Tag: Evangelical

Ten Things I’ve Been Meaning to Say to You (Christians)

Dear Reader,1

If you identify as a Christian in present day America, especially a member of one of the many flavors of traditional Protestant or the Protestantized American Catholic church, these are 10 things I’ve been meaning to say to you:

1. Love was never negotiable. Jesus didn’t include caveats or escape clauses when he told you to love your neighbors. It doesn’t matter who came after, whether J. D. Vance or St Augustine, Jesus could not have been more clear when he explained to the young lawyer that your neighbors are the human beings you share this world with. Yet, I have watched you bending at every wrong angle like contortionists trying to justify your cruelty towards those who live and love differently than you. You’ve crept into every wrong place to kick down doors where Jesus would gently knock.2 You wield love like hate and wonder why so many of us reject you—we’re not persecuting you, we’re setting boundaries because we are tired of being struck by the hands you can’t keep to yourself.

2. Before you shout, “it’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” I’d caution you to read the text a little closer. The order and pairing does not preclude other orders or pairings, but if you insist on a strictly rigid literal reading, I will remind you that the first lie uttered in the Bible comes from the mouth of God.3 Feel nervous? See how you’re ready to reinterpret something about “spiritual death” into the text despite the language leaving no room for you to do so? Your negotiations, consolidations, and reinterpretations establish orthodoxies your texts can’t sell. The Book’s voice is far from univocal, so perhaps, find what works for you and leave us to find what works for us. After all, it was Paul who told you to “work on your own salvation with fear and trembling”4 –not ours.

3. The Rapture is not biblical. It is an invention of the nineteenth century. When the world collapses under the mess you’ve made—I promise—you’re going to die right next to the rest of us. Side note, the Apocalypse of John is not a prophecy; it’s apocalyptic literature. Look it up.

4. “The gays” aren’t coming for your children. Drag Queens aren’t grooming them either. The trans woman is just trying to use the bathroom, she’s not interested in your daughter. The argument is a distraction meant to make you overlook the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of documented cases where your pastor, your priest, your youth leader, your deacon, your elder was caught in the pants of your children. Stop letting your leaders project their sins onto others. Rise up and clean house! Remember, Jesus flipped the hell out of some tables and got a little crazy with a hand-braided whip. You might want to try to be more like him.

5. But being like Jesus means letting go of the ideals of meritocracy. It’s funny. You say Jesus loves, forgives, and saves freely, but the moment we try to give free lunches to starving kids or shelter the homeless, you’re the first to accuse us of being socialists. Look, if Jesus who was neither were measured under the standards of capitalism and socialism, my hand to the gods, you would accuse him of conspiring to triple “D”5 your beloved billionaire CEOs.

6. I think you forgot you can’t serve God and money.6

7. Many of you have convinced yourselves that forgiveness is delivered upon request, regardless of the tone or intent with which it is requested. Many of you have convinced yourself that forgiveness requires no work, no reparation, no repentance, and no consequences for your actions. You conflate forgiveness with access as if forgiveness removes the boundaries we erect to keep ourselves safe—from you!

8. Stop throwing rocks at your brothers and sisters who have the stones to say, “I think somewhere along the way, we’ve gotten a little off course.” Of course, it is hard to admit you’ve taken a wrong turn in a system that insists on its own perfection, but listen, heed their words. Every prophet God sent to set right his people got axed, too.7 For the love of God, learn something from your Book, stop repeating the same mistakes.

9. Paul didn’t write the pastoral epistles. They’re regarded as forgeries. Eject them from the canon already.

10. At some point, you must take accountability. Not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing refers8 to charity. It wasn’t a call to ignorance. Look in the mirror. See what you have become—not becoming but have become. Something’s wrong. There is a cancer metastasizing, spreading, and killing everything that made you Christ-like. Seek treatment now . . . before it’s too late . . . I hope it’s not too late.

