Tag: death

Conservative Evangelicalism, Are You Going To Kill Me Too?

The Bible is laced with stories of murder.

Christianity is laced with stories of murder.

Conservative Evangelicalism is laced with stories of murder.

 

Fact, fact, fact.

 

Everywhere you turn, it’s here, there, and everywhere; past, present, and future.

Whether intended or not, spiritual, emotional, and physical death are the wake your creeds have long created upon the sea of humanity. It’s undeniable, well documented, and refuses to be erased. Sadly, yours is a murderous brand of believing. Tough to hear, sad to say.

Don’t believe me?

Noah’s Ark, the Crusades, Indigenous Indian colonization, Black slavery, the list goes on and on. And now, your continued brutal assault on the LGBTQ community, the black community, the poor, women, minorities, and any and all of those who would stand against you and your pursuit to nationalize your white, male-driven, conservative Evangelical faith and the white supremacy it enables.

I understand, perhaps not all individuals within the conservative Evangelical faith support these pursuits, but as a former conservative Evangelical pastor of 20+ years, I know for sure, beyond any doubt, that your system of faith is a well-oiled catalyst, breeding ground, and incubator for violence of every type and kind. That’s the truth.

You know the saying, “If it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it probably is a duck.” A past of repeated, consistent behavior is a trustable indicator of the future. Patterns are powerful at predicting. One only needs to connect the very dots your faith system hopes to conceal. As your Lord and Savior Donald Trump declared, “I love the poorly educated.” 

Yes, I’m concerned. And, I wonder why you aren’t. Because now, more than ever, it seems that many among your faith system are willing to knowingly and cheerfully embrace any evil and all costs to lie, cheat, and bully your way into having democracy vanish and your dictatorship emerge, even to the spiritual rationalization of murder. 

You actually called the murder of a police officer during the January 6th insurrection, a “legitimate political discourse.”

You called the reality of school shootings a clear need for more people to have more guns, “if only the victims had been carrying guns.”  

You tell women in the inevitable event of a rape to, “lie back and enjoy it.” And don’t forget, there is such a thing as, “legitimate rape.”

You position yourself as against abortion, “every life is a sacred gift from God,” but refuse to support the solutions that actually work to remedy it. It’s as if you’ve decided that you can benefit from the problem more than the cure. 

You declare that, “America is not racist” while frantically trying to erase all the clear history that  reveals the contrary. In fact, it wasn’t until 1995, that your SBC finally admitted your supportive role in black slavery. Which, by the way, makes me wonder, how do you admit to fostering black slavery in the past and try to erase the history of it now? 

You want us to believe that you are, “pro-women” and “pro-life” but yet hold fast to patriarchal leadership and the demonizing of a woman’s choice, all while you objectify their bodies. Not to mention, all the violence and death you are quick to rationalize when it serves your purposes and decry when it doesn’t. 

Violence, murder, death, and abuse. 

Everything you touch that refuses to be white-washed and converted is subjected to your brutality. The history and present, they don’t lie.

Which leads me to wonder, are you going to kill me too?

For some, that may seem like a barbaric question. But at frequent moments in time, yours has been a barbaric system of faith. I would be ignorant not to consider the possibility. History and the present clearly shows me, it’s what you do.

So, I’m wondering. 

If one day, your dreams come true and you rule the country and make all the rules, when I refuse to pledge allegiance to your so-called Christian flag, are you going to kill me too?

If one day, your dreams come true and you rule the country and make all the rules, when I refuse to give up my land and property into your ownership and control, are you going to kill me too?

If one day, your dreams come true and you rule the country and make all the rules, when I refuse to work in your camps and serve your plantations, are you going to kill me too?

If one day, your dreams come true and you rule the country and make all the rules, when I profess to be a “progressive” and refuse to attend your churches, sing your songs, and believe your brand of believing, are you going to kill me too?

If one day, your dreams come true and you rule the country and make all the rules, if I should have an LGBTQ child who I affirm, support, and empower, are you going to kill me too?

