Where Hate Lives

Dear Evangelicals:

Today, we're accustomed to thinking of hate as an emotion exclusive to the fringes. Hate isn't in us; it's in white nationalists, ISIS, and all those liberals who, uh, scorn biblical teachings by shunning those who think being queer is a sin.

You know how I feel about that last item, so let's talk about the notion that hate is not a first-world problem, that it's not a Christian problem. Truth is, hate runs rampant throughout the Christian community -- left, right, and center.

Even the social justice warriors on the left, the millennials who swore they wouldn't become their parents, fall victim to hate. And why?

Because they worship Americhrist above all else.

Just like their parents, these left-leaning Americhristians chase fame, recognition, and status to the exclusion of all else. Just like their parents, they talk a good game, but are rarely -- if ever -- found in the trenches (Children can't change their religious affiliations? Thoughts and prayers 💗🎈🌈.) And, just like their parents, the new wave of Americhristians will cut you dead if you don't beat the drum for their latest project.

Whether you like it or not, that's hate.

About Jesus, John said, "He must increase while I must decrease." About us, Jesus said, "“Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat—I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? If any of you is embarrassed with me and the way I’m leading you, know that the Son of Man will be far more embarrassed with you when he arrives in all his splendor in company with the Father and the holy angels. This isn’t, you realize, pie in the sky by and by. Some who have taken their stand right here are going to see it happen, see with their own eyes the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:23-27, MSG),

If you withhold liberating, biblical truth from others because telling it would require you to decrease; if you are the focus of all your efforts, you're more about hate than love.

Sooner or later, Somebody's gonna notice.

Not Even Jesus

Dear Evangelicals:

In John 6:44, Jesus says, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him."

In John 14:6, He says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

But, in Matthew 18:3, He says something I never noticed before, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. That's it, above, in the yellow box.

What Jesus is saying is, it doesn't matter if He and God work a symbiotic miracle to bring you before them both. If your attitude is wrong, if your heart is hard and cynical, if your beliefs are calcified because they're endorsed by earthly powers or shored up by your church seniority, you won't make it into God's kingdom. 

If you insist on doing things without asking Him which way is right -- the way a child would ask a wise and loving parent -- you're lost. If you don't trust Him to break you down and build you back up again, to scrub out the poison of false teaching, "you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."

Yikes.

Now, before you go contemplating stripping yourself spiritually naked in front of yet another fallible human -- me included -- don't. Here's why:

In Hebrews 8:10-11, God says He, and not other humans will teach us, a point echoed in 1 John 2:27. In John 15:5, Jesus tells us, "Without Me, you can do nothing" -- a reminder that helps me get back to that childlike attitude when I get too bitter.

And, when we're in trouble, Paul writes in Hebrews 4:14-16, we are entitled to come boldly before the throne of grace, because Jesus, our high priest receives us without an intermediary. He was tempted in every way that we are, and He understands intimately what we're going through.

There are some cynical, horrible professing Christians out there who would presume to teach you. Some of them lied/are lying outright. Some of them were taught false doctrines, and never bothered to verify them through prayer and study because they trusted their teachers -- or feared them. Some of them are predators.

Jesus is not like any of them. He is gentle and patient, a friendly teacher who meets you on your level. He lets the little things go, but doesn't hesitate to correct you definitively when you get stubborn and insistent. He doesn't gossip about you. He doesn't force you to compete for love, acceptance, or anything else.

Don't believe me. Go to Him. If I have anything to teach you, it is this: First, last, and always, go to Him.

A Country Of Death

Dear Evangelicals:

Eugene Peterson once wrote that "The church is a colony of heaven in a country of death." He wasn't talking about a building. He was talking about us, and what we're supposed to be, to and for each other.

Look around: If no one else is flourishing, then the necrophiliac is you.

Random Acts of Nihilism

Dear Evangelicals:

In 1993, Conari Press published a little book called Random Acts of Kindness. The book ignited a movement and, not incidentally in America, an international industry. There are sequels by the score, websites, blogs, and social media accounts. There's even a National Random Acts of Kindness Day next month.

