On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, a certain ache seems to settle in behind the ribs—a quiet dread mixed with hope, a familiar tension shaped by years of complicated family tables. Many of us gather today holding stories of spiritual abuse, religious exile, and political estrangement, trying to figure out how to walk into rooms that don’t know how to love us without strings attached.

And so, let me tell you a story.

It’s fictional, but it’s stitched with threads pulled from the lives of people like us—threads of tenderness, fear, courage, and unexpected grace.

Strength: Naming What Was Done to Us

Imagine it’s Thanksgiving morning.Alex sits in their car at the end of the long gravel driveway leading to their childhood home. The house is already full—cars packed in like sardines, the smell of turkey leaking into the cold November air, voices rising through open windows.

Alex’s hands grip the steering wheel.

Their stomach is tight, the kind of tightness that comes from years of being told they were “too sensitive,” “rebellious,” “backslidden,” or “an embarrassment to the family testimony.”They haven’t forgotten last year.Or the year before that.Or the year their father turned grace into a hammer and quoted Scripture like a weapon.

Strength, in that moment, is not walking through the door with a fake smile.

Strength is sitting in the car long enough to say the truth aloud:

“I was hurt here.”“It wasn’t my fault.”“I deserve peace.”

Strength is honoring the body’s warning signs instead of shaming them.

Strength is not pretending you were never wounded.Strength is acknowledging that you lived through something that tried to reshape your soul—and you’re still here.

And so Alex takes a breath, places a hand over their heart, and whispers, “I am not who they say I am. I am free.”

Only then do they open the car door.

Shame: The Residue That Clings

The house smells like cinnamon, stuffing, and unresolved tension.

Inside, Aunt Carol is already hovering near the stove, offering that tight-lipped smile people give when they want to appear loving but don’t actually want to listen.There’s a “Bless This Home” sign with an American flag background hanging above the doorway—a gift from the church Alex fled years ago.

Shame is sneaky.It comes not with a shout but with a whisper:

Don’t make anyone uncomfortable.Don’t bring up last year.Just act normal.Don’t be a burden.

But shame is not the voice of God.Shame is the residue of someone else’s control.

Alex feels the old words rising in their throat—accusations spoken in pews and living rooms alike.Memories of being prayed over like they were a problem to be solved.Memories of family members who loved them more as a sinner in need of fixing than as a human worthy of respect.

Alex takes another breath.

“This shame isn’t mine,” they repeat silently.“This house taught me shame.But I brought my healing in with me.”

Love: What We Are Not Giving Up On

Love shows up early—usually as a person.

For Alex, it’s cousin Mara.She meets them at the doorway with a warm hug, the kind where your shoulders drop because someone is holding you without judgment.She squeezes Alex’s hands and whispers, “You don’t owe anyone explanations today.”

Love, here, is not a feeling.It’s a lifeline.A small, quiet declaration that Alex is not alone.

Love survived everything evangelicalism tried to crush: curiosity, tenderness, embodied belonging, the ability to see God in unexpected places.

Love is why Alex came at all.

Not for approval.Not for debate.Not for the impossible task of changing hardened hearts.

Alex came because love calls us to hope—even if hope is only a flickering candle on a table full of thunder.

Grace: Not the Cheap Kind

Dinner begins.The table is a patchwork of laughter, tension, obligatory compliments, and the clatter of dishes.

Then it happens.

Alex’s uncle, fork in hand, launches into a monologue about “taking America back for Christ.”He names politicians, praises pastors who preach nationalism from pulpits, and adds—almost casually—“…and I’m glad God spared this family from all that woke nonsense.”

The room stiffens.Some nod in agreement.Some look away.Mara winces.

Alex’s chest tightens.

Here it is—the moment they feared.

The script they’ve rehearsed in their head all week rises like heat:

“You don’t get to talk about Jesus like that.”“You don’t get to weaponize faith you barely practice.”“You don’t get to pretend your politics aren’t killing people.”

Alex swallows.They look at their uncle—not with fury, but with clarity.

Grace is not silence.Grace is truth that refuses to dehumanize the other.

And so Alex says, softly but firmly:

“I’m glad our faith means a lot to you.It means a lot to me, too.That’s why it hurts when I hear Jesus used to justify harm.I’m not here to argue today.I’m here to eat dinner.But I hope someday we can talk about this in a way that doesn’t erase people like me.”

The room goes still.Not angry—just stunned.

Grace did that.Not cruelty.Not vinegar.Not the temptation to scorch the earth.

Grace told the truth without setting the house on fire.

Understanding: Not the Kind That Excuses

Later in the evening, when the dishes are stacked and the football game drones in the background, Alex steps outside onto the porch.

The cold air is a relief.

They replay the moment in their mind, the one with their uncle, and feel a strange mixture of sadness and clarity.

Understanding begins to settle in like a gentle weight.

People like Alex’s uncle aren’t driven by Scripture—they’re driven by fear.Fear of losing status.Fear of losing certainty.Fear of facing their own cracks and contradictions.

Understanding is not agreement.Understanding is simply the recognition that people trapped in spiritual fear cannot set anyone else free.

Alex looks back through the window—watching the family that shaped them, harmed them, and still doesn’t understand them.

And for the first time, Alex feels… compassion.

Not for their actions.Not for their beliefs.But for their humanity—small, scared, unexamined, and fragile.

That compassion doesn’t excuse a thing.But it does loosen the grip of resentment.

Forgiveness: If It Comes, Let It Come Slowly

As the night winds down, Alex hugs Mara first.

“I’m proud of you,” she whispers.

Forgiveness is not even on the table tonight.And that’s okay.

Forgiveness is not a performance.It is a slow, internal undoing of harm—an untangling of what someone else knotted up inside you.

If forgiveness comes, it comes in the rhythm of healing.Not the rhythm of holiday expectations.

Tonight, Alex simply chooses not to let bitterness shape them.That in itself is holy.

Community: The Table We Choose Now

When Alex finally gets home and shuts the door behind them, the silence feels sacred.

They make a cup of tea, curl up on the couch, and log into the Zoom room—the gathering of others who know the ache of evangelical exile, who know how hard Thanksgiving can be, who know the courage it takes to show up as your full self in rooms that prefer a version of you that no longer exists.

Faces appear on the screen—smiling, tired, relieved.

Alex exhales deeply.This is the table they chose.This is the community that understands.

Here, grace flows freely—not because it is demanded, but because it is shared.Here, strength is celebrated.Here, shame is unlearned.Here, love is embodied.Here, understanding is mutual.Here, forgiveness is never forced.Here, community heals what the old tables refused to hold.

And in that moment, Alex realizes something:

Grace is not what we give to the people who harmed us first.Grace is what community gives us, so we can walk into those rooms without losing ourselves.

This is how we show grace—not by shrinking, not by performing, not by pretending—but by choosing to live from a deeper well.

A well filled by love.A well filled by truth.A well filled by people who actually see us.

And that is enough for this week.

This post references a zoom community of like persons who give space for Grace from the wounds caused by wielded faith. My community for this is The New Evangelicals who is committed to creating a better path forward at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture.

Through educational resources and inclusive community spaces, we empower people to reject Christian Nationalism and boldly advocate for their neighbors—while holding onto a faith rooted in the way of Jesus: with love, justice, and compassion for all.

Learn more about our community at: www.thenewevangelicals.com

There is a reason Jesus didn’t build a movement around a pulpit, a creed, or a weekly agenda. He built it around a table.

He built it around people—fishermen, tax collectors, doubters, prophets, siblings, wanderers, the wounded, the curious, the bold, and the unsure. He built it around shared bread, shared stories, shared sorrow, and shared hope. He built it around presence.

Community wasn’t a ministry strategy for Jesus.It was the ministry.

And when we step into community today—real community, not performative gatherings or surface-level church smiles—we step into the same pattern He handed us. We touch the same rhythm. We inherit the same belonging. We find ourselves mirrored in the people who gather with us, reminding us that we were never designed to navigate life alone.