If one day, your dreams come true and you rule the country and make all the rules, if I should stand between the barrel of your gun ready to shoot an innocent black man, are you going to kill me too?

If one day, your dreams come true and you rule the country and make all the rules, if I should refuse to surrender my daughter into your sexual pleasure and service, are you going to kill me too?

If one day, your dreams come true and you rule the country and make all the rules, when I can no longer benefit your pursuits or become a burden, are you going to kill me too?

If one day, your dreams come true and you rule the country and make all the rules, when I feed the poor, heal the sick, favor the brokenhearted, proclaim justice for the oppressed, visit an adulterous woman at a well, give hospitality to a Samaritan, feed thousands for free, dine with “sinners,” proclaim that all are equally imaged in God, place my hope in Love not a nation, denounce your politics, and stand in fierce resistance to your self-righteous, evil religiosity, are you going to kill me too? 

 

.

 

Grace is brave. Be brave.

In America, Breathing Has Always Been For White People

No breath, no life.

Without oxygen, most everything withers and dies.

For those struggling to fill their lungs, every move, step, and aspiration is rendered difficult, diminished, and uncertain. Life is squelched and the marrow squeezed out. Freedom to live is shackled and choked, if not completely made impossible.

Sadly, in America, breathing has always been for white people. 

Breathing freely, deeply, and peacefully has been assigned to the privileged. The United States Constitution in manifestation truly reads, “We the white people,” and “All white men are created equal.” 

For actions speak louder than words.

With every lynching, enslavement, murder, displacement, beating, pillaging, and discrimination, everything that brings true life and living is reserved and restricted by the white man for the white man.

Breathing has always been for white people. 

Breathing while jogging through a neighborhood, never worrying about being deemed a threat, wrestled to ground, or even murdered.

Breathing while in the cubicle, never fearing mistreatment, false accusations, exploitation, the subject of racial humor, or the recipient of bullying.

Breathing while driving, never fearing being profiled, pulled over, misled, unfairly treated, assumed guilty, unjustly handled, violently treated, wrestled to ground, beaten, or even killed.

Breathing while eating at a restaurant, never having to notice the eyes fixed upon you, feeling the attention to the color of your skin, fearing the abuse of your food, the diminished quality of service, and the obvious avoidance of your presence.

Breathing while your children attend school, never carrying the anxiousness of their undeserved  negative treatment, personification of wrong-doing, internalization of inferiority, the onset of depression, and consistent unfair treatment. 

Breathing while dealing with the legal system, never fearing being falsely accused, legally abused, criminally exploited, assumed guilty, the object of falsely placed evidence, the diminished or restricted access to proper legal support and counsel, or having a police officer kneel on your neck to the point of your death. 

Breathing while shopping, never feeling the weight of people’s attention as they automatically fear that you might rob them or steal something, or sensing the surprise in their eyes as they assume you can’t afford what they are selling. 

Breathing while enjoying success, knowing that people will never wonder what special circumstance, allowance, crime, or bending-of-the-rules were required for you to get there. 

Breathing while moving into a new neighborhood, job, or church, never fearing the likely rejection, gossip, passive aggressiveness, or flat out resentment that will soon follow.

Breathing while protesting, always knowing that everything you do will be framed as righteous, inside the lines, and justified by the cause, as you’re labeled a “good person” and never a “thug” like all the others. 

Breathing while pursuing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, never carrying the weight, facing the unfairness, and suffering the oppression of a system clearly and intentionally bent towards the benefit, progress, power, and privilege of white, male America.

For in America, breathing has always been for white people.

Lynching, choking, suffocating, wheezing, and struggling to catch your breath has always been for everyone else.

 

Grace is brave. Be brave. 

Conservative Evangelical Christianity, The Death Of America

There’s an unsettling of the Spirit moving across the land—the culmination of years of religious Christian corruption. Good people everywhere are sensing it deep within. What for many has been a growing source of suspicion is now becoming a for certain certainty.  A time of emerging clarity is upon us as the curtains are drawn open and the true Wizard is revealed. Yet, there will be no clicking of the heels to save us now. For the American dream is being diabolically hijacked into the Conservative Evangelical scheme—God help us all.

