perversion of truth, Christianity Today will stand strong on a biblical foundation and point people to the life-changing power of Jesus Christ.
Christianity Today (CT) is an important and historic Evangelical institution that was founded in 1956 by a team headed by Billy Graham and Carl F.H. Henry. They attempted to create an intellectually respectable publication that would be a “flag to follow” for generally conservative American Christians, one that would confront the theological drift of the Protestant mainline embodied The Christian Century. Since then, it has attempted to weather the political and cultural divides in American evangelicalism while maintaining a centrist, middle road position. Any organization attempting to hold such a position is bound to get flak from both sides, and CT has certainly gotten that flak over the years, but it also has succeeded in remaining a central node for evangelicalism. It boasts over 100,000 physical copies in circulation and over a million views online every month, and it takes in over $18 million in annual revenue. It is fair to say it is an important institution worth considering seriously to understand the future of American Christianity.
The announcement of a new CEO elicited a round of cheers from employees at Christianity Today and other friends of Dr. Martin. Former Editor-in-Chief and now Editor-at-Large, Russell Moore xeeted out, “what a great choice by the CT board,” adding that Martin is “amazing.” Senior Contributor to CT Mike Cosper posted, “Let’s GOOOOOOOOOOOO…” Meanwhile her alma mater, Gordon Conwell Seminary, sent out a message stating that they were proud of their alumna who received her Doctor of Ministry there in 2014.
But from the start there were a host of others who raised concerns with the choice. Edward Hamilton wrote, “Martin’s work as a pastor is at Kingdom Fellowship AME, a congregation that has been active in promoting politicians in the Democratic Party” and went on to demonstrate ways that, that particular parish might not fit with the “middle of the road” goals that CT presents itself as offering to readers. For example, it regularly hosts pro-choice or pro-LGBT speakers. Others questioned her personal politics as the new head of one of a large and historically important evangelical institution. Evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Trump in each of his elections, and 2024 was no exception. Meanwhile in the pages of CT, Dr. Martin lamented Kamala Harris’ loss in the 2024 election. That these are her personal politics is not surprising given her church’s regular stumping for the democratic party, but it is surprising that the board of CT decided to platform her in the most senior role at an institution which is supposed to be the flag bearer of evangelicalism culturally.
Several pointed out that in her previous roles she had gone by the title “Rev Dr. Nicole Martin” and thus took this as a sign of a slide into egalitarianism at CT, though CT has not acknowledged that Dr. Martin is ordained in its public communications. This, in spite of their supposed neutral stance on the issue of women’s ordination. But Dr. Martin is not shy about her ordination status; her CV clearly reads “Rev Dr. Nicole Massie Martin.” And while her CV lists her degree as a DMin focusing on “African-American Redemptive Leadership” the actual title of the degree is “A Redemptive Leadership Development Model for African-American Women Entering Ministry.” And the argument of the work is, at its core, an extended argument that the church must do more to raise up, credential, and place black women in positions of ecclesial authority, including the senior pastorate roles. Given that advocating for women’s ordination and women’s leadership is central to her academic work it is surprising that CT did not emphasize that she is herself ordained in their announcement, nor that she is the first woman to take on this role in the history of the organization.
Instead, what they chose to emphasize was her “25 years of nonprofit, academic and ministry leadership experience.” Much of that work is quite a long time ago (for example a brief stint at Deloitte, immediately following her undergrad) but her most recent job and the most senior role she held before joining CT was at The American Bible Society (ABS).
ABS, founded in 1816, is another historically important institution in American Evangelicalism long focused on biblical literacy, traditional orthodoxy, and global evangelization. Founding fathers like Elias Boudinot and John Jay served as early presidents of the organization. ABS is where Nicole Massie Martin got her start as a senior executive. She was initially hired as a Charlotte City Mobilizer Consultant in 2016, before being promoted into a more central role as Executive Director of Trauma Healing in 2020 and then Senior Vice President and finally Chief Ministry Impact Officer (a c-suite job) serving from 2021 until at least the end of 2022.