Never mind that people used to do these things for each other without a self-congratulatory social "movement" to prod them along; a world that was already vicious and self-serving has only gotten meaner since the birth of the RAK movement. And you helped. In direct contradiction of Jesus's teachings, you helped.

Not only that, but you're proud of it, because, hey, we're all gonna be raptured before the Great Tribulation, so you might as well paste yourself into your easy chair for family time, because all those grievous sinners who haven't been blessed with families are out there helping. You have better things to do.

Yeah, husband of one wife? Price above rubies woman? That's not what the Bible says.

No, the Bible orders you to take up your cross daily. To die daily. To do good, correct oppression, seek justice for orphans and widows.

Oh, but you, you, you. You always have an excuse. If you don't get your me-time, someone (Read: widows, orphans, the poor, and the oppressed) is gonna pay.

On alternate days, you grant yourselves a luxurious, emotional spa day, marinating in guilt, and telling yourself that your oppressed acquaintances bear so much ill will toward you, for refusing to help up to now, that they'd never accept help -- even if you did offer it.

Which you won't because, as you've already discovered with these weaklings, suffering is a marathon, not a sprint; and a glorious lambkin of God like yourself ain't got time for no grubby, anonymous marathon. You'd rather pay for the half-caf soy latte that the guy behind you -- who looks just like you, and not the icky poor -- is sure to order.

Voila! A random act of kindness! Aren't you the godly one?

No.

See, God says you extend kindness to those who can't afford to pay you back. No, He says you invite them, so you're looking them in the face, in all their poverty and hardship and suffering and shabbiness. In all their un-awesomeness.

But, muh glory!

As Jesus said of those who spend their lives slobbering after the approval of others, "They have their reward."

But wait; there's more! Of course there is, because God always has more for people like you.

Are you ready? Here we go.

At the end of time, when everyone is being judged by Jesus, He will look at the awesome life you had because you're so in love with Him, and He will say something to you that everyone who's ever been born will hear.

How's that for glory?

Money For Morals

Dear Evangelicals (and Family):

I’ve seen a fair share of complaints about the money consciousness of my generation – that’d be the baby boomers – on social media. Oddly enough, I sympathize.

I have never known someone with money who hasn’t used the threat of withholding it to break – with all the violence and vindictiveness that implies – some aspect of someone's character that has nothing to do with getting and spending.

If that’s what you’re going through, let me do that thing we tiresome, old blowhards are prone to do -- lay some wisdom on you:

Why let someone who’s just as human as you are, tell you who you are, where and if you belong, and why you’re here? Why let them decide if you’re acceptable?

If the price of being part of a family – whatever that means to you – is to let someone decide what role you play in the family, dump ‘em. You can make friends, a family, a living, and a life without selling out under threat.

The corollary to this is that, if you’re threatening to cut a “loved one” off financially in some twisted effort to punish them for living out their core values, you are a greedy, reprehensible pig.

You are probably also living a lie – a big one. It wounds you to the core that someone you thought you could control has the guts to be who they are, publicly and privately.

To you, I say that, if you can’t manage your own life, you have no business trying to manage someone else’s. Look in the mirror, and clean up your own mess first. Then, you can think about dispensing advice to someone else.

How do you do that? How do you climb out of the filth and live authentically?

See the fourth and fifth paragraphs of this post. Your … beneficiaries are already way ahead of you.

As the United States Declaration of Independence puts it, you have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That means you have the right to the femme name and the pink negligee. You have the right to exercise the spiritual gifts, and rock a Bible app on your phone. You have the right to vote Republican for the first time in your family’s history. You have the right to champion astrology over the enneagram. The right to counsel the old man to tell the truth for once in his miserable life.

If you don’t think that any one of those things is as controversial as the others in certain circles, you need to get out more. If you don’t think that all these issues can be at work in one person’s life, you need to get out even more.

But I digress.

If you’ve spent your life living a lie, how do you climb out of the filth and live authentically?

