When I hear of a hostile takeover in a church, I think back to around 2006 when conservative Episcopalians were breaking free of their denomination, reclaiming the name “Anglican” and trying to take their church properties with them.

Usually they failed with conservative and liberal sides accusing each other of malfeasance. The lawyers got paid, of course.

This time around, the headlines are about conflict inside the largest evangelical church in the Washington, D.C., area and because it’s in northern Virginia, where so many inside-the-Beltway workers live, its problems have gotten a lot of press interest. It didn’t hurt that then-President Donald Trump visited the place on June 2, 2019, which stirred up lots of people.

Here’s a Washington Post piece that tries to explain what’s going on:

The leaders of McLean Bible, one of the D.C. region’s largest and most high-profile evangelical churches, are facing attempts from its own members to spread disinformation to take control of the church, Pastor David Platt warned the congregation in a sermon earlier this month.

Last month, the church was supposed to vote in new elders who oversee the church, and a group tried to shore up enough votes to block the appointed leaders. In a sermon on July 4, Platt said the group told other church members as they were walking into the meeting that the new elders would try to persuade church leadership to sell the church’s building in Vienna, Va. to local Muslims who would build a mosque.

McLean Bible — which is seen as a conservative evangelical congregation and once had more than 16,000 attendees — has long been an important church in Washington with four locations near the city. But threatening McLean now is a group that has spread all kinds of rumors, Platt said.

OK, so a local megachurch is having a catfight. How does one make such a story interesting to the rest of the world?

Simple: Make it about a greater issue, such as the generational conflict or politics, which is what NPR did in calling the place “a hub for Republican senators and Bush aides.”