It had been over two years since we’d last spoken, not because of an argument, or even because of the pandemic. Like so many budding friendships before, we fell victim to the tides of life. Jobs. Responsibilities. Appointments, disappointments, and dinner at six.

I was quietly drawn to Ana from our first connection at the elementary school where our boys shared a fifth-grade classroom. Fifty waved hellos through car windows eventually led to her sitting on my couch, and later, a trip to the market across town where she revealed the source for the freshest taco-ready pork.

The first time I sat in her kitchen, she served me a slice of toast and a cup of tea, her eyes shimmering with tears as she shared about a painful corner of her life.

She battled a health crisis. She moved across town. The years stacked up, unseen.

A decade ago, my family moved into an overlooked neighborhood and promptly fell in love. After spending most of our lives in spaces where everyone mostly looked, lived, and believed as we did, we found ourselves caught up in the dumb luck of discovering comfort in complexity. How could a place so unfamiliar feel so instantly like home? I honestly couldn’t tell you.

But we began gathering evidence along the way. I could tell you about the last-minute invitations to parties where a generous cast of mostly-strangers sang Happy Birthday first in English, so we could sing along. I could try to describe the perpetual blare of the trains that speed through a hundred times a day, and how the particular pitch of the horn has settled into a soundtrack of belonging. I could point out my bedroom window right now at the tiny neighbors zipping down the plastic slide my kids have long outgrown.

Or I could pare the story down to one simple truth: the people nearby taught me by example how to live as though “neighbor” truly is part of my spiritual DNA.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12

JOIN: MORNING MONTHLY PRAYER WITH REV. MICHAEL MCBRIDE 

More specifically, everything I know about living as a neighbor, and loving my neighbors, I learned from Ana. She affirmed that every relationship starts with hello, and from there, it’s all wild speculation. Will we grow into the sort of friends who wind up rummaging through each other’s silverware drawers? Or will we simply be the sort who know each other’s faces and names, those loose but meaningful attachments that ground us to our communities? The good life is woven together with both.

Ana taught me there’s strength in asking for what we need and true generosity in offering what we can. She proved the wisdom of eating together whenever possible, especially when it’s unfancy and on-the-fly. Her worn kitchen table and dishes by the sink suddenly made mine feel company-worthy, too. This is real life, after all. There’s no point trying to hide that we’re living it.

She practiced listening more than speaking, and preached silent sermons about telling the truth. Maybe more than anything, she helped me cultivate hope that this world and our communities aren’t as fractured as they feel. We just have to get closer to street-level, where the good stuff grows. We have to learn to pay attention and remain available to the people near us, palms up, hair down, waiting to be wowed.

In Luke 19 we read the story of Zacchaeus to the tune of one of the most popular Sunday School songs ever written. The details are cemented in our memories: a small man climbs a sycamore tree to see Jesus, Jesus calls him down from the tree, Jesus invites himself to the man’s house for dinner.

Sketched within the catchy melody is our roadmap for loving our neighbors in the midst of ordinary life.

Jesus presumably had other plans that day in Jericho. But, “he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” He lived fully attentive to his surroundings, eager to engage, unbothered by the possibility of scandal, and willing to risk the vulnerability connection requires.

Stories of intentional, proximate compassion form one of the throughlines of the Gospel. Embracing our calling to love, care for, and be loved by the people near us is the very heart of God. But we will never experience what God intended for our good and our delight until we commit to receiving from those who are near us.

We aren’t well-practiced in receiving. It’s so much simpler to position ourselves as the giver, where we are in control. Putting ourselves out there can be terrifying, though it gets easier with practice.

With one simple text message, Ana dissolved two years of distance. We took turns tapping short updates into our phones, catching up on the basics. Life is still difficult in more ways than we’d like. But now we’re praying one another through the details, just like we used to. Next week, I’ll sit with her again – same table, different home. We’ll hug for the first time in two long years.

“Hello.” “I’ve missed you.” “Here’s a cup of tea.”

The invitation awaits us, but first we must choose. Will we believe the loudest voices, which warn us to choose sides quickly, dig in our heels, and rely on our own independence? Or will we trace the steps of Jesus himself, who invited us into abundance through his living testimony as a neighbor, awake and available to God’s goodness in his own city streets?

This is no inconsequential enterprise. There’s plenty that holds us back. We’re shy, overwhelmed, lonely, afraid, imperfect, scared of messing up, nervous about rejection, and uncertain if this hope we hold is simply too big.

But on the other side of what holds us back is authentic, long-haul belonging.

We cannot love what we don’t know. And we cannot know what we don’t truly see.

