I’ve spent all of my adult life in the church.

I love the church. I’ve given my life to it. I’ve seen people healed in the church, marriages restored, addicts find freedom, lonely people find family, and people discover a God they never knew was looking for them.

Which is probably why some of what I’m seeing right now troubles me as much as it does.

We seem angry.

Not just angry about things. Angry at people… suspicious and afraid.

And I’m increasingly unconvinced that anger is the actual problem.

Maybe anger is the symptom.

Maybe the deeper question is:

What has been forming us?

Because we are all being formed, all the time. By stories and families and churches. By advertisements and algorithms. By politics. By what we fear and what we love. By what we repeatedly give our attention to.

And I wonder if part of the current crisis in Western Christianity is that while we were working really hard to get people to believe the right things about Jesus, we didn’t always pay attention to all the other things teaching us how to live.

Things with names.

Consumerism. Individualism. Fundamentalism. Sectarianism. Sexism. Racism. Nationalism. Politicism. Celebrityism. Tribalism.

That’s a lot of isms.

And I’m not standing outside all of this throwing rocks. I’ve breathed this air too. Some of it has formed me. Some of it probably still does.

That’s the uncomfortable part.

None of these things arrived at the church door one morning and announced, “Hello. We’re here to distort the gospel.”

They came quietly.

They borrowed Christian language. They learned our songs. They quoted our Bible verses. Sometimes we even built theology around them.

And eventually we stopped noticing they were there.

The Gospel According to Me

Consumerism taught us to ask a very simple question:

What’s in this for me?

We shop for shoes, phones, restaurants, experiences, neighborhoods, and eventually churches.

Do I like the preaching? Do they have something for my kids? Do I like the music? Am I being fed? Did I get something out of it?

I understand those questions because I’ve asked them too. None of them is necessarily wrong. But something happens when they become our primary questions.

Consumerism tells us that life is found in acquiring. More experiences. More stuff. More recognition. More options.

More.

And individualism whispers that the most important project in the whole thing is me. My calling. My purpose. My platform. My spiritual gifts. My destiny. Even my personal relationship with Jesus.

There is truth in some of that.

But then I listen to the prayer Jesus taught us.

Our Father. Give us our daily bread. Forgive us. Deliver us.

There is a stubborn plural pronoun running through the gospel.

The first Christians weren’t simply individuals who happened to attend the same religious event. They were learning how to become a people.

Maybe that’s one of the things we’ve lost.

Consumerism says, Acquire.

Individualism says, Protect yourself.

Jesus keeps saying things like:

Give. Share. Forgive. Come to the table. Lose your life.

Those are very different visions of what it means to be alive.

When Being Right Becomes the Point

I grew up in a stream of Christianity that took truth seriously. I’m grateful for that. I still take truth seriously.

But there is a difference between conviction and certainty.

Fundamentalism has sometimes taught us that the more certain we are, the more faithful we are. Questions become suspicious. Curiosity feels dangerous. “I don’t know” sounds weak.

So we define the boundaries, defend the boundaries, and eventually police the boundaries.

And before long we can become more interested in being right about God than actually becoming like God.

That should bother us.

Because Jesus seemed remarkably comfortable with mystery. He answered questions with questions. He told stories that confused people. His own disciples regularly misunderstood him.

And he somehow managed not to panic about it.

Maybe humility is one of the spiritual practices we most desperately need to recover.

“I don’t know.”

“I could be wrong.”

“Tell me more.”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

Those might be deeply Christian sentences.

The trouble is, once we’re certain we’re right, it’s remarkably easy to decide who is wrong.

Then come the tribes.

Evangelical. Progressive. Conservative. Liberal. Reformed. Charismatic. Traditional. Fundamentalist. Deconstructed.

Pick your group. Learn the language. Learn the heroes. Learn the villains.

Eventually we stop seeing people.

We see categories.

I’ve watched this happen in the church. I’ve watched it happen in myself. And I think this is one of the ways otherwise kind people become cruel.

We become convinced that something so important is at stake that our cruelty is justified.

Sometimes we even convince ourselves we’re defending Jesus.

Jesus, strangely enough, never seemed to need that kind of defending.

When Power Gets Baptized

Some of these isms go deeper because they haven’t simply distorted us.

They’ve hurt people.

Sexism is one of them.

For generations, the church could say women and men were equally valuable while constructing systems where women were not equally heard, trusted, empowered, protected, or given agency.

Sometimes we called that tradition. Sometimes protection. Sometimes biblical order.

And then you watch Jesus.

Women fund his ministry. Women sit at his feet as disciples. Women engage him theologically. Women remain near the cross when others disappear. Women become the first witnesses announcing resurrection.

And I find myself wondering:

How much of what we’ve defended as God’s order was actually our order with God’s name attached to it?

That’s not a question I ask casually.

But I think we have to be willing to ask it.

Racism requires the same kind of honesty.

Sometimes racism is obvious. But sometimes it is remarkably polite. It can live in neighborhoods, friend groups, leadership tables, church histories, the stories we tell and the stories we don’t tell.

It shows up in whose pain we instinctively believe. Whose anger we consider understandable. Whose anger makes us uncomfortable. Whose voice sounds authoritative to us. Whose presence feels threatening.

This is where I think we Christians sometimes rush too quickly toward reconciliation.

I believe deeply in reconciliation.

But reconciliation without truth usually means somebody is being asked to pretend the wound didn’t happen.

Jesus never seemed interested in that kind of peace.

He kept crossing lines. Talking to the wrong people. Touching the wrong people. Eating with the wrong people.

Then he tells a story about a man bleeding beside a road and makes the Samaritan the hero.

Wrong ethnicity. Wrong religion. Wrong tribe.

He was the hated “other.”

And then:

Go and do likewise.

