I was 16 when my life was first touched by suicide. A good friend and fellow dishwasher at a family restaurant shot himself in his bedroom one weekend while his parents were away. I was devastated. He was one of the funniest and most vivacious people I have ever known. When I had saved up $800 to buy my first Les Paul, he was the one that suggested that I pay for it in one dollar bills. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as angry as that music-store owner. We laughed all the way home .

It’s been 27 years and I am still haunted by the feeling that I should have known something was amiss — and it’s ludicrous that I would beat myself up for not having that awareness at 16.

Since then, suicide has had such a profound effect on my life. I’ve lost acquaintances, friends, family members, and even my own adoptive father. One of the young women in our birthing class had terrible postpartum depression. She reached out to us worried about her depression and financial issues . . . and we gave her the worst christianese advice. Honestly, I think we talked to her about tithing. She took her own life days later. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the ministry, but that’s one conversation that I remember with the deepest regret.

Depression runs in my family, so I know what’s it like to have the monster of suicide dancing around in my peripheral vision like Pennywise the clown. There have been so many times when I’ve felt lost and hopeless and he’s been there . . . waiting. . .

If you, like me, are a believer that struggles with a darkness that threatens to engulf you, I want to give you a couple things to remember:

1. You’re not a failure

As if struggling with depression isn’t enough, it can be devastating to feel like a terrible follower of Jesus for feeling hopeless. I really don’t need to hear another person tell me, “this is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it” or “the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

This is a difficult and broken world, and though we are often walking it with others, each of our roads has its own unique challenges. If the path you’re on is full of rocky and difficult terrain, it’s not just because you’re doing Christianity wrong. Depression wants to convince you that you’re hurting because you’ve failed. That’s just not the case.

Yes, joy is an element of Christianity, but so is mourning. And Jesus isn’t frustrated with you. In fact, he defines himself as one who is protector of bruised reeds and the guardian of smoldering wicks.

2. Pastoral care might not be enough

We pastors mean well, but most of us are not adequately prepared to deal with issues like depression. I actually wrote a post some time ago encouraging pastors to refer people to professionals much faster.
Do I think there are spiritual elements to depression? Yes. But that doesn’t mean that you can deal with depression with good advice and Bible verses. I don’t mean to sound flippant, but it’s really important that you find someone who is trained to help you.

When you try and put pastoral advice into practice and find it doesn’t help, it can actually increase your feelings of discouragement, estrangement, and failure.

3. Find trustworthy people you can confide in

It can be scary when you start feeling suicidal (before the idea starts becoming comforting). You may want to cry out for help but feel ashamed, so there’s a temptation to leave cryptic cries for help as social media updates or off-hand comments to people around you. Unfortunately people tend to miss them entirely, or write those kinds of comments off as attention-seeking behavior — and then feel terrible when they realize too late they weren’t.

I’m scared of being overcome with depression, so I have about three people who know my struggles and I can talk to when I feel its dark grip. It’s important that they’re people you can confide in and trust that they’re not going to be shocked or overwhelmed with your struggles.

If you don’t have someone like that, reach out to me on my contact page. I would love to talk to you.

4. Find and help others who are struggling

I hate how depression uses my own grief to block out everything else in my life. It is a sick, debauched form of narcissism that keeps me focused on myself without at least giving me the benefit of conceit.

But when I stop and look around, I realize that I’m surrounded by crushed and broken people. My own depression gives me a sort of superpower for recognizing it in others — when I bother to look.

It’s always helpful to me to find others who are suffering, too. I don’t do it to indulge myself and find someone to despair with; I do it because, despite my own feelings, there’s not one other person I would like to lose to suicide.

Sometimes intentionally loving someone else locked in the throes of depression is the thing I need to snap me out of my own spiral.

It always feels like a huge victory over my own melancholy when I can use it to identify with and build a relationship with others. I feel like I’ve taken it’s destructiveness and turned it in on itself.

5. Remember your loved ones

I know the voices you’re hearing:

• No one would notice if I wasn’t here
• People’s lives would actually be better if I was gone
• I am just a huge weight that people have to carry

I hear those voices, too. And while it irritates me when people say, “suicide is the most selfish thing you can do,” it’s easy for a suicidal person to really grasp the impact that suicide has on their loved ones. Not only are you wrong that they would be better off without you, you’re condemning them to a lifetime of regretfully replaying conversations and missed opportunities. The people in your life will wear a hair shirt of self-blame and sorrow for the rest of their lives.
It’s a terrible burden to bear.

Remember

You are not alone. You are not irreparably broken. You are not worthless.

Don’t let anyone tell you differently . . . especially yourself.

And as I said before, if you need someone to talk to, I’m listening.

The post Help! I’m a Christian Struggling with Suicidal Thoughts appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

A family member I hadn’t talk to in years reach out to me on Facebook. They felt it was high time we reconnected, and they were right. One of the first messages I received centered around the fact that they were a dyed-in-the-wool conservative and they’d gathered that I was now pretty progressive. “But that doesn’t have to define our relationship,” they suggested, “maybe we can learn from each other?”

Sadly, that wasn’t going to be the case. Eventually everything I said annoyed this person, and they’d start argument after argument trying to “fix my thinking.” In the end we both ended up throwing up our hands and going our separate ways — the chasm between us was just too wide to cross.

Our binary thinking

Humans find categorizing things very helpful. We’ll alphabetize, label, and organize things into a system that helps us find what we need, and understand what we find. Sadly, we too often do that to each other.

In the 90s I was a pretty regular Rush Limbaugh listener, I watched his television show, and subscribed to his newsletter. I got pretty entrenched in this binary worldview that divided everything up into liberal or conservative. Understanding a person was as simple as understanding one or two of their views.

Once I knew where you stood on any particular idea, I’d categorize you with the appropriate label and decide how to think about you.

(In case you think that I’m just taking issue with conservative thinking here, I found that those on the other end of the spectrum did the exact same thing. I wrote a post in March of 2014 about my disenchantment with progressives and their litmus tests.)

It’s a very human trait to want to label people as quickly as possible so we know where to place people — and how to interact with them. We do it with every aspect of our lives, from politics to faith.

The problem with tribalism

The problem isn’t just that we want to label others; it’s that we want to find a place where we belong. We want to feel secure and accepted, where there are people around us who we have something in common with, and where we understand how to speak and behave in a culturally acceptable way. We want our tribe.

The thing about finding our tribe is that we need to be define it in opposition to another tribe. If our clan is not defined by how it differs from a different sect, then we don’t really have a tribe — do we? We’re all just a bunch of people. But once we have defined and located a common other — someone we can compare ourselves to — this makes our gathering together more important and significant.

Conservatives only exist to be compared to liberals and vice versa. If there were no liberals (I heard a few of you whisper “hallelujah” just now), there would be no reason to define yourself as a conservative. The tribe only exists to compare itself to another tribe.

This means that we’re always running every conversation through a filter to define people’s appropriate tribe. Do they belong to my group or another? If it’s another tribe, is it one that my tribe affiliates itself with or not?

For Christians, this introduces a whole new list of categorizations. Are you a Christian or not? If so, what kind of Christian? As a Christian, what sorts of political viewpoints do you subscribe to? But as Christians, we need to seriously question these labels. Is tribalism Christ’s ultimate desire for us? Does Jesus look at people and place them into easily categorized groups?

In Ephesians 2, Paul talks about the divide that existed between the Jews and the gentiles. The Jews defined themselves by their distinctness and separation from the gentiles. But in Christ, God broke down that dividing wall of hostility providing the opportunity to make these two tribes one. He expands upon this idea in Galatians 3 when he tells us that in Christ there is no longer Jew nor Gentile, slaves or free people, or even male and female.

Ditching the labels

As Christians, we need to start eschewing the secondary labels we use to define ourselves. It’s only natural that we’ll find a theology that resonates with us and attend a place of worship where we feel more comfortable, but the moment we start defining ourselves as Calvinists, high church, Pentecostal, Catholic, or by any other preference or denominational affiliation, we’re creating dividing walls — not knocking them down.

Preference and disagreement isn’t wrong. It’s wonderful to be able to make a choice to worship where you feel more comfortable. But once you start letting those preferences define you in opposition to others preferences, you’re allowing (and sometimes encouraging) division.

We all interpret Scripture in a way that it makes sense to us. We’re going to find a theology that seems to weave the Bible together, but once the theology we resonate with becomes “the truth,” we’re creating dividing walls of hostility.

Honoring our complexity

Like I said, I know what it means to want to identify with and belong to a tribe. In fact, there were often times in my life where I intentionally kept dissenting opinions to myself because I didn’t want to be ostracized.

The truth is that most of us are too complex to fit into the constrictive ideological frameworks that define our tribe. So we either don’t think deeply about the issues that we allow to define us, or we aren’t completely honest with ourselves.

As Christ followers, there is no room to over identify with any political ideology, theology, nationality, or philosophy. Our tribe is humanity gathered at the cross . . . and for those that don’t know yet that they are part of that tribe, we’re called to issue regular, constant invitations.

Any ideology, theology, or philosophy that we identify with that alienates others from the cross is off limits.

The post A Gospel That Encourages Division Is Not the Gospel appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

A few people shared Matt Walsh’s latest blog post on Facebook today (for those who don’t know who Matt is, he calls himself a blogger, writer, speaker, and professional truth sayer), and he hooked me in with the post’s title. I usually refuse to read his stuff because I find it absurd and inflammatory — and his post entitled Yes, Gay Marriage Hurts Me Personally didn’t disappoint.

While I don’t intend my blog to be a place to argue with people I disagree with, I care about many of the individuals who shared this post. I’d like to just look at the way Matt builds his arguments. If they read this and still agree with his views, that’s fine. But I’d love for them to think a little deeper about how some people use fear and hatred to create an audience and win support for their point of view.

I am going to be posting portions of Matt’s post, and I intend to be honest to the points he makes.

All progressives are mean

Courtesy of B Rosen

Matt begins by talking about the feedback he received for his post on the gay-marriage SCOTUS ruling. When he says that a majority of the responses were vitriolic, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt. He offers up the most distasteful quotes which include people wishing he was dead or in hell, and heaping all sorts of profanity upon him.

I know how that is. I’ve talked about my own emails, comments, and private messages that wish me harm and very warm afterlife. There has been a message or two that have actually concerned me to the point that I’ve wondered if I needed to alert the authorities. I imagine the nonsense in my inbox doesn’t match a Matt Walsh or Rachel Held Evans (it’s important to note here that the hate that Matt and Rachel experience comes from opposite ends of the political, ideological, and theological spectrum).

I pretty quickly go from sympathy  for Matt to annoyance when I realize why Matt’s sharing these quotes.

“Progressivism, as we’ve seen, is a bubbling cauldron of vile, hideous hatred. They dress it up in vacuous, absurd little symbols and hashtags and bright colors, yet the elites who drive the gay agenda are not out to spread love and happiness, but hostility and suspicion. And the obedient lemmings who blindly conform, with rainbows in their Facebook photos and chanting whatever motto they’ve been assigned, don’t really understand what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. The fact that this is the same ideology to come up with vapid slogans like #LoveWins is an irony too bewildering to comprehend.”

Matt’s purpose here is to create a straw man. He juxtaposes the #LoveWins hashtag with the terrible emails he’s received and then basically says, “There you have it — progressives are all vile and full of hatred.” That’s lazy propaganda used to solidify division. If progressives are all evil because of some of Matt’s hate mail, then conservatives are all evil because of mine.

