Tag: USA

Dear White Conservative Christian, I See You

I can’t say that I don’t love you, because I do. 

In fact, I used to share the same beliefs and values as you.

Not just that, I pastored you, led you, walked beside you, bought into everything about you.

Twenty one years of life and ministry with you.

White conservative Christian, I was you.

Yes, I walked away. Not just walked, but ran. As soon as the revelation of God’s pure Grace confronted me, I dropped the religious nets that imprisoned me, wrapped me in death, condemnation, and spiritual misery. Jesus, colliding my heart with the God who is Love and lives completely, unconditionally, and irrevocably within me and all things. Breathing for the first time, all of Life released like an emancipated stream. Deep calling to deep, flowing and freeing. 

For so long, what was I thinking? So much time, relationships, and purpose burnt and wasted. 

I couldn’t before, I was too close, too seduced, too buried, too blind. But now, I see. 

I see everything, so afresh, so anew.

Dear white conservative Christian, I see you. No, I really do.

I see you birthed into a system of faith. Thoughts that were thought into you. Thoughts that were thought for you. Thoughts that became you, all in subtle acquiescence. Passed down from belief to belief, memory to memory, fear to fear, and verse to verse. The spiritual web that feeds and feeds off you. Such a deceptively deceptive spiritual symbiosis that formed you. 

It’s not your fault, not even your choice, really. Who among us could climb against the white powdered avalanche that engulfs us? Doubts, questions, concerns, all frozen into capitulation. It’s life in the white conservative Christian Borg, where resistance it truly futile. 

I see you, I really do.

I see you convinced that the truth you believe is the only real truth to believe. It feels like faith, like the right way to see. Every piece seems to fit into place, all of life so easily coalesced into a black and white reality. Right or wrong, in or out, saved or condemned, faithful or backslidden—every question already answered, every doubt already relieved. No matter the debate, decision, or distress, there’s a verse for that, ready to roll off the tongue. One book, one interpretation, one conclusion. All so simple and seemingly divine.

I see you, I really do.

I see you wanting to fit in, we all want to love and be loved in return. I see the gravity of conformity pressing down, nearly impossible not to succumb. It seems too late to look back, too far gone to jump off now. The train is miles down the track. The doubts in your heart, the questions in your spirit, the concerns you have. You see evil within the system, contradictions within the creeds, cracks within the foundations. Yet, it’s as if you’ve surrendered to a life of destined deceit, imprisoned upon a spiritual locomotive that was never designed for course correction, thinking, or the mind of Christ within. You kid yourself with clever choruses, but Jesus doesn’t have the wheel because there’s no wheel to be had. Only tracks, power, and staying in your seat.

I see you, I really do.

The privilege of being a white conservative Christian, though you may not be aware of it, affords you things you certainly enjoy that others certainly do not. Perhaps you don’t recognize it within, for a long time I didn’t, but it’s there shaping your every moment. Being a white conservative Christian has rarely, if ever, positioned you as a minority or one who is the subject of negative assumptions simply because of the color of your skin or the creeds you confess. Your race and religion have never started you on anything less than equal footing in the eyes of American society. That, in itself, no matter your true character, competency, and condition, puts you ahead of so many others, unfairly. Yet, it seems, you refuse to even consider it.

I see you, I really do.

The very thing you claim doesn’t exist (your white conservative Christian privilege) is the very thing you seem so adamant to protect. Prayer belongs in public school, as long as it’s not from the Muslims or the Atheists. The Ten Commandments should be displayed in public buildings, but certainly not words from the Koran or Buddhist confessions. When white people protest it’s called patriotism, when black people protest, it’s called rioting. In your mind, America was most certainly founded as a white conservative Christian nation blessed by God above all others. Yet, it was built on the backs of black slavery, murder, and the rape and pillaging of the Native American Indian. Somehow, in the face of this brutal, diabolical history, you still claim to embrace the words of Jesus that admonish that good fruit doesn’t come from bad motives and foundations. Does this not bother you or at least challenge your thinking?   

I see you, I really do.

Pretending that it’s all working—all the “to do” steps, talking points, and spiritual prescriptions to “do better” and ”give more” to Jesus. Oh how tiring it is to keep all the juggling acts of sin-management and faithfulness going. Been there, done that, have the t-shirt. I understand, I really do. So much is falling apart no matter how hard you keep trying. Deep down you know, the only thing that’s improved in your “Christian” living is your ability to fake it and convince yourself you are growing. Your secret life and secret thoughts are nothing like the garments of purity you wear for the public. Hands in the air for worship, the Bible on the coffee table. It all looks so convincing.   

I see you, I really do.