Become that kind of neighbor.

When Jesus Gets Wrapped in a Flag

This one is particularly hard to ignore right now.

There is nothing wrong with loving your country. I do. There is nothing wrong with participating in politics. We should. Policies matter because people matter.

But something changes when our political identity begins discipling us more deeply than Jesus does.

Nationalism tells us that protecting our nation is somehow synonymous with advancing God’s kingdom. Politicism tells us every election is apocalyptic, every disagreement is existential, and everyone on the other side is dangerous.

Fear is remarkably effective at forming people.

It keeps us clicking, watching, posting, donating, raging, and coming back tomorrow to find out what terrible thing they did overnight.

I don’t think this is making us well.

And I’m fairly certain it’s not making us more like Jesus.

Jesus lived under an empire. He understood politics. He understood oppression. He understood power.

And yet he announced another kingdom.

A kingdom where enemies are loved, peacemakers are blessed, greatness looks like serving, forgiveness interrupts retaliation, outsiders become neighbors, and power kneels down and washes feet.

Jesus remains incredibly inconvenient for every political party because nobody gets to own him.

I think we need to remember that.

And perhaps this is connected to another strange development in Western Christianity: somewhere along the way, we started confusing visibility with significance.

Big churches. Big platforms. Big conferences. Big followings. Big everything!

Christian celebrities.

And then we were surprised when Christian leaders started building their lives around being seen.

I understand this temptation too. Being noticed feels good. Being invited feels good. Watching something you created succeed feels good.

But Jesus spent most of his life in obscurity.

Thirty obscure years before three public years.

He walked away from crowds. He noticed people who could do absolutely nothing for his platform: children, widows, lepers, the poor, the inconvenient.

Maybe heaven measures influence differently than we do.

I suspect some of the most important things happening in the kingdom of God today will never trend. Nobody will write a book about them. Nobody will invite them onto a stage.

And heaven will somehow be just fine with that.

What Kind of People Are We Becoming?

That’s the question I keep coming back to.

Not: Are we winning? Are our churches growing? Is our theology airtight? Did our candidate win? Are people listening to us?

But:

What kind of people are we becoming?

Are we becoming more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, gentle, self-controlled?

Because those were supposed to be the indicators.

Fruit.

Actual human beings becoming more alive in the Spirit.

And if our version of Christianity continually produces people who are angry, afraid, suspicious, defensive, exhausted, and contemptuous of their enemies, I think we have to be courageous enough to ask what is actually forming us.

And then comes the question every pastor loves:

So what do we do?

My pastor brain immediately wants a strategy. Give me the framework. The book. The conference. The seven steps.

But I’m not sure we need another program.

Maybe the way out is far more ordinary.

Maybe we eat with people.

Not networking.

Dinner.

Invite someone over. Cook something. Pour something. Stay at the table longer than you planned.

Especially with people whose stories complicate your categories.

It’s harder to demonize someone while passing them the potatoes.

Maybe we learn our neighbors’ names. Actually know them. The woman across the street. The guy who makes our coffee. The immigrant family at the park. The person whose history is nothing like ours.

Love becomes much harder to sentimentalize when it has a name.

Maybe we practice enough.

Enough money. Enough recognition. Enough house. Enough success. Enough ministry. Enough followers.

Enough.

Consumerism needs us perpetually dissatisfied.

Gratitude breaks the spell.

Maybe we give some power away.

Listen before defending. Invite voices into the room that haven’t historically been there. Ask who gets to decide. Ask who carries responsibility without authority. Ask who benefits from the way things currently work.

And then be willing to change something.

Maybe we become curious again.

How did you come to believe that?

What has your experience been?

What am I missing?

Tell me your story.

Curiosity may be one of the quiet forms of love.

It says, You are more interesting to me than my assumptions about you.

And maybe we do some things nobody knows about.

Give money. Help somebody. Visit somebody. Fix something. Pray. Serve.

Tell nobody.

There is something cleansing about doing good that cannot become content.

And then walk.

Make things.

Plant something.

Sit in silence.

Put the phone down.

Watch the sunrise.

Stand beside the ocean.

Laugh until your stomach hurts.

Take the long way home.

Pay attention.

Becoming Human Again

I wonder if beneath all these isms is an even deeper problem.

We’ve forgotten that being alive is astonishing.

We keep fighting about how the world should work while barely noticing the world.

Jesus noticed.

Birds and flowers. Seeds and bread. Wine. Children. Weather. Weddings. Fields. Trees.

Ordinary things.

Maybe the kingdom of God isn’t primarily somewhere else.

Maybe it’s hiding in plain sight.

And maybe the great spiritual task of our moment isn’t winning the argument.

Maybe it is becoming human again.

Less angry. Less afraid. Less addicted to being right. Less willing to excuse harm because it comes from our side. Less obsessed with being seen.

More curious.

More generous.

More present.

More willing to listen.

More willing to tell the truth.

More willing to repair what we’ve broken.

More willing to sit at tables with people who complicate our categories.

More willing to say, “I don’t know.”

More willing to love without needing to win.

Because maybe the opposite of all these isms isn’t another ism.

Maybe it’s a way.

A way of walking through the world. A way of seeing people. A way of holding power. A way of opening our homes. A way of paying attention. A way of forgiving.

A way of becoming free.

Jesus called it the kingdom of God.

And he didn’t simply tell us to believe in it.

He said it was near.

Here.

Among us.

Available.

Which means the invitation isn’t to escape the mess we’ve made.

It’s to start living differently inside it.

At our tables. In our neighborhoods. With our money. With our politics. With our power. With our enemies. With our attention.

With the next person standing in front of us.

Maybe that’s how things begin to change.

Not all at once.

Not through another angry movement.

But one human being at a time becoming more fully alive.

And helping somebody else remember how.