I can’t imagine assuming that the mean stuff said to me represents the beliefs or behavior of all conservatives. It’s a torpid argument. There are terrible people on the fringe of every ideology. I disagree with Matt and I don’t want him to die or go to hell (although it’d be okay with me if his internet connection stopped working). My distaste for Matt’s work reflects my views on Matt’s ideas and not the value of every conservative on the planet — or even Matt as a person created in God’s image.

What I hate about this kind of argument is that it reinforces an us-vs.-them narrative. Everyone reading Matt’s post is led to assume that those who disagree with Matt are “progressives” or “liberals.” Which, in Matt’s vernacular, seems to fall somewhere below pedophile on the list of acceptable drinking buddies.

These horrible people who said terrible stuff to Matt don’t undermine the message of #LoveWins. The #LoveWins message is one of hope. In the end, I believe that Christ’s love will win out. Do I always do a good job of reflecting love? God, no. In fact, to my shame, I occasionally make light of Matt on Twitter:

Sometimes WWJD is hard to imagine so I just guess what Matt Walsh would do and do the opposite.

— Jayson D. Bradley (@jaysondbradley) June 19, 2015

I still believe that, in the end, love wins. I trust the love of Christ is going to transform the way we all interact with each other, it’s going to transform our view of justice, it’s going to transform me, and it’s going to transform Matt Walsh.

Every conservative who isn’t upset is weak

Courtesy of JoshuaMHoover

I had a disagreement with Micah Murray about whether Matt Walsh believes what he’s peddling, or if he’s just selling a product (this product being fear). Micah’s sure that Matt can’t believe the stuff he says and he’s the ultimate clickbaiter. And although I didn’t believe Micah before, I am starting to believe him now.

It’s just crazy to me that you can agree with everything Matt Walsh says, but if you disagree with him here, he’s disgusted with you:

“I’m not proud to say it, but I feel an immense disgust for these Apathetic, Weak, Oblivious, Scared, Distracted, Impotent, Frivolous, Christians And Conservatives (AWOSDIFCACs for short). I’m not saying disgust is the correct emotional response, but I admit I experience it. I can deal with liberals. They’re just wrong about everything. Fine. That’s simple. But AWOSDIFCACs know and understand the truth, yet yawn or shrink away in fear.”

Let’s ignore the absurd statement that “liberals are wrong about everything.” (Honestly, Matt uses more hyperbole than a telemarketer.)

You seem to have a moral imperative to be up in arms. If you aren’t fighting liberals in the street, you’re failing your country and your God. I don’t know how he does it. It has to be exhausting to be raged out about everything all the time (that goes for a lot of progressives out there, too).

I always find it strange that those who constantly maintain this level of outrage generally seem to be people who have a more extreme view of God’s sovereignty — but maybe God just allows things like the SCOTUS ruling to ensure his people’s hypertension.

But here’s the thing I really don’t get: If Matt is going to use such inflammatory language about people in his own camp, who does he actually write for? If he was genuinely concerned for the people who disagree with him, wouldn’t he try to win them over and reason with them? Why would he stoop to calling them such derisive names? Either he knows that this is a demographic that responds well to shame, or he actually doesn’t write for mainstream conservatives and has a small niche audience of angry, hand-wringing individuals who can’t see beyond their own indignation.

You need to be angry about things that don’t affect you

His frustration at people who don’t feel like homosexual marriages will affect them is summed up here:

“First, since when are we only supposed to care about things that will physically or financially affect us? Don’t we normally condemn a person who fails to act or think or speak simply because he, himself, individually, isn’t yet feeling the effect of it? Don’t we criticize a person who doesn’t care until he’s getting punched in the nose by the problem?”

On some level, I agree with Matt here. I care about starving children even though it doesn’t necessarily affect me personally. I care about equal rights for women although the glass ceiling doesn’t stop my ascent. I get it! We shouldn’t just care about stuff based on how it affects us.

But how far do we take that?

Should Scientologists be allowed to put an end to all psychiatrists and all psychotropic drugs because they feel passionately that they’re harmful? Should an orthodox Jew or Muslim try and forbid me from eating a BLT because of their conviction that God hates when we consume unclean animals? Should the neighborhood kids be forced to stop trick or treating because my mother-in-law thinks Halloween is the devil’s holiday?

At some point in a pluralistic (I know conservatives hate that word) society, you can’t run the lives of others based on your moral convictions. Of course Matt would agree with this principle when it’s a liberal’s moral convictions about issues like feminism, dangerous forms of capitalism, or sex education, but when it’s his convictions then obviously the nation should kowtow.

I’m not going to waste too much time on Matt’s absurd idea that people are confused when the government changes the definition of marriage. No one’s confused. Having the Supreme Court say that homosexuals can get married doesn’t confuse my idea of marriage any more than changing the drinking age to 19 would confuse my idea of what an adult is.

Matt’s intentional oblivion

“Why do you think liberals care so much about this? If it doesn’t matter, why have they dedicated years to bringing about this past Friday? Because they want gay people to love each other? Nonsense. There was never any law preventing any gay person from loving anyone or anything. The State never had any interest in encouraging, preventing, or otherwise regulating love. The State does have an interest in the foundation of civilization, which is the family. That’s why, up until recently, it recognized True Marriage.”

This paragraph ushers in a whole section about the scary and mythological liberal agenda.

It is entirely disingenuous to frame the discussion this way. No one ever pretended that they cared about marriage equality “because they want gay people to love each other.” To take someone you disagree with and reframe their argument in such an absurd fashion is insincere and dishonest.

The reason people cared about this issue was, in great part, about gays having the luxury to make a commitment to their partner and enjoy the same rights afforded to other people in life-long, committed, monogamous relationships — or as we like to call them, marriages.

“This whole gay marriage debate is about opening up the lifelong monogamous bond of matrimony to a community that often doesn’t desire a lifelong monogamous bond. Do you understand what’s going on here? They don’t want marriage as it currently is; they want to change it into something else.”

My guess is that Matt doesn’t have many gay friends. He’d probably tell you otherwise, but I am extremely skeptical. I can’t think of one gay friend who would like to marry but has no desire for a monogamous relationship. Sure, you can find and link to someone saying otherwise but that doesn’t make it universally true.

I have gay friends who have no interest in personally marrying but would like to be able to have it be a choice and not just because they can’t. They’re probably not monogamous, but that’s not really different than some of my straight friends.

“It makes no sense. That is, until you come to understand that liberals desire not to fortify or strengthen the family, but to dismember it. This is purely a game of power and destruction. Why do you think their victory on Friday prompted such vulgar, bloodthirsty gloating? Did black Americans react that way when they achieved civil rights? Did women respond like this when they won the vote? No, because these groups were actually fighting to participate in, and embolden, constitutional liberties. Modern liberals, for their part, wage a war not of freedom but sabotage. Now with their triumph last week, they act like marauding pillagers who just sacked a village and burned it to the ground. They brag like conquering tyrants, not warriors for liberty. Just ask the Catholic priest who tried to walk by a gay rally this weekend in New York only to be spat on by two gay bullies.”

This whole liberal boogeyman shtick is the reason that we can’t dialogue about anything in this country. There are too many people who read this kind of nonsense and think, “Yeah, all liberals are evil and want to destroy our families and eat our guns!”

Was there really bloodthirsty and vulgar gloating? I guess Matt does mention a priest in New York getting spit on so . . . this must reinforce his conviction. I can’t say this enough, don’t fall victim to someone using an extreme example as an argument against an entire group. It’s the laziest logical fallacy.

As for black Americans response to civil rights or women’s response to suffrage, LOL dude! Let alone the silly fact that neither of us have any idea how either party responded, they probably couldn’t have responded with enthusiasm if they wanted to. If Matt doesn’t understand the dangers that blacks and women still faced despite these victories, I don’t know what to say.

I have to give Matt an A+ in volatile and inflammatory language, but it’s just so nonsensical. Was there celebratory nature to the proclamation? Yes. Was there some that gloated? Probably so. Would someone like Matt Walsh interpret any celebration as gloating? More than likely.

Be afraid, be very afraid

Courtesy of ep_jhu

“This is not some kind of dire apocalyptic prophesy. It is dire, and it is apocalyptic, but I’m not speaking as a prophet. I need no divine vision to merely read the words of the Supreme Court and of our country’s most powerful leaders. After the ruling, Hilary Clinton, potentially our nation’s next president (God save us), said:

‘While we celebrate today, our work won’t be finished until every American can not only marry, but live, work, pray, learn and raise a family free from discrimination and prejudice.’

Doesn’t affect you? Hillary Clinton just advertised the fact that she intends to investigate ‘where people pray’ to see if they’re suffering ‘discrimination.’ I would think, in her mind, a gay person being read Romans or Corinthians or Leviticus — the parts where homosexual sex is condemned as abominable and mortally sinful — would qualify as discrimination.”

Did Hillary advertise the fact that where people pray to persecute discrimination or did Matt infer it? I think a normal person would read that and see a list of places that Mrs. Clinton would like to see people experience equality. I can’t imagine being so frightened and suspicious that I parse every sentence for an implied threat.

This paragraph follows Matt’s diatribe about how THE GAYS AND LIBRULS ARE COMING AFTER OUR CHURCHES. Here’s another version of Christianity I just can’t wrap my mind around. This is Jesus’ church; I am not afraid that someone’s going to come destroy it. Historically the church has survived so much more than liberals. I mean Jesus says that the very gates of hell itself won’t prevail against it, but a Clinton’s going to be its downfall? Once it loses its tax exempt statues Jesus is going to give up on it?

It’s just so silly.

This is how logic works . . .

“So if gay marriage can be justified on the grounds that homosexuals love each other and wish to be together, then any other group may take that reasoning and, if it can be applied consistently to their situation, use it to gain the same rights. This is how logic works. An incestuous couple can use this reasoning same as gays, so can polygamists, so can bigamists. This isn’t a slippery slope argument. We’ve already slid down the slope, and now here we are, in a place where legal marital rights can be granted to people based solely on their affections. There is no conceivable way to exclude these other groups when that’s the legal argument that just won a Supreme Court case.”

Matt says this isn’t a slippery slope argument, but that’s exactly what it is. Is this really how logic works!?

I think Eliyahu Federman handled this really well in the HuffPo piece Will Gay Marriage Lead to Polygamy, Incest, and Religious Meltdown?

In the end, I have people I love and appreciate who disagree with me on this issue. I don’t demonize them, hate them, or call them names. I don’t find stories about violence that anti-gay protesters perpetrate and attribute them to all conservatives. I don’t assume that someone who doesn’t agree with me on one issue is either weak, apathetic, or my ideological enemy. And I hope I haven’t contributed to a culture of suspicion and hate by villainizing everyone that disagrees with me.

I love imperfectly and inconsistently — I aspire to more. But maybe that’s because I still believe that #LoveWins.

The post Yes, Matt Walsh’s Logic Hurts Me Personally appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

For the last couple of days an interview Russell Wilson did with San Diego’s Rock Church has been trending on Facebook. Why? Because of the revelation that he and songstress girlfriend, Ciara, were practicing abstinence.

The video was linked to by a local Fox affiliate with the headline: Ciara and I aren’t having sex after God spoke to me.

I was immediately curious how people would respond to this story. Would they be entranced by a salacious story about a local hero? Would they be interested in his faith because he’s so high profile? I skipped over the story and went straight to the comments.

