My friends,

I wrote on lament recently and my heart has been lamenting on something for quite sometime. Something I want to think through with you today, if you'll permit me. The reality of Christian cruelty in our nation.

I want to first look at Luke 9:51-56 as the backdrop for what we will be thinking through today as I believe it gives us a pretty clear picture of what Jesus might be trying to say to many of his followers today.
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But first, here are some resources to consider:

-The Beached White Male Podcast with Ken Kemp. Ken recently hosted me as a guest on his podcast. We talked about a few topics I've written on recently: total depravity, lament, and the phrase "they're not real Christians," and a whole lot more. Thought I'd include it here incase you are interested.

-War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity, by Stanley Hauerwas. I know I have recommended this before, but it is such a timely read as we try to navigate understanding America's involvement in conflicts around the world as Christians.

-The Global Politics of Jesus: A Christian Case for Church-State Separation, by Nilay Saiya. I just recently finished this book again and it is such an important book for our time. You might find the chapter on how Evangelical Christian theology has shaped American foreign policy in the middle east especially significant in understanding all that has lead to the current crisis in Gaza.

-The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump's America, by Adam Serwer. I read this book last year and it was a very insightful and sobering read. I didn't recommend it at the time, but with the 2024 election coming this year and all the rhetoric around it, I think it is a helpful book to consider reading.

-What’s Wrong With Being "Right?" by James McGrath. I first read this article back when it was published in 2007. Yet, it is one of those articles that just became more relevant rather than less as our political and religious landscape has unfolded. It is a short, but powerful article.

-The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, by Mark A. Noll. I just finished this book and while I disagree with some of his sociological and political take aways, I found great value in his assessment of the historical formation of the "Evangelical mind." Put another way, he skillfully shows since the formation of Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism how reluctant each movement has been to "love the lord your God with all of your mind." It is very much worth the read.

Okay, onto today's content.

Christian Cruelty​
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Let's begin with Luke 9:51-55:

51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them. 56 Then he and his disciples went to another village.

I have been really struck by this passage of scripture for awhile now, because I think it has so much to say for our time.

Notice how James and John took such offense at how the Samaritans wouldn’t receive Jesus. So much so that they wanted to "call down fire from heaven to destroy them." That's quite an extreme response, wouldn't you say?

Why did they respond this way?

Well, as you may know, there was deep animosity between Samaritans and Jews of that time for many reasons, much of which stemmed from conflicting views on history.

Many Jewish people at the time believed that Samaritans were not pure Israelites because they intermarried with non Israelites after the Assyrian invasion. Samaritans also read the Torah along with their own set of scriptures, built their own temple, and practiced many of the same rituals as the Jewish people did of that time.

Samaritans on the other hand claimed that their lineage predates the Assyrian invasion and that they are in fact descendants of the tribes of Israel and their differences have more to do with differing priestly lineage, theology, and worship than anything else. Interestingly, modern genetic testing supports the Samaritan view of history, that they are descendants of Israel. With their belief that the rightful temple is on Mount Gerizim, this is why our passage says the Samaritan village wouldn't receive Jesus, because "he was heading towards Jerusalem."

This fierce animosity between Samaritans and Jews of that tiem was not just theological, but had political and racial implications, as well as who could share in the exclusive rights to the center of worship (temple) and the land of Israel.

Throughout the gospels, Jesus clearly doesn’t share this animosity towards the Samaritans that many others did, including some of his own disciples. With Jesus freely talking to a Samaritan woman at the well and using a Samaritan as the hero in one of his most famous parables illustrates well how much he was trying to break those false stereotypes among his people and bring about reconciliation.

I think this is why we get a rather upset Jesus in the passage we read today. The Greek word we translate into the English word for “rebuke” paints that picture well for us.

The Greek word is the verb ἐπιτιμάω, which means, to chide, rebuke, reprove, or censure severely. It means "to warn by instructing,” which can mean "rebuke" but its fundamental sense is "warning to prevent something from going wrong.”

Warning to prevent something from going wrong. This is so powerful. Jesus is warning his disciples sternly to not let their zeal for him get the better of them. To not let their grievance or beliefs against the Samaritans to boil over into hostility and even violence against them, like "calling down fire." This just isn't the way of Jesus.