Performing every spiritual gymnastic and biblical convolution that could ever be contrived in order to rationalize the evil that protects your white conservative Christian way of life, beliefs, and place in society. You’re scared of diversity, equality, and a Love that loves unconditionally. So much, that all of a sudden, where the Bible is so clear to you about homosexuality, a hell of eternal torment, and the submissiveness of women, it’s now super muddy about immigrants, refugees, adultery, lying, violence, murder, greed, the poor, equality, racism, hate, and grabbing women’s pussies. Not to mention, the socialistic heart of Jesus who clearly declared, “The first will be last, and the last will be first,” “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” “It would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  

Brown kids in cages compel your thoughts and prayers while your true outrage is reserved for unfair judges at your children’s beauty pageants. Greed, adultery, bullying, lies, and profanity are now signs of Godly leadership. In fact, you equate President Trump to David of the Old Testament. Problem is, David repented. Yet, Trump has declared he’s never asked for forgiveness and wouldn’t bring God into his brokenness anyways. Oops.

Everything gets a pass or a creative excuse, as long as it serves to put money in your pocket, further your white conservative Christian way of life, and subdue or eliminate everything in our country that you perceive is a stumbling block to your comfort, prosperity, religion, and privileged place in society. 

There you sit, watching the bullies do the dirty work, cheering from the sidelines as you pass it all off as God’s work to cleanse and renew our society of all that is different and disagreeing to you. Maybe you’re not involved directly nor support it all whole heartedly. Yet still, the very things that would send you into fits of rage if they happened to you and your family, are now the very things that you are willing to believe are awarded with God’s stamp of approval when they happen to your perceived enemies. As much as I wish it were different, the duplicity, hypocrisy, and evil rationalizations are impossible to ignore. If not them, certainly your silence or passive indifference to it all. In the end, what am I to conclude in the absence of your denouncement and clear resistance? You seem to be increasingly immune to the ever growing darkness as the elixir of white, conservative Christian power and privilege takes over. So much, that all you hated about Obama you now magically support in President Trump. It’s the height of idol worship to believe that God is on your side to the detriment and destruction of all others, is it not?  

Dear white conservative Christian, I see you. I really do.

The question is, will you ever see me?

Will you ever see the refugee, the immigrant, the transgender person, the gay teenager, the black man, the brown woman, the poor, the Muslim, the Atheist, the female, the marginalized, the vulnerable, the outsider, the different, and the less fortunate? Will you ever see all whom God has created as humans beautifully formed in the image of our Creator–equally loved, valued, redeemed, authored, and affirmed by the Divine, needing not your rescue nor repair, but rather to be seen and celebrated as they are—fully equal to you and included just the same in the tapestry of the One who holds all things together?

See, the question is, will you ever see America?

Better yet, will you ever see Jesus?

 

Grace is brave. Be brave.

Check out Chris Kratzer’s new book getting rave reviews… Leatherbound Terrorism.

In Leatherbound Terrorism, Chris chases the evils of conservative Evangelicalism out of the shadows and gives powerful voice to the cries of the religiously oppressed. Confronting issues like racism, sexism, homophobia, religious greed, hypocrisy, nationalism, white supremacy, privilege, and the weaponizing of the Bible, Leatherbound Terrorism pulls no punches. Endorsed by best selling authors Steve McVey and Baxter Kruger, Leatherbound Terrorism will challenge you, inspire you, and most certainly cause you to rethink your faith and life.

Dear World, President Trump Is Not Us, Not Even Close

You read the papers, watch the news, see the tweets, and survey the online reporting—it’s all too easy to conclude that we have elected nothing less than insanity for our President, and we have become an insane people. For so long, an imperialistic arrogance has plagued the political and religious halls of our country. And now, gasoline has been poured upon the flames of our greed by the privileged power-hungry imposter of patriotism we call our President, scorching our entire nation, from sea to shining sea, with every perverted puff from the nostrils of this orange-haired dragon.

We don’t blame you for harboring serious disdain and concern for our country and its current leadership—in fact, we share it. Yet, it is our deepest hope that you will gaze beyond the political circus show that imprisons our nation and discover there are many of us who join in your disgust, tenfold. We are the resistance that is putting hand to plow in hopes of moving our country to become a nation of renewed decency, true freedom, cultural diversity, religious pluralism, social compassion, global humility, diplomatic maturity, and human equality. In fact, know this and know this for sure, Trump is not us, not even close—his character, values, attitudes, and loyalties are nothing like the marrow that fills our hearts and compels our souls.

Instead, we are a people who love creation and desire to protect our environment for generations to come, even to the curbing of economic prosperity. Our unwillingness to compromise the health of our planet for political and financial gain, we believe, is a critical value necessary for the future of all living things. Unfortunately, our President and his political allies are willing to rape our environment for personal, financial, and economic gain. To that end, he and his administration have censored climate change websites, downsized two national monuments for the purpose of oil and gas exploration, cut funding to climate and clean energy programs, and withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Climate Change agreement. With an insatiable appetite for economic prosperity and a blatant disregard for scientific fact regarding the environmental demise of our planet, President Trump is not us, not even close.