So, here’s to one tiny step, one shared hello, one moment to look up at the beauty of creation, believing it all brings us closer to each other, and above all, closer to our friend and neighbor, Jesus.

NEW YORK – LIVE FREE USA joins The Quincy Institute and Red Letter Christians to host: “55 Years Later: Can the Church Study War No More?”

The event comes amid a harrowing war in Ukraine, violent crime spikes in US cities and continued economic distress in communities of color across the country.  This FREE forum will invite people of faith and good will to reflect and commemorate the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Beyond Vietnam speech where he calls on all people to defeat the “triplets of evil: militarism, racism and poverty.” National leaders will gather to re-read the historic speech, followed by a panel conversation featuring Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King. Special musical guests Brian Courtney Wilson, Aaron Niequist, and Common Hymnal will perform.

“Violence abroad and violence at home require the active engagement of the church if we are to be agents of peace and justice in these times. We cannot allow our tax dollars to be a slush fund for military contractors abroad or militarization in US cities.” says Pastor Mike McBride.

Adds Shane Claiborne “the prophets call people of God to study war no more! We intend to amplify this call among faith leaders and congregations with an aim to resurrect a faith driven anti-war movement which encompasses the foreign and domestic expressions of state violence: international military actions in Ukraine, Yemen, Somalia and Israel/Palestine; police and state violence including the death penalty; and community gun violence in black and brown communities”.

Executive Director of Quincy Institute Lora Lumps says, “The importance of the faith community, in partnership with bi-partisan policymakers, advocating for peaceful resolutions to violent conflicts at home and abroad has never been more critical. As the Biden administration and this Congress adds close to $100B to already bloated military budgets and private contracts, poor people in the United States and underdeveloped countries around the world are met with death and needless suffering. We cannot not be so committed to funding violence and strength through might.”

This event is April 2 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Riverside Church, the location where Dr. King gave this historic speech. The event is free and open to the press.

Proof of vaccination or negative PCR test (within 72 hours of event) and masks are required for entry to Riverside Church. 

WHO: Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King, and RLC Leaders, Shane Claiborne, Rev. Michael McBride, Rev. Traci Blackmon, Rev. Todd Yeary (RLC Board Chair), Lisa Sharon Harper (RLC Board Member), Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Jemar Tisby, Sharon Risher,  Michael W. Waters, Erich Kussman, Carlos Rodriguez, Diana Oestreich, Common Hymnal, and Aaron Niequist.

WHAT: MLK Beyond Vietnam 55 Years Later: Can the Church Study War No More

WHEN: Doors open at 3:30 ET on Saturday, April 2; the event will run from (approx.) 4-6 ET.

WHERE: The Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Dr, New York, NY. Live stream can also be viewed on RLC’s Facebook, YouTube, or website.

RSVP: bit.ly/mlkvietnamspeech2022

CONTACT: Katie Kirkpatrick, sc@redletterchristians.org, (856) 477-3277

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I took my indignation to the Dean. I presented my opinions, trying to mask my moral outrage. My memory of that conversation, some forty-five years ago, is that he mumbled or spoke in double talk. In retrospect, I don’t think he said much of anything except to toe the party line. He was certainly uncomfortable with me – and I couldn’t tell if he was uncomfortable with the decision the school had made. In my adrenaline-fed arrogance and indignation, I found his response unsatisfactory.

In some desperation, I took my concerns to Henri Nouwen, who lived in a basement apartment in the same dorm where my classmate resided. Henri was becoming a nationally, if not internationally known spiritual giant, but somehow he always made himself available to students. He agreed to meet with me.

READ: Radical Forgiveness and Ableism in the Church

I told him the story about my classmate’s removal. He said he didn’t know much, if anything, about the particulars of the case. When I finished my litany of complaint, I fully expected him to tell me that I had figured the place out, that Christian community was fiction if not a sham, – and that I should get out and go to law school , and be done with the whole business. Instead, he looked at me straight in the eye, and said, “what do you expect?” 

More than this, I said. Actually, I am not sure I said anything, because I was too stunned by his response. He went on: people do the best they can, and often it isn’t very good. People hurt one another, even when – and often when -, they don’t intend to. What he didn’t say, but certainly implied, was ‘– get over it.’ Not the presumed injustice of the situation, but the fact that people don’t behave very well with one another. Get over it, because when you are able to see people in their vulnerability and with their flaws, it becomes paradoxically easier to see people as being imbued with at least a modicum of God’s grace. And It also cuts down on the ego-driven moral indignation, so that you can deal with the situation with better perspective.

I have told the story about my meeting with Henri dozens of times over the years partly because, no, mainly because, I am trying to get over the fact that people do dark things to one another. And realizing that reality has, over the ensuing years, lowered my ego temperature so I can see injustice more clearly and challenge it more effectively. 