Such Relevance For Today

I think the tensions behind this passage and the disciple’s response are an accurate and unfortunate description of much of what we are seeing within American Christianity today. I’m hard pressed to find a better example of culture war Christianity than James and John in these few verses wanting to call down fire on those who oppose them in their relationship with Jesus.

Due to our culture’s secularism, multiculturalism, pluralism, and decline of many churches, many Christians are feeling a deep animosity and resentment towards our culture. Many Christians are feeling as if our culture is leaving not only them behind but leaving Jesus behind as well, especially socially and politically.

While these feelings may be valid in many ways, it is their response that needs our attention. The response from many Christians to these feelings isn’t to simply grieve this reality and direct their attention to the people who are receiving their message and work peacefully to solve the conflicts we face with understanding, as Jesus has the disciples do in this passage. No, it is to call down religious and political “fire” onto the people they believe aren’t receiving Jesus the way they think they should.

Combine these feelings of contempt with the myth of American Christian persecution and the myth of a Christian nation, and it creates a potent cocktail of anger and hostility framed in a theology that portrays God as feeling the exact same way they do. In their minds, God gave them this nation and only they have exclusive right to it, how it should worship, and how it should be led. Sound familiar?

It feels like culture war Christianity has been taken over by a politics of animosity and vengeance. It isn’t just interested in voting according to its values, it really wants people to suffer for not accepting the worldview it believes is right and it wants the most authoritarian leaders to make that vengeance happen for them.

Take the legislative efforts around some of the key issues for this kind of Christianity.

Abortion

Since the overturning of Roe v Wade, many states have proposed bills that would not only criminalize abortion for healthcare workers, but for women as well. Some bills call for abortion to be considered a homicide and another bill proposed even called for women who get an abortion to receive the death penalty. How is that "pro-life?"

Researchers found in a new analysis and nearly 65,000 rape-related pregnancies likely occurred in the 14 US states with near-total abortion bans following the US supreme court’s 2022 Dobbs decision – yet just 10 legal abortions are performed monthly on average in these states.

​Kate Cox was denied a life saving abortion in Texas. Brittany Watts was arrested and charged for simply having a miscarriage. Many other women share how they are being pushed to death's door due to these abortion bans here.​

Add to this the growing demonization of independent women and women with unplanned pregnancies, it seems like instead of focusing on compassionate solutions that would make abortion more unnecessary, like dismantling systems of poverty, improving employment benefits, like paid family leave, funding childcare, access to healthcare, sexual education, and providing a livable wage, women and their rights and their healthcare are becoming the target of aggressive vengeance instead. Where are the prominent Christian leaders saying, “what about the lives and rights of women?”

Gaza

​The unquestioned support of Israel by many American Christians is fueling its genocidal bombardment of Gaza, which is causing one of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world right now. 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict and 70% of those casualties are women and children. A report says that two mothers die every hour in Gaza right now. An estimated 180 mothers a day are giving birth in war-torn Gaza, according to UNICEF. These women are unable to access the emergency obstetric services they need to give birth safely and care for their babies. Women are having to give birth in shelters, in their homes, in the streets amid rubble, or in overwhelmed health care facilities, where sanitation is worsening, and the risk of infection and medical complications is on the rise. Where are the “pro-life” Christian voices raising the alarm about this? Is the unquestioned support of Israel really worth all this death? Is this what Jesus would have wanted? If he rebuked James and John for wanting to call fire down from heaven to destroy Samaritans, imagine what he would be saying to his followers who support bombs falling from the sky on Palestinians.

Hungry U.S. Children

Here in Idaho, our legislature turned down $15 million dollars of federal aid that would have fed hungry children this last summer. Idaho has a history of spurning federal funds. Republican lawmakers turned down federal money for child care earlier this year, and the state lost access to tens of millions in rental assistance after failing to meet federal conditions. Legislatures said they turned down the funds because they didn’t have the capacity to implement such a food program. As we heard this response, Idaho residents such as myself watched them turn and immediately carry out its abortion bans statewide with great “capacity,” which eventually shut down two OBGYNs and is now taxing our healthcare system because medical providers are both leaving the state and not moving here because if its extreme policies around reproductive care. 15 other states denied funding specifically for hungry children as well. All led by the party that constantly claims the most to be the most Christian party. It should continue to baffle us why those who claim to care so much about unborn children seem to work so hard to prevent born children in need from being housed and fed. "I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat." -Matthew 25:35