Tell someone. Tell the people who mean more to you than anyone else. If they bail, you’re ahead of the game, because you’re no longer burdened by people who hate you.

See the fourth and fifth paragraphs of this post – again. And again and again, if it helps. Do your crying for as long as you need to. Then, get back up, fix your face, and find a real family.

Special Rights

Dear Evangelicals:

Have you heard the latest from the A.F.A.'s syndicated hate spewer, Bryan Fischer?

It seems that Fischer and, by extension, the American Family Association, want to put an end to single-use restrooms, because such facilities give transgender people what Fischer terms "special rights".

Let's not beat around the bush: We know you put country over God, so let's see what  U.S. Constitution has to say about extending "special rights" to certain groups.

There's a bogus legal argument equating single-stall restrooms with bills of attainder, easily torpedoed by the simple fact that anyone can use a single-stall restroom. In fact, it's often necessary to use the single-stall facility when the restroom is crowded. But then, Fischer is male, and wouldn't know about such things.

So much for prescribed gender roles strengthening the fabric of society. If you Quiverfull crazies stopped insisting that a mother should be mastering the art of folding dinner napkins instead of the art of drafting legislation, we wouldn't have this problem.

But I digress.

The only other argument is the eternal chicken-or-egg debate over the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. To which I say, scream all you want; the final decision will depend on which judge you get. Deal with it.

Which brings us to that Book you don't want to obey unless you agree it.

The Bible commands Christians to defend the oppressed, the foreign and the foreigner, the persecuted, and the weak -- even if they are, as Fischer says, "a tiny little slice of the population".

Especially if they're a tiny little slice of the population.

Don't believe me? Head on over to Bible Gateway, and do a search for "weak", "oppressed", "stranger", or "alien".

There will be those of you who marshal every legalistic argument in the book -- your book, I mean -- to worm out of obeying the Almighty God. Many of you will retort that it's absurd to call transgender people aliens and strangers because you are cursed with them in your own lives.

The book of James (one of my favorites) would tell you that, if you're so insistent on following the law, you'd better follow every last bit of it, or you are guilty, and will be so judged.

One thing about that judgment: There's no rotating pool of judges who might hear your case. There's only One.

How do you like the sound of special rights now?

Pity the Poor Billionaire

Dear Evangelicals:

The first picture on the left was painted by American artist and icon, Norman Rockwell. It depicts young Ruby Bridges being escorted by federal marshals to her first day at an all-white school in Louisiana.

The second picture was tweeted by Bree Newsome, who became a national hero when she climbed the flagpole in front of the statehouse in South Carolina, and removed the Confederate flag. It is an editorial cartoon by Glenn McCoy of the Belleville News Democrat. It depicts Betsy DeVos, a white, adult billionaire, and the recently-confirmed Secretary of Education, imagining her to be the victim of persecution as terrifying as that experienced by little Ruby Bridges.

The first word that came to my mind was one you evangelicals generally apply to the American and allegedly-unbelieving Left -- "whiny".

Blacks who dared to claim rights equal to those of whites were imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and murdered. Their homes and churches were burned and bombed. To you, a mere difference of opinion and the healthy, peaceful exercise of dissenters' Constitutional rights is just as oppressive and terrifying.

Wow.

That sickening realization reminded me of the quote at left. The truth is, you, and most other political and social conservatives, don't really believe that the oppressed people of this country are all that oppressed. You call them "whiny" in the wildly-dysfunctional belief that they're exaggerating, or worse, faking altogether.

No.

It's way past time that you yanked the beam out of your own eye instead of bellowing about the speck in someone else's.

First-World Problems

 Dear Evangelicals:

It must be nice to have so much that you can demand of God that He let you have your cake and eat it, too.

When Narcissists Ride Too High

Dear Evangelicals:

You're not going to like this, because it's about an individual you are apparently willing to defend to the death.

His name is Donald Trump.

Politics aside, the crux of Trump's problems is the pathology of narcissism. If you're still reading, it's because you know at least one narcissist who is ready, willing, and able to ruin your marriage, your family, your company, or your church.