JOIN: Monthly Morning Prayer with Rev. William Barber II on April 1st at 9am

Most people, particularly those in 12- step groups, are familiar with the Serenity Prayer: “God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” What I didn’t know until recently, is that Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous prayer continues: “Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next.”

Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. That takes a lot of work – and the work is letting go in order to see what is. Letting go of the expectation that the world be free of darkness. Letting go of our indignation that the darkness exists. The darkness is there; we have to live in it, deal with it, and see the light in the midst of darkness.

Content taken from Seeing the Unseen: Beyond Prejudices, Paradigms, and Party Lines by Mark Beckwith, ©2022. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.

The collective grief and trauma is compounded for many of us. It doesn’t feel right to normalize it, but here we are. Another Uber Eats gift card. Another prayer request. Another casserole. Another bouquet of condolence flowers. None of it feels like enough.

Today as I write this, I’m doing something else I’ve normalized. Today, my 9-year-old is getting her 11th MRI. She was born with a rare form of spina bifida and has lived with a cone-shaped tumor called a syrinx tangled in her spinal cord nerves for her whole life. She is disabled. So here I am, tuning out the ridiculously loud hum of this ominous-looking machine encapsulating my child. I’m pretending it’s totally normal that she’s lying there with weights on her legs, watching Ice Age through a mirror.

But every once in a while, a thought will cross my mind, and my eyes will notice something- and tears come out of nowhere. I swear they weren’t there just a minute ago. I swear I was fine. But am I? Ever so often, she will break eye contact with the movie and look at me, so I try to make sure I’m smiling. I mouth encouragement with my lips to stay still while the doctors get the pictures they need. I give a thumbs up and a silent clap. I pretend I’m brushing hair out of my eyes instead of wiping away tears.

This is what it’s like to live with caregiver trauma every day. This is what it’s like to have to normalize living in a way that’s not sustainable long term—fighting through a million of those invisible moments, over and over. As my tears fell, I wondered what my daughter’s future would look like, and I felt the bitterness creep back in. It’s a constant battle to reject anger and trade it for mercy. For humility. For love. Sometimes I’m more successful than others.

As I sat in that MRI room, I remembered a day a few weeks earlier. On the way home from school, my 8-year-old with asthma asked out of the blue, “I know we wear masks to protect other people because we love people, but when someone doesn’t wear a mask around me, does it mean they don’t love me?” Again, she’s 8. And those words broke my heart.

Caroline has been hospitalized in the PICU multiple times over the last two years for asthma-related complications. Part of me wants to say yes because I have wondered the same thing. But as a parent, I know I can’t say that. And as my child sat waiting for my response, I had to figure out why really fast. So we talked about how Christ on the cross suffered after doing nothing wrong. We talked about how he prayed to forgive the people that put him there because “they knew not what they did.” We wondered about the crucifixion out loud together. Those people knew they were mocking and murdering Jesus as well as the robbers flanking him, but he forgave them still.

READ: Finding Jesus in Rural America

It occurred to me that maybe Jesus wasn’t suggesting that He was the exception, as in “forgive them, Father, for murdering me.” “Forgive them for they know not what they do” is actually very different. To this day, theologians and scholars still debate what actually happened on the cross. Maybe this is because the mystery of Christ on the cross is still much more radical and powerful than any of us could ever fully wrap our brains around. What if Jesus was asking his Heavenly Father to forgive how humanity’s obsession with murder, power, and violence had led him to that moment? What if Christ’s forgiveness is much larger than we could ever possibly imagine? What if his grace is? What if ours could be too?

So as my daughter and I pulled into the driveway, I reminded my child how fully loved she is. I reminded her how spreading love, forgiveness, and grace when it is hard is exactly how Jesus chose to reveal his authority and mercy on the cross. So even when we feel unloved, we choose to forgive and extend mercy anyway, like Jesus.

Caring for medically fragile children in a pandemic is at times an invisible load. Often we’ve had to minimize it greatly for the comfort of many of our healthier and more able-bodied friends. Just like so often, the experiences of BIPOC people are systematically erased in favor of a white narrative; the experience of medically fragile families and image-bearers with disabilities has largely been forced to the margins too.

When I think about the church leaders that have regularly boasted about how they disdain mask-wearing, distrust doctors, oppose health care reform, and refuse vaccines that will keep their most vulnerable congregants safe, I think about how unwelcoming places like that have been to families like mine. If these sanctuaries refuse to prioritize belonging for the least among us, then where do the least of these among us find sanctuary? Does a consistent pro-life ethic include the vulnerable in our midst? How much does the sanctity of their lives matter?