They didn’t disappoint:

• “I love Russell so much that I don’t even care that he’s lying right now.”
• “I quit having sex with my girlfriend after Santa Claus spoke to me.”
• “Good on ya Russell Wilson!! God will bless you both for this decision. You have our support and prayers!!! Thank you for being transparent a real hero for young boys to emulate!!!”
• “As long as he hands the ball to Beast, I don’t care. Go Hawks!”
• “Hahahahaha….f’ing christian horse crap. God had time to tell wilson not to have sex, but he didnt have time to tell Sandusky not to rape kids in the locker room…ridiculous”

The comments went on and on. Most of them were from non-Christians who couldn’t care less about Wilson’s religious views, followed by the comments of Christians who were excited about Russell’s positive Christian example.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Christian spirituality and celebrity culture, and the way the church flocks to any famous person who makes the most tenuous profession of interest in Jesus Christ.

The kingdom overturns the status quo

The whole New Testament narrative overturns the world’s idea of value. When Jesus shows up, he reshuffles the deck. Suddenly the last (those living on the edge of respectable society) are first, and the first (the prominent) are last. The key to distinctive lies in service, and Christ promises to exalt the humble.

This idea was completely foreign when Jesus shared it, and it’s no less foreign now. Because our culture places fame on the highest of pedestals, Christians tend to rush to any pseudo-celebrity that promises Jesus and the gospel a platform.

This rushing after fame is questionable for a number of reasons:

1.  It ultimately undermines the gospel. I remember working in Christian retail with over a million dollars in inventory and not having a single book on missions, but the biography section would be filled with the latest celebrity offerings. This fact communicates something about our perception of the kingdom. It’s easy to infer that God wants famous people with huge platforms from which they can talk about Jesus. We tend to forget that the gospel is personified in the everyday faithfulness of normal people.
2. It sets people up for failure. Celebrities are just regular people — under a great amount of stress. Famous Christians are constantly being told that if they’re not using their fame to spread the gospel, they’re undermining the very reason God has blessed them with popularity. The ones who take this to heart feel like they have to turn every moment into an opportunity to talk about their faith, but what happens when they struggle?
   Obviously Russell Wilson wasn’t as forthright about marital troubles in the press as he was about his faith, and why would he be? But when news hit that he was getting a divorce, Christians lost their minds. I remember reading some of the meanest nonsense from disappointed Christians who felt that he’d “thrown away his Christian witness.” And like every Christian celebrity, Russell was strung up by the very people who, just the day before, was so glad he was speaking up for truth. Look at Justin Bieber or the Jonas Brothers trying to negotiate youth’s rocky road and a vocal Christian witness in front of millions amidst the temptations that come with celebrity.
3. It confuses people. Like the rest of us, people of renown tend to filter Christian themes through their own experience. So God’s goodness gets conflated with lifestyles and opportunities that most of us will never know or experience — but we all long for. So when Russel Wilson gives his testimony, it’s about a 14-year-old that Jesus dramatically visits in a dream to foreshadow the future being prepared for him. What’s that future? It’s an NFL quarterback career and a big platform to share the gospel. I don’t mean to pick on Russell; it’s just the example that’s fresh in my mind. A lot of Christian celeb bios have the same theme — God preparing people for the spotlight. But people need inspiration for their workaday lives. They need to understand that the life God often prepares for us is a quiet one working with our hands (1 Thess. 4:11).

Celebrity is big business

Christian publishing and media outlets help to muddy the water when it comes to Christian celebrities, and famous pastors, musicians, and (yes) even bloggers. Don’t kid yourself, Christian magazines know that a Beth Moore cover story is going to sell a lot more copies than one featuring Luci Shaw. Should it be that way? Probably not, but it’s reality.

When it comes to hawking their wares, there’s no difference between Christian companies and their secular counterparts. There’s value in having well-known celebrities endorsing their products. The very weakness that leads the Corinthians to argue about which early-church leader they should be following (1 Cor. 3:4–9) helps inspire people to lay down thousands of dollars if they think it will help them study the Bible like their favorite celebrity pastor.

I hate to undermine anyone’s naiveté, but a lot of Christian marketing is done like it is anywhere else. One famous person trades their audience for an audience they don’t have access to. A celebrity pastor  agrees to tweet out a recommendation (often from their Twitter account run by an intern) for a company’s product if the company agrees to place an ad for the pastor’s book on their Facebook page. Then an employee with the company ghostwrites the endorsement for their product and sends it to the pastor to tweet out. It can all be pretty disingenuous.

Look at Fox affiliate’s subject line for that Russell Wilson story again: Ciara and I aren’t having sex after God spoke to me. It’s a brilliant subject line. It appeals to Christians who want someone famous they admire to stand up for righteousness, and to everyone else it it offers details about the sex lives of celebrities with an interesting “God talks to me” angle. But the truth is that it’s a masterful subject line created to get clicks and grow ad revenue. . . and that’s all it truly is.

Capitalizing on fame

You see it with celebrities all the time. Interviews meander away from the actor or singer’s craft into a discussion of politics, foreign policy, and spirituality. Most people don’t have the ability to see take what their favorite celebrity says with a grain of salt, and the celebrities themselves, asked too often about issues outside of their purview, begin to believe they have insight beyond the average person.

This often happens with the famous Christian. Does a well-known Christian have more theological acumen than the average person? Probably not. But that doesn’t stop them from weighing in on all sorts of issues. At least when Bono does it, he uses the currency of his platform to point at causes and needs that need to be addressed. Too often, famous Christians use themselves as an object lesson.

In explaining his Super Bowl loss to the Patriots, Russell told Rock Church in San Diego that God spoke to him afterward the interception that cost the Seahawks the game, “And on the third step God says to me, ‘I’m using you . . . I want to see how you respond. But most importantly, I want them to see how you respond.”

Did God say that to Russell? Maybe. It sounds like the kind of thing God might say. If God did say that, did he intend Russell to tell everyone about it? Probably not. If God wanted to make an example out out of Russell’s response, then the response speaks for itself. The minute that Russell draws attention to his response as God’s point all along, he inadvertently points to himself. It’s a dangerous position that Christian stars find themselves in when using their fame to promote God’s kingdom — because ultimately they become their own illustration and the hero of the narrative.

Fame is always about public relations and putting the best face on everything. The struggle we all experience is an important part of healthy spirituality. How can you have a spirituality that whitewashes all the actual failure and only has a glittering image as a platform. Again I think back to Russell’s failed marriage.

I don’t fault him for having a marriage that failed (nor do I have room to). But it points to the danger of using Christian fame as a platform, because everyone sees the celebrity as a shining example of faith and they don’t get to see the real challenges the person faces. So when a failure finally comes to the surface, it’s a shock and threatens to undermine everything they’ve said. When, in truth, our failure is an important part of our growing spirituality.

But handlers and agents want all of the good at the surface and to hide all of the bad. It’s not healthy for the celebrity, the audience, or the gospel.

Is God a respecter of persons?

Is fame wrong? Not necessarily. Musicians, bloggers, poets, and other members of the creative community are simply using their gifts, and provided their work resonates with people, they can grow and audience of people who appreciate their work. If someone can become known for something they do excellently, that’s fantastic.

Where it becomes wrong is when we elevate the individual in our minds, and thereby encourage them to elevate themselves as well. I remember standing with a youth group in a packed arena for a DC Talk concert and thinking, “there’s no way that this kind of adulation doesn’t screw you up.” We’re not meant to be elevated and objectified. There aren’t many of us (if any of us) that can truly handle it.

We’re meant to live in community where we can be authentic and open with each other. Fame encourages isolation and is too often inauthentic and manufactured. Keith Green’s wife once quoted him as saying that Christian fame was hard because you’re elevated even higher for trying to remain humble. It’s a no win situation.

Maybe we need to be making heroes out of the people in our midst who we truly know. Maybe if we find some renown doing something we love doing, we should do it the best we can and that’s our legacy. I’ll tell you quite honestly, I am more touched by Russell Wilson’s regular trips to the children’s hospital than I am in most of the stuff he says about God.

Perhaps we need to quit expecting the famous to be spokepeople for God, and let them just be people. And maybe, just maybe, we should be seeing the normal, everyday heroes in our own lives.

Image courtesy of Kate

The post Christianity, Russell Wilson, and Celebrity Culture appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

One reoccurring element in most debates with Christians is the “I’m sorry you don’t like it, but someone has to tell you the TRUTH” argument. It’s a conversation killer — not because the one who uses it has won any ground, but because it’s just so obnoxious.

Whether you’re going toe-to-toe about abortion, gay marriage, Caitlyn Jenner, atheism, or any of the other issues I find Christians arguing online about, at the point you pull out the TRUTH card, you’re losing.

No one cares that you think You’re right

First off, let’s just get this out of the way: I am not a relativist. I believe that there is an ultimate reality behind the nature of the universe, the origin of the world, and the destiny of mankind. It’s my conviction that the essence of this reality is found in Jesus Christ.

My faith in the Jesus of the gospels is so strong that I’m placing all of my eggs in that basket. I’m not hedging my bets. I no longer have a Buddhist altar in my bedroom, I’m not praying to any other gods, or following any other customs just in case I’m wrong.

That said, I don’t feel like I’m more certain than my atheist, Muslim, or Jewish friends. Every humanist, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Seventh-Day Adventist, Baptist, or Calvinist I talk to is certain that their worldview represents the TRUTH, too.

In our pluralistic culture, Christians are entirely too comfortable dismissing (sometimes with extreme condescension) someone else’s point-of-view while expecting special attention be paid to them when they quote their scriptures or pet doctrines. We’re so sure that Christianity is completely self-evident and obvious that anyone who doesn’t agree with us is a moron or intentionally ignoring what we know to be undeniable.

Someone needs to speak the TRUTH

Nearly every time I encourage Christians to think through how they communicate with people who don’t share their opinions, I’m met with the same response, “Someone needs to tell people the TRUTH!”

Okay . . . whose truth?

One troubling aspect of evangelicalism is that there’s not really a collective TRUTH we’re supposed to be telling everyone. Even when it comes to something as basic as Christ’s work on the cross, we hit the culture with confusing and varying theories. Did Jesus satisfy God’s wrath with a penal substitution? Did God pay off Satan with a deceitful bribe? Did Jesus voluntarily offer himself up to be sacrificed to defeat evil and release humanity from the clutches of sin? Each of these ideas represent distinctly different views on what happened on the cross, and they’re often held with unwavering rigidity as the TRUTH.

I use the example of atonement theories to demonstrate that, even on the most primary aspects of “mere Christianity,” it’s easy for us to confuse people with details that are often speculation — but we see as plain fact. How much more bewildering does it get for the culture when we wander into even more speculative areas and begin lecturing everyone on modern moral issues?

Our various denominational teachings, interpretations, and philosophical leanings dramatically affect the way we think through issues, but when we talk about it, we tell the nation that we’re speaking on behalf of the almighty God as revealed in the Bible — when the truth is that we’re speaking for ourselves or our tribe. And the mixed messages do more to obfuscate the gospel than illuminate it.

Maybe that’s why Paul went out of his way with the Corinthians to know nothing but Jesus and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).

The daily bludgeoning

Not only do we give mixed messages about what and how to please God, we’re constantly on the offensive. We don’t see it, but think about it from the perspective of the average non-Christian Facebook user.

Let’s say that I’m the average American Facebook user with 350 “friends.” Roughly 83% of Americans identify as Christians, so that’s about 290 of my “friends.” Of those 290 Christian “friends,” let’s assume that only 30% are really vocal about their faith. So out of my 350 “friends,” 87 are going to be sharing updates about their Christian beliefs.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that you’re one of those vocal, Christian friends. Now, the issue that you’re really passionate about is abortion. You don’t post about abortion every day, but you do occasionally. Let’s assume it’s once or twice a month. But you’re also a fan of quite a few Facebook pages on the topic of abortion. Periodically you’ll like a strongly worded meme or an article you’ve read, and that shows up in my feed. On top of that, every update that you comment on shows up on my page.