The Crisis at Our Border

The current immigration crisis is probably the most recent example. The world is experiencing an unprecedented human migration due to multiple factors, including climate change, authoritarian leaders, and war. Yet instead of addressing these issues that are bringing millions to our border, many who have unwavering Christian support are simply demonizing immigrants and stoking fears about them destroying us and our resource instead. This demonizing perspective led Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who is constantly saying he is led by his Christian values, to string razor wire along the Rio Grande. This measure has already caused immigrants to drown, most recently a mother and her two children. When he was ordered to remove it by the Supreme Court, he doubled down. Social media then burst with Christian support of Texas, with folks like Ted Cruz posting a meme with razor wire on it that read “Come and take it!" Experts say that with major influencers on the radical right stoking rhetoric of an "invasion" and "civil war," it could spark a rise in vigilantism.​

To add to the heartbreak of the situation, efforts to confront the crisis at our boarder are being stalled in Washington D.C. in order to make the current administration look bad so that others can possibly win elections. The most vulnerable are suffering and their lives are being used as a political football for political power. How is this abuse of power not being condemned by prominent Christian leaders? “I was a stranger and you….” Put razor wire in the water and didn’t care if I drown? “I was a stranger and you…” used me as a political pawn? “I was a stranger and you…” used demonizing language to describe me and my family as we fled desperate situations in search of a better life?

“What ever you do to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do to me.” -Jesus (Matthew 25)

Cruelty Is Never A Fruit Of The Spirit

There are so many other examples, yet these ones are the ones that are top of mind for me at the moment. Jesus' first public sermon in Luke’s gospel began by saying “I have come to bring good news to the poor, set the captives free, bring health to the sick, liberate the oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (which was the debt cancelation year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25). Yet, it seems like instead of helping the very people Jesus describes here, culture war Christianity seeks power and the destruction of its enemies at the expense of the vulnerable, even if it brings them great harm.

There are those today who are following Jesus and are essentially saying, “look at how we can take this issue to the extreme” with ferocity, vengeance, and cruelty. They are wanting to call down religious and legislative "fire" to destroy those they believe do not welcome Jesus the way they think they should. As if they forgot that vengeance is God's and not theirs (Romans 12:19). Yet who among them is rebuking them the way Jesus would? Who among them is "warning to prevent something from going wrong?”

Having been pushed out of a denomination in the past for trying to speak this kind of “warning” I know from personal experience how shunned this kind of “rebuke” is within culture war Christianity. Yet, I think we who follow Jesus must continue to sound this kind of warning to our fellow disciples, just like Jesus does in our passage today. Not just for the sake of our Christian reputation, but especially for the sake of those this politics of vengeance is harming the most.

The most pressing issue for Christians in the United States isn’t being persecuted for our faith. Rather, it is those who are using our faith as a tool to control and even persecute others in the name of Jesus. Until we Christians can collectively reckon with this reality, we have no hope of reclaiming any integrity.

My hope for American Christianity in our day is that we Christians would become the most informed and wise people regarding the urgent issues of our time. That there would be a revival of compassion, generosity, humility, and a deeper awareness in Christian political engagement. That our culture wouldn’t see us Christians reacting with misguided outrage over issues we claim to care about, wanting to “call down fire from heaven” to destroy others for not believing the same way we do, but rather, that our culture would see us proactively moving towards loving the very people on the frontlines of the issues we claim to be so convicted about.

When our Christianity causes us to be more cruel than compassionate, that is when we know we are following someone other than Jesus. When our Christianity causes us to frame gentleness as a weakness and justify cruelty as a means to an end, that is when we can be sure we are worshiping our own power rather than Jesus.

If James and John could listen to Jesus and take his rebuke to heart and move on in peace, then we can too and encourage our fellow disciples to do likewise.

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” -James 1:19-20

Now I'd like to hear from you.

This was such a difficult topic for me to write about. What would you add to this conversation? Are you lamenting this same thing? Send me a note and let me know.

Also, is there something you'd like me to write on in the future? Please drop me a note and let me know.

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As always, thank you all for reading and for all the ways you support me and this project every week.

I truly appreciate you all,

Ben

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