Our family has been blessed to be a part of churches that partner with us so well. They go out of their way to show our kids love in many thoughtful and intentional ways. They listen. They join us in solidarity. They truly care. But largely, when I talk to other parents of disabled children and adults with disabilities, their experience isn’t like mine. Those families are regularly excluded, overlooked, and ignored in many evangelical circles.

WATCH: RLC Book Club Kids and Youth Edition

Church institutions will cite their insurance policies as the reason they can’t accommodate a child with a particular disability in their upscale environment. Volunteers will feel inconvenienced and scared of liability. So then who will invite that child into belonging? Who will invite that parent? Or do we find ourselves standing as gatekeepers between medically fragile families and the table of Jesus?

Thankfully this is never the case as Jesus is always on the other side with the vulnerable – but that’s a sobering reminder as well. Exactly what kind of table are the gatekeepers protecting? And who will show up to make that child feel safe and that family feel seen?

The church has had a unique opportunity in the pandemic to participate in the grand reversal as it relates to children with disabilities. One of the simplest ways to participate is to simply join disabled families in friendship, advocacy, and the everyday work of bearing one another’s burdens.

I’m not talking about inspiration porn. I’m talking about friendship, belonging, and interdependent community. As a church, throughout this pandemic, how did we measure up? If we asked our disabled, chronically ill, and caregiving neighbors, would they feel safe enough to even tell us the truth? Would they feel safe enough to admit that, at times, the obsession with freedom and individual rights fueled by Christian Nationalism has led them to feel invisible and unloved by the church? Because there are times I don’t feel safe enough to admit that many church leaders’ public positions on healthcare reform, masks, and vaccines, have directly made my family feel unloved by the church institutions they represent.

While the disability experience is not a monolith, by & large caregivers and disabled people are familiar with the feeling of being excluded from environments that seemingly welcome their presence but not their belonging. And I have to wonder if our churches are not fully FOR the least among them first, then who are they really for?

As we continue towards whatever else 2022 holds, may we allow ourselves to be angered at the way medically fragile children have silently endured a different kind of pandemic trauma than their healthy peers. May we repent for all the times our actions and inaction made someone with a disability feel invisible and alone. And may we be willing to change how we pursue the cruciform love of Jesus towards the medically vulnerable so that those image bearers truly know how loved they are.

Rev Otis Moss III, founder of Unashamed Media Group, asked Common Hymnal to contribute music for “Otis’ Dream,” the Get Out The Vote film he wrote and produced for the 2020 election. More specifically, he asked them to produce a new arrangement of the old spiritual ‘I Want Jesus To Walk With Me’ for the final credits.

The project’s goal was to combat the wave of voter suppression that was forming in states across the nation despite the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. And encourage black Christians to vote.

The film tells the story of his grandfather, a sharecropper, who was denied the right to vote in rural Georgia in the forties after walking over 18 miles to three different polling locations. Oprah Winfrey first heard the story in the early eighties and has told it in election cycles ever since. She previewed the movie and interviewed Otis on SuperSoul Sunday before the 2020 election. The film was shown in black churches across the country that weekend and will hopefully inspire black Christians to get out and vote for many election seasons to come.

Common Hymnal feels passionate about this issue and plans to support several Get Out The Vote initiatives this coming year. This recording is one of their contributions to the discussion.

Because of the deadline, they recorded the first version in an all-nighter and vowed to re-produce a full version of the song when they had a window of time. The result is this new music video, featuring vocals by The Spirituals, Junior Garr, Niiella, Sharon Irving and Chris Blue, and footage from the film and the animation that Ron Abdou and Zach Stewart created for the original track.

PLEASE visit otisdream.com to watch the story in its fullness, and find helpful resources.

Epiphany is the revelation of hope embodied in One who came to live and serve among us so that we may be one. (John 17: 18-21)

How ironic it is that on this same date in 2021, our democracy was once again challenged by some who profess Christianity and yet fear the very coming together of diverse cultures and faiths across imposed geographical boundaries that our celebration of Epiphany represents. On the grounds of our Capitol, some citizens stormed the seat of our government, waving American and confederate and Nazi flags alongside “Christian” banners conflating God and government, in a failed attempt to thwart the peaceful transition of power for which our democracy is known.

Many watched in horror and disbelief as white vigilantes, spurred on by the inflammatory lies of our former president and the politicians, public figures and preachers who have chosen to follow him, stormed gates, scaled walls, built gallows, and ultimately caused the death of others. They believed they had just cause. That 19 states have passed 34 laws restricting voting rights, and impeding equal representation, reveals they are not alone.

