Where You Sit Is Where You Stand

Permanent orphans.

I know a lot of people are wondering what they can do. This is what's been percolating in my mind. The simple truth is that white Evangelical Christians have been the political force driving Trumpism. We are where we are now because this is where white Evangelical Christians have steered the ship. Watching this unfold I've been thinking a lot about Dietrich Bonhoeffer's call to end Christianity as an organized religion as the Christlike response to the failure of the church in Germany. I know this, if you belong to a congregation where this is not addressed from the pulpit on Sunday you should absolutely leave that congregation immediately. When pastors stop drawing a paycheck and elder boards wonder how they'll make the next rent payment all sorts of theology will furiously and suddenly be 'discovered.'

What's more, there are all sorts of congregations that practice a simple, humble faith. Find a congregation that worships in Spanish. Find one that is intentionally multi-cultural and where congregants are encouraged to give money to the poor with greater intensity than to the leadership or the building fund. Find a congregation that actively harbors refugee families. Find a congregation that practices what Jesus' brother called, 'True religion' - which is to say caring for those on the margins. The reason bad religion is winning right now is because far too many folks are more interested in getting along with those who practice false religion than they are in "proclaiming good news to the poor."

Here's a quote that sounds pretty revolutionary:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

It's time to choose sides. As the saying goes, "Where you sit is where you stand."