The Community Jesus Formed

When Jesus gathered His followers, He wasn’t forming an institution. He was forming a human ecosystem—one where love was the oxygen and grace was the gravity. His community was the space where the human spirit could breathe again.

These people didn’t come from the same backgrounds. They didn’t all believe the same way. They didn’t agree on everything; in fact, many came with agendas, fears, and competing visions of what they wanted Jesus to be.

But community gave them a place to wrestle, to grow, and to learn how to be human together.

Think about it:

* Peter found accountability.

* Mary found voice.

* Thomas found safety to doubt.

* Matthew found redemption.

* Martha found worth beyond her work.

* The outcasts found a home.

* The righteous found humility.

* The broken found healing.

This is how Jesus forms people—through other people.Grace is never meant to be a solo project.

Community as the Mirror of the Human Spirit

When we gather with others in vulnerability and authenticity, something sacred happens: we see ourselves reflected back. Not the polished version we present to the world, but the real one—the one God already knows.

Community becomes a mirror:

* It shows us our growth.

* It reveals our fears.

* It amplifies our joy.

* It gently exposes the places we try to hide.

* It reminds us we are not alone in our ache or our becoming.

The early church called this koinonia—a fellowship so deep it touches the soul. It is not simply friendship. It is not shared interests. It is the intertwining of stories, burdens, and hopes in a way that strengthens everyone involved.

When we open ourselves to community, we allow others to speak truth into the places we’ve muted. We let people carry us when our own legs give out. We let ourselves be loved in ways we never imagined possible.

We begin to see ourselves the way Jesus sees us.

Finding Your “Tribe”—And the Holy Caution It Requires

Many of us spend years longing for the moment when we find our people—the ones who understand us, welcome us, make room for us, and reflect our values.

In modern language, we call this finding our tribe.

And that is a beautiful thing.Life becomes lighter when you find the people who “get” you.

But it’s important to hold that word gently.

Because in Jesus-shaped community, a “tribe” is never meant to become a fortress.It cannot become us versus them.It cannot become a wall that separates or elevates.

So when we speak of tribe, we speak in a way that honors the belonging we’ve found while remembering the expansive love we are called to offer.

A Jesus-shaped tribe is open-armed, outward-facing, and rooted not in sameness, but in love.

What Community Gives Us

When we find community—healthy, vibrant, grace-driven community—it becomes one of the most transformative forces of the human soul.

1. Community Grounds Us

In a world that spins with anxiety, division, and noise, community becomes an anchor.It gives us a place where our feet can touch the floor again.It whispers, “You are steady. You are held. You are here.”

2. Community Gives Us Something to Lean On

Life will break all of us in different ways.No one makes it through unscarred.But when grief hits, when loss shakes us, when exhaustion steals our breath—community stands with us.

People become shelter.Presence becomes medicine.

3. Community Uplifts Us

There are days when we cannot summon hope within ourselves.But hope borrowed from others still counts.

Community speaks life into our dry places until we can breathe again.It reminds us that joy is still worth reaching for.

4. Community Strengthens Our Resolve

Standing for justice, compassion, and truth can be wearying.Doing it alone can feel impossible.

But community strengthens our hands.It reminds us that resistance is shared work, that faith is collective, and that love becomes stronger when practiced together.

5. Community Makes Us More Human

We learn patience in community.We learn empathy.We learn forgiveness.We learn how to hold space for difference, how to welcome stories not like our own, how to see the divine in every face.

Community doesn’t shape us into better churchgoers.It shapes us into better people.

The Table We Carry Forward

At the heart of the gospel is a simple truth:Jesus gathers.

He gathers the lonely.He gathers the hurting.He gathers the overlooked.He gathers the ones who feel out of place everywhere else.

And then He gives them to one another.

That is the community we are called to create.Not just a place to worship, but a place to belong.Not just a place to sit, but a place to be seen.Not just a place to learn, but a place to become.

The table Jesus set is not a relic.It is a blueprint.

It tells us that grace looks like shared bread, shared burdens, shared presence, and shared life.

And when we gather that way—when we form communities that heal rather than divide, that uplift rather than judge, that widen rather than gatekeep—we become part of something holy.

We become the reflection of the Kingdom Jesus said was already here among us.

There are days when I feel like the world is determined to pull every nerve in our bodies until something snaps. The headlines hit like shrapnel—ICE raids, cruelty passed off as policy, families torn apart, Christians cheering for the most un-Christlike actions imaginable, politicians blessing it all with a Bible in one hand and a flag in the other. There’s no shortage of outrage. And honestly, there’s no shortage of reasons to be outraged. But before we talk about the news, or about Christian Nationalism, or about the current administration’s parade of authoritarian nonsense, I want to pause and ask a more unsettling question: what is all of this doing to our souls?

Because I’ve been watching something happen—not just to the country, not just to the church, but to people. To the tender-hearted, justice-seeking, weary-but-still-trying people who refuse to turn their eyes away from suffering. People who care. People who love. People who still believe, against all odds, that compassion matters. And I’m beginning to see a spiritual injury forming—slowly, quietly, like a bruise beneath the surface of our collective heart. It’s the injury caused by constant outrage, by unrelenting exposure to cruelty, by the sense that we must stay emotionally vigilant or the world will collapse, by the belief—spoken or not—that if we look away for even a moment, we are complicit.

But there’s more. This spiritual injury isn’t only from the suffering we witness. It’s also from the betrayal we feel when the ones inflicting suffering claim they’re doing it in the name of Jesus. There’s something uniquely painful about watching the faith you love—your battered, stumbling, still-beautiful faith—weaponized against the very people Jesus told us to protect. And when grief and anger collide like that, it becomes a kind of spiritual exhaustion that no amount of caffeine or scrolling or weekend rest can heal. So today I want to speak—to your heart, and mine—about what happens when outrage becomes a spiritual burden, why Christian Nationalism is at the center of that injury, and what it looks like to reclaim hope when the world feels too heavy to carry. Not a performative hope. Not a shallow “God’s in control!” hope. But a hard-won, muscle-built, tear-earned hope—the kind of hope that doesn’t dismiss reality but insists on love anyway. Because this moment we’re living through demands both honesty and courage. And it demands a spirituality deep enough to survive the times.

Outrage is often righteous. It often comes from a holy place inside us. Jesus flipped tables, after all—not because He was petty, but because greed and abuse of power had desecrated the place meant to welcome the weary. Anger can be faithful. Anger can be prophetic. Anger can be love in defense of the vulnerable. But outrage wasn’t meant to be a permanent state of being. We weren’t built to live in perpetual crisis mode. We weren’t created to absorb pain like sponges with no release valve. We weren’t designed to carry the world alone. And yet, here we are—bombarded nonstop, every day, with evidence of the worst instincts of empire. Empire loves chaos. Empire loves fear. Empire loves exhaustion. When a population is overwhelmed, it is easier to manipulate. When a church is scared, it is easier to control. When people are angry without rest, they become reactive instead of discerning.

Christian Nationalism knows this. The current administration knows this. Any regime that thrives on power knows this. Keep the people exhausted, keep them emotionally saturated, keep them afraid, and you can justify anything—even things Jesus Himself would condemn. Especially things Jesus Himself would condemn. There is a reason so many Christians today are spiritually disoriented. They are living in a theological fog created by leaders who preach nationalism as if it were gospel. They have been told that loyalty to a party is loyalty to Christ. They have been told that cruelty is strength, that exclusion is holiness, that protecting privilege is defending “Christian values.” But here’s the truth: God is not American. He never has been. He never will be. God doesn’t bless borders more than people. God doesn’t sanctify policies that harm the vulnerable. God doesn’t take the side of empire. God doesn’t need the protection of militarized faith. What we are watching right now is not Christianity—it is idolatry. It is a golden calf draped in red, white, and blue. It is a political cult wearing a cross-shaped costume. It is a movement so drunk on power that it has mistaken dominance for discipleship and control for calling. And the damage of that distortion isn’t only societal. It’s spiritual. It seeps into us. It makes us cynical. It makes us numb. It makes us feel like hope is naïve and tenderness is a liability.