Such efforts will always ultimately fail, not because God is on the side of one or the other, but, rather, because God is not the Government and the Government is not God. And there is still a light shining in the darkest of moments guiding us toward the pathway to love.

READ: The Heresy of Christian Nationalism

We must always remember the travesty of the violent insurrection that we witnessed during Epiphany last year. It was an attack on us all. As we mourn anew, let us do so with our hearts turned toward the revelatory light of Epiphany. Let us celebrate Epiphany knowing that, while many supported the insurrection, so many more did not. Let us do so remembering that although 19 states have enacted restrictive voting rights laws, 25 states have enacted 54 laws with provisions to expand voting access. Let us do so knowing that on January 6, 2022, tens of thousands of people from all walks a life gathered in more than 350 vigils all across the U.S. to remember and renew together.

Let us also know that our elected leaders can show moral courage by passing democracy protections for all of us: the Protecting Our Democracy Act provides historic reforms that will restore fundamental checks and balances and provide guardrails against future abuses of presidential power; the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act will establish national standards that protect voting rights, and will require federal review of any state law that attempts to discriminate against voters.

Let us celebrate Epiphany not made bitter, but better, by the challenge of so many who lost their way to love. Let us remember the words of poet Lucille Clifton in her poem, won’t you celebrate with me, that “everyday something has tried to kill me and failed.” This Epiphany, let us be reminded to look toward that light and choose rebirth and redemption — over and over again — and let us remember that redemption is possible when we live out love.

Let us learn from the tragedies of our past and move toward the light within each of us fueled by the everlasting power of love, knowing that love is the only thing that never dies. It is toward this light that we are called, and it is only in this light we are all warmed.

In the Christian scriptures, it is very simple – as Jesus himself put it, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). And the apostle John reflects this when he wrote, “This is the love of God, that we keep God’s commandments” (1 John 5:3).

Love, the Bible (and common sense) tells us, is what we do. But that’s not what the church announcement said or even implied.

“Loving Jesus” in many Christian circles has come to mean precisely the opposite of what Jesus clearly stated. For many I know who claim Christianity, “Loving Jesus” does not equate to living an exemplary or even distinctly Christ-following life.  Salvation, they tell me, is not earned or even deserved: it is free gift to be claimed.

Can anyone really just “claim” salvation? Or maybe this isn’t even the question to be asked. Maybe instead, we should wonder if salvation is the only (or even primary) goal and achievement of faith? Is living a life of compassion, generosity, and sacrifice of so little value or interest that it is not even considered?

There’s an old saying among believers, rarely heard anymore, that sums up this vacuous theology. It says, “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good.”

The irony for Christians is that Jesus, at every level, was of constant, enormous, and often near sacrilegious “earthly good.” He healed the sick, touched the unclean, condemned the religious bureaucrats and their followers, and praised “righteous” unbelievers. I would like to ask our current generation of such followers of Jesus why they call themselves Christians. Would they say that it is because they “know Jesus”? Would they be able to tell me what that means?

What I really want to know is why this “love” so often doesn’t look like love; why this “faith” doesn’t look like faith. Would they say, “It’s not about what love looks like, it’s about what I believe”?

READ: The Wrong Debate: On Alabama’s New Gas Chamber

To that, I would press, “Does any expression of love fit that definition?” If I love a dog or cat, or even a child or spouse, isn’t my love reflected by what I do and how I treat them? And not by what I “believe” about them?

One of the many ironies of modern, specifically American, Christianity is how indistinct it is from the larger culture. Being called out by scripture as a “peculiar people”—those who live by and are inspired by divine principles and are alien to the larger culture—you’d think that people of faith would stand out and be literally defined by their compassion, generosity, and sacrifice in the greater community.

But no, Christians are rarely a distinct, inspiring presence. In fact, in most cases, they barely make their presence known at all. As we have seen all too often in the 2020s, “Christians” are seemingly eager to believe and propagate absurd conspiracies while refusing even the most basic health precautions in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century.

Instead of being of service to or even proponents of truth and integrity, all too many Christians use their “faith” as an excuse to flaunt their own privilege if not arrogance and ignorance. At its most basic, how does a church parking lot, for example, differ from the parking lot of any mall or public space? How does a typical contemporary Christian value differ from what anyone else values?  How would, or should, a “Christian” neighborhood look, or even feel, different from a neighborhood of non-believers?

There is a parable in the New Testament about a house built on sand and a house built on rocks. Per my interpretation, the point of the story is not that the house built on sand that collapses. Rather, the point is the house built on the rock that prevails. And what makes that house prevail?  Hearing and doing. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24).