In fact, in my estimation, there is truly no greater evil being wielded upon the earth. The false gospel of Evangelical Christianity has long been eroding our society, creating spiritual junkies, and asserting a white male heterosexual imperialism and privilege into every segment of our living. Its prescriptions for sin management only serve to further increase it, leaving good people spiritually strung out, hypocritical, self-righteous, and addicted to the poison, not the cure. With an insistence upon believing that God is angry, vengeful, and condemning of a sin-ladened humanity, followers spiritually justify a self-deputization to police society as they live out their perceived calling to convert the world to their privileged ideology, lest we all burn in hell. No matter the nobility of some with their good intentions and heart, the true aspirations, pursuits, and passions of much of conservative Evangelical Christianity are not true freedom and equality for all, but religious power and control for them. In their minds and hearts, the ushering in of the Kingdom of God is in reality, the ushering in of a white male heterosexual conservative Evangelical dominance in all places and things.

In contrast, a brown-skinned Jewish-born Jesus was crucified for bringing a scandalous message and manifestation of true Divinity that levels the playing field for all. For Grace is the great equalizer—none are better, only different—no matter your color, creed, orientation, gender, age, or status. Everyone is valued equally, all are given freedom completely, and no one is left condemned, unaccepted, or without affirmation, dignity, and community. Our best and worse performances are rendered powerless to sway that hands of God as our wholeness and purity before Her are irrevocably secured. Love is the very nature of God, and Grace is the only way of true Life. Faith is merely awakening to Grace by the power Christ’s faith within us. For Jesus came to destroy the ways of power, control, discrimination, violence, greed, and self-righteousness that empower the religious spirit who can so easily seduces us all—emptying Himself completely to reveal our true beauty and capacity to embrace what unites, heals, and connects us all—Love.

Sadly, as it was in the beginning, it is now most assuredly. The very same unconditional Love that brings heaven to the broken and emancipation to the captive, feels like hell to the religious, sending them into tailspins of furiously frustrated angst and rebellion—willing to crucify Jesus yet again wherever His truth threatens their evil empire. For the greatest menace to the conservative Evangelical Machine that seeks to overrun our planet is the emergence of true freedom and equality for all. That Jesus loves all, redeems all, embraces all, affirms all, and blesses all with heaven’s unlimited supply of equality and freedom is their greatest fear, trigger, and vulnerability—rendering their monstrous system of faith to be impotent, fraudulent, and devoid of true Life. That’s why nearly every conservative Evangelical interpretation of Scripture, personification of God, and assertion in society is desperately bent on diluting and covering up this revelation of Grace and its manifestation upon the earth, and quickly replacing it with a conditional religious self-righteous brand of believing—not because they are lovers of Truth, but because they are worshippers of power. For violence, hatred, bigotry, discrimination, greed, self-righteousness, judgmentalism, and evil are not intrinsic to being truly human, they’re actually common byproducts of being truly religious—subhuman.

This is the real cataclysmic spiritual battle being waged all around us that is now infiltrating and threatening the future of our country like never before. For what is the greatest obstacle to the full fruition of white male heterosexual conservative Evangelical dominance? A nation founded and anchored upon the sure premise that true equality, dignity, and freedom is for all, by divine design and sanction. For no one desires to commandeer the American flag, hijack our constitution, and fashion Jesus into the hood ornament of their world bulldozer more than white male heterosexual right-wing conservative Evangelical Christianity. In fact, the truth is, “Make America Great” is Evangelical code for “Make America Ours.” And not just America—the entire world.