And on and on it goes. . . you might not post about your hot-button topic too much, but it’s part of the daily religious deluge in my news feed. I’m constantly wading through some Christian’s views on gays, feminism, poverty, race, etc. Every one of the Christians in my feed belief that they’re doing God’s work by telling me the TRUTH about their pet issue. But here’s the thing, it’s actually inoculating me against the gospel instead of drawing me in.

Even if they’re right much of the time, I’m tuning them out. And it’s not just because I’m a sinner who’s in love with my sin; it’s because I’m constantly surrounded by Christians bickering with others on the inside, and outside, of their faith.

Ultimately it’s not that I’m surprised that Christians disagree about so much, it’s that I can’t believe they disagree with so little charity.

Christian entitlement

I often find myself in a discussion with someone who is super upset about something I’ve written. It doesn’t upset me when people disagree with me — I kind of expect it. What I’m frequently taken aback by, however, is the disdainful and patronizing way that they’ll speak to me. When I find them talking to me like that, I’ll often say,

“I’m super curious why there’s so much disdain and condescension in your remarks? It’s totally fine if you disagree, but I am always so intrigued by individuals whose orthodoxy is expressed in such a smug and dismissive fashion.”

When I do get a response, it’s typically that what I am saying is obviously so wrongheaded that it doesn’t deserve to be treated with respect or deference. I guess when you have the TRUTH on your side, it releases you from any responsibility for kindness.

What I find increasingly strange is how the same person who’s contemptuous towards me when we disagree will often claim they’re being denied their freedom of speech or are being persecuted when someone dismisses or disregards their argument.

Debate’s golden rule

One of Jesus’ most well-known statements was his admonition to “do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Lk 6:31), and I think it’s incredibly applicable here. We tend to think of it as, “Don’t do something you don’t like to someone else,” but it’s a lot more proactive than that.

• You want someone to listen to your truth? Honestly listen to theirs.
• You want someone to treat your opinions with respect? Treat theirs with respect.
• You want someone to genuinely care about your perspective? Genuinely care about theirs.
• Don’t want people to turn every conversation into an opportunity to share their opinion or convert you? Don’t do it to them.

I fear that we’ve gotten to the point where we think the Jesus’ great commission (Mt. 28:19–20) is fulfilled by sharing our presumptions about everything. It isn’t. You want someone to care about your views? Build enough relational capital that when you do share your beliefs, you’ve earned their ear.

Image courtesy of Jonathan Powell

The post Hey Sinner, Listen to Me — I’m Right! appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

Opinions can be dangerous. The perspective I adopted yesterday can adversely affect the way I assimilate information tomorrow. If I’m not careful, a poorly formed opinion will dramatically undermine my intellectual growth and emotional maturity.

On some level, we all know that not every opinion is a good one. Some are considerably more rational and sophisticated than others. The problem is that we always assume the rational ones are ours.

Are there practices that will help us develop healthier and better informed opinions? Yes! I put together 5 things you can start doing right now to help you develop opinions that don’t suck.

And since a majority of my readers are Christians, I’ve included a special response to some imagined Christian objections.

1. Quit assuming you’re objective

We all assume that we see the world as it is. This naïve realism concludes that the people who agree with us are wise and intuitive and those who don’t are biased and intellectually lazy. But it’s just not true.

The way we see the world around us is influenced by so many factors: our upbringing, our cultural context, our education, where we get our information, and so many other components. The very brain we use to make sense of the world is an untrustworthy narrator filling in informational holes with unreliable perceptions, attitudes, and impressions.

Things start moving forward when you realize that your opinions are being formed in a relatively closed system, and you’re not necessarily more intuitive or unbiased than anyone else.

The second thing we can do is intentionally feed our brain information from outside of our experience instead of looking for information that simply justifies the way we already perceives things. Read opinions you don’t agree with — not to argue with them, per se, but to understand them. Read new and unfamiliar opinions and information. The more we expose our minds to, the less likely our brain will just be a cul de sac.

For the Christian:

“If I don’t protect myself from ideas I don’t agree with, I run the risk of led astray by the wrong kind of information. It’s dangerous to entertain contrary ideas.”

I would challenge you to think through this response. What would you say to a follower of Jim Jones or David Koresh who had similar objections? The very fact that they refused to entertain contrary ideas kept them imprisoned in a system that eventually killed them.

If your faith is built upon embracing certain conclusions and avoiding conflicting information (or filtering it through someone else who shares your views), you really need to ask yourself if it’s a faith worth having. If it’s true, it’ll stand up to the press of differing beliefs. Who knows, it might even make your faith bigger and stronger.

2. Assume your beliefs will evolve

As I’ve said before, I don’t really trust anyone who believes everything at 50 that they believed at 20. For a majority of mature people, ideas evolve and change and, as we develop, we find we’re able to hold important values without excluding and alienating others.

The knowledge that your views might change over time doesn’t mean you have to keep them to yourself. But it does add a certain humility to your perspective when you’re willing to assume that how you see things could develop or change.

Knowing that things will change should help you to disagree with others without all the sharp edges and condescension.

For the Christian:

“My beliefs won’t ‘evolve.’ I believe what the Bible tells me and therefore already I believe everything that I will ever need.”

If you think about every contrary viewpoint that falls under the umbrella of “orthodoxy,” it’s crazy to assume that you’ve somehow accidentally arrived in the correct place in regards to every theological question. The question here isn’t about the Bible, as much as it’s about interpretation and understanding. If you don’t think there’s any chance that your understanding or opinions will ever change, you’re going to do a lot of damage to your relationships.

I know Christians whose children have come out of the closet, and they responded based on views they believed would remain forever static. Some parents kicked their kids out. Some parents tried to “reprogram” them. Some parents just refused to talk to their kids about the issue.

Years later, when the parents perspective had softened (or even changed), too much damage had been done. Damage that would have been mitigated if they’d been willing to say to themselves, “I feel strongly about this right now, but this is my child. And there’s a chance my views will change — but my desire to have a relationship with them never will.”

3. Be mindful of how you gather and internalize information

Where confirmation bias actively searches out and interprets information in a way that reinforces our opinions, biased assimilation treats complimentary information with less scrutiny than it treats contradictory information. Both confirmation bias and biased assimilation are detrimental to intelligent minds.

Confirmation bias ensure you never read anything you don’t agree with, and biased assimilation guarantees that if you do, you’ll dismiss it.

If you tend to only read liberal think pieces, eventually that’s all you’ll receive. You might think, “that’s great!” But is it? Developing trustworthy opinions means reading, discussing, and understanding thoughts you might not agree with.

For the Christian:

“You need to be careful; you could be led astray by bad information. That’s why I don’t tend to stray too far from data that I know is safe.”

This is one of the reasons that Christians often lack credibility. What we know about alternative viewpoints is filtered through someone who agrees with us, and the only reason that we learn about it is to refute it. This has to stop.

Either you follow Christ because you believe the gospel is true, or you follow him because you want it to be true. I promise you that if the gospel is true, it will stand up against contradictory ideas. And if it isn’t true, then why bother protecting it from other beliefs?

4. Learn to enjoy being wrong

I shared an ignorant update the other day and got called out on it. I took it down and apologized, and someone commented, “At least you’ll admit when you’re wrong.” I can’t think of a better compliment. As I told her, “My credibility isn’t built on being right; it’s built on a willingness to be wrong.”

I think it’s a problem that in a world without a lot of certainty, there are so many people convinced they’re right.

The trick is in learning to be strongly convinced, while holding your opinion loosely enough to be corrected. When you’re willing to admit you’re wrong, you find that you’re a lot more intentional in the way you construct your ideas.

For the Christian:

“There are some things I’m willing to be wrong about, and some that I am not. If the Bible says it, then that’s all I need. God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.”

I completely get it. I really do. But here’s the thing. . . I know so many people who are convinced about what they believe the Bible says, and they’re wrong. Aren’t there areas of your faith that are extrapolations or interpretations? Are you right about your opinion on things like the end times or Israel/Palestine, or have you accepted an interpretive perspective from your tribe?

The humility so revered in Christianity has to be present in the posture we take towards our beliefs and the beliefs of others.

5. Embrace skepticism and curiosity

Intelligence doesn’t inoculate you against gullibility. Smart people fall victim to questionable beliefs, ideas, conspiracy theories, and hoaxes all the time. Oddly enough, Scientologists aren’t typically simpletons, and many of the individuals who lost millions of dollars to Bernie Madoff were educated masters of industry.

Don’t mistake the skeptic for a cynic or a pessimist. The skeptic is simply someone who isn’t easily convinced. They’re poking and prodding at an idea from all angles, and enjoy the work of questioning presuppositions.

And don’t just question the information that comes from without. Question the things you think as well. Sometimes our reasoning facilities are betrayed by assuming our own presuppositions, beliefs, and ideas are completely accurate. Be as willing to roast your own sacred cows as you are anyone else’s. It’s the only path towards intellectual honesty and real humility.

For the Christian:

“If all you ever do is question everything, then how will you ever believe anything? Faith requires taking that step from what you don’t know towards what you believe to be true.”

There is some truth to this. Faith isn’t certainty, and you have to eventually go all in or cash out. The thing is that you want to set yourself up with a good jumping-off point for making that faith leap.

Typically Christians who would question the validity of skepticism would encourage everyone else to be skeptical of their faith and convictions. If you that doesn’t seem the least bit disingenuous to you, I’m not sure what to say. If we want others to ask tough questions of their beliefs, we need to be willing to do the same with ours.

In the end, we’re all going to have opinions. Why don’t we make them opinions worth having?

The post 5 Tips for Developing Opinions Worth Having appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

It’s with horror and fascination that I watch Donald Trump jockey to be the Republican candidate for president. It would be an humorous diversion if there weren’t so many people who seem supportive of the idea. It’s almost as if Mike Judge’s classic film Idiocracy was some sort of prophecy.

On July 26, 2015, CNN posted the results of a political poll revealing quite a bit about the grass-roots support of the Donald Trump candidacy. There were no huge surprises, but in an article summing up the poll’s responses, this paragraph jumped out at me:

“The majority of those Republicans surveyed that wants Trump to remain in the race includes numbers of those seen as the core of the GOP primary electorate: 58% of white evangelicals, 58% of conservatives, and 57% of tea party supporters.”

58% percent of white evangelicals!? Seriously? At first I thought, “well, it’s obviously just a bad poll” but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, in many ways, Donald Trump is American evangelicalism’s perfect doppelganger. Here are three things about Trump that might be resonating with evangelicals (because we recognize it in ourselves):

1. He thinks he’s an outsider (spoiler alert: he’s not)

Trump’s whole race is predicated on the idea that he’s a political outsider and the answer to everyone’s frustration with Washington. The problem is that he isn’t really an outsider. He might be newer to the political process, but he has the only thing that’s really important to the process — money!

The whole problem with Washington is money. Wealth and lobbying has had such a corrosive influence on the political climate, and that’s what Trump brings to the table in spades. He is constantly selling his billionaire status as a sign of his success and why he would make a great president, and then consistently demonstrating that his wealth and privilege isolates him from understanding issues like immigration and the problems experienced by common, middle-class Americans.

He’s just not the stranger to the political process that he’d like to imagine himself to be. His privilege has put him in the same circles and processes that most political pundits frequent. In fact, the way Trump’s donations have been courted by politicians, he’s more insider than he’d have us believe.

Like Trump, American evangelicalism likes to think of itself as an outsider. We’ve developed a mythos that makes us the put-upon and abused minority existing on the outskirts of American culture, but it’s just not true. The fact that we want to believe we’re outsiders leaves us just as out of touch as the Donald.