And just a few verses earlier in this same chapter, a warning is given about false prophets, who will be recognized “by their fruits” (their actions).  And in verse 21 of the same chapter, a clear warning to anyone who might “claim” salvation: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

I’m not interested in “claiming” salvation, but I am interested in “being” a follower of the one who calls us to “go and do” and be of distinct, powerful, and often baffling “earthly good.”

I’m interested in a reality where “loving Jesus” is the beginning, not the end, of my faith: one where I see the poor, my livelihood, and my relationship with every other living creature through the lens of Christ.

“Christ says, ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it.’” — C.S. Lewis

This quote from Mere Christianity apparently circulates frequently on Christian social media. It’s been decades since I have read Mere Christianity, so the context of this particular quote escapes me. But that is, in fact, the point. This quote is assertively used in isolation by mainstream evangelical platforms. The sans-context shock value seems to be its intent.

C.S. Lewis just might be the most quoted modern voice in evangelical Christian platforms. His theological legacy rivals that of the Apostle Paul. Posting C.S. Lewis quotes have become a signal that the source is steeped in a tradition of apologetics that need no vetting. If Lewis said it, it is beyond debate; dare I say “gospel.”

Now understand, I’m a long time C. S. Lewis fan and read more than a dozen of his books. The Narnia series both opened up my childhood imagination and helped shape the very foundation of my faith. In my mind, Aslan and God were synonymous and the allegorical fantasy series accomplished what it set out to do. It demonstrated the path of divine allegiance through adventures that tested the character’s faith.

But something about this quote gutted me.

I had a visceral response to it that wouldn’t shake by scrolling to the next batch of memes, hot “news” takes, and TikToks. Like a blood stain on a crisp white t-shirt that demands attention, the words “torment” and “kill” distracted me from the message of devotion intended by the quote.

Certainly the hyperbolic metaphor that relishes murder over sadism is in stark contrast to Jesus’ ministry which was anchored in healing diseased bodies and spiritual wounds. Even the logic is structured around the would be disciple’s expectation of torture, with the morbid comfort of divine murder. Most disturbing is that this violent language of intent is put in the first person point of view, the mouth of Christ himself. The same Christ who said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

Ignoring conventional wisdom warning against social media religious debate, I posted the following response to Lewis’ quote on The Gospel Coalition:

“Powerful and deadly [skull emoji] Imago Dei would never kill itself. We are made in the image of the divine who created our unique gifts and desires. Christ literally came to bring life. This kind of argument relies on a kind shock and zeal that creates more spiritual shameful anxiety than spiritual freedom. Sorry C.S. You have wisdom but you are not the 5th gospel.”

It wasn’t well received. The pushback was predictable: from comments quoting scripture such as “deny yourself and take up the cross” to whataboutism metaphors such as “crucifying the flesh.” To be fair, the defenders of the quote were reasonable and scripturally accurate. The Christian path, like many faiths, includes a dichotomy of healing and suffering.

Undeniably, the language of self-violence is present in scripture and used generously by the church in the name of purifying our “sinful” nature. And yet, John the Baptist practiced the profoundly peaceful cleansing ritual of baptism to symbolize a new beginning. Even the warrior king David’s prayer for God to “cleanse me with hyssop” communicates the message of purification without the language of self-violence. But the imagery of an herbal bath is rarely used in the American church pulpit. Instead, we are more often conditioned to view our faith in terms of the violent metaphor of crucifixion and imagery of martial loyalty.

Take, for example, the early cultivation of the language of war I learned before I could even read in Sunday School. One song describing the Christian commitment was even sung in military cadence with coordinating charades. The lyrics depict stark warlike imagery that incorporate military body language to playfully illustrate the verses. Perhaps it’s familiar:

I may never march in the infantry
Ride in the cavalry
Shoot the artillery
I may never fly o’er the enemy
But I’m in the Lord’s army
Yes, Sir!

(repeat)

I can’t tell you how many times I got up and sang that fun interactive sing-along in Sunday school, VBS, and summer camp. I also couldn’t tell back then how the repetitive military imagery would normalize braiding lyrics of battle with language of faith.

And that’s just the Kid’s Bop version. Revisit the lyrics of the powerful abolitionist anthem “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” where God’s “terrible swift sword” meets “fiery gospel.” Written during an actual war to free enslaved, brutalized, and lynched people, this language is in keeping with the literal context of a brutal war fought for justice. But singing it today, far from its civil war context, becomes another anthem validating the metaphorical “Army of God” fighting the hypothetical persecution complex narrative the modern-day American church seeks to wage.

Why is the language of war repeated, shared, and celebrated in the church?

How has military and conquest become a central repeated metaphor of the gospel — literally translated “good news”?

How has language of violence, suffering, pain, torture, and even divine murder (according to C.S. Lewis) become a normalized metaphorical language of our faith?

