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.

The rhetorical chicanery is amusing, almost comical, as he romanticizes the notion that Jesus rebuked people who worried about external evil, as if the biblical warnings about wolves in sheep’s clothing or tares among the wheat were just metaphors for your bad attitude. Forget the prophets decrying Baal worship. Forget Paul warning of false teachers creeping in unawares.

Forget even Christ’s own talk of Satan sowing lies like seeds in the field. All of that? Irrelevant. Apparently, Moses should have included a footnote in Genesis: “By the way, this doesn’t apply to cultural policy.”

And of course, he can’t resist dragging Trump into it. Olsen references Buchanan’s culture war speech, Trump’s language about invasions, JD Vance’s comments about enemies within—all to paint conservatives as delusional, dangerous nativists. Because when your arguments are this brittle, you have to rely on caricatures.

Olsen’s disdain for people who care about national sovereignty drips from every paragraph. But the real venom isn’t for weeds. It’s for anyone who believes that nations have the right to exist. That cultures have the right to defend themselves. In Olsen’s view, national sovereignty is an outdated relic, a garden fence built by racists.

There’s a fundamental deceit at play here. Olsen pretends to be doing theology, but what he’s really offering is theological pacifism. A sort of spiritualized defeatism dressed up in biblical language. It’s the same tired song:

Real Christians don’t worry about the world. They just pull weeds in their own hearts.

But this is not biblical. It’s not even rational. It’s the intellectual equivalent of locking your doors at night while lecturing your neighbor for installing a fence.

The Bible is full of borders, boundaries, and the importance of maintaining both spiritual and national identity. From the walls of Jerusalem to the gates of the temple, from the genealogies of Israel to the qualifications for church leadership—God cares deeply about who is allowed in and who is kept out. There are distinctions, definitions, and demarcations. Civilization depends on them. Even gardens depend on them.

To erase the concept of invasion—whether biological, ideological, or political—is to rewrite not just the Bible, but the entire narrative arc of human history. Empires fall because they forget what a border is. Churches die because they forget what heresy is. And cultures collapse because their moral and ethical leaders—church leaders—well, they’re too busy writing smug articles about honeysuckle to notice the foundation crumbling beneath their feet.

Andy Olsen doesn’t give us a theology of weeds. He gives us a theology of surrender. And he wraps it in vines and verses and just enough biblical language to make it palatable to the theologically indifferent and the politically fatigued.

But let’s be clear, this isn’t good gardening advice. It’s ideological herbicide. It doesn’t nourish the soul. It strangles it. Slowly. Systematically.

Like kudzu.