Instead, we are a people who believe violence doesn’t solve problems nor create solutions, and the military-industrial complex of which President Eisenhower warned and President Kennedy resisted has now become a rampant driving force within our government and right-wing religious circles, resulting in the unnecessary brutal destruction of many through war, oppression, and injustice. We reject the public possession of assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons, and if necessary, allowing only for those firearms that require a separate human action to reload. We believe that the safety of our fellow human being, especially children, takes the highest priority over any political and financial allegiances to the NRA or such entities that profit from weapons or the idolization of their use. We declare with boldness and accuracy that our undeniable national gun problem cannot be solved with more guns, especially in the hands of school teachers. We recognize the importance of our Second Amendment rights, but understand James Madison’s intention to allow “the people” as a whole (a well-regulated state militia) to bear arms, not every individual. Unfortunately, our president and his political allies believe violence and its threat are the quickest and surest way to gain and protect power and privilege. To that end, he and his administration have approved a $400 billion budget that sharply increases military spending at the expense of the federal deficit and important programs that protect and serve our society, particularly the underprivileged and less fortunate. With a willingness and desire to cut or significantly reduce spending for the National Endowment for the Arts, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Housing and Urban Development, NASA, EPA, Meals on Wheels, SNAP,  USDA, Education, and Health and Human Services, Trump and his supporters show their depraved lack of human compassion for the most vulnerable among us and an addiction to power for the privileged. With a clear willingness to abandon human life for the sake of protecting and prospering white male right-wing domination, President Trump is not us, not even close.

Instead, we are a people who believe God created all of humanity equal in dignity, worth, and value as we fiercely reject all forms of racism, discrimination, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and every type of inherent demonization. Our country has long been purposed on being a sanctuary of refuge for the refugee, opportunity for the immigrant, and equal hope and dignity for the minority and the most vulnerable among us. To that end, we believe in meaningful protection from those who would enter our country for the purpose of inflicting harm. Yet, we also refuse to conclude that our desire for safety prevents nor restricts us from affording human compassion, patience, appropriate leniency, and a realistic and accessible pathway to citizenship for any and all of those who desire to call our country home. We believe that the complexity of immigration and its surrounding issues should lead, not to the creation of bigger walls and callous systems, but to the rise of a greater people whose hearts are convinced that a country that does not joyfully, graciously, and passionately extend its freedoms to all is not a free country after all. For the protection of privilege is the enemy of true liberty. Thus, we vehemently oppose the discrimination of any people group based on skin color, nationality, gender identification, social economic status, or sexual orientation. We are a country purposed on the life, liberty, and equality of all people, not just white, male, heterosexual, right-wing conservative Christians. Sadly, our President and his political and religious allies now seek to curtail the sounds of true freedom and equality from being heard and realized by those who would threaten their power and privilege. To that end, he has labeled black people as being lazy, quick to commit crimes, and unpatriotic while referring to those friendly to white supremacy as being “fine people”—all while enjoying the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan. He has referred to Mexican immigrants as criminals and “rapists,” called for a complete shutdown of Muslims from entering the United States, and claimed that 15,000 immigrants from Haiti “all have AIDS” and that 40,000 Nigerians, once seeing the United States, would never “go back to their huts” in Africa. Trump once referred to a Hispanic Miss Universe as “Miss Housekeeping” and mocked Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas.” He has frozen a series of LGBTQ-friendly healthcare rules, tried to reinstate a ban on transgender people in the military, argued that anti-gay discrimination is legal, and nominated multiple candidates to the courts and other public offices who have anti-LGBTQ records. With a long and continued record of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia that clearly displays his desire to protect and prosper white, male, heterosexual power and privilege seemingly at any cost, President Trump is not us, not even close.

Instead, we are a people who believe that all religions are to be extended equal rights and protections. Regardless of ones faith, we believe no religion should be granted preference in the public square or afforded special privileges. By constitutional design, we are not a Christian nation nor do we have a state religion—period, full stop. Accordingly, with great enthusiasm and vigor, we fundamentally value, respect, and appreciate people of all religions and defend their rights to exercise their faith peacefully and to be given equal status and treatment alongside all others. Yet, conservative Evangelical Christianity has long been striving to prosper a right-wing, male, heterosexual, white-privileged, conservative brand of Christianity and to attain its dominance in all of society, even to the exclusion, discrimination, demonization, and marginalization of other religions. With a willingness to spiritually justify sin, hypocrisy, duplicity, greed, racism, bullying, violence, war, and discrimination, conservative Evangelicalism sees President Trump as an irresistible pathway to the nationalization of their religion of white power and privilege. To that end, President Trump has enthusiastically opened his presidency and his policies to the influence and partnership of right-wing conservative Evangelical Christianity. Sadly, to the privileged, the emergence of true equality always feels like war. Thus, Trump and his side-chick of conservative Evangelical Christianity have bit the apple of spiritual and political greed in hopes of subduing the greatest threat to their elitism and imperialism—true equality for all. With an overwhelming lust for dominance in all things and a diabolical partnership with the evils of conservative Evangelicalism in order to spiritually justify it, Trump is not us, not even close.