What you can't understand, what keeps you up at night, is this: Why are things getting crazier and crazier when you and everybody else caters to this monster's every whim?

Michael Kruse doesn't exactly answer that question in The Trouble With Peak Trump, his piece for Politico. Instead, his harrowing story serves to validate what so many of us have known without knowing -- about Trump and every other narcissist in our lives: If we don't yank them off their high horse and back down to earth at the first sign of narcissistic behavior, they will destroy our sanity. Giving them what they plead for only drives them to exploit us further. As the old saying goes, "Give 'em an inch, and they'll take a mile."

There's only one guaranteed method for stopping Trump and every other narcissist in your life. It is this.

Godspeed.

Charles Marsh Reclaims Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dear Evangelicals:

If you think you know Dietrich Bonhoeffer, think again.

The vast majority of you learned the name of Bonhoeffer -- but little else -- from Eric Metaxas' revisionist, right-wing fantasy, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.

Very dramatic, I'm sure, but all it's really done is convince you to martyr your common sense for an antichrist named Donald Trump.

Wanna know the real story? Read this piece, "Eric Metaxas's Bonhoeffer Delusion", by legitimate Bonhoeffer scholar, Charles Marsh.

Cooties and the Scales of Justice

Dear Evangelicals:

What. Is. Wrong. With. YOU?

Have you honestly never read the following passage in the Bible?

"I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.
 
"For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 

"But those who are outside God judges. Therefore 'put away from yourselves the evil person.'" (1 Corinthians 5:9-13, NKJV)

Oh, it's in there, all right. Yet you persist in doing exactly the opposite. You judge non-believers like there's a reward for it, yet leave professing Christians to commit the most heinous crimes imaginable, rallying 'round when someone actually dares to call Christian sinners to account.

Another thing -- and hang on to your hats because we're about to get intellectual up in here -- the subtext of this verse damns you all the more. 

The subtext is what the apostle Paul says without saying it. You'd have to go out of the world to avoid sinners who don't profess Christianity, he says, and his implication is that we cannot and should not go out of the world. In fact, Jesus said to go into all the world (You know: Great Commission. I'll let you Google it).

So when (gasp!) an unbeliever asks you to hang out or -- heaven forfend! -- offers to help you with something, don't be the high-handed jackass who quotes John 15:19 or Romans 12:2. The former is about how the religious establishment would feel about you if you were really following Jesus. The latter is about your behavior; not the behavior of non-believers.

Non-believers don't have some sort of spiritual cooties. And you don't have the authority to either judge them or spurn them. Get right with God!

Oh (spit take), that's what non-believers are supposed to do? Well, let me send you off with a quote from Frederick Buechner to help clarify just exactly who non-believers are:

"Many an atheist is a believer without knowing it just as many a believer is an atheist without knowing it. You can sincerely believe there is no God and live as though there is. You can sincerely believe there is a God and live as though there isn't."

Which camp do you fall into?

Ubuntu

Dear Evangelicals:

Christ's kingdom is not America, and America is not Christ's kingdom.

That means whatever "it" is, you can't do it alone. With the great commandment, Jesus calls us to cast off independence, self-reliance, and going our own way. He calls to to join with him and with others to live, not co-dependently, but inter-dependently, the way Bishop Tutu describes in his definition of the Shona word, ubuntu.

I'm American, too, and I don't like it. Personally, I'd give my eyeteeth not to have to ask anyone for a favor. Nevertheless, there it is.

So, here's the deal: If someone has to ask you for a favor, and you can do it, you'd better. If Jesus is "watching" anything, He's watching that.

If you've had to ask for favors, and been rejected by lazy, complacent, greedy, narcissistic, and self-satisfied people, don't give up. Those people will be punished, and you will be uplifted, one way or another. If you believe the Bible, believe that, because that's what the Bible says.

As for my non-believing readers, I see you and I love you, and I ask you to call to mind that old, familiar saying about karma. You know the one.