Christianity has spent over a century at the center of cultural authority in the U.S. When prayer was practiced in schools, it was Christian prayer. When we’ve had faith-based monuments in public spaces, they’ve primarily been Christian.  For decades, despite how evangelicalism views itself, it’s been one of the most courted demographics in American politics.

Evangelicalism was born into social influence in the same way that Trump was born into wealth. And every time there is a small shift toward equability for people who don’t share our values, it solidifies in our minds the idea that we’re outsiders. We try to establish our place at the head of the table by appealing to the Judeo-Christian values America was founded upon in the same way that Trump points to his success on NBC’s The Apprentice as a sign that he’d make a great commander-in-chief.

It’s no wonder that evangelicals love Trump; he’s spinning the same fable we are.

2. He exalts candor over wisdom

One thing I hear over and over from people is, “Trump tells it like it is. He’s not afraid to say what we’re all thinking.”

But then I look at some of his gaffes:

• “[John McCain’s] not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
• “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting.”
• “I don’t think Ivanka [his daughter] would do that, although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
• “I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.”
• “Rosie O’Donnell’s disgusting both inside and out. You take a look at her, she’s a slob.”

I think that if Trump is saying the kind of things you wish you could say, there’s a problem.

In a recent Twitter back and forth, Trump got into a war with Modern Family writer Danny Zuker. I can assure you that a sitcom writer would see an exchange like this as sport, and someone like Trump would be entirely outgunned (which he was). The problem here is that Zuker isn’t maneuvering to be the leader of the free world. I’m not sure that Trump is the guy I want negotiating with world leaders.

In a similar fashion, there’s a growing tendency lately among evangelicals online (and otherwise) to devolve into personal attacks. Learning to speak appropriately and disagree in a way that allows others to maintain their dignity should not only be a trait we expect from leadership, it should be a distinctly Christian trait. The fact that we increasingly think it’s okay to personally eviscerate people we’re at odds with says that we’re completely disconnected from the vine (John 15:5).

It’s a sad state of affairs when “telling it like it is” is so much more important than speaking wise, timely words.

3. He doesn’t know who he is

If you look at Trump’s record of political donations, over half of the $1.3 million he has donated has gone to the Democratic party. What’s even more surprising is that it’s usually been in local political races where he has vested real estate and casino interests. It’s curious that he would run as such a conservative candidate.

But weird inconsistencies are all part of the Trump mystique. He decries the outsourcing of jobs to China, while having his goods made there. He’s a proponent for “traditional marriage” who’s been married three times. He claims that McCain isn’t a war hero because he got caught, yet he was able to avoid military service all together.

It’s living with these kinds of inconsistencies that American Christianity has grown so comfortable with. We often see nothing weird about being strongly pro-life but against “socialist” programs that would ensure that not aborted babies of single mothers would have adequate food and housing. We consider ourselves travelers and sojourners in this world following a God who considers all the nations of the world to be simply dust on the scales (Is. 40:15), but we’re fiercely nationalistic and patriotic. We’ll dismiss anyone who doesn’t believe that the Bible is God’s word, but less than 20% of us read it on a daily basis.

When you consider the Janus-faced aspects of evangelicalism, it’s no wonder that we wouldn’t bat an eye that Trump seems entirely detached from his public relations persona.

Questioning our allegiances

Maybe it’s time to take a step back and ask ourselves what we see in this guy? He might not be the typical politician, but there’s definitely a potential Herod aspect to him — without any of the religious affiliation.

The fact that so many evangelicals are so enamored with him makes me incredulous. The outcry used to be that we need to elect a guy (and only a guy) that represented our theological interests, Trump doesn’t even have that going for him.

In the end, maybe evangelicalism is drawn toward Trump because looking at him is like looking in a mirror — and maybe that fact should give us a reason to pause and recalibrate.

The post 3 Reasons Trump’s the Ideal Evangelical Candidate appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

A couple days ago the news of Cecil the lion’s murder hit social media like a bomb. For the last two days, my whole news feed has looked like a wildlife safari.

The story made me so angry. Here’s a guy paying $50K to go to another country and bag himself some big game. He’d like to invoke the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt except he isn’t out in the wild tracking wild beast. His guides wait until nightfall and draw the lion out with a carcass tied to a vehicle where they blind it with bright lights so the powerful hunter can shoot it with a bow from the safety of the spotlight.

But that doesn’t kill Cecil, so they have to track him for 40 hours and shoot him again. When he’s dead, they skin him and cut off his head as a trophy and leave the carcass in the sun. Anyone who loves animals and has a heart for conservation is going to be heartbroken about this story. This isn’t the 1950s anymore. Poaching, encroachment, and excessive hunting are screwing with earth’s delicate ecosystem.

As I watched Jimmy Kimmel talk about the story, I choked up with him.

But because the story on social media becomes about destroying the life of the dentist, I never post anything about it. The problem isn’t one privileged fool immorally using majestic wildlife as a souvenir; it’s about how we all feel entitled to exploit nature for whatever advantage we have.

The fact that this has gotten so much press is because Cecil was well known and beloved in Zimbabwe. But this crap happens all the time, and it generally goes underreported. I’m generally thankful when something happens that shines a light on this industry.

The tide shifts

After the first day I began to see tweets with this sentiment: “If you care more about Cecil than you do about [insert issue here], I’m unfollowing you.”

Then I someone shared this update from Glen Beck in my time line:

“Here’s what social media is teaching you today: If you kill babies and sell their body parts it is okay. But if you kill a lion make sure it doesn’t have a name.”

Then moments later someone else was saying that the outrage over Cecil’s murder was irrelevant in comparison to the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

Not to be outdone, Matt Walsh weighed in on Cecil’s murder also comparing the indignation surrounding abortion, and  saying that only liberals cared about Cecil. (Pssst . . . don’t tell Newt Gingrich).

Anger paralysis

I’m genuinely afraid that social media is making me crazy. Its never-ending rage carousel is constantly working at giving me emotional ADHD and crippling my ability to know what to do.

There was a time when we were all pretty isolated from what was going on in the world. When I was a kid, you just got the evening news and the daily paper. In June, 1980 when CNN was launched we were introduced to a 24-hour news cycle. This was a dramatic change, but we were still pretty isolated since most of the news at the time was about milking huge, national stories for all the interest Turner could get out of it.

Social media (coupled with the fact that everyone’s always carrying a video camera with them) has completely changed the game. Now we’re deciding what news is and it isn’t necessarily being dictated by media conglomerates who are just trying to make advertising revenue. In many ways social media is informing major news networks about what they should be reporting.

By and large this has been good. Marginalized people have a platform and voice that they’ve never had before. The black community has been telling us for decades that when it comes to police, they’re afraid for their lives. Thankfully social media has provided a venue for them to say, “See!? We told you!” (It breaks my heart that we’ve been so quick to speak and so slow to listen that it’s taken this long.)

It’s sad that social media is doing its job so well that I just can’t keep up with the crippling speed of all the world’s predicaments. I’m starting to have a hard time remembering what it was like not to feel frustrated and hopeless all the time. And to make matters worse, I’m told to care about this new issue, and then browbeaten by someone else because they don’t feel like it’s as important as the issue driving them.

What sucks is that so many of these dilemmas are important. In my mind, the #BlackLivesMatter discussion is our most important social issue, but does that mean that I can’t discuss another news story?

Stop telling me what to care about

Social media doesn’t really reflect my innermost concerns. You can’t look at my news feed and think you know exactly how I feel about everything. I don’t have to prioritize or create a hierarchy of issues I want to discuss. It’s wrong to assume that because I’m talking about a current story that I don’t care about anything else. I promise that I have the capacity to care about multiple things at once.

We have to stop being condescending when a story flares up and everyone’s talking about it for a moment. When you post your update about how ridiculous it is that we’re all talking about this low-priority problem, you’re contributing to the noise.

Most of the problems we’re dealing with are symptoms of the same illness — privileged people feeling like they have the right to exploit others and do whatever they can afford to get away with. This means we’ll abuse minorities, the unborn, and nature if it suits us, and it’s got to be revealed for what it is.

I promise not to stop caring, but I beg you to let others express their grief in their own way.

The post I’m Sorry. I’m Really Doing My Best to Care about Everything appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

Writing Christian dating advice is quite the cottage industry. More than a few online personalities have built their entire platform on listicles like:

• Tips for Christian singles
• Men you should/shouldn’t date
• Girls Christian guys should avoid
• Differences between dating a boy and dating a lumbersexual hipster man

As a writer, it’s the perfect niche market. You’ll never run out of Christian young people to advise, and you can just keep cramming the same opinions into reconfigured content. It’s like the Food Network’s crappiest show where a spastic Guy Fieri makes a different kind of meatloaf every . . . single . . . day.

Don’t be unequally yoked — dummy!

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” — 2 Corinthians 6:14

This verse is an important tool in the youth pastor’s utility belt. It ensures that young people never date outside of their faith. And even though Paul doesn’t address marriage in the entire letter, and doesn’t seem to have it in mind in this passage, it isn’t a ridiculous implication. Marriage is one of the most significant partnerships we’ll ever enter into, and it’s probably wise to consider our potential partners.

But is the unequally yoked thing a rule or a principle?

I don’t think it’s entirely possible to enter into significant relationships where I’m not unequally yoked on some level. If I publish a theology book with Zondervan, I’ve aligned myself with News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch. I don’t know about you, but that’s not who I would choose to be partnered with. But the reality is that we can’t always know everything about our potential partnerships.

In the same way, choosing a marriage partner based on the appearance of spiritual parity in your twenties and thirties is a gamble. In my early twenties, I was part of a circle of the most sincere believers you would ever want to meet. We prayed together constantly and studied our Bibles together on the regular, and most of us entered into equally-yoked marriages with other sincere believers.

Now over twenty years later, many of the people from that circle wouldn’t really consider themselves followers of Jesus any longer — or at least not in the same way they would have when they were younger. And only a couple of those marriages are still intact.

All things considered, maybe whether someone identifies as Christian or not shouldn’t be the ultimate factor in who you marry. I know it’s going to sound insanely heretical, but there are tons of people outside the church who are incredibly kind, respectful, and mature and would make a wonderful spouse for a Christian — and plenty of Christians you should be running far away from.

Is missionary dating a thing?

If you were raised in the church, you’ve heard the legends of the horrible “missionary dater.”

Missionary dating is when a Christian courts someone outside of their faith with the intention of eventually leading them to Jesus. The moral of the story is that it never works and the unbeliever eventually leads the Christian astray (probably into a questionable lifestyle that includes watching R-rated movies and voting democrat).

Here’s the thing though, I know quite a few sincere believers who have dated outside of their faith and I don’t know a single missionary dater.

When you’re dating someone and considering a life together, you have to factor in so many compatibility issues:

• How similar are our families of origin?
• Do we have similar goals and desires?
• Do we both want children?
• Do we both share the same political views?

Faith is one of the many factors one considers when thinking about a spouse. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t the most important. Not one of my friends that dated outside of their faith took it lightly or glibly — and none of them just figured, “I’ll eventually convert them to my faith.” If that was their plan, I would have encouraged the other person to dump them fast.

What’s interesting is that some of the unbelieving spouses did end up believing. So even though that wasn’t the goal, it was the outcome. Many of the others still have perfectly happy marriages that have had to include learning to be respectful of their spouse’s contrary perspectives and worldviews.

What if Bible characters wrote dating books?

