Hello my friends!

I just want to start by thanking all of your who responded to my story in last week's newsletter. My inbox was flooded with such heartfelt and encouraging replies. So many of you shared your own stories of church hurt as well. I'm still taking the time to read through each one of your responses. Thank you again for hearing me so graciously and responding so encouragingly.

This week, I want to think with you about something that I have been trying to put into words lately. As I reflect on our culture today, along with the last several years, my mind has been thinking a lot about symbolic change versus substantive change and which kind of change our Christianity causes us to pursue.

Given recent events, I want to look at the difference between what I am calling Symbolic Christianity and Substantive Christianity.

But first, here are some resources I would recommend to help us think through some of the myths that can so easily drive cultural Christianity today.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

-Ever since this nation’s inception, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, it was the foundation of the United States’ belief in itself as an exceptional nation - democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, America has a new symbol: the border wall. In "The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America," historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier throughout the full sweep of US history - from the American Revolution to the War of 1898, the New Deal to the election of 2016.

-In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with 'big government' and up with unfettered markets. I had always wondered how such massive distrust towards the government had become so central to the conservative Christianity of my upbringing. "The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market" by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway help to show how this idea became standard belief in many American churches and so much more.

-In this incredible book, Greg Boyd shows how the church was established to serve the world with Christ-like love, not to rule the world. It is called to look like a corporate Jesus, dying on the cross for those who crucified him, not a religious version of Caesar. It is called to manifest the kingdom of the cross in contrast to the kingdom of the sword. If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend, "The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church."​

-In today’s contentious political climate, understanding religion’s role in American government is more important than ever. Christian nationalists assert that our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and advocate an agenda based on this popular historical claim. In "The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American," Andrew L. Seidel, a constitutional attorney at the Freedom from Religion Foundation, builds his case point by point, comparing the Ten Commandments to the Constitution and contrasting biblical doctrine with America’s founding philosophy. It is important to note that Andrew L. Seidel is an atheist and not a Biblical scholar. I didn't agree with a majority of his perspectives on the Bible itself, yet, his historical, legal, and social research was very careful and well laid out. This book is worth reading if for nothing else to get a hood taste for how non-Christians see Christian nationalism.

-There is a commonly accepted myth about the rise of the Religious Right in the United States. It goes like this: with righteous fury, American evangelicals entered the political arena as a unified front to fight the legality of abortion after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The problem is this story simply isn’t true. In this short yet powerful book called "Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right," religious scholar Randall Balmer guides the reader along the convoluted historical trajectory that began with American evangelicalism as a progressive force opposed to slavery, then later an isolated apolitical movement in the mid-twentieth century, all the way through the 2016 election in which 81 percent of white evangelicals coalesced around Donald Trump for president. It really is a must read.

-Lastly, one of the topics I am finding so many myths around is the topic of abortion. Rebecca Todd Peters recently came to speak at my church. She is a Presbyterian minister and social ethicist. During her thought provoking presentation, she said that women who have abortions are routinely shamed and judged, and safe and affordable access to abortion is under relentless assault, with the most devastating impact on poor women and women of color. In her book, "Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice" she argues that this shaming and judging reflects deep, often unspoken patriarchal and racist myths and assumptions about women and women’s sexual activity. These assumptions are at the heart of what she calls the justification framework, which governs our public debate about abortion, and disrupts our ability to have authentic public discussions about the health and well-being of women and their families. Abortion, then, isn’t the social problem we should be focusing on. The problem is our inability to trust women to act as rational, capable, responsible moral agents who must weigh the concrete moral question of what to do when they are pregnant or when there are problems during a pregnancy. I found her presentation and this book very helpful in thinking through this topic more deeply.

Okay, onto today's content.

Symbolic Christianity vs Substantive Christianity.

You’ve undoubtedly heard of the term “greenwashing,” referring to businesses selling products or promoting campaigns that claim to be eco friendly, yet only in packaging and appearance rather than actual policy.

You’ve undoubtedly heard of “tokenism,” referring to the organizations hiring a person of color, a woman, or queer person in order to show how the organization is being “progressive” in their hiring choices, rather than doing any real organizational change.

I think this is a good way of thinking about the difference between symbolic and substantive change. Symbolic change is often chosen when actual substantive change requires too much of a business or organization, or “costs too much.”

In this same way, there is a vast and critical difference between symbolic Christianity and substantive Christianity.

Symbolic Christianity prioritizes religious symbolism.

Like putting “in God we trust” on our money, posting the Ten Commandments in schools/courthouses, and funding Christian Super Bowl commercials.

With words also being a powerful form of symbolism, symbolic Christianity will also praise celebrities, and especially politicians, for using religious language from their platforms, kneeling to pray during a sporting event, or holding a Bible up in front of a church.

This nod to religious symbolism by public figures is often pointed to as evidence of their Christian faith, even if the actions or policies of those public figures say otherwise. It is their external or symbolic affirmation of Christianity that matters most to symbolic Christianity.

Symbolic Christianity can also participate in its own forms of tokenism, whether it is hiring a minority staff member to a church staff or platforming minority politicians or public figures for its own theological or political agenda, all in an effort to avoid doing the hard work of substantive change itself.

Symbolic Christianity also protests symbolic changes it doesn’t approve of such as the removal of American flags from church sanctuaries, saying “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas,” kneeling to protest racial injustice during sporting events, or even changes to Starbucks cups or shifts in beer advertisements.