A Reason To Live

Dear Evangelicals:

You tend to live your lives the opposite way. Your quote might be, "If I can cram rules that I don't even follow  down one person's throat, I shall not live in vain."

It's not cute. It's not funny. It's not right, and it's not good. As long as you imagine it is, people who desperately need Jesus will flee from you in droves.

They're the smart ones, not you.

Faultless

Dear Evangelicals:

Salvation did not make you perfect; it made you forgiven.

I know you've heard that in a different configuration, but you've been using it as a snippy comeback for so long that you don't remember what it means.

So, here it is: You. Are. Not. Perfect. You are not without sin or weakness or failure. Stop unloading your projections onto other people, and look in the mirror. It will kill you or cure you.

I have compared evangelical Christians to rampaging narcissists more than once on this blog (How many other Christian blogs have tags for 'narcissism' and 'personal boundaries'?). The comparison holds for all you other Christians who are lapsed in some sense, but still convinced that religion -- and not Jesus' death on the cross -- made you perfect.

You're a lethal bunch, because you'd rather kill everyone else than die to your own ego in order to be reborn as decent human beings. You'd rather let someone else suffer and die than admit that you are not always right.

And now, a word to everybody else: You know these people, and they have made your life a living hell ever since you can remember. It's okay to walk away without making them see reason or having the last word -- two tasks you've been trying to accomplish with the narcissists in your life ever since you've known them.

You will never succeed. Their desire to stay evil is strong than yours to be good and right.

Don't believe me? That's wise. If you pray -- however you pray -- pray for the answer to how to handle these calcified monsters. Then, obey. You will be the stronger for it. You'll see.

The Evangelical Justification For American Fascism

Dear Evangelicals:

Yeah, you've seen this meme. It's usually used to encourage less-than-perfect people like you and me to do God's work. But recently, Franklin Graham, whose 2015 salary was $880,000.00  (Check the 'poor and needy' tag to see how God feels about that, uh, weakness) cited that meme in defense of Donald Trump.

In case you missed it, Graham has endorsed Trump for president. Graham waved away concerns about Trump's hateful agenda with a few examples -- David and Moses, to be specific -- from this meme.

There's just one problem: Neither David nor Moses were committing the sins of adultery and anger (Graham cited Moses' anger issues) when they were granted authority over Israel.

Of David, God famously said he was "a man after My own heart." The Bible also says that God spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to a friend.

Check the 'poor and needy' tag again. Do you really think that Donald Trump is a friend of God, or a man after God's own heart?

Created For Fellowship

Dear Evangelicals:

You do understand that this is the exact opposite of American culture? Rugged individualism? Going it alone? I did it my way? Wrong.

Tell the Truth

Dear Evangelicals:

This quote has huge implications for your ministry. If you don't come clean, you can't possibly heal anyone else.

Of course, if you're just in it to tell other people what they're doing wrong, carry on. See where that gets you on Judgment Day.

Hope and Work

Dear Evangelicals:

What Ms. Brown is talking about here is fantasy. You know it as the word of faith or the prosperity gospel. It is, of course, wildly unbiblical.

If you want something, you work for it; every other half-wit on the planet knows that. As long as you don't, you can count on staying in neutral.

And you know what they say about a body at rest.

So Special

Dear Evangelicals:

In case you missed it, malignant selfishness, a.k.a. narcissism, is not a mark of good character -- not in yourself, and not in anybody else.

If you are this person, you probably won't catch it in yourself; it's going to take a miracle from God to get you to see yourself as you truly are.

If you are being victimized by this person -- and a lot of new Christians are -- watch your step. Just because someone patronizes you doesn't mean they're your new daddy. Or mommy.

Jesus gave up every last ounce of wealth, prestige, and authority to come down here to earth and die for you. The Bible counsels humility, and the Christian life absolutely demands it. Anybody who dictates to you from way up there on their high horse is a fraud.

Hanging On To Life

Dear Evangelicals:

You don't get to choose how to cure your diseases; you are not the Great Physician.

Of course, there are other gods who encourage you to hang on to this life for all you're worth. You could try worshiping one of those.