My friend, most everything you see happening is leading towards these ends. Open your eyes to see and your ears to hear. The underlying reason why racism still lives and thrives, sexism is still rampant, homophobia and transphobia increases, kneeling for the national anthem is rendered a deplorable crime, the drums of war keep pounding, public school systems are being undermined, human rights are being dismissed, churches raise the Christian flag above our national flag, wars on drugs are declared that end up disproportionately imprisoning the black population and using them for free labor, foundational Christian morals and values are conveniently suspended in order to elect a white, male, heterosexual, Evangelical supporting President, and conservative Christians are charged with the mandate to assert their faith and values into every sector of society in order to win dominance. All of this is for one purpose, and one purpose alone—the full fruition of a white male heterosexual conservative Evangelical Christian Empire, even to the destruction of America and beyond.

All this talk about sin, Jesus, morality, truth, biblical faithfulness, fairness, and societal health coming from the bloviations of right-wing conservative Christianity—don’t be fooled and bite from the dark fruits dangling off their tree. It’s all smoke and mirrors to disguise the real agenda hissing in the shadows. For if it were all about Jesus, sin, hell, and scriptural faithfulness, conservative Evangelical Christianity would be fully immersed and passionately engaged in all things opposite of what we see so many of them pursuing—and most of all, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, imperialism, bigotry, violence, white-privilege, greed, and self-righteousness would be rendered the greatest of sins and cease to be legitimized within American Christianity, resulting in it all becoming largely dismantled in our society.

Yet sadly, that day is not here, and likely not forthcoming. For the tenets of true freedom, divine dignity, and equality for all upon which this nation was birthed, are the ultimate obstacles to conservative Evangelical Christianity’s battle to take the hill and Lord itself over our country. For at the end of the day, what matters most is that true freedom, divine dignity, and equality for all is contrary to the conservative Evangelical agenda of white male heterosexual power and privilege. In fact, perhaps nothing is more repulsive to the Evangelical religious system than people living free to believe, worship, and pursue happiness outside of their control and without compliance to their creeds, especially those who in doing so would foster the dismantling of white male heterosexual conservative Evangelical power and privilege.

Connect the dots, look beyond the obvious, and engage the spiritual discernment the mind of Christ within you affords. Theological, spiritual, moral, and religious error, slight of hand, and brainwashing of this magnitude are never achieved unintentionally.

Grace is brave. Be brave.

No, Conservative Christian, God Doesn’t Send Mass Shootings

Just weeks ago, it was a hurricane.

Now, an horrific mass shooting by a white terrorist.

Here we go again, another tragedy being projected onto the heart and will of God.

Sadly, there’s nothing that seems to be more convenient and appealing to some Christians than claiming that the onset of human tragedy is a result of the actions of God in defense of the very things they support and in punishment of the very people and realities they are against.

It’s always amazing to see the spiritual gymnastics some Christians will perform in order to twist God into a divine puppet working on behalf of all that they hold to be true and troublesome. But then, when tragedy strikes inside their camp, all of the sudden, God’s ways are deemed to be mysterious and beyond human comprehension.

You know that your creeds and system of faith are bogus and desperately weak when you resort to portraying God as the author of human tragedy in an effort to legitimize and advance the validity of your faith understandings. This is why deflecting truth and blame has become nothing less than a prized spiritual gift among many conservative Evangelical Christians. While some point their fingers at God in the wake of human tragedy and misfortune, the ever growing necessity emerges for the rest of us to start pointing our fingers at right wing conservative Evangelical Christianity, lest we all be deceived.

In fact, as hard as it is to say and as difficult as it may be to hear, the truth is, until America wakes up to the true connections between conservative Evangelical Christianity and many of the deepest ills of our society, lasting change will elude us. When conservative Evangelicals proudly elect and continue to enthusiastically support a President whose campaign received a record $21 million dollars from the NRA who spent $36.6 million dollars on the election in total, the true diabolical wizard behind the curtain begins to appear. From slavery to the bloodshed of war, conservative Evangelical Christianity has long found ways to spiritual justify nearly every evil on planet earth when it favors their agenda, and escape into the shadows of ambivalence and proclaimed innocence the morning after.