Instead, we are a people who strongly believe that women are equal to men and therefore should be granted the same rights, opportunities, dignity, and rewards—especially where men have enjoyed unfair advantage, double-standards, and preferential treatment. We believe women are not lesser vessels, inferior human beings, sexual objects created to serve the pleasure of men, nor designed to take a submissive role in any arena of life—especially at home, in society, or at the work place. Rather, women are fully capable human beings equally empowered by the divine. Unfortunately, President Trump has long exploited and abused women for personal gratification and gain. He has suggested that sexual assault in the military is simply what happens when men and women work together, stated women are inherently manipulative, credited women’s professional success to their looks, declared that childrearing is women’s work, told a woman she was disgusting for pumping breast milk, referred to a woman as a “piece of ass,” and bragged about grabbing women’s pussies. With a disgusting unapologetically sexist, predatory, demeaning, discriminating, and exploitive view of women, Trump is not us, not even close.

Instead, we are a people who firmly believe that those with special needs represent nothing less than the beauty and divine diversity of creation. In fact, we hold that all people have limitations and inabilities of various kinds, some are just more apparent than others. Therefore, we abhor any sentiments that ridicule, belittle, or devalue people with disabilities, and commit ourselves to stand in solidarity. Sadly, President Trump has publicly mocked people with special needs, exhibiting a pubescent callousness becoming of none other than the devil himself. In fact, he and his political allies are proposing legislation that will dismantle the Americans with Disabilities Act, leaving people with disabilities gravely exposed while making those who violate the ADA virtually consequence-free. With a brutishness towards human diversity and a blatant disregard for those with disabilities, President Trump is not us, not even close.

Instead, we are a people who believe economic prosperity and its benefits should not be limited to the privileged nor should our societal systems create a playing field that fast-tracks the elite and stymies the rest towards receiving the equal blessings of good fortune, hard work, and financial well-being. We aggressively refuse to settle for a hypocritical economic system that postures a greedy socialism for the top and a callous capitalism for the bottom. Unfortunately, president Trump and his allies will seemingly stop at nothing to stack the deck towards the financial benefit of white male privilege. To that end, Trump has created an economic advisory team that is devoid of women, minorities, working people, and the middle class. It is indeed, a “suicide squad” for the prospering of an elitist economy with dark money infiltrating our government and politics like never before. With an unprecedented level of financial greed and arrogance, and a willingness to spend more taxpayer money in one month on personal trips than former President Obama did in one year, President Trump is not us, not even close.

Instead, we are a people who believe that truthfulness and moral integrity are foundational for leadership, especially when endorsed by the religious. Though no person is perfect or devoid of flaws in character, we believe a humble repenting spirit is required for leadership that is characterized by trust, noble influence, and divine authentication. In that way, America has long valued presidential leadership that is, at the very least, marked by basic decency, relational maturity, and human respect. To that end, we vehemently stand against any justification, especially spiritual, that turns a blind eye towards leadership characterized by infidelity, deception, avarice, immorality, discrimination, bullying, dishonesty, and illegal pursuits—no matter how politically or financially advantageous it may be to do so. Sadly, Trump and his political and religious allies are largely devoid of nobility, moral and spiritual integrity, human decency, and the hallmarks of true leadership. Instead, their seemingly insatiable appetites for power and privilege have created a narcissistic political climate nothing shy of the lawless, nefarious, and greedy culture of the Wild West where virtually anything goes and anything can be said that benefits their agenda. The sheer frequency, spontaneity, and arrogance of our President’s lies have no precedent in American politics. In fact, with Trump, the Father of Lies has met his match as our entire country has been waterboarded by the constant flood of his falsehoods and a supporting religious right who have lost their capacity for moral discernment. So much, that they will quickly gas-light the crap out of those who would expose their evils. With an unapologetic willingness to engage in numerous acts of marital unfaithfulness, bully his disagreers, lie to the American people, and leverage every opportunity to enflame his narcissism, even to dire expense of our nation, Trump is not us, not even close.

Instead, we are a people who love creation, reject violence, and value true human equality.

We are a people who uphold religious pluralism, see women as equal, and defend the vulnerable.

We are a people that joyfully extend liberty to all, denounce personal, religious, and national greed, and abhor corrupt arrogant carnal narcissistic leadership.

Dear world, this is the America we believe in, this is the people we are.

President Trump is not us, not even close.

Grace is brave. Be brave.

America Is Not Great, And Evangelicalism Is Not Good

Countless women and men of selfless valor have died for her.

Many have given their life’s work to prosper her.

To be sure, she embodies many good things worthy of honor and thanksgiving.

Yet, no matter how many times we pat ourselves on the back. No matter how loud we cheer ourselves on. No matter our resilience to believe in brighter days ahead. No matter how vigorously we attempt to wall ourselves off from our own shameful realities. The truth that we desperately don’t want to hear is in fact the one bell whose ring could free us all, if we’d only listen—America is not great.

Privileged? Yes. Powerful? Yes. Wealthy? Yes. Domineering? Yes.

Great? No.

In fact, the foundational attributes that make greatness truly great reveal themselves to be much the opposite of who have we become. Search through the tenets of nearly every world religion, especially the very Christianity many deem to be foundational to the fabric of our country. There you will find common definitions of greatness that cast an epic dark shadow across our history, current realities, and aspirations.