We start believing that compassion is useless in a world like this. We start believing that small acts of goodness don’t matter. We start believing that our voices don’t change anything. We start believing that being loving is somehow childish. We start believing that breaking apart is inevitable. But that’s how empires win—by convincing you that your heart isn’t powerful. Let me say this clearly: your tenderness is a threat to tyranny. Your compassion is a rebellion. Your hope is a weapon. Empires can handle anger—they know how to redirect it. But they do not know what to do with a people who refuse to lose their humanity. A people who grieve, but keep loving. A people who rage, but refuse to hate. A people who see the worst—and still choose the good. That kind of people terrify empires.

So maybe what we need right now is not less engagement with the world, but a different kind. One that doesn’t set our souls on fire until we burn out. One that doesn’t sacrifice our tenderness to stay “informed.” One that doesn’t confuse anger for purpose. Maybe what we need is a spirituality that can hold outrage without letting it consume us—a spirituality that makes room for lament, but also for laughter; a spirituality that honors grief, but protects joy like a sacred ember; a spirituality that tells the truth about how dark things are, but insists that the light is real.

Because the world is heavy. But heaviness is not the whole story. Some of the most holy work you will do in these times will feel small. It will feel insignificant. It will feel like not nearly enough in the face of everything wrong. But the kingdom of God has always been built on small things—on mustard seeds, on loaves and fish, on cups of water, on strangers around a table, on quiet acts of compassion that ripple farther than we’ll ever see.

So, where do we go from here? We begin by tending to our souls—not as an escape from the world, but as preparation to face it. If you’re exhausted, you’re not failing. If you’re overwhelmed, it’s not weakness. If your heart feels bruised, you’re human. But here’s what I want you to remember: you do not have to match the world’s violence with internal violence. You do not have to match the world’s chaos with internal chaos. You do not have to match the world’s cruelty with internal hardness. You get to stay soft. You get to rest. You get to breathe. You get to put the screen down and step outside. You get to cry and still be strong. You get to hope and still be realistic. You get to love and still be angry. You get to be human in a world that keeps telling you to be a machine.

And maybe—just maybe—this is what resistance looks like in a moment like ours: refusing to let the world dehumanize you. Because the truth is, Christian Nationalism is not just a political threat. It’s a spiritual threat. It trains people to worship power instead of Christ. It trains people to see enemies instead of neighbors. It trains people to sacrifice compassion for dominance. It trains people to mistake fear for faith. But your soul was not made for that. Your soul was made for mercy. Your soul was made for community. Your soul was made for justice. Your soul was made for belonging. Your soul was made for love.

And love is not naïve—it’s defiant. Joy is not denial—it’s rebellion. Hope is not weakness—it’s spiritual endurance. So let this be your reminder today: you are allowed to be outraged. You are allowed to be angry. But you are not required to destroy yourself in the process. You are allowed to step back. You are allowed to rest your soul. You are allowed to let hope live in you again. And when you rise—and you will rise—you will rise not with the brittle rage of empire, but with the resilient compassion of Christ. And that, my friend, is how we outlive empires. That is how we outlove them. That is how we outlast them. Not by mirroring their cruelty, but by protecting the part of us that empire cannot touch—the part Jesus called the kingdom of God within us. The part of us that still believes the world can change. The part of us that still believes people can heal. The part of us that still believes love can win—not magically, not passively, but faithfully, relentlessly, intentionally.

And so today, in a world lit by outrage, may you cultivate the quieter, fiercer light of compassion. May you remember that God is not American, and never asked you to carry a nation on your back. May you refuse to let empire harden your heart. May you protect your tenderness like something holy. And may you continue, step by step, breath by breath, to build the beloved community the world has forgotten how to imagine. Your hope is not naïve. Your softness is not a flaw. Your love is not misplaced. Your soul—still tender, still fighting, still human—is the very resistance the world needs now.

There are days when the grief hits before the coffee. Days when the headlines don’t feel like news but like a wound — reopened, raw, pulsing with the ache of human dignity denied. Days when the cruelty is so casual, so bureaucratic, so expected, that we forget how horrifying it really is.

Today is one of those days.

And I’m done pretending this is anything other than evil.

Not misguided.Not “complicated.”Not a policy disagreement.Not something we can euphemize into civility.

Evil.

Because what ICE is doing — under the blessing of the current administration, under the applause of the Republican Party, under the amens of Christian Nationalism — is evil. And to call it anything else would make me complicit in the very violence I denounce.

Let’s name it plainly.

ICE is separating families.ICE is terrorizing migrants.ICE is targeting vulnerable people with predatory violence.ICE is ripping mothers from children, husbands from wives, teenagers from every familiar face they’ve ever known.

And they are doing it with crosses hanging on their rearview mirrors, with politicians invoking Jesus at rallies, with pastors preaching fear of the foreigner as if Christ Himself didn’t grow up as a refugee.

The cruelty is not a byproduct.It’s the point.

You can tell by who cheers.

This is not gatekeeping. This is state-sanctioned hatred.

We’ve talked about gatekeeping in the Church — the ways Christians police the boundaries of belonging, the ways they decide who is worthy of grace and who must sit outside the door.

But what we are witnessing now is far beyond that.

It is not gatekeeping.It is gate-building — brick by brick — into prisons.Into detention centers.Into cages.Into the hellish machinery of a government that has decided human life is disposable if it crosses the border at the wrong time, in the wrong skin, with the wrong accent.

And the Church — the same Church that claims to follow the refugee Christ — is blessing it.

They’re waving flags over suffering.They’re calling violence “order.”They’re calling cruelty “Christian duty.”They’re calling oppression “law and order,” as if the cross wasn’t a state-sanctioned execution justified by “law and order.”

Christian Nationalism doesn’t even hide anymore.It demands: “Crucify them.”And ICE obeys.

The Bible they ignore burns with judgment

Let’s remember how God responds to nations that mistreat the foreigner:

* “You must not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves were foreigners.” (Exodus 23:9)

* “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner.” (Deut. 27:19)

* “Do not mistreat or oppress the foreigner, for the Lord your God defends their cause.” (Deut. 10:18)

* “I will come in judgment… against those who deprive foreigners of justice.” (Malachi 3:5)

These aren’t metaphors.These aren’t optional.These are divine non-negotiables.

You cannot bless ICE with one hand and break bread in Jesus’ name with the other.God does not receive worship from blood-stained altars.

Jesus has never been on the side of empire

Let’s be clear:If ICE existed in the first century, Jesus would be arrested by them.

He was undocumented in Egypt.He was Brown­-skinned under occupation.He was on the margins of the margins.His first sermon declared liberation for the oppressed.His final judgment scene in Matthew 25 hinges not on theological purity but on treatment of the stranger.

You don’t get to cage the very people Jesus identifies Himself with and call it “Christian.”

You don’t get to traumatize families with state terror and say you are “protecting the nation.”

You don’t get to weaponize Jesus against the very people He came to liberate.

If Jesus were walking the earth today, He wouldn’t be blessing ICE agents.He’d be visiting ICE victims.He’d be standing at the detention center gates.He’d be feeding migrants fleeing violence.He’d be confronting the Herods and Caesars of our day whose policies depend on the suffering of the vulnerable.

You cannot follow Jesus by standing with the people He warned us not to become.

The Church is choosing power over compassion

Let’s tell the truth:This is about political dominance, not discipleship.

Christian Nationalism will sacrifice the gospel before it ever sacrifices its proximity to power.It will bless brutality if it keeps them close to Caesar.It will trade compassion for control.And in doing so, it proclaims a Christ who looks nothing like Jesus.

The Church that cheers ICE has forgotten who they were in the story:

Not Rome.Not the Temple elite.Not the gatekeeper.Not the ruler.But the wanderers, the exiles, the foreigners, the ones dependent on mercy.