Considering many biblical characters relationships’, it’s a wonder that we find it so easy to enforce a relational standard. Here’s a list of relationship books I would imagine biblical heroes would write:

• Jacob: Wooing the Love of Your Life after Marrying Her Sister
• Abraham: Having a Child — with the Help of the Help
• Esther: Fulfilling God’s Plan Using Pre-marital Intimacy
• David: When the Woman You Love Belongs to Someone Else
• Solomon: Woah, Wife #232 Has Breasts Like Gazelles! 

My point is simply that the Bible is more honest about the messiness of humanity and our relationships than Christians  often are. The idealized view of what Christian relationships should look like can be a barrier to healthy coupling. It gets even worse when we introduce stupid, fatalistic mythology into our relationships that say, “God has one perfect mate for you.” He doesn’t. But when you think he does, you spend every difficult moment in your marriage wondering, “Did I make the wrong choice?”

You want Christian dating advice? Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. When you make decisions from that place, they’ll generally be the best ones (even if they don’t necessarily look like the decisions that another Christian would make).

Paul’s promise that “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28)” is an assurance that God is at work writing his story and redeeming the world through your decisions — even the dumb ones. I think it’s entirely possible to follow your heart into places a blogger would advise you not to go, and still find yourself in the center of God’s perfect will.

The post Do Singles Need More Christian Dating Advice? appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

With this casual question Cain shrugs off responsibility for the brother he’s killed (Gen. 4:8–9).

He believed the answer to this rhetorical question was, “no” — the rest of the Scripture tries to convince us otherwise. It’s an important question for Christians in the West to consider because we talk like we side with Scripture, but make nonchalant decisions like Cain.

The high cost of frugality

Western culture exists at the end of the supply chain. For instance, 90 percent of the world’s coffee is produced in developing countries but consumed in industrialized nations, and the cocoa used to in the chocolate we enjoy is largely grown by poor farmers in places like Ghana who have never even seen the treats made from their products.

For most Americans, buying what we can as cheaply as possible is our number one shopping concern. What we refuse to see is that our demand for high-quality goods at the lowest possible prices places all the strain on those at the production end of the supply chain.

The use of developing countries by large, predatory western companies ensures cheap labor without many of the concerns of American production: health care, child care, safe working conditions, exhaustion, environmental concerns, etc.

It’s American consumerism that keeps these wheels of industry moving. By buying into marketing messages which push an agenda of fast-fashion relevance and not falling behind with the latest disposable technology, we make the bed that underdeveloped nations have to sleep in.

Winking at Capitalism

Paul called Satan the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4) who is at work through principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12) to steal, kill, and destroy (Jn. 10:10). He is more than willing to set up shop in any economic system, but for some reason capitalism gets a free pass from criticism in the American church.

When Pope Francis states (quite truthfully) that “some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”, FoxNews calls him a Marxist and “the most dangerous person on the planet.”

But the pope simply echoes what I believe Jesus would say about an economic system that uses the world’s poorest nations to fuel the avarice of the world’s richest.

The children of God have a personal/collective responsibility to look unflinchingly at the demonic influence behind systems and power structures in the world and quit accepting conservative justifications for their existence. When capitalism’s endgame creates unprecedented disparity between the world’s richest minority and everyone else, it’s time for spiritually sensitive people to demand change.

It breaks my heart that most of the voices calling for worldwide changes in how goods are produced and distributed come from outside the church (Yes, I know it’s not all. There are wonderful ministries that take the problem with consumption seriously — I just think it should be the rule and not the exception.)

After all, the Cambodian woman trapped in a poverty-wage manufacturing job because American industry has destroyed much of her country’s economy has the same kinds of desires, hopes, and dreams that I do.

Cogs in the wheel of American Consumerism

One of the reasons that the treadmill of American consumerism is so ingrained in our culture (and Christianity) is that, as the middle class disappears and the wealth inequality gap widens, we’re being placated with baubles. Low-cost, easily disposable goods like clothes and consumer technology give us the impression of a middle class — even while we’re losing our ability to find high-paying jobs, affordable health care, insurance, and secure housing.

Our dependency on these goods to give us the impression that we’re economically viable members of the middle class makes it hard to question the system. Where do we even begin to make more equitable decisions in our spending? To get off the consumption hamster wheel means that we’re going to pay more for things we need . . . we can’t afford to do that. So we ignore the problem or learn to live with our cognitive dissonance.

Disassociating from Mr. Burns

It’s funny how many western cultural stories, legends, and movies feature wealthy industrialists as villains. The Simpsons’ Montgomery Burns is a good example of the stereotypical tycoon whose greed and avarice casts a pall over an entire town creating low-wage jobs, and unsafe working conditions. To Mr. Burns, there’s nothing as unethical as leaving a couple dollars on the table.

It’s tragic to think that western culture is the Montgomery Burns of the world.

I find it hard to believe that Jesus is neutral in regards to economic and social justice. Parables like the sheep and the goats or Lazarus and the rich man reinforce Christ’s great reversal which elevates “the least of these” in importance and prominence. I fear for the judgement of a church that ignores the exploitation and pleas of the world’s poorest.

Christians need to start asking themselves difficult questions like:

• What is the real cost of this $7 shirt?
• Who is producing my goods?
• What is the lifespan of this item I’m buying?
• What companies are guilty of egregious production practices?
• Do I need this?
• Am I just listening to voices which justify my behavior?
• What are the ripple effects of my every day behaviors?

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Yes.

The post The Spiritual Toll of American Consumerism appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

If you blog because you want to build a platform based on your unique voice and perspective, I have some blogging advice for you: It’s time to start thinking about how the internet (particularly Google) deals with your content.

What do you do when someone wants to republish your content on their site? Is it a good idea? Bad idea?

A flattering offer

It’s exciting when you start getting enough traction that organizations want to share your content. Keep in mind that generally no one pays to re-post your stuff, so you have to really think through all the other pros and cons.

Pros

1. Links to your blog: This is huge. Google and other search engines are looking at backlinks to see how popular and important your content is. These links will help you outrank others in searches for subjects you discuss. Every link back to your site is seen by Google as an endorsement (which is why you want to be careful about linking to content you hate).

2. A bio on the site: Most sites request an author bio and pic to post with your content. This can be a good way for people who like your post to jump over and discover more.

3. Credibility: There are over 450 million English-speaking blogs. Telling someone you’re a blogger isn’t exactly impressive until you start making some wins. Having your work re-posted on a major site can help give you some authority.

4. Relationships: It’s a great opportunity to build important networking relationships within an organization.

Cons

1. You lose important SEO: SEO (search engine optimization) measures the many factors which affect how search engines decide the visibility that your content has earned. You might publish a kick-ass and timely piece (which is why a website would want to re-post it), but if they have a more robust site than yours, they’re going to be seen as more authoritative than you — and Google will send them your traffic.

I wrote a post called Christian Cleavage Probably Isn’t the Problem and it was a bit of a hit driving about 20,000 visitors to my site. Relevant Magazine asked to run the article on their site and it was shared over 38,000 times.  If you do a Google search for the phrase Christian Cleavage (I know . . . why would anyone search for that!?), Relevant ranks #1 for that term with my content. I rank #4.

Most sites are run on a advertising revenue model. So the more traffic you drive, the more they’re going to want your content. But the more you give them, the more of your content Google attributes to them. There are ways around this, and we’ll get to those in a bit.

2. Re-posted content doesn’t necessarily translate to traffic: All the content I have had shared on Relevant Magazine has been shared over 110,000 times. This has only translated to about 4,000 visits to my own site — not a great return on investment.

It’s important to recognize that when someone reads a post on an online magazine or content aggregating site, they’re not thinking about authorship. Like Google, they assume they’re just reading an article from that organization. In some ways that’s good. When someone gets pissed off on something I wrote on Relevant, they tend to blame Relevant and not me. But I don’t assume that people are going to read my post on another site and come to mine.

The first couple times someone re-posts your content and you see no bump in traffic is quite eye-opening.

So should you allow sites to share your content?

Deciding whether you allow another site to share your content kind of depends on your ultimate goal. If it is to create a platform built on your personal authority, here are some suggestions for how you partner with another site and not end up on the losing end of the value exchange.

1. Rewrite the content

This is a legitimate alternative to simply sharing your content. If you rewrite your post, you can find new ways to make the same point without penalizing your website in Google searches. It will be similar content but Google won’t recognize it as being identical.

2. Ask the site to add rel=canonical tags

This is a little more technical, but it’s something you need to get your head around. When Google robots are scanning sites they’re looking for HTML to tell them how to interpret the information. If a post includes a link in the <head> that tells them where the link is to the original (or canonical) post is, they will give preference to the correct post.

So, in the case of my Christian cleavage post, it was as easy as adding <link rel=“canonical” href=“http://jaysondbradley.com/2015/01/25/christian-cleavage-probably-isnt-problem” /> to the <head> of the new post.

Online curators and magazines: including this tag in content you appropriate is the ethical way to re-post content, and it should be part of your strategy.

Shout out to Jeffrey Kranz from Overview Bible and GradLime for turning me onto rel=canonical links.

3. Offer awesome posts to others

Did you write an incredible piece that you think someone would want to post? Consider simply offering it to them and not posting it on your site. Offering exclusive content is often the doorway into working with much more prestigious outfits or building a stronger rapport with content publishers you already work with. Sometimes the relationship worth much more than the content.

If you’re a serious blogger, you need to start thinking about how Google is dealing with your content! These little decisions are affecting your site’s health in the long run.

Have a question about your blogging? Drop me a line through my contact page or leave me a comment, maybe I can turn your question into a future post.

Cheers!

The post Blogging Advice: Protecting Your Content appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

I can’t believe this post needs to be written, but it does. Too many Christians seem to feel a freedom to treat atheists (or others with whom they disagree) with condescension. It’s couched in “truth in love” language, of course, but it only serves to reinforce negativity.

So I’m going to reveal the age-old mystery on how to befriend an atheist (bonus: this advice will help build relationships with anyone):

1. Quit trying to save them

If you’re thinking about befriending an atheist because you’re hoping to get them saved, DON’T. People aren’t tasks, and evangelism built upon the pretense of relationship is no good to anyone.

Jesus always seemed to be surrounded by an entourage of people that the religious establishment detested. They were obviously drawn to him because he valued them just as they were. People can see through our agendas easily enough . . . even when we call it friendship.

Before you start interacting with anyone, you should ask yourself if you’d be willing to love and accept them if they never change. If the answer’s no, close this browser window right now and go do something else. Atheists don’t need you for a friend.

The irony is that a true friendship without an agenda will enable you to have many deep conversations about life and faith, but it will happen naturally because you have a relationship. But it’s not the reason you have a relationship.

2. You don’t have to defend the Gospel

I wrote a post called The Gospel’s Too Silly to Be Mocking Other Faiths. Its point was that, when we truly look at our faith from an outsider’s perspective, we can see that we believe some crazy stuff. Maybe we don’t have to treat people like Christianity is so self evident — because it’s not. Your own faith says that you wouldn’t believe if it wasn’t revealed to you (Jn 6:65).

A pastor friend of mine chided me because posts that make light of our beliefs enable people to disregard the Gospel. Dude, they’re atheists — they already disregard the Gospel. But here’s the thing: my blog is regularly read by atheists. I have a lot of atheist friends, and I don’t feel I have to downplay my faith at all to keep them around.

The reason they are willing to engage with me is because I’m not on the defensive all the time.

If Christianity is true, then it’s not a Fabergé egg that needs to be protected from mean pagans. We need to honestly see what our faith looks like from someone else’s perspective. We need to be completely transparent about how Christianity can be misrepresented by us screwed-up people (and often preyed upon by people who take advantage of our naiveté).