Jesus, Gandhi, Buddha, and many others of divine wisdom all sit at the table and sing from a familiar chorus—”Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.

Yet, sadly these are not the sounds of our national anthem nor our ethos.

No matter how large the flags we unfold onto the playing fields of American life with jet fighter flybys and fireworks. No matter how subtly we sanitize our history to insure the ignorance and compliance of future generations to our atrocities. No matter how many “bread and circus” shows we materialize in order to deflect from the evil of our endeavors. There is a prophetic chant of life-giving truth crying out from the wilderness of our nation, “America is not great, not great at all.”

Just unravel the American scroll but a few inches.

Consider the bloody rape, murder, pillaging, and displacement of millions of native Americans for the purpose of personal and religious conquest largely driven by white conservative Christian males seduced by evil visions of a twisted sense of manifest destiny. Consider the brutal enslavement, abuse, and murder of millions of black people for the purpose of personal and religious conquest spiritually justified by white conservative Christian males addicted to their privilege. Consider the vial discrimination, demonization, and marginalization of thousands of people in the LGBTQ community for the purpose of personal and religious conquest largely influenced and orchestrated by white conservative Christian males intoxicated by power and the control afforded by their bigotry. Consider the diabolical invasion of countries, the false flagging of wars, and the killing of innocent women, children, and men without legitimate provocation for the purpose of personal and religious conquest predominantly authored by greedy white Christian conservative males whose appetites will stop short of nothing less than ruling the world.

We have long lived by the swords of spiritually justified violence, greed, and imperialism, and now we are dying by them as we bury our heads deep into the sand and numb our collective conscience with the opioids of mass denial.

Americans are 10 times more likely to be killed by guns than people in most every other country. Gun-related murders in the United States rate 25 times higher than all of the high-income countries of the world. America is ranked 16th on the world’s top 100 corruption list. We are cited as one of the top 10 most racist countries in the world. America is home to the highest number of overweight and obese people. In fact, we throw way 200,000 tons of edible food daily. 34% of billionaires are Americans, yet the US poverty level is the highest in the developed world. Americans constitute 5% of the world’s population but consume 24% of the world’s energy. America makes up 37% of the 1.6 trillion dollars spent globally on military expenditures. Not surprisingly, the US military budget is the largest in the world. All, while US college students face tuition rates that far outrun inflation rates with more than $1.2 trillion in student debt, an increasing middle class and elderly population that is being further denied adequate health coverages, and Social Security projections that significantly decrease future payouts. And to top it off, America, the land of the free, ranks 47th in press freedom—no surprises there.

There is no doubt, for those with eyes willing to see and ears willing to hear, we have become the bratty narcissistic child who has warped divine freedom into barbaric ferociousness. With all the world our sandbox, we have become consummate experts at casting blame upon everyone else for our problems, gas-lighting the crap out of our dissenters, and bullying anyone and anything that challenges the elite’s quest for power and privilege.

Make no mistake, in the eyes of Jesus and the common sense goodness of humanity, we are not great, not great all.

Yet sadly, we have long been blind to the evil Wizard pulling the strings behind the American curtain, and therefore, have wielded little power and success in turning the Titanic around. For conservative Evangelical Christianity is increasingly showing itself to be perhaps the greatest evil ever manifested upon the earth—nothing less than the foundational fuel behind the moral and spiritual decline of America. Yes, as hard as it is to hear and as difficult as it is to say, the very entity that has long postured itself as having the Savior is being exposed as harboring the Satan.

With a gospel that is no Gospel at all, as it actually further imprisons and entices people to sin while pimping the poison, not the cure. With a prescription for Christian living that most assuredly and directly leads to self-righteousness, judgmentalism, hypocrisy, duplicity, double standards, and pretentiousness. With a church culture overflowing with greed, consumerism, conformity, selfishness, exploitation, ministry empires, pastoral fame, and the franchising of Jesus. With a driving leadership of white heterosexual males fueled by their egos and an addiction to grandiose aspirations of ministry and cultural supremacy. With a declaration that they hold the infallible exclusive inside scoop to all things God, the Scriptures, and truth. With an overall purpose and vision of world domination that divides the planet into the converted-to-heaven and the condemned-to-hell. With a belief in a god who spiritually justifies violence, condemnation, sexism, murder, conquest, elitism, and imperialism, all under the twisted auspices of love—not to mention the worship of a white Jesus who encourages and enables personal prosperity and separatism. As has become America, conservative Evangelical Christianity is perhaps the most gun-loving, enemy-bullying, defensively postured, greedy, gluttonous, bigoted, oppressive, marginalizing, sexist, freedom-killing, narcissistic, imperialistic, militant, and controlling manifestation on the planet.

Truth be told, now like never before, America and conservative Evangelical Christianity have become two evil peas in a evil pod, creating a death cocktail that intoxicates the privileged and religious, and drowns out all others. Find me places in the history of America and our current endeavors where we have done and aspired to evil things, and there you will have found the underlying direct influence of a white heterosexual male-driven conservative Evangelical brand of Christianity. No wonder how such a deplorable president as Donald Trump could have been elected and remain continually supported.