The second we forget we were once strangers, we become oppressors.

So what do we do?

We refuse to participate.We refuse to be silent.We refuse to baptize hatred.We refuse to let Christ’s name be used as a weapon against the very people He identifies as His own.

We amplify immigrant voices.We support mutual aid.We vote with the clarity of conscience Scripture demands.We demand sanctuary cities.We denounce Christian complicity.And we remind this country that moral courage is not optional for people of faith.

The Church must choose.

Will we follow Jesus into the camp of the oppressed?

Or will we follow politicians into the machinery of oppression?

Only one looks like the Gospel.

If Jesus is anywhere in America tonight, He is not in the ICE command center.

He is in the detention cell with the mother who hasn’t seen her child in 14 days.He is walking with the teenager trembling through a desert night.He is sleeping on a shelter cot beside a father whose family is still in danger back home.He is standing at the border fence, hands open, heart breaking.

And if we cannot find Him there,if we cannot defend Him there,if we cannot love Him there—

then we do not know Him at all.

There is a moment in the Psalms—several, really—where David is both collapsing and rising in the same breath. His enemies surround him, his heart is trembling, and yet somehow he ends up saying things like “I will yet praise Him” and “The Lord is the lifter of my head.”

David never waited for the world to soften before he dared to sing.

And maybe that’s the word we need right now.

Because everywhere we look, someone is exhausted. Someone is grieving. Someone is carrying a private ache they don’t know how to name. The air feels thick with rage, judgment, tribalism, and emotional warfare. Yet here we are—still waking up, still breathing, still searching for hope in the haze.

If you’re reading this today and barely holding on, hear me:You are allowed to feel joy again. Even now. Especially now.Joy is not denial. Joy is defiance.

A Joy That Lives Between the Cracks

Paul wrote from prison, “Rejoice always.” Not because circumstances were good. Not because everything made sense. But because joy doesn’t require a perfect environment—it requires an available heart.

Joy is the fruit of a Spirit who knows exactly how badly we’re hurting and chooses to stay anyway.

Joy sneaks into hospital rooms.Joy pulls up a chair beside grief.Joy whispers into nights that feel too long:“I haven’t left you. I won’t.”

We tend to think joy disappears during conflict or confusion, but Scripture insists it grows there. Like wildflowers breaking through concrete, joy thrives in places where no one expects it to bloom.

Not because we are strong, but because God is near.

Love as Resistance, Kindness as Rebellion

Every day we are being discipled—by headlines, by outrage, by fear, by the constant hum of us-vs-them. The fruit of the Spirit can feel almost unreasonably gentle in moments like this. Love? Peace? Patience? Kindness? These sound like luxuries in a world on fire.

But what if they are actually our spiritual weapons?

What if the greatest protest against hatred is tenderness?What if kindness is what breaks cycles of cruelty?What if gentleness is how we reclaim our own humanity?

You don’t have to be loud to be powerful.You don’t have to win arguments to change the atmosphere of a room.You don’t have to match someone’s fury to hold your ground.

Paul wasn’t telling us to be passive. He was giving us strategies for survival.In a world that feeds on emotional warfare, the Spirit grows fruit that heals.

For the One Who Feels Too Tired to Hope

Let me speak directly to you—yes, you.

If your heart is frayed,if your soul feels thin,if your spirit is bruised from all the noise…

There is a place for you here.

Not the polished version of you.Not the brave version of you.Just you—the you who’s doing your best with what you’ve got.

God has not abandoned you to the chaos.And even if you can’t hold onto God right now, God is still holding onto you.

In the words of David, “I would have lost heart unless I had believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

Not someday.Not in heaven.Here. Now. In the land of the living.

There is goodness left for you.

Practicing Joy in a Hostile World

Joy, for many of us, is not a feeling—it’s a practice. A rhythm. A decision we make in the middle of the storm.

Here are a few ways to practice joy even when life is loud:

• Notice small mercies.Joy is often hiding in ordinary places—warm light through a window, a text from someone who cares, a moment of clarity, a quiet breath.

• Bless something today.A person. A moment. A memory. Speak blessing over your life. Make your mouth a doorway for peace.

• Choose gentleness where anger wants to rule.It doesn’t mean silence. It means presence. It means responding from your spirit, not your wounds.

• Let yourself be loved.By God. By community. By the steady people in your life who stay.

Joy grows best in soil softened by connection.

A Final Word for the Journey Ahead

Beloved, we are living in a time where hatred broadcasts louder than hope—but that does not mean hope has lost its power. We are living in a season where cruelty trends faster than compassion—but compassion still transforms hearts.

Joy is not naïve.Love is not weak.Kindness is not fragile.Peace is not passive.

These are the fruits of a God who refuses to give up on us.These are the markers of a Kingdom that outlives every empire.These are the signs that the light is still shining, even in the shadow of despair.

So breathe.Slow down.Find your footing.

Let joy rise in you—not because life is perfect, but because God is present.Let love soften you—not because the world deserves it, but because your soul does.Let peace wrap around you—not as an escape, but as a strength.

And when you forget all of this tomorrow (because we all do), come back.Read it again.There will be enough mercy waiting for you.

You are not alone.You are not forgotten.And joy—persistent, stubborn, holy joy—is still yours for the taking.

TRIGGER WARNING: Conversation Therapy

I’ve been noticing an unsettling rise in conversations around “conversion therapy” again—videos resurfacing, pastors dusting off old talking points, politicians rallying around the promise that “change is possible.” Every time I hear it, something inside me aches. Because conversion therapy is not merely a misguided idea or a theological dispute. It is one of the most destructive ideologies ever unleashed in the name of God.

People truly believe they are saving lives when, in reality, they are dismantling them.

“For what doth it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”

They quote this verse as if it justifies their mission—become straight, become cis, become acceptable, and you will save your soul.But the tragic irony is that conversion therapy does not save souls. It splinters them. It fractures identities God crafted with care. It demands that queer people amputate the parts of themselves that God lovingly knit together in the womb.

They say conversion therapy is saving your soul, but in truth, it seeks to destroy your soul and turn you into a shell of yourself.Nothing holy grows from self-erasure.

The Harm Is Not The Identity — The Harm Is The Attempt To Erase It

Let me be abundantly clear before we go any further:

Queer people are not broken.Queer people are not confused.Queer people do not need to be “fixed.”

The only thing that needs repair is the theology that taught Christians to fear the diversity God intentionally placed within humanity.

The harm of conversion therapy has nothing to do with queerness itself. The harm flows entirely from the attempt to uproot, suppress, or rewire what God designed.

To be queer is not a spiritual injury — it is a spiritual testimony.It is one of the many ways God expresses creativity and beauty in creation.

The Data Is Clear: Conversion Therapy Causes Devastation

The human cost of conversion therapy is staggering. Far beyond emotional discomfort or theological disagreement, the documented harms reveal the magnitude of this violence.

* A major study conducted with The Trevor Project estimated that in the U.S., 508,892 LGBTQ youth are at risk of undergoing conversion therapy in a given year. The practice costs the U.S. an estimated $9.23 billion annually, once the downstream harms (depression, homelessness, substance abuse, suicidality) are factored in.

* Evidence-based reviews from Cornell University found no credible evidence that sexual orientation can be changed — and overwhelming evidence that attempting to do so leads to trauma, shame, and psychological distress.

* A Stanford University study found significantly elevated rates of PTSD, suicidal ideation, and depression among LGBTQ adults who underwent conversion therapy compared to those who did not.

* The UK government’s 2021 study concluded that conversion therapy resulted in widespread self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and long-term psychological damage.

* The Human Rights Campaign states plainly: “So-called ‘conversion therapy’ is dangerous and discredited… It can lead to depression, anxiety, self-hatred, and suicide.”

These aren’t abstract findings. These are real people.Real stories.Real souls pushed into despair because someone taught them that God rejected their authentic selves.

And for what?To fit into a man-made mold of “holiness” that bears no resemblance to Jesus.