Truth be told, there is no greater deception being wielded upon all the earth than the attributing of human tragedy and harm to the authorship of God—often, by the very same people that history reveals as being the ones who are in fact capable of the required levels of hate, religiously justified violence, and spiritual illness to enable such atrocities. In fact, when you believe in a god who loves people so much that he is holy and just in brutally punishing them eternally if they don’t love Him back in return, especially through your prescribed steps and rules, your capacity to justify your own violence and the harming of others is not far away.

For if anyone should be shouting from the mountain tops demanding real gun control, it should be Christians. If anyone should be first in line to limit or even surrender their rights for the greater good of their fellow humans, it should be Christians. It is the same nonviolent cross carrying Jesus who calls us to a life of service and sacrifice that we worship, is it not?

Sadly, while many conservative Christians hope we are baited and hooked by their declarations of being “pro-life,” the truth is, much of right-wing conservative Evangelical Christianity is proving itself to be about as pro-life as a wolf in a chicken coop.

No, most Christians would never pull the trigger, send the hurricane, or wield such suffering directly, but apparently some certainly don’t mind believing God does—that, my friend, is the new face of spiritual and mental illness. When you proclaim God as the author of human tragedy in retribution for people acting against what you believe to be God’s will, you are not only the problem, you are spiritually and mentally dancing with the devil. For the one who enables the alcoholic is just as ill and complicit as the alcoholic themselves.

No, conservative Christian, God doesn’t send mass shootings—perhaps, this is on you.

This is on you to lead the way in turning swords into plowshares in a culture dripping with violence and hate.

This is on you to loudly repent of your history of spiritually justifying harm upon those you to deem to be the enemy.

This is on you to boldly proclaim the nonviolent sacrificial example of the Jesus you claim to follow.

This is on you to silence meaningless political rhetoric and harness your influence to demand meaningful gun control.

This is on you to look inward to an evil spiritual system and creed that personifies God as a vengeful deity who is holy and just in hurting, harming, and causing people to suffer.

This is on you to be first in line to limit or even surrender your rights for the good of humanity.

No, conservative Christian, God doesn’t send mass shootings.

Yes, He did send His Son to show us the way of nonviolence, peace, sacrifice, and service.

Perhaps, now more than ever, you could consider denying yourself for a change and following Him.

Grace is brave. Be brave.

Before You Take Your Life: 5 Things Every LGBTQ Person Needs To Know Before It’s Too Late

Your life. It feels like there is no hope, trapped in a well of darkness, no way out. You pray to make it all go away, if only tomorrow never dawned. The constant ping of pain ricocheting within your soul, torturing your every breath. It’s all you can do, to put one knee in front of the other, crawling down this path of living hell.

Nobody seems to hear, to understand, the screams screeching from your soul. All alone on the stage of life, if only to be heard. Crushed by the weight, drowned out by the volume of culture’s condemnation, sinking their bigoted teeth deep down, piercing your every hope. You’re slowly dying, a song inside, afraid to be born.

Not to mention religion, the Christianity that is forever assaulting you. Hate-bombs exploding. Discrimination, isolation, marginalization, shrapnel-packed spirituality. Vests full of death, waiting to be triggered, disguised as children of Light. Your every step, paralyzed in a mine field of ignorance, arrogance, and evil. Terrorism pimped as Truth.

It’s hell, it’s all hell. And you’ve had enough.

I’m not on the same path as you, but I do know what it’s like. To come to the wall, to the place in my mind, heart, and soul that concludes, this is where it has to end. I can’t take it, I can’t make it, anymore.

I’ve been that close. Looking my wife and my children in the eye. Just a trigger, a pill, an exit door away. That was me.

I am begging you, don’t do it.

Before you take your life, give anymore seriousness to the thought. Before you make your plans, plot your course.

There’s some things you need to know, you have to know, before it’s too late.

You are so Beautiful. You are the smiling gleam of your Creator’s eye.

There’s nothing wrong with you. No sin to manage, no stronghold to overcome, no flaw to repair, no tangle to unweave. The heavens declare, you are the joy of the Father, beautifully and wonderfully made. No if, ands, or buts. You’re not a question waiting for an answer, a disease searching for a cure. You are a statement from God, the period at the end of His sentence… everything He makes is good.