  1. This is an essay I wrote for class. The assignment was to write a “list essay” using Jason Reynolds’s “Ten Things I’ve Been Meaning to Say to You” as a mentor text. What follows is the result of that assignment. Enjoy? ↩︎
  2. Revelation 3:20. Now to be fair to this verse, it refers to the church in Laodicea. The author bears witness to a letter written to a church that is “lukewarm” and will be rejected by “the faithful and true witness, the origin of God’s creation . . .” Even as this church stands to be cut off, the letter writer knocks and calls with the promise that if their voice is heard and a response is made, then the letter writer will “come in and eat with (them), and (they) with (him).” ↩︎
  3. Genesis 2:15-17. ↩︎
  4. Philippians 2:12-13. ↩︎
  5. This is a reference to “Deny, Defend, Depose,” the words etched onto the bullet casings found at the United Health CEO’s murder scene. ↩︎
  6. Matthew 6:24. ↩︎
  7. This play on words refers to a story found in Acts 7. ↩︎
  8. Matthew 6:3. ↩︎

The Science of Smaller Plates

—a commentary on evangelical diet culture and its assault on women.

Smaller plates
mean smaller meals.
Smaller meals
for that smaller you
because they told you
the best you,
the ideal you,
God’s design for you,
is a smaller,
lesser,
wasting away you.
A smaller you,
they say,
is a prettier you,
a more fuckable you,
and a more fuckable you
is the whole reason
God made you.
A holy,
fuckable,
baby making you
because if men
can control themselves
around you,
then you are failing
to honor the purpose
god gave you.

Your Father the Devil

Your god
points to a mass grave
where tangled Palestinian bodies
gasp for breath,
a gospel
of bullets and bloodshed
brought to bear
upon the least of these.
He is a white AR-15
mowing down children
in the second grade
while fucking little girls
of the same age—
a coward
accusing queer communities
of crimes committed
by his pastors and priests.
Your god
is an idol,
created in the likeness
of your hate.

But Grace

is a headstone
bearing your names,
buried in a landfill
for which
none of us
mourn.

god

“You were so enamoured.
You couldn’t see it
for what it was.
Its brilliant light blinded you.
Convinced you that your hands
labored in love.

But look for yourself.

This blood,
these bodies,
your hands.
Your work.”

“But, sir,”
He spoke,
“how were we to know?
You saw it.
It’s power.
It’s beauty.
How were we to know
It wasn’t God?”

“See these bodies?
See this blood?”

Stories from Deconstructing Over the Last 20 Years: Part I, The Framework

These are the bones—

From 1987 to 2004, my family was part of an Evangelical/Fundamentalist Imminent Rapture cult founded during the 1960s/70s Jesus People Movement. My siblings and I departed the cult c. 2004. My mother died a member (death unrelated) and my sperm-donor, as far as I know, is still connected to it. Their Christianity is the result of a long tradition of biblical illiteracy, superstition, and an intentional spurning of education.

The structure of power centers on the pastor. As a non-denominational organization, there were no outside checks or balances. It was assumed the pastor was uniquely attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit. He (because always men) surrounds himself with yes-people, an inner circle faithfully adhering to his word and direction. They clamor for his approval—keeps them inline, as it were. The pastor is charismatic and charming; he knows how to play the crowd.

There is an emphasis on being a good Christian. Good, of course, is determined by comparing yourself to the more popular members. Popular members were always good, and you always wanted their approval. We enjoyed the same things and disliked the same things. Doing differently singled you out as being in a questionable state of Christian life.

The systems reflected our white supremacy and reinforced them. It was expected that a good Christian identify as a Republican and view abortion and LGBTQIA+ rights as an assault against Christians. Future generations were expected to vote against their own interests so to hurt sinners and make America a “Christian nation.” We spoke in dog whistles to convey the problematic politics of our system in order to maintain plausible deniability if confronted about our “unspoken” culture.

We were isolationists. The outside world was evil and meant us harm. We were different and set apart from the world. We were in a spiritual war against the outside. We received our orders, ethics, and morality in a verticle modality—direct from God . . . or rather the pastor’s interpretation of God.

Fear was our primary means of control—a fear of Hell, a fear of “accidentally” serving the devil, a fear of missing the rapture, a fear of suffering and pain earned through disobedience, mistakes, and missteps.

Parts of this structure will look and sound familiar if you follow American politics. Christofascism, a term coined in 1970 by theologian Dorothee Sölle, has deep roots, and it is cults like the one I grew up in that provided the fertile soil that has allowed it to blossom into the horrid abomination you see today.

This is the structure in which I was kept for 17 years. It is from this setting, and that of my childhood home, that I will draw my deconstructionist thoughts, experience, and theological discourse.