For where in America are freedom of speech, thought, and belief most likely to be squelched? Where are women most likely to be shackled by sexism? Where is the LGBTQ community most likely to be demonized, condemned, and driven to suicide? Where are minorities most likely to be discarded and discriminated against? Where are the poor and vulnerable most likely to be exploited for personal or corporate gain?

Where? All at the feet of conservative Evangelical Christianity, that’s where.

And sadly, if this corrupted faith system has its way, it will be at the feet of all of America too.

To those who would criticize me as being harsh or overgeneralized, the truth is, these realities are just that deeply disturbing and widely infiltrating. I refuse to shrink back in fear and be recorded by history as one who became complicit out of an unwillingness to sound the alarm and stand atop the walls of humanity and shout the truth. For we are not far from a tipping point from which there will be little to no return.

No, there is no pleasure taken in shining a light into these caverns of darkness. No, not all conservative Evangelicals are willing participants or knowingly support such abhorrent things. Of course, no church, group, denomination, or faith expression is perfect. Yet, make no mistake, conservative Evangelical Christianity as a faith system is nothing shy of pure evil. And now more than ever, we are witnessing before us on a national and global scale the devastating fruitions of its hollow fruit.

These are desperate times that call for determined bravery—a bravery that begins with brutal honesty. For we have met the true enemy of all that is Jesus and all that is good—and it is us. We are the false accusers, the bulliers, the conquerers, the oppressors, the condemners, the deceived deceivers, and the exploiters of humanity and abusers of all that is God who is Love.

America is not great, and Evangelicalism is not good.

That’s the truth, and it’s high-time we wake up to it.

Grace is brave. Be brave.

What The Boycott Of Target Says About American Christianity

No, not every Christian is lining up to enlist in the boycott of the popular, big-box store, Target. In fact, there are significant amounts of faith-embracing people who are flat out appalled at the notion and embarrassed by this latest temper tantrum waged from within our Christian community. Yet, there is no denying the growing, aggressive movement among large numbers of conservative Christians licking their chops in hopes of making Target pay deeply for their inclusive, store-wide stance that allows the transgender community to use the restrooms of their choice. From vehement, media pleas to war-crying online petitions, once again, it’s game on for conservative, Evangelical, American Christianity.

Yet, make no mistake, this is far beyond a mere game. The civil war of the twenty-first century is here, waged by Evangelical, conservative Christianity upon the LGBT community and their supporters—the periscoping of Target, just another battle of many on the horizon. Sadly, the sounding of these trumpets from atop the walls of Christianity to summon its adherents to boycott the enemy is indicative of a much deeper cancer widely spread within the gates of much of American Christianity.

The truth is, anyone can hoist the most eye-pleasing, Jesus-intentioned flags for all to see, but one’s true colors are no greater revealed than in the facing of a perceived enemy.  How we handle our adversaries is truly who we are at our core.  For much of American Christianity, the satellite imagery has been rendered, the toxicology reports are in, and once again, what the latest boycott of Target says about the true state of American Christianity— it’s not pretty.

We Are Still Blind To Our Privilge And Arrogance- At the end of the day, nothing says “pompous jackasses” like a religiously driven boycott. Sadly, our faith is filled with convenient presumptions we joyfully hold over people as fact, taking Jesus, His Gospel, and inspired words about Him, and morphing it all into a god of our own image—privileged, elitist, temperamental, and arrogant. This is the pride-lifted throne from which all boycotts are decreed.

Through the narcissism with which we have shaped the ethos of our Christian culture and message, it’s as if Jesus was literally born and raised in America and our nation is exclusively favored and set apart by God Himself, founded on the Bible and all that is holy—and we, the special, gold-dusted Christians who have been given the one-of-a-kind, inside scoop into all that is Jesus and His desires for the world.

Drunken by the poison of our spiritual arrogance, we posture ourselves as the sole authors of genuine family values, true interpreters of scripture, exclusive discerners and dictators of moral purity, and the only possessors of what’s best for our country and world. This is our nation, we are God’s favored, and it’s our God-given mandate and responsibility to see to it that you become one of us and enlist in our spiritual empire. Don’t be fooled by our over 30,000 different denominations of self-declared faithful who read the same bible and arrive at completely, diametrically-different conclusions—look away, there’s nothing to see here, trust us, we’re still the experts on discerning all that is spiritual and true. Because one thing we know for sure, our Jesus loves you so much that if you don’t respond to His love with careful precision, He will drop-kick you into a hell of eternal torment—and that’s what we call, good news.

So, like a slick used car salesperson, we strut around our cultural parking lot, many of us completely ignorant to the crap we are selling, some of us hoping nobody looks under the hood and kicks the tires enough to reveal what we refuse to see, just how truly delusional we have become. So much, that with no pause in our steps, little consideration for reexamination, and no check in our spirit that perhaps we are wrong and have much to learn, we steamroll ahead having raped the Jesus of the Gospels into a white, gun owning, bible-thumping, Republican male who drives a Ford pickup truck, bumper-stickered with Jesus statements purposed on convicting the world. He lives in a two story house with a white picket fence, a dog named Spot, and cable TV in every room. On Sundays, with His leather-bound, name-engraved Bible in hand, He adorns the most popular, program scheduled, state-of-the-art church in town where the worship leader is often found requiring the jaws of life to get out of their culturally relevant, skinny jeans after the stage smoke clears. Beyond that, His primary calling is to meet with like-minded, like-colored, like-believing, like-living people, get into a good sin-management program, and morally police the world.