Is it possible that conditioned language steeped in violent imagery creates a perspective that justifies and celebrates violence in the name of God?

Is it any wonder the evangelical church is culturally aligned with gun culture, military glorification, and authoritarianism?

The lexicon of war is rooted in hierarchy, aggression, weaponry, military strategy, and battles. This language is pervasive in the evangelical pulpit from mild sports metaphors to historical battle illustrations. Indeed, one of the single most used sermon illustrations is the “Armor of God” passage in Ephesians 6. It is taught in Sunday School, themed in VBS, heck, I even bought my kids a life-sized costume complete with the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit.

Do you know what wasn’t available in the children’s Bible bookstore? A feet washing kit. And yet, Jesus doesn’t just mention feet washing as a hyperbolic metaphor, he literally undresses, wraps a towel around his waist, and washes the disciples’ feet the night before his own actual crucifixion. And then? He directs them to do the same. Not as a pulpit metaphor, not as a figure of speech, but as a matter of practicing the kind of radical humility and true equanimity the love of Christ exemplifies.

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” (John 13:14-16)

The man we habitually call the “King of Kings” insisted on being a “Servant of Servants.” 

Without question, death is an important metaphor in faith. But so is life. We too often forget the balm of Psalm 23 (“He leads me beside the still waters, he restores my soul”), and we focus on Galatians 5’s invitation to “crucify the flesh.” We are so desensitized to the graphic imagery of the crucifixion that we are immune to the recoiled responses of those seeking a faith of healing, not crucifixion.

We would do well to communicate the love of Christ with restorative language that welcomes healing rather than violent language that threatens suffering. Certainly Jesus himself invites us repeatedly into the language of love: love neighbors, love enemies, love self, bless others, do good, turn the cheek, lend without expectation, show mercy, give and forgive.

We have just as many scriptures validating the peaceful, restorative, healing love of God. Most ironically this is found in the repentant Psalm 51 of the warrior king himself, David:

“Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.”

This language of love, nurturing, restoration is absent any violent imagery in this Psalm of repentance. The only sacrifice offered is the broken spirit David brings to God — not to kill or torture, but to heal and restore. In fact, it is this very language of love he notes that will actually draw others to God’s love, not the language of blood sacrifice.

Why is it that our modern church culture identifies faith with the language of pain, aggression, and domination more so than with nurturing peace and equality? Perhaps the linguistic indoctrination of a faith “warrior” reflects and perpetuates a culture bent toward the certainty of power that war protects instead of the risk of peace that love offers. The human condition vacillates between the capacity for destruction and creation. Micah 4 offers wisdom to reconcile our bent toward aggression by literally refashioning weapons of war into garden tools.

“They will beat their swords into plowshares
 and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
Everyone will sit under their own vine
and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
for the Lord Almighty has spoken.”

This literal vision of converting the destructive energy of human nature into a creative energy profoundly leads us back to the garden, under the fig tree we once dressed ourselves in shame. It is in the garden, not the battlefield, where we will experience the true peace of divine union. In the same way, we can convert our language of war into a language of love. We just have to embrace the language of baptism, creation, and restoration.

Let us then speak the truth in love, not war.

The story is long and complicated.  How can I explain the course and trajectory of a 30+ year relationship in a few paragraphs?  Let’s start in 2020.

I live with chronic illness.  Some of it diagnosed, some of it not.  The part that is diagnosed (Ulcerative Colitis) involves injections that affect my immune processes.  If I were to contract COVID-19, I would need to suspend my injection therapy in order to ensure recovery, thereby opening the gate for my overactive immune system to potentially come unglued.  It took me over 10 years and 3 hospitalizations to get said immune system under control, so I’m not anxious to take any chances.  

I’m one of the lucky ones.  My disease is currently in remission, meaning I’m not taking prednisone or other medications that would put me at high risk for severe illness from COVID-19.  I don’t have other conditions that automatically place me at high risk including sickle cell disease, Down Syndrome, major organ transplant, or cancer treated with chemotherapy.  I’ve always had access to good healthcare to manage my condition and advise me of risks and necessary precautions.

When the pandemic hit, I was in for a rude awakening.  High-risk people need their communities to care about them enough to adhere to distancing, masks, and other precautions.  My community, and our churches, in particular, went the other direction.  With Trump flags flown high, and “Jesus > COVID” signs littering yards, they insisted our duty as good Christians was to proceed as normal and not let fear rule our lives.  For the most part, the churches I know either spoke this or said nothing.  

It is awfully convenient to believe the right thing to do is whatever you want, at anyone else’s expense.

