Search
Close this search box.

The American Church Needs Brave Christians

Right now, if it really believes what it preaches, the American Church has one foot in Hell and one on a banana peel—and this God-forsaken wannabe theocracy, is that banana peel.

This Church needs to step very carefully in these days.
It needs to think very clearly about why it exists.
It needs to recognize the urgency of the moment.
It needs to know what it stands to lose.

And by “Church,” I mean:
Every man and woman who will fill buildings all over the country this weekend, singing and listening and amen-ing for an hour.
Those who follow Jesus outside of a local faith community; who pray and study and worship beyond those buildings and away from those campuses.

Those with Bible verses adorning their social media profiles, with Scripture references tattooed on their forearms, those with crosses on their walls and with Jesus fish on their bumpers.
Christians along every square inch of the political and theological spectrums.

We’re all in this together.
This is our shared burden.
It’s our ball to carry or drop.

Theologically speaking, the Church has never been a building. It’s never been made of brick and mortar and glass, but of flesh and blood and bone. It’s always been the collective presence of ordinary people here on the planet, seeking to make the love of Jesus tangible in the messy trenches of daily existence. (Or at least that’s been the idea.)

In Scripture, the Apostle Paul calls this global assembly of Christians the “body of Christ”; the breathing sanctuaries moving through this space. The Church was intended to be composed of followers of Jesus personifying him here in the starkly lit, butt-naked truth of our lives.

In other words, the world is supposed to look at us collectively; at how we live, love, speak, and forgive—and see what Jesus looked like when his feet were on the planet. That is the sole reason we exist here two thousand years later. We are made to be the visible legacy of Christ.

I’m terrified at what the world sees when it looks at us right now. I don’t think it sees whatever it was Jesus intended them to see.

I think the world more commonly sees something monstrous; a crudely fashioned Frankenstein of the worst kind of greed, vanity, and self-interest. I think it sees something that looks right at home in politics of fear, in the intolerance toward outsiders, in the ugliness of bigotry that is helming our nation right now.

In so many instances, there is no distinction between the supposed “ambassadors for Christ,” and the sycophantic shills for a President without morality. That’s a problem, and a disgrace—and a sin.

If the American Church is indeed a body, then it also has a soul. And if it does have a soul, then that soul is surely in danger of damnation for its current offenses. It is certainly in dire need of the redemptive, reverse-direction repentance Jesus spoke of—the kind its Evangelical preachers and Conservative practitioners are so fond of demanding of those outside their doors. 

And to change its catastrophic course, the Church doesn’t need more churches or more market share, or Supreme Court seats or preferential legislation or political capital—The Church needs brave Christians.

It needs people who value their personal faith convictions more than their allegiance to a political party, more than fitting in at Thanksgiving dinner, more than being comfortable by staying silent, more than the softness of their privilege, more than allowing preachers to say whatever they want just because their daddies and patrons gave them a pulpit. The Church needs men and women who will say that bigotry wrapped in religion is still bigotry, that Christianity was never supposed to be about power—and that Jesus doesn’t give a damn if America is first.

The Church needs Christians who aren’t afraid to follow Jesus right out of the building if that’s where he leads them.

American Christianity is teetering on the precipice of irrelevance, of uselessness, of moral bankruptcy—which all may be fine. Maybe it needs to fully die so that something beautiful can be born in its wake. Maybe.

But I’m not willing to wait for that. I’m not going to leave it to the future to have to fix what we destroy. I’m one of those breathing sanctuaries here and now, and as a wise man once said, “I am not throwin’ away my shot.”

I’m using whatever daylight I have to speak the words and walk the path and live the life that I believe Jesus intended—even if that causes me to lose opportunities and church friends and family members, and disturb Christians who slap that name on themselves without seeming to be inconvenienced by Jesus in the slightest.

I’m going to do my part as a member of the body that is the Church—to not allow it to lose its soul on my watch. 

Be brave, Christian. You’re needed right now more than ever.

 

Share this: