In June 2008, I and several hundred others of my radical anarchist-leaning Christian friends at PAPA (People Against Poverty and Apathy) Festival camped out on a Mennonite farm in rural Illinois. Days of sessions about everything from community to living to circus tricks culminated each evening with fantastic concerts. I distinctly remember one night in particular where we all stood transfixed and transported by a silky falsetto, hip-hop-infused rhythms, and lyrics that seamlessly wove themes of God’s justice with an intimate, affective spirituality. After singing an anti-capitalist anthem called “Zion and Babylon,” the singer was called back for the only encore demanded by the crowd of PAPA Festival that year. He sat down and riffed on one word—“Hallelujah” for 3 minutes straight, to rousing applause and cheers. 

These were my people. I had just graduated from college a few weeks before and had always felt an outsider among evangelicals in my college fellowship who seemed preoccupied with private sin and faith and gave a pass to President Bush despite his war-driven presidency. Finding other Christians on and off campus who seemed to connect faith and justice gave me hope that the faith I professed wasn’t doomed to irrelevance in seeking the kind of world the Bible declares is God’s true vision. PAPA Festival was my Mecca; here were hundreds of people who loved Jesus deeply while shouting down hierarchies and capitalism and war and for a few days tried, in the words of Catholic Worker co-founder Peter Maurin, to create a mini-society where it was easier to be good. It was the first time in my life that I felt like I had found my true kindred. 

Josh Garrels was the singer who took the crowd to a mystical place that night at PAPA. When I got home, I found his MySpace page and started telling everyone I knew about this fantastic musician who had found a way to invite listeners on a compassionate spiritual journey that involved rejecting the material violence thrust on us by a corrupt system. For years afterward, I listened to his music and invited others to do so. On one of our first dates, my now-wife and I spent the evening listening to a new album from him. Josh Garrels symbolized something important to me: there was some good left in evangelicalism. 

Fast forward to March 12, 2024: Garrels posted on social media that he had been on the Wild at Heart podcast with his “dear friend” John Eldredge to talk about his new single, “Watchman.” Eldredge’s mark on evangelicalism comes from his book on Christian masculinity, Wild at Heart, and its companion for women Captivating. Eldredge’s books and focus on “biblical manhood”— another term for palatable patriarchy— are much at odds with the spirit of PAPA Festival and its anti-hierarchy values. 

In Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes Du Mez includes Eldredge in a group of influential men who have shaped evangelical views on gender:

“[They]all preached a mutually reinforcing vision of Christian masculinity—of patriarchy and submission, sex and power. It was a vision… that worshiped power and turned a blind eye to justice, and one that transformed the Jesus of the Gospels into an image of their own making.” 

Eldredge and Garrels spoke about Garrels’s new song “Watchman,” with Eldredge declaring it an anthem for the current moment. It is a song inviting listeners to hold on to a simple faith in Jesus, to keep their “lamp burning through the night” and through Jesus, make their “garments pure and white.” It laments that “darkness is upon us” and a culture where “Truth is looking stranger than the lies.” The conversation on the podcast circles back to these themes.

The podcast illuminates that people like Eldredge—and now, sadly, once-prophetic voices like Garrels—genuinely believe that threats to true Christianity are equal from the left and the right. I have a suspicion that both men do not like Trump and the brand of Christian nationalism that his evangelical followers embrace, but I am convinced that they see the threat of liberal “woke” issues around race, gender, and sexuality as equally or more so detrimental. 

I say “suspicion” because in the entire podcast, neither speaker actually gave any concrete examples of the cultural forces at odds with Jesus-loving people, and yet the whole thing felt like a wink and a nod to the assault on “Christian” gender norms and traditional views about sexuality.  The effect of vague allusions is to give the listener the impression that what true Christians ought to be doing is getting out of culture and politics altogether so that they can focus on a pure Christian life and watching out for the second coming of Jesus. There was no discussion of the role Christians ought to have in justice or what meaningful engagement might look like. If anything, Garrels only seems to reference his earlier flirtation with his PAPA friends as an illusory time when it seemed like there was overlap between the world’s values and that of a Christian. Now, he shared with Eldredge, that illusion is shattered.

The conversation sheds light on an oft-overlooked part of the Christian evangelical demographic: moderates. I use this word for lack of a more specific term for people who are opting out of engagement with politics and secular society. These are people who read books like The Benedict Option and fear the corruption of their deeply held Christian faith by liberal forces, even while disagreeing with extremists on the right as well.

Their answer is to circle their wagons and pull back from things that might align one too closely to a political ideology by doing things like homeschooling or moving to a farm in Indiana and taking stepping away from public life almost altogether, as Garrels and his family have. My encounters with this growing demographic have been with people who would have leaned Republican previously and those who would have voted with Democrats. More and more churches that may have once been called moderate are doubling down on a faith that is primarily personal and spiritual with only secondary (if any) attention to the world’s physical needs.

This type of retreat fills me with a deep sadness, because the tragedies in the world require deeper engagement with issues of justice, not pulling back. The immigrants being bussed from the border to cities need families willing to help house and support them. The ongoing brutality of the war against Gaza needs Christian voices that reject the way the Bible is being used to enable the horror there. The prison system, gun violence, and so much more need all people of faith to join in and get a little messy, not wash their hands and rely on a pure and untouched faith as a ticket to heaven. And people like Josh Garrels have a creative voice that once helped others reject the either/or of loving Jesus or loving the world. Instead, in what can only be described as shameful cowardice, they have retreated to the safe havens of other-worldly platitudes about Jesus. By pulling away from the messiness of life that comes with being “resident aliens”—the term coined by Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon for a countercultural Christian identity without abandoning the world—the very faith that they hope to preserve is in danger of becoming even more obsolete. 

In Garrels’s own poignant words from his song “Resistance:” “How do good men become a part of the regime? They don’t believe in resistance.” 

If there is one thing that most Christians of all denominations agree on, it is abortion. A 2012 Gallup poll found that 54% of American Catholics and 57% of Protestants/Others consider themselves “pro-life.” Every presidential election, we hear of prominent pastors raising questions about a candidate’s position on abortion. And while organizations such as Sojourners have tried to emphasize additional issues which ought to concern Christians as they go to the polls, the reality is that abortion is still a central issue for many people. This is not altogether a bad thing; since the earliest days of Christianity, the church has always had a special concern for unborn and abandoned children, taking them in and caring for them when others do not. These days, however, whether or not it is an accurate portrayal, “pro-life” Christians are more associated with picketing abortion clinics, hanging pictures of dead fetuses in public places, and gathering for the March for Life than welcoming such children into their homes.

But why should the term “abortion” apply only to medical procedures done in sterile offices? Is not the killing of pregnant women and would-be mothers also a kind of abortion? Is not the ending of a child’s life through violence also abortion?

Related: The Oppressor has more Responsibility than the Oppressed

With such vocal concern for the unborn across the spectrum of Christian perspectives, it should be concerning to us all how silent these 57% have been about the recent violence in Gaza. In 27 days of bombings and ground combat in Gaza, over 1000 Palestinians have been killed. One-third of them have been children, and many others have been women. Some of these women have even been pregnant. No matter anyone’s political leanings, this reality should make us sick. But where are the outraged masses of pro-life Christians when mother and child are being killed by the Israeli military? Are the children of Palestinians less valuable than others? Are pregnant women in Gaza not carrying a sacred life? It disturbs me that often the most vehement spokespeople against legalized abortions are the most vehement defenders of Israel, and I am amazed at the spiritual gymnastics people will do to justify an otherwise abominable practice of killing children.

Pastors are often no better at pointing out this contradiction. Instead of challenging their congregations to vocally oppose the U.S.’s unconditional support of Israel and the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli forces, my experience is that pastors in the U.S. either ignore the ongoing conflict out of ignorance or fear of dividing their congregations, or they endorse Israel’s actions in the name of a biblical mandate to care for God’s “chosen people” in Israel.  Neither response is sufficient.

I can sympathize with feeling uneducated about the conflict. It was not until I participated in a Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation to Palestine last May that I saw firsthand how Palestinians suffer at the hand of Israeli policies. Children, yes children, are imprisoned without cause on a regular basis. Homes are demolished by Israeli Caterpillar-brand bulldozers. Women give birth at checkpoints because they are detained on their way to the hospital. But it is not enough acknowledge our ignorance, we must address it. If more pastors and church members would commit to experiencing Palestine firsthand as part of their pilgrimage to the Holy Land in Israel, it would be impossible to stay silent. Churches could take advantages of resources from Sabeel, an ecumenical theology center based in Jerusalem which attempts to engage churches in more healthy interpretation of Scripture related to Israel.

Unfortunately, It is not only the conflict in Gaza which illustrates this sad disconnect between an earnest concern for unborn children and supporting indiscriminate killing. When U.S. drone strikes destroy homes and kill children in other parts of the Middle East, we find American Christians equally passive at best. We are quite willing to sacrifice the children of other countries and religions for our own sense of safety from terrorists. It has become too easy for us to look the other way while the U.S. government carries out abortions in our name and with our blessing.

Also by Brian: Actually, God Does Still Want You to Give Up Chocolate for Lent

We have to do better. As the church, as Christ’s body which extends beyond borders, we cannot ignore the cry of children in Palestine, Afghanistan, Mexico, Pakistan, Iraq, and beyond, any more than we can ignore the children in Chicago, New York, or Washington, D.C. If we cannot, as people of the church, find ourselves loudly calling and acting for an end to violence, especially when children are involved, then we can no longer call ourselves pro-life. War is abortion. It ends life unnaturally through violence, life that has not reached full term. It destroys the emotional, spiritual, and psychological fabric of those who commit it and those who are victims of it. We, who follow a God who was born amid the slaughter of children, must cry out in deep anguish for forgiveness for allowing the Massacre of the Innocents to happen over and over. Let us pray for the courage to be truly pro-life.

Photo Credit: a katz / Shutterstock.com

It’s Lent again, and like every other Christian holiday or tradition, it brings with it a slew of opinions or non-opinions about the best way to celebrate it in a way that honors God. Not every part of Christian tradition partakes in Lent, but I think it’s a good practice. Like Advent, it’s a cyclical season that interrupts the rest of life and helps us re-focus on Christ’s resurrection and return, as well as our own participation in the redemption of the world. I’ve written before about the significance of Lent and especially how that came alive for me through John Milton’s Paradise Regained.

Whether it’s coffee or T.V. or social media, it has been commonplace to stop doing something that is not necessarily bad for the 40 days of Lent in order to identify better with the notion of fasting and preparation for Easter. What seems to be in vogue currently is a questioning of the practice of “giving something up” for Lent. There was even an NPR piece about it. I’ve read numerous blogs and had several conversations with people who wonder whether or not the practice of giving something up cheapens Lent, that people use it as a pseudo-New Year’s Resolution, giving up a vice or a addiction, and that giving up chocolate, for instance, does not actually bring us closer to God if it is not accompanied by a change of attitude, devotion, etc. Fasting is meant to bring us closer to God, and giving up something trivial does not inherently do so. Furthermore, Lent specifically recalls Jesus’ time of fasting and temptation in the wilderness, and it is a poor and pathetic attempt to identify with his temptation if we give up something that has little real value to us. Actual fasting is what will help us understand giving up bread. Substituting good works–Isaiah 52–is the kind of fast God desires, specifically those which free the oppressed and declare the kingdom of God is at hand. Certainly Jesus’ fast in the desert is an Isaiah 52 fast.

Related: The Only Way Out is Through (A Lenten Reflection)

I have to admit that I agree with some of the sentiment here. Absolutely, God desires more from us than giving up sweets. But I also think people often take what they perceive to be worn-out traditions that have lost meaning and shake things up a bit, in part for the sake of saying something different or new. It’s much more hip to not give up something for Lent, or to give up God for Lent. Yet, some of the people who have influenced my life the most have engaged in this small-yet-meaningful discipline faithfully each year, and I think they’re better for it. Here’s why I think God still wants you to give up chocolate for Lent.

At least part of the point of a fast is to recognize the hold that things have on our lives that don’t matter as much as God’s provision. We are to learn to live on the word of God, the true Bread of Life. What better to demonstrate how small we actually are and how prone to dependence on earthly things than our feeble (and failed) attempts to refrain from something as small as sugar for just 40 days! If you’re like me, you find yourself unknowingly reaching for that cupcake or brownie without a second thought, and then halfway through someone says, “Didn’t you give up sweets for Lent?” Or worse, nobody does and it hits you on your own. Fasting asks the question: What do you actually need in your life to work for the kingdom of God? Surprisingly (or maybe not) very little. We don’t need social media (though some push back that it’s more like the telephone these days, to which I say, I don’t recall a telephone being a prerequisite for discipleship), computers, cars. But let’s be honest–most of us can’t do those bigger things. We are too weak. We might be able to squeeze in 40 days without Netflix..

Even a minor fast also points us to how habitually unintentional our lives are. We take a lot of time to engage in behaviors without hesitation: eating, dressing, talking, driving, watching TV. I imagine our lives would change dramatically if we actually acted with intention. It would change what we eat and where the food comes from; it would change how often we drive, what clothes we wear. If we actually stopped and thought before acting, we might actually act with more compassion. Most people have an automatic response to begging by homeless folk on street corners, which is to keep walking or to claim not to have money. Could it be that pausing to act with intention would change our response? I think giving up something mundane that we use or indulge in without thinking is an exceptionally useful way to begin this process.

Lastly, fasting is what I would call an outward sign of an inward reality as well as an inward sign of an outward reality. Forgoing food or pleasure of some kind, in any amount, is a representation of hopefully an inward life that is trying to clean out the trash and make room for God. We simply cannot hear God with too much junk in the way. The outward sign says to our peers, our community, I’m trying to be about our Father’s business, so hold me to it! So even a “little” fast of sweets can be enough to get us going on the right path. Simultaneously, fasting is also an inward sign of an outward reality. So much of our world is broken by disparity between the wealthy and poor. The emptying of our inner selves can be a reminder of the stark reality of so many who go hungry for other kinds of bread.

Related: This Lent, Pray for the #ChildrenofSyria

In Matthew 6, Jesus tells those listening that there is no point in worrying, that God clothes and feeds even the least of these. But when we look at the world, sometimes it does not feel this way. Right in the middle of this passage on worry, Jesus says the eye is the lamp of the body, which I take to mean that how we perceive the world to be at work changes how we will act in it. Fasting helps light that lamp. It helps us see the world through a better lens. We cultivate this inner lens when we consciously abstain from our indulgences. With attention, it can be a path to a renewed vigor for both God and humanity, to enact justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

So don’t be discouraged from giving up the small things for Lent. Yes, consider what else God is calling for you out of this Lent, but don’t let others trivialize a journey which can lead to the light at Easter.