Problem is, this monster that we have made of Jesus is nothing like Jesus, and who we have become is nothing like who He is—nothing makes this clearer than our arrogant, elitist, privileged response to transgender human beings simply desiring to use the bathroom of their choice based on their true gender identity.

Do we seek to listen? Do we consider new revelation in light of new information? Do we humble ourselves under the person of Jesus, the only Word of God?  Hell no. Once again, we just can’t wait to belly up to the bar of our spiritual addictions, drink down the belly shots of our self-righteousness, and drunkenly declare to all who would oppose us, “we are right, you are wrong, we know what’s best, and everyone who disagrees are simply deviant peasants who deserve a good flogging”—all sending the clear, central message of our twisted faith understanding, “be discipled or be drop-kicked, assimilated or shunned, the choice is yours.”

The World Still Knows The Heart Of Jesus Better Than We- Have you noticed? The “world” isn’t, in fact, the prowling boycott-bully pacing back and forth on the block—no, we are. That’s why there’s a deep awakening of people in our country to the tragic reality of our day that if you want to truly experience Jesus, the last steps your feet should take is to shadow the doorsteps of a church or adopt the American distortion of Christianity into your life—nothing will set your soul on a trajectory spinning it further away from the heart of Jesus.

Yet truthfully, it’s been that way from the beginning. The people closest to Jesus who should have known Him best are the ones who are, in fact, revealed to know Him the least, and the ones who are declared the sin-bathed outsiders on the fringe, worthy of the deepest wounds condemnation can cut, are in fact, the ones who resonate with His heart, most.

With every boycott, with every legislation of discrimination, with every weaponized chorus of “Jesus Loves Me” purposed on snuffing out the voice and dignity of the transgender community, we declare to the world from the stench within our hearts, “If you’re looking for Jesus, if you’re looking for compassion, if you’re looking for equality, dignity, justice, and basic goodness, you’ll not find Him nor these attributes among us—we worship a different god of our imagineering”

Until love becomes our core and Jesus our center, the world will increasingly discover the truth—to become one of us and live more like us is a drastic downgrade of Jesus-distancing proportions, and to be of the world—far more spiritual and in tune with the heart of God.

Oh, the irony of it all.

Our Best Ideas Are Still To Boycott- Because boycotting is what desperate, shallow Christians do who, in the caverns of their true convictions, have turned their faith into a Jesus-insultingoffensive pillaging of the cross and the Gospel it reveals.

For Jesus did not and would not ever boycott. Rather, He served as a cosmos-vibrating megaphone of heaven declaring that from the bottomless well of love, faith, and the exampled ways of the Master, there are always better options from which to draw no matter the day, hour, or circumstance. In an age where we have more revelation, information, and examination than ever before of all that Jesus was, is, and inspires, the reality that boycotting is still on the list of our best ideas speaks to the mal-transformation our dysfunctional Gospel has rendered to our hearts.

We have become the barbarians of the world, and it’s high time we see it—a people who can’t help ourselves from punching something different and calling it faithfulness.

Nothing reveals the alarming level of our school-bully ignorance and militant faith than our boycotting of a perceived enemy.

If ours is a love at all, it is a deeply distorted, diabolical, and diseased one.

We Are Still Selfish, Whining People Who Refuse to Serve- Nothing unveils the true motto behind the bulk of American Christianity like a good boycott. As much effort as we muscle into our full-court press to convince ourselves and the world around us that “it’s all about Jesus,” the truth is, “it’s all about us.”  Why can’t we simply be honest enough to align our verbiage with our actions? Most everything we do says, “me, me, me.” It would all be completely excusable and even understandable if we were five year olds. Yet, we’re supposed to be the light of the world, not the spiritual toddlers of it.

It’s so predictable. We don’t get our political way—here comes a temper tantrum. Someone or something stands in question or opposition to our agenda—we kick and scream. Transgender people want to use the bathroom of their choice—up come the marbles as we huff and puff our way home, conspiring in our “conservatives only” tree houses with crosses on top, plotting our pubescent path to revenge.

We are spoiled, whiny, spiritual brats who think the mission of Jesus is to preserve and expand our American, Christian empire of morality dictation and ideology assimilation. All, while Jesus washes feet, embraces the outcast, and affirms the condemned—but let’s not let Him get in the way of our crap-slinging crusades.

Why can’t we just love for the sake of loving, serve for the sake of serving, and trust the One who holds all the stars in hand with the rest? Even if your conclusion is that the transgender community is in error, the way of Jesus is to serve all the more, not all the less—even to the sacrifice of our perceived safety and convenience. This is the Jesus of cross, but sadly not the Jesus of conservatism.

