A letter to the Christian who is confused, unhappy, angry, or afraid,
If you regularly feel any one of these emotions, you are at a good place. At a place where Reason can filter beyond the Faith barriers. You were content and comfortable with the church’s teachings, with your personal relationships in the church, with the pastors’ political leanings, with Bible classes and prayer meetings and choir practices. Until an Unease showed itself, at first only when you paid attention to current news or spoke to good people who did not share your beliefs, then the Unease became a Guilt that you tried to pray away. Because you did not want to question the Lord to whom you had committed your life.
You fear to question your pastors’ intentions but, the leaders seem content to place themselves above their followers’ doubts, worries, and struggles. They seldom listen; their empathy is in words, not in action. The pastors want you to give more, pray more, to show greater Faith, not only in them as people but also in their teachings which are Truth. The pastors preach about prosperity… but at whose cost? The pastors preach about Jesus’ love and forgiveness…but who deserves the Christians’ love and forgiveness and who does not? Religious leaders told you to accept the pastors’ teachings because the pastors are closest to God. God grants them higher messages, deeper knowledge, and wider blessings. If you question the pastors’ teachings, intentions, or legitimacy, you question your God. The Guilt is more than you can bear at times. Other believers come to the same Guilt, see in Evil in Guilt, swear to defeat it, bury it, and live their days in a True Believers’ miasma.
The Guilt is not there because you are guilty. Guilty feelings are present because you Know you are not guilty. You are an empathetic person. You do your best to live honestly. Your feelings are not about your sins; they are about the contradictions that do not make sense. You accept yourself and others as flawed human beings. However, religious leaders told you that as Believers you are Less Flawed, closer to God than all Others, nearer to perfection, achieving higher calling and understanding. Then you meet The Others, good people who do Good Work despite being Outsiders. They accept you as you are, but you cannot accept them as they are. Acceptance would contradict and defy what they told you…that The Others will poison your Faith.
But the poison is not Them, nor is it inside you. The poison that will eat away at your ability do good is in the preachers’ teachings. When you acknowledge that their teachings are faulty, you begin to Understand. Faith’s powers lay in your powers.
Of course, I must bring this essay to current events. Because most of the current events that shake your Faith are happening because America’s Christian zealots put their faith in politics and empowered right-wing extremists. What began in the 1970s as a backlash in Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches to the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s, developed as organized resistance in the evangelical movement – Baptist Bible Fellowship, Southern Baptist Convention, et al – then inspired a national movement to take back the country. Christian Nationalism was born, the Republican party embraced the movement, and Evangelicals changed their message of personal redemption and practice to a national political message, God gave us this nation; We must lead it.
Conservative Christians became loyal followers of Republican leadership. The national exposure and political power suborned these Christians and their churches’ teachings. They replaced Jesus’ teachings with conservative cultural teachings. And white Christian male supremacy prevailed with national power the Ku Klux Klan had only dreamed of. Donald J Trump did not create these current events that frighten and bewilder you as a Jesus’ follower. The Christian Nationalist movement saw in Trump someone who could unify extremists, evangelicals, white supremacists, and the nation’s wealthiest people under a single banner…the Cross wrapped in the U.S. flag.
Yes, many faithful Christians do not adhere to right-wing messaging, nor do they support the Republican-empowered Christian Nationalist movement. They abhor the cruelty of this regime’s policies. Many openly resist the policies. The Poor People’s Campaign is a fine example of political resistance among people of Faith.
However, you are not unhappy merely because right-wing extremists lead the Republican party. You are unhappy now because you must choose between your closest friends in the church and Resistance. You must agree with fellow Americans, with people you shunned and prayed for because they lived differently, with people who do not base their ethical decision and moral beliefs on the Christian Bible. For the first time, you must acknowledge what you have in common with unbelievers, the desire to live good, honest, productive lives while doing no harm to others, while lifting the most vulnerable in society. And with that acknowledgement, you must admit that you have been wrong about some of your beliefs, about some of your fellow believers.
If you accept the essence of this letter… that we Believers and Nonbelievers have much in common, that no individual and no group deserve unconditional and unquestioning support, that human beings are flawed and therefore must be held accountable to others…then you have taken the first steps toward personal fulfillment. This is not a Born-Again experience; you will spend the next several decades learning to strengthen your Faith sans the strict illogical teachings that once guided you. Or you will reject your Faith to become the person you are most comfortable Being.
I urge to Look for the Helpers. I ask you to consider my thoughts, as they come from experiences you have not had yet. Leave me a message if you have questions.
Sincerely, Nancy Jean