Conversion Therapy Is Biblically Misaligned — Not Queerness

The Bible does not justify conversion therapy.Conversion therapy exists because of a theological invention, not a biblical command. No prophet ever told anyone: “Change your orientation so God will love you.” No apostle ever said: “Erase who you are to prove your discipleship.”

The misalignment is not between Scripture and queer identity — the misalignment is between Scripture and those who try to erase queer identity.

Let’s break that down.

1. God’s Knowing Begins in the Womb — Not After Conformity

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

God’s knowing is not a passive observation. It is intentional, intimate, and delighted.God did not knit queer people together accidentally, only to demand they unravel themselves later.

To say that queerness must be corrected implies that God did not know what God was doing.

No part of your identity shocks God.God is not waiting for you to “fix” yourself in order to be whole.Your queerness is part of the image of God you carry.

2. Jesus Heals Wounds, Not Identities

Jesus healed exploitation, shame, and oppression—never diversity in identity.

He never said:“Your orientation is the problem.”“Your gender experience is the sin.”“Change who you are to be acceptable.”

Instead, Jesus restored people to community, dignity, and belonging.Conversion therapy does the opposite: it isolates, shames, and attempts to “correct” God’s creation.

If anything needs conversion, it is not queer people —it is the theology that harms them.

3. Holiness Has Never Meant Becoming Straight

Holiness is not heterosexuality.Holiness is not cisgender expression.Holiness is not conformity to cultural gender norms.

Holiness in Scripture is love embodied, justice pursued, mercy practiced, humility lived.It is not a sexual orientation.It is not a gender identity.It is the posture of the heart, not the suppression of one’s authenticity.

Conversion therapy reframes holiness as compliance:“Become straight and you will be holy.”But Jesus reframed holiness as liberation:“Know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Truth is not found in suppressing identity —it is found in living honestly within the identity God shaped.

4. Queerness Is Not a Flaw — It Is a Divine Feature

This is where the conversation must shift entirely.

We have been conditioned to think of queerness as a burden people must carry.But what if queerness is actually a gift the church desperately needs?

Queer people bring creativity, empathy, depth, resilience, and insight that enrich the body of Christ.We reflect aspects of God’s image that the world would otherwise never see.

Imagine a tapestry woven from many colors.Remove the queer threads and the tapestry does not become holier —it becomes duller.Flatter.Incomplete.

“What God has made clean, do not call unclean.”(Acts 10:15)

If this applies to food on a table, how much more does it apply to people made in God’s likeness?

The Real Gospel: You Do Not Need to Be Rescued From Yourself

Let me speak directly to the queer heart reading this:

You do not need to be rescued from your identity.Your identity is not a sin, a defect, or a misalignment.It is part of the sacred architecture of who you are.

The only thing you need liberation from is the theology that told you God could not love the real you.

You are not disordered.You are not disqualified.You are not a theological contradiction.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.You are the imago Dei in vibrant hues.

God delights in who you are — not who others demand you pretend to be.

What Truly Needs Healing: The Harm, Not the Identity

When I talk about “healing,” I am not talking about healing queerness.There is nothing to heal there.

The wounds come from:

* rejection

* spiritual abuse

* shame-based teachings

* forced secrecy

* isolation

* fear of condemnation

* attempts to suppress the self

* communities that demand conformity over truth

* families that weaponize religion

* churches that mistake control for holiness

These are the things that break us — not queerness.

Healing means removing the lie, not removing the identity.Healing means reclaiming the truth of who you are, not erasing it.

Healing is about restoring the soul from shame, not from sexuality.

A New Way Forward: Restoration Instead of Erasure

What if churches stopped trying to change queer people and instead repented of how they harmed them?

What if communities embraced queer believers not as exceptions, but as essential expressions of God’s creativity?

What if the church finally realized that queer people do not bring disorder —they bring revelation?

Because we do.

Queer Christians teach the world about resilience, authenticity, chosen family, radical love, embodied joy, and courage in the face of exclusion.We mirror Christ in ways others cannot see until they see us.

When we thrive, the church grows richer.When we are silenced, the church grows poorer.

Conclusion: God Made You in Color

“When I created you in the womb, I knew you.”

I believe queer identities—LGBTQIA+ identities—are gifts of God:colors woven into the tapestry of humanity, living proof of divine creativity.

Imagine the splendor of creation if it existed only in black and white.Imagine the dullness of a sunset with no reds, no violets, no gold.Imagine a world stripped of the brilliance God intentionally poured into it.

Oh, how dim the beauty of God would be if humanity came only in one shade.

So I say this with full authority and full tenderness:

God made you queer.God delights in your queerness.Your queerness is holy.

Conversion therapy is not about healing — it is about erasure.It does not save souls — it shatters them.It does not honor God — it insults the Creator by attacking their handiwork.

But the gospel of Jesus?The gospel says:

Come as you are — in the fullness of who you are — and live.Not in hiding.Not in shame.Not in fear.But in truth, dignity, belonging, and divine color.

You are not the problem.Bad theology is.

And may the church one day be brave enough to confess that.

There are some essays you read and immediately know: something true is happening here. Not theological posturing. Not culture-war curation. Not the polished performance that modern American Christianity has become addicted to.Just witness.Just Jesus.

Lisa’s article, “Dear Christians — I Met Jesus Yesterday,” is one of those rare pieces that bypasses the intellect and goes straight for the heart. Her entire reflection is holy in its simplicity: this isn’t theology—it’s witness. She met Jesus twice in a week, and neither encounter happened in the places where contemporary Evangelicalism insists He must be found. Not in the sanctuary. Not in the spectacle. Not behind a pulpit surrounded by LED walls and branded merch.

She found Him where Scripture always said He would be—in the hungry, the stranger, the recovering addict, the exhausted mother at the checkout line trying to decide which food her children could live without.

Reading her reflection felt like being reintroduced to a Jesus many churches have forgotten—not the mascot of Christian nationalism,not the spokesperson for tribal resentment,not the gatekeeper who demands doctrinal performance before mercy can be offered,but the Christ who said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 6:20)

Her witness is a reminder that the Gospel is not most at home in sanctuaries but in grocery aisles, recovery homes, and the fragile spaces where dignity is hanging by a thread.

And I want to build on that today.Because what Lisa described is the Gospel you and I were taught, yet seldom see practiced.It is the Gospel that is being drowned out by political idolatry and fear-soaked Christianity.It is the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth—not the Jesus of America’s culture wars.

This is an essay about rediscovering Him.

The Jesus We Keep Missing

There is a line that echoes across the history of the Church:We rarely miss Jesus because we are too secular; we miss Him because we are too religious.

The people who knew Scripture best in Jesus’ day were the ones who failed to recognize Him when He stood in front of them. Their theology was thorough. Their orthodoxy was impeccable. Their boundaries were strong. Their doctrines were airtight.And so, when Love came in borrowed clothes and bare feet, they called Him a threat.

Nothing has changed.

Christian nationalism has hardened the American Church into a movement obsessed with moral surveillance and political dominance. It knows how to recite Bible verses but knows very little about how to live them. It builds fortresses out of Scripture instead of open tables. It spends more time guarding pulpits than guarding the vulnerable. It wields doctrine like barbed wire to keep “the wrong people” out while the Jesus of Matthew 25 keeps slipping past the barricades to sit with the hungry, the imprisoned, the overlooked, and the forgotten.

Lisa met Him in the man asking for laundry soap.She met Him in the mother counting dollars.She met Him where the world does not expect holiness to be.And yet these are the precise places Jesus Himself said, “There I am.”

Every time we see someone in need, we are not merely seeing a neighbor—we are seeing the face of Christ.This is not metaphor. This is not poetic flourish.This is Gospel.

“Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”— Jesus, Matthew 25:40

Jesus does not place Himself in the seat of political power but in the position of human vulnerability. He does not masquerade as the strong; He is found in the weak. He does not side with the comfortable; He takes the side of the desperate.

