I’m a Christian and I’m opposed to the kind of Christianity that claims to love God while demonizing and degrading human beings.

I’m opposed to the kind of Christianity that claims to stand for truth while spreading lies and bears false witness against their neighbors. 🧵 I’m opposed to the kind of Christianity that praises bullies while punching down to the vulnerable, the other, and the stranger.

I’m opposed to the kind of Christianity that holds up the rich as virtuous while treating the poor as moral failures.

Dear American Christian, please read this to the end:

“Listen to some words: Today Christianity stands at the head of this country. . . . I pledge that I will never tie myself to those who want to destroy Christianity. . . . (🧵) …We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit—we want to burn out all the recent immoral development in literature, theater, the arts and in the press. . . .

A Christianity rooted in patriarchy will always define women first and foremost by their relationship to men.

A Christianity rooted in the gospel of Jesus will always see women first and foremost as fellow human beings created in God's image.

May we understand the difference.🧵 A Christianity rooted in patriarchy will urge you to read the entire Bible through the lens of a few passages from a specific context that talk about women not being allowed to teach, needing to be silent, and needing to submit to male authority.

“I was a stranger, and you…”

Demanded I be deported.

Spread hate and lies about me.

Didn’t care how your lies caused bomb threats at my school.

Held onto your hatred for what you believe I am rather than actually know me.

“Whatever you do unto these, you do unto me.” -Jesus In my state of Idaho, undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $31,400,000 in state and local taxes in 2022 alone.

“Show me where the Bible says the government should use my taxes to help the poor.”

This is said to me quite often whenever I post about how I believe every institution should prioritize the needs of the poor and most vulnerable among us.

So let me post a response here. (🧵) God gives detailed laws to Israel in the Old Testament to use a portion of its collective wealth and resources to help the poor, the immigrant, and the vulnerable.

A short thread of questions we Christians need to be better about asking ourselves regarding our beliefs these days 🧵: How might I be wrong?

If we Christians have been praising a presidential candidate who has been hawking Bibles.

If we Christians spent weeks before the Olympics sharing pictures of Jesus with our preferred presidential candidate online. 🧵 If we Christians posted about how our preferred presidential candidate's court trial is comparable to the trial of Jesus.

If we Christians posted scripture after scripture trying to justify why our preferred presidential candidate is “God's chosen one.”

As a Christian, I want to share a lament with you.

What we Christians get outraged about and what we don’t says a lot about our Christian reputation in the world.

This last week was a prime example.🧵 Social media exploded with Christian outrage over what was thought to be a mockery of the Lord’s Supper during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

Dear American Christian, shorturl.at/fQSjP

I used to think taking God’s name in vain was just using “God” as a cuss word.

Now I think it looks like a politician and political party using God as a mascot for their own pursuit of power. 🧵 Now I think it looks like an entire Christian movement treating a presidential candidate as “God’s chosen one” for the sake of its own pursuit of power.

When fear controls us Christians rather than love, we will believe the most outrageous myths and half truths about those who we consider our enemies. 🧵 When we believe these false narratives, we are liable to support and justify the most merciless policies and actions in order to conquer our “enemies.”

Many Christians demand a literal reading of Jesus in the book of Revelation because it justifies their belief in a violent Jesus.

Yet Good Friday reminds us that Jesus would rather die than kill his enemies. It reminds us that love is how Jesus conquers evil. 🧵 To then turn and envision Jesus returning as some violent warrior king to “finish the job” is to claim that the cross wasn’t the final defeat of evil and death.

It is to also claim that Jesus defeated death only to turn and use it as his tool of “victory” in the end.

I realized a long time ago that politicians love giving lip service to Christianity in order to gain Christian support.

They will talk about God and quote the Bible, even claim to be our greatest protector from things we are supposed to fear, all so we’ll help them win. 🧵 Every time I hear a politician doing this now my heart sinks. It not only feels like pandering of the worst kind, but it treats us Christians as if we are some populist movement that can be stirred into a frenzy for a politician’s gain.

If God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, then God certainly didn’t give us Christian nationalism, which is primarily motivated by a spirit of fear.

Fear of those who are different.

Fear of the stranger.

Fear of change.

Fear of sharing power.

Fear of sharing this country. 🧵 The more I witness Christian nationalism the more convinced I am that it really fears God isn’t powerful enough to advance what it sees as the gospel of Jesus. So it takes matters into its own hands and works feverishly to have a political party and a president do it instead.

I was as far right theologically and politically you can imagine for the majority of my life.

What I then discovered through education, travel, ministry, and relationships with those different from me is how little I actually understood about the issues I claimed to care about🧵 During my time in fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity, not only was education outside the home feared (I was homeschooled k-12), but empathy, compassion, and gentleness was framed as weaknesses. Especially towards those with whom we disagreed.

A Jan 6th reflection for American Christianity🧵.

One of the central things we see in the gospel of Jesus is that those who expected him to overthrow Rome by force in order to “take the nation back for God” were disappointed with him and even ended up denying and betraying him. It wasn’t unbelievers who denyed and betrayed Jesus. It was those who walked closest to him for years, yet projected their own desires for power onto him rather than let him redefine what God’s power actually looks like for them.

Can I tell you one of the consistent confusions I’ve had as a pastor? (A thread 🧵)

The most basic definition of a pastor, from the dictionary, is “a minister in charge of a Christian church or congregation." The broader definition is one who walks alongside Christians as they work to deepen their faith and relationship with Jesus.

When someone says they want the United States to be a “Christian nation,” they are referring to the nation conforming to their own preferred theology and interpretation of scripture, which excludes people from other religions and nonreligious, but many other Christians as well🧵 For example,

As a Protestant, I wouldn’t want a Catholic controlled nation, nor would Catholics want a Protestant controlled nation.

As a Wesleyan, I wouldn’t want a Calvinist controlled nation, nor would Calvinists want a Wesleyan controlled nation.

As the holidays approach, this is an annual reminder that there isn’t a “war on Christmas.”

Here’s a little piece of historical trivia to keep in mind this time of year🧵: The word holiday is a combination of the words holy and day. It comes from the Old English “haligdæg,” which is defined as a consecrated day or religious anniversary. A holy day.

When we Christians claim the Bible is the ultimate and final authority on all things, we are misusing the Bible.

Our core conviction as Christians is that Christ is the ultimate and final authority on all things.

Christ took the cross out of love for the world. Not the Bible.🧵 Christ is the greatest revelation of God to the world. Not the Bible.

Christ is the one who brings salvation. Not the Bible.

Christ is the one who will return to judge the living and the dead. Not the Bible.

Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Not the Bible.

As a Protestant, I don’t want a Catholic controlled nation.

As a Wesleyan, I don’t want a Calvinist controlled nation.

As an American, I don’t want a nation controlled by any religion. Even my own.

I want a democracy, where all are free to live according to their own beliefs. There are over 200 different sects of Christianity within the United States alone. All with their own doctrines, theologies, and interpretations of scripture.