Starting possibly as early as 2020, the year Dr. Martin entered her role as the Executive Director of Trauma Healing, ABS began experiencing serious institutional problems which persisted into 2023. These problems have been described as “systemic and cultural. They cannot be blamed on a single leader at any point.” As Dr. Martin was rising in leadership at ABS it cycled through four CEOs in two years and saw half its board resign. The problems were not just in the highest levels of leadership but also were felt in financial deficits. Between 2016 and 2022 it ran deficits over $55 million, and in 2021 alone it ran a $16 million deficit. But the organization in that period was also plagued by a loss of mission focus. “Historically the organization has funded Bible translations around the world… In recent years it has focused resources on its Bible-based trauma healing initiative.” This transition dates back to a decision in the mid 2010s to expand the organization’s mission to engage three pillars which were articulated by then CEO Roy Peterson as: Transforming America, Trauma Healing, and Translation. Previously the mission had been focused on translation. This language was further codified and expanded into the organizations 990s, a tax form all nonprofits must submit, which mentioned trauma three times in the 990 filed for the end of fiscal year June 2016, then expands to eight mentions of trauma in these official tax documents in the June 2022 and 2023 990s. As of the most recent 990 trauma is still mentioned but back to only six mentions. And the brief description of the organizations mission is stated as “To Make The Bible Available to Every Person in a Language and Format Each Can Understand and Afford. So, All People May Expereince (sic) Its Life-Changing Message.” By 2020 trauma healing was listed prominently on ABS’s website. But as of 2025 trauma is also no longer on the main home page, nor even listed on their mission page.
Trauma ministry was directly related to Dr. Martin’s work at ABS. She oversaw the Trauma Healing Institute, on top of her other duties as a Senior Vice President and member of the C Suite. The Trauma Healing Institute appears to have been created as a result of a broader organizational rebrand in the mission to expand their scope from evangelization and translation to encompass the three pillars mentioned earlier. This mission drift was corrected shortly after Nicole Martin left ABS for Christianity Today in 2023 by the now CEO of ABS Jennifer Holloran. The mission now clearly states that ABS is focused on the goal of translation and access to the gospel for all people. But while Nicole Martin was at ABS the Trauma Healing Institute which she oversaw was the center of a scandal in which donations to that organization were seeing “administrative fees” of nearly 30%. And, further, the Trauma Healing Institute saw programs canceled midway through their operation and, in the words of one such partner, the Bible Society of Lebanon, “you didn’t know who you could talk to at ABS… Something is wrong.” Whether Nicole Martin was the one to launch a program that the parent organization was not going to be able to finish or whether she is in fact the person (or one of the people) whom this partner could not get a response from, it is not ideal. The Institute she led at ABS is still there but has been de-emphasized and is no longer a central part of their mission.
Christianity Today, like the American Bible Society, is an incredibly important organization for Evangelicalism. It stood, in Billy Graham’s day, as a counterweight to all those versions of the Christian “voice of liberalism” and instead for a clear “mildly conservative” but staunchly “anti-Communist” voice of American Evangelicalism. It is imperative that they have competent leadership who can reflect that position. If the board thinks Dr. Martin’s track record reflects that institutional history of clear, competent, mildly conservative but anti-communist leadership it is not at all clear how they came to that conclusion.
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(Ph.D., University of Aberdeen) is Director of Education at American Reformerand a professor at St. Mary’s College of California. He also serves as a Fellow of the Henning Institute and a board member at the Classical Learning Test. Formerly he was Executive Director of the Davenant Institute, co-founder of Davenant Hall and is former Managing Director at Beck & Stone. His writing has appeared in Ad Fontes Journal, American Mind, First Things, Mere Orthodoxy, and The Lamp, among others; most recently his book returning the Protestant philosopher poet Thomas Traherne to his rightful place among virtue ethicists, Made Like the Maker.
Timon Cline, Editor
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