While Jesus brings the Kingdom of God through unconditional serving, we bring the Kingdom of hell through our unconditional self-centeredness—for we have proven beyond a shadow of doubt that there is no instance in which we won’t believe and act upon what we deem to serve our best, ideological, self-serving interests, in blatant defilement of the Gospel we claim to hold so dear.

We Are Still Satisfied With Any Ignorance That Supports Our Intolerance- Boycotts don’t materialize out of thin air. Nobody rallies against a company like Target over transgender-friendly bathrooms who first hasn’t been trained in an American Christian, spiritual concealed-weapons discipleship class that teaches a strategy of when engaging the enemy, “shoot first and learn last.”

We say we start from the Bible, but we really start from our bigotry and the assumption we know better. The truth is, when your righteousness is derived apart from Grace, you have to contrive ways to justify yourself—putting people down in the name of Jesus to affirm oneself has become our goto drug of choice. Somehow we have swallowed the lie that to be “set apart” means to be “better” and “above,” when in fact, it merely means to be “different,” yet still thoroughly “equal” under Grace. Yet violence, discrimination, condemnation, and boycotts gain no fuel in a Kingdom of equality—rendering us with nothing left to do and believe in a land where all is Grace. To be sure, one can disagree with another without being accurately labeled a “hater,” but you can’t refuse to listen, learn, and stand beside a fellow human and not be considered one.

The world is truly asking, “Is there a caboose to this train? Because we’ve seen this all before.” Any smell that fits within your flatulence somehow is deemed appealing and true, and the rest we are supposed to believe, somehow is automatic crap—science, facts, truth, experience, information, revelation.

We aren’t learners (disciples), we are ignorers—so insecure in our faith that our skeletal creeds shake at the thought of considering new information and new revelation.

When was the last time you built a relationship with a transgender person? When was the last time you listened to their story? When was the last time you researched the transgender topic, purposely desiring to open your mind to various viewpoints and schools of thought?

Chances are, the last time was never. Why? Because to learn would be to expose the ugly face of our flesh contrived, Christian faith hidden under the make-up of our own chosen ignorance.  We’d have to look into the mirror and be real about what we see and believe—and that’s a series of falling dominoes we’re just not willing to push.

So let’s just admit it, we’re blind and we like it that way.

Our Faith Is Still Fear Driven- With every boycott, legislation, and Youtube rant we declare to all that has life and breath that our God is small and our doubts in Him, great. For what kind of God do we believe in with such fear in our hearts? Lions, tigers, and transgenders, oh my! The world is collapsing, our country is falling apart, our women and children are in grave danger—all because transgender people simply want to pee in peace. Seriously?

You say it’s not about transgender people, but rather the ones who will “fake it” in order to “make it” with women and children in a restroom stall near you. All, while there is a statistically far greater chance to be molested or sexually assaulted by conservative politicians in the very same, said locations. But let’s not let the facts stymy the fears we so desperately need alive for our Christian brand to survive.

The very anxiety we drink deep down into our faith is the very horror we disperse ever so widely. Sleeping with one eye open, we hope the world will join us in our misery. We are not a free people, we are a “fear” people. Nothing is jockeying for more human companionship than fear, and we have become its “hoe.”

Yet, the perfect love from God that casts out all fear is the very love we insist on conditionalizing to ourselves, and thus, the very love we cannot give unconditionally to another. Fear has become our master, and boycott-like behavior, our sacrifice of praise.

No wonder so many detest the idea of believing as we believe, because it’s not belief we have, it’s fear—boycotts that confess that God is surely dead, and so is our faith,

Love Is Still An Inconvenient Accessory- Far beyond the boycotting of Target, it’s become all too clear that virtually everything we say, do, and believe reveals the disturbing reality that, for most of us, this “unconditional love” thing has become a sharp edge in our stool. To love without condition, restraint, or reservation is so painful for us, the tension and displeasure in our bloodshot eyes says it all. Like a hard poop, we push it out because we basically have to—it’s the “Christian” thing to do. For to us, truly “unconditional love” is the foolishness of misguided progressives, the waywardness of a world seduced by the darkness, and the hallmark of Christians who are water-downed.

If we could just somehow usurp this “unconditional love” thing, our faith would be so much easier—boycotts as far as the eyes can see, unlimited enemy condemnations to fill up our joy—political ploys here, marginalizations there. Oh, what a wonderful Christianity this would be.

Looking like a breakdancer on crack, we try to dance our way around it by “hating the sin and loving the sinner” while demanding that “love” is an attribute of God, but not the sum of His nature. Yet, confronted with buzz saw of Jesus’ pure-love example, our duplicity and schizophrenic love is found out and confronted to its abominable core.

The world knows true love far better than we do—understanding that anything that is not unconditional love is not love at all.

Is God utilizing the boycott of Target? Damn straight He is—to further reveal the entrenched evils of American Christianity and pave the way for a worldwide awakening to Grace, justice, and equality.

© 2024 Chris Kratzer

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