On Actually Being A Christian

Updated: Aug 25

"Every night, I’d look over and see Barack lying with his eyes closed

on the other side of the bed, quietly saying his prayers.”

Over the years, I have shared a variety of Scriptures in my blog-posts, to illustrate why I must speak out against the heresy of the (white) Christian supremacy movement, what many call Christian Nationalism, and what can be accurately defined as Christofascism.

I share from my faith because I want people to understand; I do not expect or demand you believe as I do. I want you to think for yourself. I don't believe my faith would have the depth it does if I had not had to wrestle with it, work to rid myself of racist and sexist parts, and reaffirm it in light of what the Scriptures actually say, who Jesus was, and what the early church taught, in a context of basic common sense, good faith, plus intellectual, as well as spiritual, honesty.

We cannot serve a God of hate and say that God is love.

The heresy of Christofascism is permitted, because of what Bonhoeffer called the heresy of "cheap grace": the willful inability to reconcile the love of God with the cost of following the Way.

Christians are to be holy, which means that the ends do not justify the means, and that does not mean that we cannot speak the truth plainly as Jesus did (the religious men then didn't like that very much either.)

Yes, most folks who first came to America were Christians, but there is a good reason that the Founders adamantly did not want to establish a religion and did establish a secular form of government. What people, outside the evangelical bubble in the US, are seeing now, is the rotten fruit of a concerted effort -over my lifetime- of rewriting our founding, to insist on a lie. The Big Lie for me is not the Stop the Steal nonsense, though that was an attempted auto-coup, but rather, the Big Lie is that America was founded as a Christian nation. Sure, the Puritans tried that kind of thing out, but it didn't go so well in Salem.

Christianity didn't behave Christianly towards the Native Americans or the Black Africans it enslaved, either, and that is precisely what white evangelicals, heavily influenced by the apostate Southern Baptist Convention (which should have disbanded at the end of the Civil War, had those Confederate Christians been in any way repentant), are objecting to when they use the work "woke" as a slur against honest historians, teachers and intellectuals who have done the time they refuse to do, to learn something.

Evangelicals and Catholics like their perks as the privileged majority, and as the world changes, they are losing their manifested destiny to the beauty of diversity.

What is so horrific to me, as a former missionary kid, is to see American Christian outrage at the beauty of culture coming into "their" space, when Jesus created a church that was absolutely not intended to discriminate, as Paul explained further. My parents were sent out by comfortable evangelicals, many of whom now categorically refuse to welcome foreigners, even though many of their brothers and sisters in Christ overseas trying to reach safety here have a faith more profound than they, due to years of struggle.

They may talk big about the love of God, but they are misers about actually sharing it with the wider Body of Christ, not to mention anyone who isn't a Christian and can't fit into their community. Missionaries and scholars of the past 100 years, not to mention earlier times, would be smeared and castigated by such people for culturally appropriate work that reached out to communicate the love of Christ - St Patrick's embrace of Irish art styles would certainly be labeled demonic or something similar, and try posting this Christian perspective on July 4th around American evangelicals sometime:

Vulgar. Because the Body of Christ is a GLOBAL entity. White American Christians don't have a monopoly on the Way, the Truth, and the Life, any more than those foolish Brazilian evangelicals do, but I do digress...

The point being: the God I love has not changed, despite the embrace of a wannabe dictator by my former faith community, not to mention former political party. And it is because I follow Jesus Christ that I cannot be part of any of those groups anymore. They have denied my faith, behaved as enemies of the Cross of Christ, and they will accuse people like me of apostasy, for refusing to fall in line with their Christofascism, as if such filth is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a God of LOVE. (They also have more concern that I swear on occasion out of frustration at their abuse, than that they misuse God's Name.)

I reject Trumpism, MAGA, and 81% evangelicalism, as a result of my Christian faith.

It is just wrong what has been done in the Name of Christ over the past decade and more.

The God I love does not change, and the love of God is in direct contrast with the way I have been treated, even and perhaps especially by family members, for speaking against what is not dissimilar to the Nazism and other fascism I studied in German and French.

I have literally been told by a family member I am "like the Nazis" for sharing information warning against fascism, I have been told "maybe civil war needs to happen", which is by no means pro life, and 100 percent offensive for family to say to a military spouse of all people! We know well what war does; many civilians do not, so how dare evangelicals make light of it and claim to value life - they are LIARS. And Jesus was outraged at the hardness of such hearts...Jesus wept.

I have literally been called "psycho" by a family member for sharing that MAGA have not just constantly abused many of US online; I had a threat I had to report to law enforcement. My life doesn't matter to these people, only their feelings matter. I've been smeared and disparaged by an elderly Christian in our family for pushing back against her abusive comment that Democrats are "evil" (item: I am a registered Democrat these days).

I made the mistake of thinking I could reason with people who loved me, and I have found out the depth of depravity in American Christian thinking: the dysfunction runs deep and they justify abuse because they see anyone with a different experience or culture as a threat. These sinful abuses must be brought to the light and rebuked firmly.

God is love, that is all.

So for those of you without this fundamentalism in your family, be aware, many of us have struggled immensely to join you here, and many more are likely to break free of the Christofascist cult, IF they are given a supportive community when they get free of MAGA. It can't just be that we try to motivate people to vote for the good; we need to deradicalize our neighbors for the long run.

We need to be willing to forgive, without being tolerant of abuse.

It is in this context that I want to end by commending to you the way that the Kamala Harris campaign has uplifted the identities of so many Americans, even groups that traditionally get privileged and have a tendency historically to abuse that privilege. Her campaign is doing a phenomenal job of turning diversity into a truly great thing for American unity.

I want to underline here that it is a fact that Kamala Harris has a Baptist background, and somehow I was unaware of that, partly because she does not focus on her religious heritage in an exclusionary way. But I think it is worth flagging that she has a background in Christian faith, as well as a diverse experience rooted in her unique cultural and ethnic heritage. According to articles I have found, her home church is Third Baptist Church:

Kamala Harris' faith came to my attention because of her eulogy for Sheila Jackson Lee, where she expounded on a Bible verse that I love:

You see, I had wrongly assumed Kamala Harris was Hindu, forgetting that her dad was likely culturally Christian, so it was wonderful to hear her speak to my heart like that.

Like I've said online, I don't think it matters which religion someone is, if they have good character and a heart to serve their country, rather than divide and exploit it as DJT does, but it does my heart good to see her grace, love, joy, honesty, kindness and commitment to service, in light of the teachings of Christ. It lends authority, to those of us who left evangelicalism, to point out that "our" candidate is a Baptist, even if white evangelicals will never accept a liberal Christian. (Because they are an ever-increasing exclusionary circle of narcissistic, prideful bitterness. "And we say this with tears.")

The point is: to follow Christ is to give up control, not grasp for it, and there is true upside down power in loving our neighbors, even those with whom we disagree. Remember, disagreement is not the same thing as cruelly denying the humanity of others or disparaging the importance of identity and experience in our lives. A truly pro life ethic values lives, and we have yet to see much of that historically from American Christian faith, as a rule. There are a lot of us having to come to terms with all of this:

So to conclude, let me invite any Christians reading along here to the next event, geared towards Christians like me, who are done with the abuse of our faith by Christofascists.

Here are links:

Christians for Kamala Harris link and registration link for the event Monday, August 12th at 8PM ET on the Christians For Kamala YouTube Channel. There is no more time to argue about whether Christians should get involved in politics: Christofascists sure are, so we Christians must choose to stand against the abuse of our neighbors, and ultimately US.