And so the question that Lisa’s article loudly, beautifully asks is this:

Do we still recognize Him?

Not the church-brand Jesus.Not the partisan Jesus.Not the Jesus forged in the imaginations of those who hunger for dominance.But the Jesus who keeps showing up in grocery aisles with tired eyes, missing teeth, and a whispered “God bless you.”

The Gospel Is Not a Stage — It’s a Reflex

Lisa writes something that convicted me deeply:“Faith isn’t a membership card or a verse recited on cue; it’s a reflex.”

How many of us were raised to believe that Christianity is primarily about statements, beliefs, and boundaries?How many of us were taught to fear error more than suffering?How many of us were trained to prioritize theological precision over human dignity?

But the Jesus of the Gospels does not ask, “Do you have the right systematic theology?”He asks, “Do you see Me?”In the hungry.In the stranger.In the recovering addict.In the mother deciding which groceries to return.

Faith is not proven by how loudly we defend Jesus in political debates; it is proven by whether we recognize Him when He interrupts our comfort.

Lisa captures this with such clarity:

“He didn’t come to test my generosity. He came to see if I would recognize Him when he interrupted my comfort.”

That is discipleship.That is spiritual maturity.That is what Christian nationalism cannot understand—because it has replaced compassion with suspicion,mercy with moral policing,neighbor-love with ideological loyalty.

The Church cannot reclaim its witness until it remembers thatthe Gospel is not a performance but a posture.A posture of proximity.A posture of noticing.A posture of bending low enough to see those whom society teaches us to overlook.

Where Christ Has Always Been Found

Scripture does not leave us guessing about where Jesus is found.

He is found among the poor (Luke 6:20).He is found in the hungry (Matthew 25).He is found in the imprisoned.He is found in the stranger.He is found in the ones who cannot repay, impress, or elevate us.

The early Church understood this.The saints throughout history understood this.But the modern American Church has traded proximity for spectacle.

It is possible—very possible—to attend church every Sunday and never meet Jesus.

It is possible to memorize verses and never notice Him.To defend Christian doctrine and never demonstrate Christian compassion.To worship loudly and live lovelessly.To raise hands in a sanctuary but refuse to extend them in a grocery line.

This is why Lisa’s witness matters.It is prophetic in its simplicity.It is theological in its witness.It is pastoral in its challenge.

She reminds us that if we want to find Christ, we must go where Christ always goes:

to the places where need is greater than status.

If you want to see Jesus today, go to the places where your comfort is interrupted.Go where mercy has to prove itself.Go where dignity is fragile and hope is thin.Go to the grocery store, the bus stop, the recovery program, the shelter, the places where people are praying for miracles in public view.

If we are waiting to meet Jesus inside the walls of the church, we may wait forever.

The Church Jesus Would Recognize

Let me be honest:I do not believe Jesus recognizes much of the American Church right now.

He recognizes the marginalized—but not the machinery built to exclude them.He recognizes the hurting—but not the institutions that profit from their shame.He recognizes the broken—but not the leaders who weaponize sin to win political power.He recognizes the ones who show mercy—but not the ones who build walls in His name.

Christian nationalism has discipled a generation into believing that cruelty is strength and exclusion is holiness.It teaches that the ones Jesus calls blessed are burdens, threats, or enemies.It cosmetically baptizes political ideologies and calls them discipleship.

Lisa’s witness stands as a rebuke to all of that.Her encounters with Jesus were quiet, untheatrical, unmonetized, and unbranded.No stage lights.No social media proof.No applause.

Just mercy.Just presence.Just human dignity restored in a small corner of the world.

This is what Christianity looks like when it is stripped of ego and returned to its source.

A Call to Notice Again

Lisa ends her piece with a line that shook me:

“Maybe the Second Coming isn’t an arrival at all—it’s a recognition.”

Maybe Jesus is already here—in the one asking for soap.In the mother who can’t afford milk.In the friend in recovery.In the neighbor whose dignity is wearing thin.

Maybe the judgment Jesus speaks of in Matthew 25 will not be based on doctrinal accuracy but on recognition:

Did you see Me?Did you help Me?Did you love Me?Did you notice Me?

Christian nationalism wants a Jesus who polices.Jesus wants a people who notice.

Christian nationalism builds walls.Jesus builds tables.

Christian nationalism protects comfort.Jesus interrupts it.

The Kingdom of God has never been built through political power, but through compassion powerful enough to cross boundaries the world insists on maintaining.

On This Sunday, Let Christ-Like Love Be Your Church

So here is the invitation, inspired by Lisa’s holy witness:Notice again.

Look up.Slow down.Pay attention in the places where your plans collide with someone else’s need.

If you encounter someone hungry today, you are standing on holy ground.If you meet someone in recovery today, you are meeting the image of God.If you see someone struggling quietly, Jesus is standing in front of you.

You do not need a sanctuary to meet Him.You do not need a pulpit to follow Him.You do not need a worship band to recognize Him.

You simply need eyes that are willing to be interrupted.

Because Christ is still walking this world in borrowed clothes.And He is asking, as He always has:Do you recognize Me?

On this Sunday, let Christ-like love be your church.

Let your sanctuary be the grocery aisle.Let your sermon be your compassion.Let your worship be the dignity you restore.Let your faith be measured by the people who feel seen because you paused long enough to see them.

Lisa saw Jesus twice last week.If we start looking with the same courage, we will discover that He has been here the whole time—waiting for us in every fragile, holy place where love is needed most.

Say the word socialism in most American evangelical spaces and watch the room tense. Eyes narrow. Shoulders stiffen. The fear is visceral, almost spiritual. But that reaction has nothing to do with Jesus. It has everything to do with America—and especially the America shaped by Trumpism.

Because in our current political climate, where MAGA nationalism has baptized authoritarianism as faith, socialism has become the perfect villain: the threat that justifies their grasp for power.

But if you scrape away the slogans, the propaganda, and the fear-mongering, the truth becomes painfully clear:

Evangelicals aren’t afraid of socialism because of theology. They’re afraid of socialism because it threatens the political machine they’ve bound their faith to.

Let’s name it plainly.

1. The Cold War Script Created the Fear—MAGA Weaponized It

For decades, Americans were programmed to equate socialism with national disaster. The Cold War narrative taught entire generations to hear “socialism” and instinctively think:

* tyranny,

* godlessness,

* economic collapse,

* the loss of freedom.

That fear was real, but it was created—carefully, deliberately.

Then came Trump.

Trump didn’t create that fear; he exploited it.He injected steroids into it.He turned it into a rallying cry.

MAGA politicians now frame any policy that aligns with compassion—healthcare expansion, student debt relief, living wages, safety nets—as “radical socialism.” Not because it is, but because fear mobilizes political loyalty.

Evangelicals weren’t just conditioned—they were groomed.

And Trumpism turned “socialism” into the moral equivalent of Satan, so that anything—even cruelty, corruption, or authoritarian rule—feels justified to defeat it.

2. Evangelicals Defend Capitalism Not Because It’s Biblical—But Because It’s Political

Under MAGA ideology, capitalism has been declared sacred.The marketplace becomes holy.The wealthy become “job creators.”The poor become suspect.And the church becomes a chaplain to the American economy.

This merging of faith and capitalism didn’t start with Trump, but Trump perfected the formula:

If capitalism = godliness, then any policy that redistributes power or resources = ungodly.

This is the theological sleight of hand behind modern Christian nationalism.

Evangelicals proclaim:

* “Socialism destroys freedom.”

* “Socialism is unbiblical.”

* “Socialism leads to immorality.”

But what they really mean is:“Socialism threatens the hierarchy we benefit from.”

Under MAGA Christianity:

* Wealth is righteousness.

* Power is divine favor.

* White supremacy is “heritage.”

* Christian nationalism is patriotism.

* Cruelty toward the poor is “tough love.”

This worldview collapses the economic ladder into a spiritual one—and anyone who challenges the system is labeled un-Christian.

It’s not theology.It’s political branding.And Jesus would’ve been driven out for rejecting it.

