I live in one of the places with the most potential to be a haven in times of distress, tragedy, and hardship – the Bible Belt. The region of the US most categorized by its tradition of church and religion. And yet, on the hardest days it often feels like either a bubble of rosy denial or an absolute wasteland – desolate and full of despair. There are no slivers of Heaven shining through here. Just memes and hot-takes and political flags and flowery posts about Bible verses.
Just people numbed or in denial. Just people out for themselves and “their people”. Just kindly cold, passively cruel, self-serving, self-righteous neighbors holding tight to their comfort while they lament the way “this world needs Jesus”.
The body of believers that makes up the church IS called to be Jesus in this world and we are failing miserably at it.
It is fiery on my heart that the church is spiritually weak and failing its mission of spreading the good news of God’s love. It’s not because people don’t go to church or because people have been deconstructing religion – it’s because of corruption and idols in the church along with manipulation and propaganda that are consistently used as a means of controlling and subduing congregations by those in positions of power.
Yes, the call is coming from inside the house.
I criticize the church because I love her and I believe in the power of a body of believers and I want to see that power change the world around me. If the body of Christ was doing what it is called to do as a collective group, the Bible Belt would be the best place to be in times of tragedy and hardship. We would be seeing the slivers of “on earth as it is in heaven” because we would be dripping with the fruits of the spirit – peace, joy, love, kindness, gentleness, etc. The Bible Belt could be a spiritual powerhouse but this place is full of despair and division. In moments of national heartbreak I see nothing but more hell in the places there should be reflections of heaven.
The current state of the American church is compromised by idols such as patriotism and American Nationalism. “America First” and everything that entails instead of “Christ First” is ruinous to the credibility and effectiveness of the church. Our spiritual formation as a people is rudimentary and is not nearly as strong and in depth as is needed to address the concerns of our world. Please don’t misunderstand, I don’t mean we need to bully and force our religion upon the masses, I mean we need to address the ways in which we as a church have been operating.
Christians and the American Church have allowed themselves to be twisted, used, and purchased by politicians and parties with hot-button trigger words.
As a body of believers, we are called to grow and share the fruits of the spirit – love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Where are our hats and flags and shirts and stickers that proclaim our loyalty to these things?
Christians have to refrain from falling prey to propaganda and from turning political activity into idol worship. Christ first: not America (and not my family and not my bank account, etc).
It is not that we should abstain from politics. Christ was not apolitical. He disrupted the wealthy and powerful and the corrupt systems of the church and rulers of the time in which he lived. He brought a kingdom mentality to the people that the first shall go last, that the mighty will be humbled, and the weak be made strong. Politics are not the problem, the way we engage in them is.
We are in a hell we have created ourselves. The Christian church in America will be meaningless if it doesn’t repent and change immediately. There is no time left. It is already too late in so many ways. People of the church must lay our idols down now, or stop pretending to be followers of Christ. We are supposed to be the activators and bringers of heaven on earth but we are instead submitting and complying to political manipulation and propaganda.
We are lazy and childish in our faith because of this. We don’t think critically and we don’t converse compassionately. We are rude and dismissive and demeaning to others (including other Christians) who come to a different conclusion than us regarding theology or anything else. Too many of us are set in old ways and refuse to see the need for repentance and redemption. Too many of us value personal safety, status, well-being, and financial security over the kingdom living Christ called us to. We offer one another very little support in spiritual growth. We continue to use fear and shame to “manage” one another, particularly children. We resort to spiritualizing the problems in our society instead of working together to make our world a place more like the kingdom. This is not good enough.
No more trite sayings or memes or cherry-picked Bible verses. This is the battle. It is a supernatural battle, not hand to hand combat. We can not stay spiritually weak and we can not resort to being religious zealots or “witch-trial” mentalities of “us against them”. The evil we are fighting is within us and amongst us, it is not “out there”, it is in the church. Quite frankly, a lot of times it is the institution of the church. It’s about our practices, and what they have done to us as people and what they have led us to do to others. It’s not about “the sinners” (individual sins) – it’s about the way we refuse to acknowledge and address our own collective sins of lust for money and power and safety and our worship of the idols of security and pride.
If we want a world that knows the love of God, then we must BE the love of God in the world. We are accountable for how we represent heaven on earth. We can not be as we have been and expect any great relief or revival. We are cruel and selfish and have prostituted our loyalty for promises of safety and power and called ourselves righteous and moral. We are who need to repent. Not “them”. It’s us. We continue to operate on corrupt systems. Our witness is meaningless like this.