It felt like the lives of the sick and vulnerable didn’t matter.  Then George Floyd was murdered.  At that point, disregard for lives like mine in the pandemic was actually a gift because it allowed me to see Black Lives Matter and other cries for justice and equality with more empathy and more urgency.    Regrettably, it took something personal for me to actually feel harm from the lust for power in our churches and reach a point of no return.  It hurts.  It stirs up doubt.  I am heartbroken over it.  

If a good God moves in and through God’s churches, shouldn’t those churches be primarily a force for good?  Not a force for the proliferation of suffering and harm?  Those on the wrong side of power will tell you this is a centuries-old reality when it comes to white religious institutions.

Obviously, there is a continuum along which various actions and beliefs of both groups and individuals lie.  Just because someone disagrees with me doesn’t mean they don’t have worth, don’t do any good, and aren’t worthy of love.  However, if a person or a system is inflicting harm, standing by and saying nothing is not loving the inflictors of that harm any more than the recipients of it.

When I voice these things to the people in my church circles, I hear a lot about how “all have sinned,” about specks and planks, and above all, the importance of unity.  I acknowledge the truth and importance of these teachings.  I also read in the gospels what Jesus had to say to the power-hungry religious leaders of his day, and it doesn’t sound very unifying.  

The way we’ve been doing unity in white churches isn’t stopping the ebullience for Trumpism (and all its accompanying -isms) that is rooted and growing among us.  I may be wrong about a lot of things, but I’m just not ok with that.    

I don’t know what to do with all of this, honestly.  I continue to pray for guidance, direction, and forgiveness.  I try to speak up when appropriate or necessary.  I look for the ones in my circles of interaction who are pushed to the outside and stand with them.  I continue to read and seek wisdom. (I just finished Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt.  I’m currently in the middle of Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne.  Up next is Jemar Tisby’s How to Fight Racism.  In case you’re looking for recommendations.)  

One thing I know: My love for God leads me to love others. If I truly love them, I listen to them.  If they are suffering, I care, and I do what I can to help.  This involves the hard work of removing the blinders of power and privilege because my love for Jesus stirs me to love especially those cast aside and trampled down by power the way that he did.  

It is important to state specifically what this means: As a follower of Christ, it is imperative for me to listen to and stand with siblings in marginalized groups, including people of color, the LGBTQ community, the poor, immigrants, and people from different religious backgrounds.  To tell the truth about the white church’s ugly history of oppression and its modern manifestations.  To speak for the dignity and worth of all people as God’s people and take care of all creation as God’s creation.  To believe in science and medicine because to reject them is to reject reality.  To call out and refute the destructive force of Christian Nationalism that has destroyed so many lives.  To do all I can to spread God’s marvelous, boundless love as displayed in Jesus to all.     

The following two poems came out of all this…

Reality – A Song

There is music 

when there aren’t words.

Heartbroken phrases and surges

that end in soft discord.

No resolution, but a way

to release hearts to say,

“That turmoil is inside me too.”

Here is the pandemic truth:

When lives stand in power’s way,

power steps on the gas.

I mean even and especially 

the hoarded power stored up 

in America’s White Evangelical Church.

Where so many desperate prayers

dissolve into its resounding silence.

I finally learned this song

and played it for that church.  

It told me to play the familiar songs 

of unity instead.  But suffering 

roars its savage head.  Willful ignorance 

breeds hate disguised as righteousness.

And unity, as it’s meant here,

enables all of it.  

READ: A Viral Prayer in the Age of COVID-19

Reality – The Song I Play Anyway

There is a way.

It is all colors

and infinite space.

It is narrow and difficult

but teeming with grace.

Many will try to replace it

with power gussied up

in all sorts 

of righteous-sounding names,

with a wide gate

and easy access.

But nothing will replace it.

Nothing will stop it.

Not power, not death,

not suffering from circumstance

or the two-fisted slaughter

of free will.

Nothing.

It is love.

Always and for all creation – 

Love.

It is not in the churches.

It is in the churches.

It comes out of the churches

and gets bigger.

It is empty of fear

but full of questions

with no easy answers.

Full of seekers and finders.

Full of freedom and truth.

Full of justice

for the smothered,

the overlooked, the mown down.

Justice for the poor, the sick,

and the dismissed.

Justice for the extinguished,

the anguished,

the crying, the dying,

the dead.

To a single drop of water,

it is the ocean.

To one particle of light,

the Aurora Borealis.

To one grain of earth,

the Rocky Mountains.

To time, space, and matter,

…something unimaginably more.

It is for the last and the first,

but the last will be first,

and the first live like that’s true

now. Underway now

for each one.

Love for each one

from each one

courtesy of

The One who is Love.