Through deeds of kindness and love, progressive Christians will have a chance to redeem the good name “Christian” during the harsh era to come.
This restoration is needed as never before in our lifetimes. But it is not unprecedented.
Marv Knox
Early Christians’ courage and compassion shown like a beacon through dark periods of widespread trauma. For example, during the Antonine Plague (A.D. 165-180) and later the Cyprian Plague (A.D. 250-270), Christians defined their faith by risking their own lives to nurse, care for and bury victims while pagans fled to protect themselves.
Christians’ faith, love and sacrifice not only comforted the afflicted, but it transformed the hearts of many former adversaries. Their willingness to set aside their safety in order to minister to their most vulnerable neighbors — particularly while others, even families, abandoned the sick — caused Christianity’s despisers to take another look.
“Christians’ sacrificial service preached a sermon others could not ignore.”
Christians’ sacrificial service preached a sermon others could not ignore. Their vulnerable kindness turned anger to admiration, translated vituperation to veneration, transformed revulsion to high regard. Re-examined in the light of such brave devotion, Christianity — previously known as a problematic sect — not only seemed reasonable but also compelling.
Christians’ response to calamity that frightened everyone caused their faith to grow and their numbers to swell.
The opposite has been taking place lately. Christianity — particularly its evangelical strain — has become synonymous with selfishness, judgmentalism, brutishness and plain-old meanness.
Evangelicals have been the largest and most cohesive cohort of supporters of cruelty meted out by the former-and-future U.S. presidential administration. They propelled the incoming president into office twice — and the second time, they knew he meant it when he said he would scapegoat and savage the most vulnerable people in our nation.
Consequently, respect for — not to mention belief in — Christianity has plummeted. The kinds of “Christians” who most eagerly grab the microphone and most loudly trumpet their terrifying vision of faith have played a disproportionate role in defining “Christianity” in popular understanding.
Americans are running away in droves. It’s not surprising the fastest-growing religious group in this country is composed of “nones,” people who check “none” when asked about their religious affiliation. That category has increased, in large part, because people see unconscionable arrogance, judgmentalism and cruelty as the defining characteristics of Christianity. They want no part of it.
“If I understood Christianity to be what ‘conservative’ evangelicals act out in the public square, I’d forsake it, too.”
And no wonder. If I understood Christianity to be what “conservative” evangelicals act out in the public square, I’d forsake it, too.
Ironically, the installation of an administration hell-bent on harming the nation’s most vulnerable residents provides the other kind of Christians an opportunity to redefine and reidentify the term “Christian” in the public consciousness.
Make no mistake, hard times are coming for millions of people across our land. Depending on the preparation and competence of the incoming administration, undocumented immigrants may be deported and their families torn apart by the end of this month.
And that will only be the beginning.
Protections for minorities of all kinds will erode if not evaporate outright. Not just immigrants, but myriad vulnerable people will find their rights stripped away. Later, as policies fail and chaos ensues, people who thought they could turn to new leadership for security will be surprised. They will find their paychecks increasingly insufficient to provide for their families. And they will learn erosion of the rights of others results in erosion of their own rights, too.
This is where opportunity arises. It is where progressive Christians can run toward the vulnerable and hurting, responding from love to say, “This is what Christianity looks like.”
That will mean advocating in every way possible for the rule of law and especially for preservation and protection of civil liberties. It may mean providing sanctuary for at-risk individuals and families. It will mean acts of charity — food, clothing, shelter, legal aid and more — on a scale not seen in a century. It will mean taking loving actions we can’t conceive now but will know to be right when the time comes.
“It will mean taking loving actions we can’t conceive now but will know to be right when the time comes.”
In order to reclaim the good name of Christianity, we will need to don humility to seek justice and show mercy to at least three groups of people.
First, and most obvious, will be the visibly vulnerable: Immigrants and their families, of course. Members of the LGBTQ community and most notably transgender people. Women, particularly pregnant women. Racial minorities, especially Blacks in regions of the country that still mourn the demise of Jim Crow.
These folks will need help, and soon. They’re considered the “safe” targets of political and theological bullies.
By providing sanctuary and support for them, we can demonstrate that Christians truly believe Jesus’ mandate to care for “the least of these” among us.
Second will be the neighbors for whom we will be tempted to feel schadenfreude, the “I told you so” pleasure of enjoying their shocked discomfort and pain. These are the people who lied to themselves — “It won’t be so bad!” — in order to vote for the incoming administration. They’re the ones who thought they voted with their pocketbooks. They’re the ones who believe other people should be lower than they on the societal totem pole and voted to make it happen.
They will get their comeuppance when the new administration’s policies torch their self-interest. They’ll be surprised when inflation eats more of their take-home pay. They’ll stagger when their wives or daughters can’t get sufficient medical care and suffer grievously or even die. They’ll struggle to understand how, more than ever, the benefits of government and society go to the people who least need more, and the imbalance comes at their own expense.
“Jesus said to love our enemies, and if we can’t love the MAGAs, then we don’t know what he was talking about.”
Progressive Christians will serve them by providing shoulders to cry on rather than responding with indignant derision for playing the sucker. Empathy and compassion will go far to help them see the folks who most closely following Jesus are the ones who preach less and do more.
And finally will come the MAGAs. That’s right. They won’t want or request our support or sympathy. But progressives must show Christian kindness and compassion to save our own souls. We must resist employing their ethics and strategies. We must turn the other cheek, give up our cloak, walk the extra mile, for our own sakes as well as to restore the name we hold.
MAGAs won’t care, and we shouldn’t expect them to. But we live under two imperatives: Jesus said to love our enemies, and if we can’t love the MAGAs, then we don’t know what he was talking about. Also, even if they go on despising us, others will be watching. We validate what we claim about the gospel by putting it into practice.
None of this means the coming period will be pleasant. It will be dreadful and almost unbearable. Millions of people will suffer at the hands of an administration supported by people who proudly wave the Christian flag. But compassionate Jesus followers who identify with and labor on behalf of the besieged and maligned can help a divided and distracted nation think differently — think positively — when they hear the word “Christian.”
And they will know we are Christians by our love.
Marv Knox retired as the founder of Fellowship Southwest, a role he took on after a storied career in Baptist journalism, including tenures as editor of the Kentucky Western Recorder and the Texas Baptist Standard. He was a founding board member of Associated Baptist Press, predecessor to BNG. He lives in Raleigh, N.C.
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