God loves you, completely, thoroughly. Not out of some divine obligation, but out pure, radiant pleasure. Everything about you, His hands have made. You are the intentionality of the Creator. Loaded with sacred purpose and design.

To lose you, would to be to lose Himself.

You, are that beautiful.

Religion Has This Wrong.  The problem isn’t you, the problem is us.

The Christian track record is sure.

We are the authors of more confusion, division, and death than any other. Much of church, flat out sucks. Harboring some of the most bigoted, racist, discriminating, judgmental, over-fed people on planet earth. And quite frankly, they like it that way. Hell hath no fiery like an arrogant fundamentalist.

History tells the tale. Wrong about simple astronomy, wrong about black people, wrong about women; wrong, wrong, wrong. Now, leather-bound, name-engraved, wrong about you.

Those people condemning, reclined in their clubs with crosses on top. They’re wrong. Utterly, completely wrong. They are not Jesus, and they are not His heart for you. Close your ears, board up your soul. What they have done with the Bible, those six verses. It’s all wrong. Intentionally or not. Twisting, rewriting what God inspired for good, using it for harm.

Run from it, all of it, emancipate your heart. Don’t let their voice to you, become your voice to you. It is not of God, it’s of pure evil. Spit it out, every last drop.

Religion, has this wrong.

Your Struggle is Real. You didn’t ask for this, you didn’t choose it.

You’re not making this up, looking for a quick fix of attention. This isn’t some drama you’re orchestrating, sucking people in. The pain is real. Your heart is not a fool.

Your plight is genuine, deeply personal, uniquely individual. Those are real scars, fresh from the floggings. Those are real haunts, spinning in your head. Those are real cries, real blood gushing from your eyes. Nothing small about it.

No need to convince, no need to explain, no need to give reason, justification, permission for your pain. Who you are is who you are, where you are is where you are, what you are going through is what you are going. No need to pretend, to amend, to edit for for your audience. Just be you.

There are many who get it, who know it to be true.

The struggle is real, that’s all there is too it.

You are so Loved.  There are lovers amidst the haters.

Maybe you didn’t get it, not from the people who should. But there is so, so much love, from people who do.

You are not alone, countless others are walking this out. Day by day, step by step. Ready to journey with you, intertwine their story with you. Curse dark skies with you, wrestle out depression’s claws with you. Stomach rejections’s vomit with you, dine at homophobic tables with you. Beat ignorance’s chest with you, pull back the knife in your hands with you.

Nothing is impossible when love is the answer. You are so loved.

Feel the hands reaching out, the hearts wide open. Hear the voices weeping… “You are deeply loved.”

God loves you. Everything about you. I love you. Everything about you.

You deserve to be desired, and all of heaven desires you.

You are so loved.

There is Hope. You have a song to sing.

A beautiful, strong, elegant, human, cosmos-penetrating hymn of life. Your life.

There is nothing more tragic than to die with your song still inside. For heaven’s sake, stand up, take your place, and frigging sing it. Be who God created you to be, with all abandon, without restraint. For such a time as this, you have been created.

It feels like the end, but this is just the beginning. Set aside everything that holds you back, believe in the beauty of all that you are, see the horizon, filled with promise. For your life is nothing less than the life someone else needs, to live theirs.

There are good people, good churches, good communities. More and more, it’s getting better. Because of you, it gets better.

Be brave, sing your song, live your life, embrace its worth.

Be brave, I say, and live.

There is hope.

You are hope.

I beg you.

Be brave, and live.

 

Resources for your journey: 

Chris Kratzer: 980-295-0230 // ckratzer@ymail.com

Article “A Six Pack of Gay Affirmation: The Clobber Passages Revisited” 

Article “Be Brave: God’s Ardent Message To Every Gay Person and The People in Their Life”

Book “Torn” -Justin Lee 

 

 

 

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