3. Jesus’ Parable of the Vineyard Workers Collides with MAGA Economics

Nowhere is this conflict clearer than in Jesus’ parable of the laborers in the vineyard.

Workers labor different hours.Some sweat through the entire day.Some barely put in an hour.

Jesus has the landowner pay everyone the same wage.

From a capitalist lens, this is outrageous.From a MAGA lens, this is “communism.”From Jesus’ lens, this is God’s justice.

And here’s the part modern evangelicals hate:

Jesus defends the “unfairness.”

He says, “Are you angry because I’m generous?”

He escalates it even further:

The last will be first, and the first will be last.

This is a direct assault on:

* meritocracy,

* hierarchy,

* economic entitlement,

* and the MAGA notion that those at the top deserve more because they “worked harder.”

Imagine preaching this in a Trump rally church.You’d be labeled a heretic.

But Jesus taught it without apology.

And under the ethic of the Kingdom:

* Everyone deserves enough to live.

* Dignity is not earned by productivity.

* Need takes precedence over merit.

* God’s generosity offends the privileged.

In other words—Jesus dismantles MAGA economics with a single parable.

4. Trumpism Needs Evangelicals to Hate Socialism Because It Needs Their Fear

MAGA politics thrives on:

* grievance,

* threats,

* manufactured enemies,

* and apocalyptic warnings.

They tell Christians:

* “The immigrants are coming.”

* “The left is coming for your children.”

* “Socialists will shut down churches.”

* “Your country is under attack.”

* “Only Trump can save you.”

This is fear as a political strategy.It is also idolatry disguised as faith.

But socialism—true socialism—doesn’t threaten religious freedom.It threatens economic power, corporate greed, and political dominance.

That’s why MAGA leaders hate it.

It threatens:

* their donors,

* their control,

* their illusions of moral superiority,

* and their ability to blame the poor for needing help.

And it especially threatens churches that have grown wealthy by aligning with political power instead of Jesus’ call to justice.

5. The Early Church Practiced Exactly What MAGA Calls “Dangerous”

Open the book of Acts and you find a Christian community practicing what would today be condemned from most evangelical pulpits as “radical socialist extremism.”

Acts 2–4 describes a church that:

* shared everything in common,

* redistributed resources according to need,

* dismantled economic hierarchy,

* and ensured that no one went without.

This is not capitalism.This is not Trumpism.This is not “America First.”

This is Jesus.

The early church wasn’t trying to preserve power.They weren’t protecting wealth.They weren’t hoarding abundance.They were embodying the Kingdom Jesus preached—a Kingdom completely incompatible with MAGA ideology.

And that is precisely why today’s Christian nationalists oppose anything that resembles socialism:it exposes that their movement is political, not biblical.

6. The Great Sin of Our Moment: A Church That Prefers Caesar to Christ

We are witnessing a historic moral collapse.

A movement that once claimed to follow the teachings of Jesus now cheers the cruelty of strongmen, embraces the authoritarian impulses of Trump, and condemns anything that challenges the idols of wealth, power, and nationalism.

They defend cages, cruelty, conspiracies, and corruption—but reject compassion if it costs them anything.

They carry crosses while worshiping Caesar.They shout “Lord, Lord” while bowing to Mammon.They condemn socialism while ignoring the poor at their doorstep.

Meanwhile Jesus stands in the vineyard, inviting the last laborers forward, lavishing grace that offends the powerful.

And the modern church grumbles:“Is that fair?”“Do they deserve that?”“Have they earned it?”

Jesus’ answer rings out now as loudly as it did then:

“Are you angry because I am generous?”

Yes.They are.And that is the tragedy of American Christianity in the age of Trump.

There are days when faith feels heavy to carry. Days when you look at the world—or your life—and wonder where the Jesus you once trusted has gone. Days when you feel like you’re quietly slipping away from what used to anchor you. Not because you stopped believing, but because you’re tired, disappointed, or just unsure of where God is moving in the fog of it all.

The two disciples on the Road to Emmaus knew that feeling better than anyone. They weren’t walking toward a miracle; they were walking away from heartbreak. In Luke 24, we meet them on a seven-mile stretch of road heading out of Jerusalem, away from the place where their hope had died. Their grief was still fresh. Their disappointment still raw. Even the rumors of resurrection felt like too much to hope for.

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And yet, even in their confusion, Jesus came and walked with them—not waiting for them to return to the “right” place, not insisting they believe correctly first, not demanding they fix their theology before He drew near. He simply joined them where they were.

This is the mercy of God Paul talks about when he writes, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Weakness is not a disqualifier in God’s economy. It is an invitation. A place where grace slows down to walk beside us.

And on the Emmaus Road, grace was walking at their pace.

The Road of Disappointment

The disciples’ words break the heart: “We had hoped…” (Luke 24:21). There is so much humanity in that one line. So much grief. So much unmet expectation. It is the prayer many of us have whispered in hospital rooms, in quiet living rooms after loss, in church pews that felt more like holding cells than havens.

There are seasons when we walk away from what we once believed because the story didn’t unfold the way we were promised. We prayed, and the healing never came. We trusted community, and community failed us. We believed God was moving, and the ground gave way under our feet. Sometimes we walk away not because we doubt Christ, but because we don’t know how to reconcile Christ with what just broke our heart.

This is exactly the kind of place where God does His most tender work.

Psalm 34:18 says, “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit.”Not the strong.Not the confident.Not the people performing faith well.The brokenhearted.

That’s who Jesus meets on the road.

You Still Belong

In the song I wrote yesterday, I penned the line:

In the shadows of my doubting,You whispered, “Child, you still belong.”

I didn’t write that line to sound poetic. I wrote it because it has been true in my life more times than I can count. There were seasons when my faith felt more like a bruise than a blessing—when I didn’t know what to pray, or whether prayer was even doing anything. And yet, even in that doubt, there were moments I felt God tug my heart like a gentle hand: not pulling me back in shame, but inviting me closer in love.

Jesus does that on the road to Emmaus.He listens.He asks questions.He lets them vent their confusion.He honors the pain they are carrying.

Belonging doesn’t begin when belief becomes perfect.Belonging begins when grace steps toward us in our imperfection.

This is the spirit of Romans 8:38–39—nothing can separate us from the love of God. Not doubt. Not disappointment. Not the long walk away from Jerusalem. Not even the parts of us that don’t recognize Jesus when He’s standing right beside us.

When Scripture Begins to Burn Again

As the disciples walk, Jesus begins to open the Scriptures to them—not as a lecture, but as a reweaving of hope. He takes the pieces they couldn’t understand and sets them gently back into the larger story. They later say, “Did not our hearts burn within us…?” (Luke 24:32). That burning wasn’t conviction; it was resurrection warming their grief.

Sometimes the heart begins to burn long before the eyes begin to see.

Years ago, I sat with someone who had been deeply wounded by their church. They told me, “I still believe in Jesus, but I don’t know if He believes in me anymore.” They had been walking their own Emmaus Road for years—carrying disappointment, carrying rejection, carrying the quiet fear that they no longer belonged.

We talked for a long time. And somewhere in that conversation, I watched something shift in them—not a full healing, not a sudden breakthrough, but the faint warmth of hope beginning to flicker again. It reminded me of the disciples: sometimes the Spirit rekindles our hearts in quiet ways long before revelation arrives in full light.

That burning is grace.That burning is resurrection drawing near.That burning is the whisper that you are not abandoned.

The Table Where Eyes Are Opened

The moment of recognition comes not through miracles or teaching, but through something much simpler: bread. Jesus takes it, blesses it, breaks it, and suddenly the disciples see Him. The same pattern appears in every moment Jesus reveals Himself—He blesses what is whole and breaks it so it can be shared. It is the rhythm of the cross and resurrection. It is the rhythm of grace.

Luke tells us, “Then their eyes were opened” (Luke 24:31).And don’t we all have moments like that?