Symbolic Christianity puts a very heavy emphasis on the culture needing to look and sound “Christian” through its priorities and it works tirelessly to retain or bring about those symbolic changes.

Appearing Christian is more important than actually being Christian to symbolic Christianity.

Substantive Christianity on the other hand prioritizes making substantive change, which includes internal changes to itself if necessary.

Instead of holding the religious language of public figures or the Ten Commandments in our our courtrooms as evidence of faithfulness to the ways of Jesus, substantive Christianity looks for the ways in which public figures and courtrooms actually impact the world around them.

It takes Jesus’ words seriously in Matthew 25 when he said, “whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.”

It wants to make a substantive difference within the world, especially for the sake of the most vulnerable it shares this world with.

So wherever substantive Christianity sees the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, the oppressed, those caught in perpetual violence, it strives to make positive, transformative changes to improve the lives of those who are currently suffering.

Substantive Christianity also looks for ways it needs to change itself in order to make substantive change in the world. In the Bible, this is called “repentance.” Substantive Christianity takes a sober and honest look at its own current and historical sins, especially against the vulnerable, marginalized, and oppressed, and intentionally looks for ways to bring healing and change its own actions moving forward.

It prioritizes the needs of others rather than its own religious symbolism.

Given this difference, substantive Christianity will always be baffled by symbolic Christianity, which seems to overlook actual, legitimate needs around it all for the sake of imposing outward symbols promoting its own fidelity to God instead.

Take the recent legislation in Texas as an example. Instead of addressing low wages for teachers. Instead of addressing student hunger. Instead of addressing the continued threat of gun violence in schools, this legislation chooses to require the Ten Commandments to be posted in school classrooms.

This is prioritizing symbolic change rather than substantive change. Imagine what this makes our culture think of Christianity.

We can even see this on the level of national politics and laws as well. Symbolic Christianity cares more about its preferred politicians giving lip service to God and favoring Christianity than it does about them actually being qualified for the role they would be voted into.

Symbolic Christianity also cares more about something being legal or illegal, for the symbol it will serve to others that it voted to uphold something that matched its values, rather than consider how such laws will actually impact the needs of others, negatively or positively. We can think of all the bills criminalizing abortion and all the anti-trans bills across the country as examples of this. Where it is more important for something being “illegal” in order to send a message about our values than it is to consider the actual impact it will have on the very people those laws are aimed at.

Symbolic Christianity is very self focused, prioritizing its own preferences and working to ensure its symbols are treated with the sacredness it believes they deserve. Things “appearing” Christian is more important than anything else to symbolic Christianity. It is a blatant form of selfishness.

I think this is the case because symbols can be such a powerful tool of power and control. Posting the Ten Commandments in all public school classrooms is more about expressing Christian ownership and dominion of those classrooms, rather than any real desire to bring actual power and proactive change to those schools for the better.

I think this is also why there is such resistance within many Christian circles to addressing the sins of racism, capitalism, sexism, homophobia, and so many others in the history of the United States. Addressing these things fundamentally shakes one of the bedrock symbols of symbolic Christianity: the symbol of a Christian nation.

You can’t keep up the appearance of a "Christian nation” when you admit all the ways it wasn’t actually Christian.

Symbolic Christianity refuses to repent, especially when its most sacred symbols are at stake.

Substantive Christianity strives to be focused on others, prioritizing their needs, even if it must repent itself in order to do so. It works to ensure that human beings are treated with the sacredness they all deserve. Symbolic change for substantive Christianity is secondary and dependent on the need of substantive change.

Substantive Christianity will make symbolic changes, like removing flags from church sanctuaries, taking down pictures of white, European Jesus, and taking down confederate monuments, all in the work of making a substantive changes in confronting and repenting from religious nationalism and racism.

Symbolic change for substantive Christianity is always a means to an end, not an end unto itself.

When we Christians continue to prioritize symbolic change over substantive change, we will continue to make the gospel of Jesus all about ourselves and our beliefs, requiring the world to adhere to us, rather than actually making the world a better place, especially for the most vulnerable.

We will continue to function as if Jesus said, “whatever you do for yourselves, you are doing for me” rather than what he actually said about prioritizing the needs of others, treating them as if they were him.

Some of the most poignant words against symbolic religion from Jesus comes from Matthew 7: 21-23, where he says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

If Christian political theater has shown us anything, it is that we Christians can “prophesy,” drive out “demons,” and perform “miracles,” all in the name of Jesus, but wholly self defined and completely self serving. Having very little to do with God or neighbor.

Symbolic Christianity are those who “praise God with their lips, but their hearts are far from God.” -Isaiah 29:13; Ezekiel 33:31; Matthew 15:7–9

Substantive Christianity are those who desire to do the will of God, no matter the cost to themselves, treating the least of the world as if they were Jesus himself.

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” -Matthew 25:35-40

May we Christians strive to always put substantive change over symbolic change.

Now I want to hear from you. Did you find this helpful in any way? How do you relate to this idea of “symbolic versus substantive change?” What things would you have added that I may have missed? Reply to this and let me know your thoughts.

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Thank you all for reading and for all the ways you support me and this project every week.

As always, thank you so much for reading. I look forward to hearing from you.

-Ben

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