If asked, I’m always “prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks me to give the reason for the hope that I have.” (1 Peter 3:15) But that doesn’t give me license to get into endless arguments. In fact, its focus is on responding to people who ask me — not on going around looking for people to force my opinions on. Have you ever noticed that? The active focus is on preparation, not on confrontation.

And even in response, Peter encourages “gentleness and respect.”

3. Lighten up

I follow a couple atheist friends on Twitter with pretty large social platforms, so I see a steady stream of “deluded Christians” and “idiots who believe the bible” tweets. Sometimes it bums me out because, although I consider them friends, I fall within the demographic that they feel such contempt for.

Most Christians find their identity in the Gospel. When someone is crass and aggressively dismissive of their faith, they feel personally attacked, and their natural response for many is to strike back — or get bitter.

But take a deep breath and think about this for a minute. . . where is your significance supposed to come from? If you’re a Christian, I hope you said Christ. Nothing else can really diminish you, and you don’t have to get all up in arms about other people’s opinions.

I have a good friend who’s an outspoken atheist, and I feel our relationship has grown past what ideological tribes we belong to. It kind of helps that we have compatible views on so many issues. One day we were arguing with a Christian on Facebook about something silly and he private messaged me:

“I was trying to write up an explanation that non believers simply do not believe in god. Pretty much in the same way you probably don’t believe in Yosemite Sam. I could not find a way of expressing it without it looking like I think you are insane. Which brought me to a conclusion: I think you’re insane.”

I just said, “So?”

I understand how he feels, and maybe he’s right. I met a guy once who had a whole apologetic on why he believed in the ancient gods of Rome. I’m sure my friend thinks arguments for Christianity are just as goofy. Ultimately, I care more about my friendship with this person than I do whether he respects my religious beliefs.

No one owes you anything

This brings up a HUGE issue. I’m not sure where so many Christians got the idea that we deserve deference or respect for our beliefs. The entire New Testament, from Jesus onward, presupposes that we will not be respected for our faith. If you think the world needs to treat your beliefs with kid gloves, you’re a follower of some sort of Americanized manifest-destiny type of faith — not biblical Christianity.

What I do know is that Jesus wants us to treat others how we would like to be treated, so if respect is something you want, that should be a signal that you should be extending it. It doesn’t matter if you get respect back. Jesus didn’t establish a quid-pro-quo ethic that offers kindness when kindness is received. That’s not how any of this works.

I have seen the worst behavior and publicized stereotypes about atheists from Christians who then turn around complaining that they’re being treated poorly. It’s totally asinine.

We need to set our ego aside; it’s not doing us any favors.

4. Truly and empathetically listen

I’m pretty into the idea of empathy. The ability to see another person’s perspective or experience a situation through their emotions is like a super power. It’s baffling when I have Christians tell me, “I don’t have to empathize with people.”

Here are a couple reasons why I truly listen to my atheist friends:

1. I didn’t become a Christian to then plug my ears to prevent any criticism from getting in. I enjoy thinking critically and think we all need to be willing to grill some sacred cow every once and a while.
2. Sometimes painful experiences are mingled with their views about Christianity. Some have really been hurt by the behavior of Christians. I don’t believe the God’s Not Dead nonsense that suggests that someone’s atheism is tied to a traumatic event, and if you figure it out, you’ll cure them of their heathenism. But I do want to help undo damage done by people who have claimed to share my values.
3. I assume that everyone has come to their views after deep thought and research (only a jerk believes they’re the only one who’s worked at their conclusion). I think people deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt and heard.
4. I’ve often had atheists assume I believe things I don’t. I can’t think of many times where an atheist has asked me what or why I believe what I do. On the other hand, Christians do the same thing. We all would rather monologue then dialogue and this means we have to be content with our stereotypes about each other. It’s nonsense, and I’m opting out.

5. Transformation is more important than information

Please read carefully — this might be the most important point in this post (yeah, I saved it for the dedicated people).

I expect people who have 1 Corinthians 13 plastered on every piece of decor, greeting card, and wedding vow to understand its point. No one cares how many books on apologetics you’ve read. No one cares if you’re the smartest person in the room. We could argue information, perspective, and experience for the rest of our lives and get absolutely nowhere.

But there is absolutely no argument against a belief system that is making people more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. Christianity’s problem in nearly every debate is that we’re defending it at the same time that we’re undermining it. Part of the faith that we’re arguing for is that Jesus takes one kind of person and fashions from them a person who begins to resemble him — but very few people experience these new, improved Christians.

I hate to admit it, but many who would say the opposite. Christianity tends to make people more dogmatic, more rigid, more unforgiving, more condescending. If this is as good as it gets, we’re selling snake oil, and atheists know it.

We don’t have the luxury of dismissing our boorish behavior with “I’m not perfect, just forgiven.” The New Testament tells us that we’re “being transformed into his image ”(2 Cor. 3:18). This is happening by degrees, but it should still be happening. The whole point of 1 Corinthians 13 is that without love our arguments are worthless — even if they’re air tight. And in case anyone wants to dicker about the definition for love, Paul tells us exactly what it is.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.—1 Cor. 13:4–7

I seldom see these traits at play in the debates Christians engage in. Here’s a Christianity pro tip: it’s not our job to make sure the culture aligns with Scripture; but the people who believe in it probably should.

We need to quit focusing all our energy on building a better argument and focus it on being a better argument. Our number one job is being connected to the vine (Jn. 15); it isn’t in endless, fruitless debate.

If you want to make better friends with atheists, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or anyone else that doesn’t share your beliefs, it’s really pretty easy — don’t be a jerk.

The post 5 Tips for Making Friends with Atheists appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

If you were to ask me to make a list of social media positives, it would be easy. The simple fact that social media is making high school reunions obsolete makes it one of the most life-affirming gifts to come along in my lifetime.

That said, it is also bringing out and encouraging some of the worst things about human nature.

Here are three:

1. You can literally argue all day long

My grandmother used to always tell me, “Never discuss religion or politics.” It was advice from a time when wiser heads had more brain cells dedicated to keeping the peace. I can’t blame them. My grandparents went through the depression and second world war; they placed a premium on getting along. Because of that, they never even talked to each other about their differing political or religious views.

I think there’s something to be said for sharing and learning to respectfully disagree about issues without devolving into name calling and bickering. But if there was any hope for evolving in that direction, it seems lost now.

Facebook’s algorithms send everything your friends “like” or comment on through your feed. This means you’re going to see plenty of stuff you don’t agree with. If you’re smart, you’ll simply unfollow anyone who regularly likes or comments about stuff that gets you all riled up. But that’s only if you’re smart. Too many people feel this overwhelming need to wade into every thread they disagree with.

As a pseudo public figure, I keep an open Facebook profile and public Facebook page and you wouldn’t believe (or maybe you will) the number of people who just have to voice their frustration on seeing things they don’t agree with. It’s usually in the way that communicates their intellectual superiority. They’ll show up in my updates and hound, and badger people for hours.

It leaves you with one of three choices:

1. Ignore them (in which case they set up shop arguing with and belittling everyone else)
2. Block them (which runs the risk of deleting a person who might not really be a troll. Last night I blocked someone who looked like they were going to be difficult, and I ended up being accused of censorship.)
3. Argue with them (I have to admit that sometimes I enjoy this option, but eventually it brings out the worst in me.)

Virtual anonymity is creating monsters

If you were to take the entire internet and arrange all the sites on a spectrum of anonymity, you’d find the most egregious behavior in happens in places where identities are kept a secret. Read the comment section of any news outlet or check out some of the interaction in forums. When people can interact anonymously, the truth comes out. I don’t mean truth in the sense of alignment with reality; I mean truth about people’s real character—who they are when no one’s looking. When people don’t have to use their real names and it can be a complete horror show.

That’s why people in Facebook threads will behave a little kinder in a friend’s update than they will on a business page or the thread of a stranger. The thinking is, “well, they don’t know who I am.” But have you ever had that experience where you “liked” something and realize a friend or family member saw it and is now fighting with everybody in the comments? It’s humiliating because everyone knows whose friend that is. I have so many private messaged apologies from friends who made the mistake of “liking” one of my updates and are now embarrassed by one of their loved ones.

But the thinking of these individuals is, “What do I care? They’re not my friends—just a bunch of idiots on the internet.” What makes it even more difficult is that once a disagreement is public, no one will give up any ground because they’re not going to be publicly bested in an argument. There’s seldom any way it ends well.

What’s scary is that more and more I am seeing terrible behavior from people who are less and less anonymous. I sometimes worry that social media is training us to elevate our opinion over any other consideration, and it’s going to start having a disastrous effect on our ability to read social cues, learn conversational self-control, and respect others.

The world’s full of people who don’t agree with you

Social media is creating a culture that makes sharing your opinions a virtue. That’s not exactly a negative; it has given a voice to a lot of marginalized groups and people. But it guarantees that you’re going to be confronted with opinions you don’t agree with.

It might be a helpful discipline to not to allow yourself the compulsion to comment on everything you have a contrary opinion about. In fact, it’s good practice to realize that it’s entirely possible for you to be wrong.

2. Derision as entertainment

If you’ve been around the internet for a while, you’re probably familiar with PeopleofWalmart.com. It’s a website dedicated to pictures taken of the questionable characters found in the Walmarts of our nation. There’s no question that Walmart is a magnet for our culture’s most colorful people.

I’ll admit that it’s pretty funny. But here’s the problem: Most of these pictures are taken without the consent of the subject and placed online for the sole purpose of mockery . . . and many of them have mental illnesses.

Now that nearly everyone has a camera in their pocket and the ability to upload content to social media immediately. I frequently see Facebook posts and Instagram pics of strangers in compromising or silly positions. In fact, I’m also guilty of uploading images I have found funny without any consideration for anyone else involved.

Lately I can’t help thinking that this falls under Jesus’ “do unto others” credo. I don’t want some embarrassing or shameful moment of mine posted online as amusement for someone else. There has to be a point where the people who claim to follow Christ place a higher premium on protecting the dignity of others over taking pleasure in their humiliation. Other people don’t exist for my scornful entertainment.

3. We don’t care who we hurt

Imagine a fireman in your town was caught in a relationship with an underage girl. It’s shocking when someone in a position of respect and authority is caught doing something so unsavory.

In the old days, we’d get on the phone or gossip in a cafe. Now we can just get online. The travesty is that every news story, petition, opinion, and comment shared about this story bounces all around town and ends up in the news feeds of this guy’s family, and they’re victims too. I’ve seen it and it’s devastating.

Being a teenager is hard enough. How much harder is it when people in town and all your friends’ parents are having public discussions about what a scumbag your dad is, or how he should be locked up forever—or worse. The public shame and humiliation is paralyzing.

You can’t control the information on Facebook unless you completely lock it down. Even with the best of intentions, the desire to communicate your displeasure and disgust on local issues can revictimize victims, the families of victims, and the families of criminals.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is refrain from posting sensitive and inflammatory things that can make people’s lives harder. The one person who might benefit from hearing your perspective, is seldom the one that does.

What did I miss?

What negative behaviors do you feel social media is exacerbating? What did I miss? What am I wrong about? Leave me a comment—but for God’s sake, use your real name and be nice.

The post 3 Ways Social Media’s Turning Us into Monsters appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

Everywhere I look lately, I’m assaulted with reoccurring updates, tweets, and political stump speeches about the “criminalization of Christianity.”

The right seeks to strengthen their base with a narrative of fear. Senator Cruz, echoing the language of Mike Huckabee recently said, “Unequivocally. I stand with every American that the Obama Administration is trying to force to choose between honoring his or her faith or complying with a lawless court opinion.”

