This is Hard

I started this line of posts with the intention of writing often. Then I went into a period of having no words for what was happening. I added the further intention to make it about Jesus and not about politics. Now, I’m just not sure that the two can be separated at this point in our history. Jesus, too, lived in a time when his childhood faith – a faith that was good and righteous for many – had become a weapon of choice for the religion of power and privilege. A religion that, very similar to Christianity Today, partnered with the government, in order to have force behind them as they sought to build and keep their regime of power. Jesus continually confronted them, so I don’t believe I can write this blog and remain silent on the political spectrum.

And so, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will be talking about politics quite a bit on this blog. But that’s not the only reason it’s hard.

It is also hard because there are people in my life who call themselves Christians still. People who I love deeply.

There are those who continue to seek after the life and the teachings of Jesus, in a way that I would agree with. Faith, to them is an outreach of compassion, kindness, and mercy. I admire these people and their faith. My renunciation of Christianity feels like an insult to them – and I want to be clear it is not. I stand with and support these people and their movements.

There are also people in my life who I love dearly, who call themselves Christians, and yet continue to pursue action that has nothing to do with – I actually believe it is completely antithetical to – the life and teachings of Jesus. They celebrate the actions of exclusion and bigoted hate that is taking place in our world today. They are celebrating because they believe that, somehow, the punishment inflicted on “these people” (the outsiders, the refugees, the immigrants, the queer, the indebted), will somehow help them. They are celebrating so much, that they don’t see their pockets being drained.

Many of these people were outraged by the fact that Bishop Budde, in her address at the National Prayer Breakfast, had the nerve to ask the president to have mercy on refugees, on immigrants, and on the LGBTQ+ community. I would tell anyone who claims the Christian faith and is angry at that, you need to go back and read scripture! To be clear, you need to go back and read the gospels. You need to read the teachings of Jesus. Read them again as if you have something to learn, because you obviously do.

Jesus’s teachings were littered with the idea that true faith will look at the outsider with a completely new lens. In true faith the Samaritan is my neighbor. I know that doesn’t sound absurd today, but in Jesus’s time the Samaritan was not the title that we know it as now. Because of this story, we use the term to refer to a good neighbor. But as he told the story, he was reaching for the most unlikely person to be the one who would rescue the wounded man on the side of the road. Talking to a group of Christian Nationalists today, he might as well have said “Then a Muslim man saw him and took pity… This man is your neighbor.” He could have told the story of a homeless drug addict person being the one to rescue the wounded and robbed. He was saying have mercy on the most unlikely. No one is disqualified.

This is why the religious devout in his time we’re confronted with his words, “You say Lord, Lord … but you will hear go away from me I never knew you.” The source of divine rejection was not wrong theology, or even a ‘bout of sexual immorality. It was a complete lack of mercy and care for those who needed it most.

This is hard, because if the people I love, who I believe have strayed from the actual path of Christ, read this – they will know exactly what I think. But I also think that’s why this is also necessary. If a shepherd leaves the 99 to find and rescue the 1, it is absolutely worth it.

Jesus was about mercy and love. He was about meeting needs – not the desire of those who have much and wish to have more – but the needs of the sick to be healed; the needs of the hungry to be fed; the needs of the imprisoned to find freedom; the needs of the indebted to have their debts forgiven. If you call yourself a Christian and are angry about the hungry being fed – you are why I no longer call myself a Christian. If you call yourself a Christian and are angry about healthcare being available to all – you are the reason I no longer call myself a Christian. If you call yourself a Christian and you believe that America’s wealth will grow by cutting the tax on the rich and sticking it to the poor – you are the reason I no longer call myself a Christian. If you call yourself a Christian, and you see Trump as God’s anointed – you are the reason I no longer call myself a Christian.

This is hard, because it might hurt. But this is my truth and I hope it can be read in love that speaks truth.