When the prayer you prayed in exhaustion suddenly becomes clarity.When the Scripture you skimmed becomes revelation.When something small—a kindness, a word, a song—opens a door you didn’t know needed opening.

Jesus reveals Himself at the table because the table is where barriers fall.Where we stop performing.Where we rest.Where we receive.

It is no small thing that He opens their eyes over a meal. The table is where God makes strangers family. It’s where grace removes the walls we thought were permanent.

Your Love Is Stronger Than the Walls They Raise

One of the lyrics in the song says:

Your love is stronger than the walls they raise;Jesus, You welcome every heart You’ve made.

There were many walls on the Emmaus Road: fear, confusion, sorrow, shame, disillusionment. But walls have never stopped Jesus. Not the temple veil. Not death. Not unbelief. Not hurt. Not the opinions of the powerful.Certainly not the weary road of two discouraged disciples.

Ephesians 2:14 says, “He Himself is our peace… and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility.”Emmaus is proof that He still does.

Shame Falls, Hope Rises

When their eyes finally open, the disciples do something remarkable—they run back to Jerusalem. The same road that carried them away in disappointment now carries them back in hope.

When grace is revealed, shame loses its grip.When love breaks through, fear begins to unravel.When belonging is restored, courage rises.

This is why I wrote:

No shame can stand in the way.andYour arms are open the same.

The arms that embraced the doubter, welcomed the outsider, restored the wanderer—those arms have not changed. They didn’t change for the disciples. They don’t change for you.

A Final Word for Your Journey Today

Wherever you are walking—toward faith, away from it, or somewhere in that holy and honest middle—Jesus walks with you. Grace is calling your name. Your doubt does not exile you from belonging. Your disappointment does not push God away. Your confusion is not a threat to the Kingdom.

You are not walking this road alone.And you never will be.

Even in the shadows, even in the wrestling, even when your steps lead away from the familiar places of faith, the risen Christ draws near—still breaking bread, still opening eyes, still whispering through the Spirit:

“My grace is sufficient for you…for My power is made perfect in weakness.”(2 Corinthians 12:9)

And if you listen closely enough, you might hear Him say again:

“Child, you still belong.”

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There are days when the air feels heavy with a kind of spiritual suffocation—when you can sense that something fundamentally wrong has taken root in the American Church. Today is one of those days. I woke with a weight I couldn’t shake, a grief that mingled with righteous anger, and the realization settled in my spirit like a stone: I am grieving the Church, not the politics around it, not elections, not national turbulence, but the body of believers itself and what it has allowed itself to become.

We are witnessing, in real time, a once-influential stream of American Christianity enter a season of spiritual psychosis—a willing rupture between what Jesus taught and what they now openly support. That phrase isn’t poetic flourish; it is diagnosis. What we are seeing is not a subtle drift, nor the slow erosion of values that happens over generations. It is a deliberate choosing. A conscious betrayal. A turning away from the teachings of Christ in order to pledge allegiance to something louder, harder, and more gratifying to the ego.

Somewhere along the way, a significant portion of evangelicalism stopped asking, “Is this Christlike?” and replaced it with, “Does this benefit our tribe?” In that shift, faith ceased being a path toward holiness and became a costume worn for political advantage. Scripture no longer guides ethics. The life of Jesus no longer convicts behavior. The fruits of the Spirit no longer restrain rage or humble pride. And if none of these things govern them anymore, we must ask: what exactly are they practicing? Because it is not Christianity—not in any form recognizable by the Jesus who walked this earth.

Many like to imagine Trump deceived evangelicals, that he bewitched them with some spell. But the truth is simpler and far more unsettling: he revealed them. He didn’t change their hearts; he exposed them. Everything now on display—the cruelty, the tribalism, the hunger for domination, the eagerness to excuse immorality—didn’t appear in 2016. It was already simmering. Trump simply gave permission, stripped away the shame, and baptized their worst impulses in a language of divine mandate. It wasn’t deception; it was revelation.

And to sustain this revelation, to keep the illusion upright, evangelicals now practice cognitive dissonance like a spiritual discipline. They must believe Trump is chosen by God, that his sins are irrelevant, that every accusation against him is a political attack, that the justice system is corrupt whenever he is held accountable. They must believe these things because the alternative—that he is exactly what he appears to be—would force them to confront their own complicity in supporting a leader who embodies everything Christ condemned. So they numb themselves with slogans, drown out reality with outrage, and chant “fake news” whenever truth gets too close. Their devotion belongs not to Jesus, but to a political messiah of their own making—one who requires no holiness, no compassion, no self-examination.

The contrast with Jesus could not be starker. Jesus called His followers to love their neighbors, yet they cheer policies that harm them. Jesus welcomed the stranger; they insist cruelty is necessary. Jesus blessed the peacemakers; they fantasize about civil conflict. Jesus cared for the poor; they call compassion “Marxism.” Jesus rebuked those who worshipped wealth; they treat wealth as proof of God’s favor. Jesus told Peter to put away his sword; they brandish firearms decorated with scripture. Jesus offered truth that sets people free; they reject truth the moment it challenges their tribe. These are not small theological disagreements. This is a rejection of the gospel itself in favor of a nationalist religion wearing a cross like jewelry.

And that brings us to the heart of the matter: this was never about Jesus. It has always been about dominion—about control, legislation, moral policing, and maintaining cultural supremacy. Trump is not their spiritual leader; he is their political weapon. A battering ram used to break down any wall that might separate church and state if it means solidifying their influence. This isn’t discipleship. It’s empire. And whenever faith decays into empire, Jesus becomes expendable. The crucifixion repeats itself—not at the hands of a secular world, but at the hands of the religious powerful who cannot tolerate a Christ who threatens their throne.

The most dangerous lie evangelicals tell themselves is not that Trump is chosen by God. It is that supporting him is faithfulness to God. That lie sanctifies cruelty, sanctifies corruption, sanctifies hatred. It allows them to harm others while believing they are obeying God. And a lie that powerful is not merely dangerous; it is spiritually catastrophic.

So why do they cling to him? Because Trumpism gives them what the gospel never offered them: the illusion of superiority, the promise of control, the thrill of domination, the fantasy of being persecuted while wielding immense power. It allows them to feel righteous without practicing righteousness, to feel holy without pursuing holiness, to feel chosen without being transformed.

What do we do in the face of this crisis?

We name it.We refuse to normalize it.We refuse to treat it as a “difference of opinion.”We speak truth even when our own communities bristle at the mirror we hold up to them.

Silence is not grace. Silence is complicity. Prophetic love is not meek or passive; it is courageous and disruptive. It stands in the face of corruption and declares, “This is not who Christ is.” It refuses to let Jesus be hijacked by political idolatry and repackaged as nationalism with a Bible verse taped to it. Prophetic love calls the Church back to Christ, not back to empire.

And still, to the ones who feel spiritually homeless in this moment—to the queer Christians, the exvangelicals, the weary believers, the pastors who feel alone, the people who see clearly and wonder if anyone else does—you are not alone. There is a growing remnant, small but steady, who refuse to surrender their faith to madness. They cling to Jesus, not because it is easy, but because He remains the only One who looks like God. The only One whose life, teachings, and character still stand uncompromised.

If you want to know where Jesus is, look for the places where the powerful feel threatened. Look for the people still practicing compassion when cruelty is fashionable. Look for the communities that keep tending to the wounds of those hurt by the Church. That is where Christ dwells—not in the corridors of political power, but in the hearts of those who refuse to bow to it.

History will not remember evangelicals as the persecuted faithful standing firm against a hostile world. It will remember that when faced with the choice between Christlike love and political domination, they chose domination and called it holy. It will remember that they exchanged the humility of Jesus for the arrogance of empire. And it will remember that they entered a season of spiritual psychosis, not because truth was hidden from them, but because truth threatened their power.

So yes—I write today with fire and with grief, because the soul of American Christianity hangs in the balance. And the only ones who can save it are the ones willing to say the thing evangelicals fear most:

Jesus is not on their side.He never was.