I lost the message of Christ to these evangelicals.
I really wanted so desperately to reclaim the Christian faith from the hypocrites who have taken control of the message of Jesus for the last 50 years, but I can see now the battle is over — at least for this generation. The final straw has been the reaction to the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk. It is going to be a long time before people recognize the Christian faith as anything besides the current evangelical agenda.
The Christian faith will remain defined as an attack on women’s rights and a desire to blame all negative elements of American culture on the LGBTQ movement. Neither has anything to do with following Christ, but it is apparently a much more enticing argument.
Nathaniel Manderson
For example, I recently watched Nancy Mace on Real Time with Bill Maher make bold claims of loving her Christian faith and returning America to the roots of “Judeo-Christian” belief structures. Then she called for public executions.
I suppose I missed the part when Christ was being publicly executed and asked where the cameras were, so the message was clear to Rome: “If you break the law, this is what happens.”
To be clear, for real, Jesus asked God in heaven to forgive the people who put him on the Cross — another missing element in evangelical politics.
I am currently teaching in an inner-city school where ICE agents are actively pursuing my students’ families. There already have been students affected by losing family members to these arrests. As the evangelicals claim to pursue traditional Christian values, perhaps they should understand that traditionally, Jesus does work to help, serve and welcome the foreigner. Christ does not condemn, reject, arrest and remove the foreigner living in “your” native country.
It also should be noted that those who consider us a “Christian nation” ought to credit all our freedoms and opportunities to God’s abundant grace. If we take this incredible gift and then make sure other people we deem unworthy don’t receive it, then God might rescind it from those whom the evangelicals deem worthy of the gift.
“The evangelical stance on family values is borderline insane.”
The evangelical stance on family values is borderline insane.
Outside of this bizarre notion that the man needs to be running things in the home, which includes the wives’ submission to their husbands’ every sexual wish and family and financial decision, the beliefs get far more misogynistic. The generation of Boomer evangelicals did everything they could to punish all women for deciding they should have agency in the home, agency in the boardroom and agency in the classroom. The last two might be forgiven, but never the first.
The house was the man’s world, their domain for a very long time, and they had the backward Christian theology to back them up. The men chose where and when to move, what schools the kids attended and how often sex happened.
One of the more bizarre elements of this behavior is if an evangelical man cheats on his wife, he gets to blame his wife for this behavior. The basic concept being if the evangelical, or nowadays “tradwife,” got a little less attractive or didn’t act like a sex toy in bed, then these tradwives were not delivering on their godly duties of sex, therefore the men could or even needed to find another sex partner.
This is one of the reasons evangelicals love President Trump. As soon as Trump’s wives got pregnant and were “past their prime,” he dumped them for someone younger. In other words, Trump is living out their distorted fantasy. These Boomer evangelicals have proved to be a disgraceful example of the fellowship and followers of Jesus Christ, and it is time to leave their version of the Christian faith behind forever.
I am not sure if anyone noticed, but the evangelical leaders are killing it financially. Suddenly, anything to do with serving the poor and working class never seems to make it into their sermons or bestselling books. They write plenty of books about a godly diet, godly giving to the church, godly management of your wealth, but nothing about the New Testament’s obsession with the difficulties of the rich man having a solid relationship with God.
These wealthy evangelicals say nothing about how it is impossible to worship God and money. Oh, sweet pastor Jeffress loves to mention, “It’s the love of money God is talking about. There’s nothing wrong with being rich. Solomon was rich, David was rich.”
The efforts wealthy evangelicals make to disregard the warnings about wealth in this “Christian” country are remarkable.
We read in James 5, “Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you.” This is a Scripture I never have heard one wealthy evangelical preach about once. They do not want to preach about it because they are worried God might have been talking about them.
“It is time to return the Christian message to something sounding like the teachings of Jesus Christ and less like the teachings of morons.”
I have worked with many people of great wealth, and not one of them properly valued the blue-collar workers in their company. That is the legacy of this evangelical generation around money and God. Money is their priority, and God is something they only discuss during Bible study, while the rest of their lives are busy screwing over the working class.
It’s time to say goodbye to these empty vessels of this narcissistic generation of evangelicals. This is the time to let go of their self-serving and vengeful version of the message of Jesus Christ. It is time to return the Christian message to something sounding like the teachings of Jesus Christ and less like the teachings of morons.
If this goodbye occurs, then imagine the good the American church can do. It could stop wasting its time, money and political capital attacking women and use that energy serving the families who need it most. Families in desperate communities with failing schools and limited access to health care might see a genuine opportunity.
There could be new energy committed to encouraging legislators to create a pathway to citizenship for foreigners living in America, as God commands repeatedly in the Bible. Programs could be created, and time and energy could be committed to showing people how followers of Christ should respond to immigration. There could be a renewed commitment to the working class of America. The people who have lost a lot more than they have won, who keep getting up every day to try to provide for their families, while politicians and the economically powerful ignore them.
The American church could show this country its heart is found in the people whose backs are hurt, with callous hands and bad knees that have been carrying this country for a very long time. Let us all say goodbye to these evangelical devils and start to reclaim the message of Christianity. Then perhaps the soul of this country could be saved before God’s ultimate judgment arrives.
The message of Christ has been lost to these evangelical hypocrites, and it appears there is nothing anyone can do to reclaim the true faith of Christ. The evangelical movement wants to reject the foreigners, demonize the poor, limit people’s access to health care, celebrate the wealthy, enjoy public executions and silence and indict anyone who disagrees — as Christ commanded.
My claim is Christ preached the opposite of everything the evangelicals stand for in America and beyond.
Nathaniel Manderson lives in Danvers, Mass. He was educated at a conservative seminary, trained as a minister, ordained through the American Baptist Churches USA and guided by liberal ideals. He has been a pastor, a career counselor, an academic adviser, a high school teacher and an advocate for first-generation and low-income students, along with being a paper delivery man, a construction worker, a FedEx package handler, Amazon driver and hospice chaplain.
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