There needs to a point where Christ followers of every political persuasion refuse to allow themselves to be manipulated by pundits ringing the persecution bell.

Faith and power

While I don’t subscribe to the “Christian nation” view of American history, Christianity has definitely enjoyed a place of privilege in our history. Many of our laws and moral ideals have been drawn from our cultural Judeo-Christian values. However, these values have not always been present in our policies and behaviors as a nation.

Having the government so closely aligned with with faith-based morality has created serious problems. For instance, when you can convince Christians that God has ordained them with a manifest destiny, then native Americans stop being people and start becoming obstacles.

When the faith that originally spoke prophetically to power becomes aligned with power, it turns on the people it should be protecting. This isn’t an anomaly; we’ve see this every single time religion and power have become enmeshed. From divine kingships in Europe, to the caste systems of India, to modern Islamic caliphates, when public policies are driven by the faithful, the results can be atrocious.

Some would argue that good has been done by faith aligned with power, and that might be true. But I would argue that the most good done by any people of faith has been done without top-down legislation.

At its best, Christianity has always spoken truth to power. It aligned itself with people and found itself at odds with governing and even ecclesiastical rulers. Whenever it has whispered in the ears of magistrates or has picked up power’s scepter, people have suffered. With the best of intention, they’ve created rules intended to enforce their understanding of God’s will—they “tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people’s shoulders” (Matt. 23:4)

When the church consorts with power, it makes compromises. These compromises begin to rot the church from the inside, eventually creating an entirely new culture that’s an amalgamation of the two. This isn’t a problem specific to America; it was the same problem Catholicism had in the middle ages and the reason America’s forefathers fled the Church of England. Eventually power-centric Christianity becomes suspicious and even aggressive toward many postures associated with true cross-centered faith.

American Christianity values and prioritizes many things antithetical to Christ-centered Christianity: nationalism, prosperity, comfort, individualism, reprisal, celebrity culture, and self-empowerment.

We’re not being persecuted

Christianity has held a place of privilege in the west for so long that any adjustments to the balance of power feels like persecution. So when people who aren’t Christians don’t want religious themed accouterments in their halls of government or fight for what they feel are rights despite faith-based objections, Christians somehow feel as if they’re the ones being oppressed.

With over 60 million self-identified evangelicals, this is still one of the largest voting blocks in America. It’s no wonder that every single pundit tries to play to this crowd in their platform. How a group that’s courted so heavily can see themselves as put upon or marginalized is completely beyond me.

Out of those 60 million evangelical voters, pollster George Barna says that 39% are not showing up in the polls. This is the reason that you are hearing so much of the persecution rhetoric—it’s intended to rally the troops and turn out the vote. Sadly, instead of inspiring civic participation, it’s encouraging fear, suspicion, and entrenchment.

Even if we were being persecuted . . .

The greatest puzzle to me in this whole discussion is the emotional response we evangelicals have toward the idea of persecution. Not only is persecution promised for followers of Christ, we’re given explicit instructions for how we are to treat those who revile us.

“But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them. And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations. And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake.”—Mark 13:9–13

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”—Matt. 5:11–12

“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you . . .”—Matt. 5:44

These three passages give a distinctly different picture of persecution than the one we see played out in the media.

First of all, the persecution Jesus is talking about here seems to be from the top down. Religious and civic authorities are the ones oppressing believers. . . to the point of death. This is quite different than the current situation. As I said, we’re being courted in halls of power. We’re not being turned away from them. In many ways, we are the power and religious institution. The kind of suppression that Jesus is talking about is the kind that tends to come from a people diametrically opposed to religious and governing power structures; it doesn’t come from aligning ourselves with them.

It’s important for us to understand that, just because certain groups revile us, doesn’t mean that we’re being persecuted “in Jesus name” or “for the Gospel’s sake.” It’s entirely possible that we’re not adored because we tend to be cultural bullies. Imagine any other faith than yours trying to place their religious opinions between you and your civil liberties. If women were required to wear a hijab because Muslims were controlled congress or we were all expected to eat kosher because of Jewish influence on domestic policies.

Winston Churchill famously said, “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” That’s all fine and good, except sometimes you have enemies because the stands you’ve taken have been mean, questionable, or downright abusive. Being reviled is not a sign that you’re on the right side of the issue, and can’t be confused with religious persecution.

Christ’s expectation that we’re supposed to rejoice at persecution and love and pray for those who who are mistreating us is much different than we’re hearing in this current discussion.

Serving the oppressed

For me, the greatest frustration in this whole discussion is that there are actually people being persecuted for their faith. We have seen the Christians trotted by ISIS in their orange jumpsuits to be beheaded. This is a pretty stark contrast to someone being arrested in Kentucky because she refuses to do her job.

Before we glibly throw around words like persecution, we should remember all of the nations where people are actually experiencing religious oppression. In fact, if you’re seriously concerned about persecution, then start making writing letters to governments on behalf of oppressed believers or send them letters of encouragement. Voice of the Martyrs is a fantastic resource for learning about what persecution really is.

The post Relax Christians—You’re Not Being Persecuted appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

How would I describe my friendship with Courtney (a.k.a. Godless Mom)? Well . . . she’s a funny, whip-smart humanitarian who’s trying to protect the world from the dumb things I believe.

I guess that should bother me, but it doesn’t. It’s not personal, and I’ve found her to be a warm, sincere, hilarious, and thoughtful person. 

I pitched her the idea of a blog trade. She could write this piece and I would write the sister piece, 5 Things I Wish Atheists Understood about Christians, on her blog. She was game, and here we are. If you want to talk to her, leave a comment in the comments. I’m sure she’ll respond.

You can also like her page on Facebook or follow her on Twitter. 

Without further adieu, here’s what she wishes Christians knew understood about atheists.

Hi! I’m Godless Mom, or Courtney (I think I know which you might prefer). I’ve been an atheist blogger for the last year and a half. For the most part, it’s been an incredibly fun ride. I’ve learned so much and met so many wonderful people, atheists and theists alike.

I spend a lot of time online talking about religion though, and the same misconceptions about what it means to be an atheist keep popping up. I feel like I have to explain them over and over and over. Let’s try and clear a few of these up, today.

1. We do not claim to know there is no god.

It sounds like semantics, but when you dig a little deeper, you’ll see that it’s an important distinction to most agnostic atheists.

Yes, I said agnostic atheists. An agnostic atheist is one who does not believe in god, but who also recognizes that claiming to know with certainty that there is no god is impossible based on the knowledge our species has accumulated thus far.

There is sufficient evidence to discount certain accounts of a creator god, but to say that you know beyond any doubt that there are zero gods is just arrogant. Most atheists, not all, would never claim to know such a thing. We simply live our lives as though there is no god, until sufficient evidence for one surfaces.

2. Atheism is often conflated with ideas that do not fall under its title.

Someone who is skeptical of spirits and psychics, is a skeptic. Someone who believes in the good of the human race, is a humanist. A person who uses the scientific method to discover new information, or who studies the new information discovered via the scientific method is a scientist, or a scientifically-minded person.

An atheist can believe in ghosts and magic and reincarnation. An atheist can loathe science and believe everything they read. An atheist can believe in the afterlife. The sole requirement to being an atheist, is a lack of belief in any gods. Every other personality trait in an atheist, is something else.

3. The vast majority of atheists are quiet about it.

There are only a handful of us who are vocal about our atheism. I’d be willing to bet that even if you live in the Bible Belt or the Middle East, you know some atheists who have not told you yet. You probably know and love several atheists who are still in the closet about their disbelief. For the most part, atheists keep it quiet because being open about our non-belief comes with consequences. We lose friends; we lose touch with family; we lose community.

To a large number of atheists, these consequences are far worse than faking it. That’s why it’s so important for our voices to be heard. The louder atheists get, the more normal and common it becomes and the shock value diminishes. Following the gay pride movement’s model, atheists hope to make “atheist” a word that elicits little to no response one day.

4. Discrimination against atheists is very real.

While you, yourself, may have never witnessed any, it happens on a daily basis. If we set aside the horrific murders of atheist bloggers in Bangladesh, and ignore the incarceration and corporal punishment of atheist bloggers in Saudi Arabia; if we forget about the violence against atheists (including my friend) in Nigeria and places like Egypt, and we focus only on North America, you will see a long list of instances of mistreatment against atheists. Atheists in the USA have lost custodial rights to their children because taking a child to church is considered a parental duty.

Atheists are forced to sing about god, pray to god or swear to god in federal institutions. Atheists have been fired for non-belief. In Canada, a college student was beaten for hanging a poster advertising his freethought group on campus. Just a few weeks ago, one of my Twitter friends told me her family had disowned her.

In Pennsylvania. In 2015. I hear stories on a daily basis from my readers and followers talking about stuff like this. They’ve lost friends, they’ve been cut out of their family, they’ve been kicked out of their homes and denied access to their children. They get hit, sworn at and abused. Atheist veterans, who risked their lives fighting for you, have even told me stories of being booed at rallies once their godlessness was revealed. This why the atheists who are so vocal just get louder. This is why we speak up. What sort of a person wouldn’t with discrimination like this going on?

5. Atheists have morals.

We get our morality from the same place you do. While a lot of theists have told me that they get their morality from the Bible, I know that’s not true. Sure, you probably use it as a loose guide, but there are lots of things in the Bible that are no longer considered morally sound and we base that – you and me – on our own innate morality. Morality, for all humans, is based on consequences. Natural consequences being the most influential. While there are legal and seemingly spiritual consequences to our actions, it is the natural ones that truly dictate behaviour in most people.

There aren’t a lot of people who say that the sole reason they do not kill another, is because they might go to Hell or because they might go to jail. Most people don’t kill because it’s something we know we can’t handle. The crippling guilt we would feel after ending a life and ruining the lives of our victim’s loved ones is enough for us to refrain from murder. We – atheists and theists alike – do not need the threat of Hell or the threat of incarceration, to stop ourselves from killing. I know you don’t follow the Bible word for word. The very same intelligence that allows you to decide what is worth following and what is not, is how atheists determine what is moral and what is not.

I know, from talking to theists and ex-theists, that pastors and religious leaders have been known to speak fallaciously about atheists. I’ve heard about sermons devoted to linking atheism with Satanism. I’ve heard pastors explain that atheists are only atheists because we are angry at god or we just want to sin. I know we’ve been called evil and nihilist and free from joy. None of these things are true, though.

Most of us live quiet, happy, morally sound lives. We experience joy and awe and wonder. In short, we are just like you. We do almost everything just like you: we love like you; we have fun like you; we cherish life like you. The only difference between you and us, is that we do that all with no god.

The post 5 Things I Wish Christians Understood About Atheists appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

I made a comment about poverty and systemic evil on Twitter, and I was surprised at the response. People were coming out of the woodwork to tell me I was perpetuating a liberal trope. My favorite exchange went something like this:

“‘Systemic evil’ isn’t mentioned in the Bible, so it doesn’t exist.”
“So if the Bible doesn’t use those words, the principle is invalid?”
“If the Bible doesn’t say it explicitly, it’s not important.”
“Do you believe in the Trinity?”
*crickets*

The abandonment of social justice

In the middle of the nineteenth century industrialization, urbanization, and immigration were introducing huge social problems. In response to these issues, liberal Christian scholars began focusing on salvation as a social reality. What if God’s will could be done on earth as it was in heaven? The movement elevated social ethics over biblical theology, and sought to combat the evils of unregulated capitalism by educating the working class in religious values.

With problems related to growing poverty and regulating big business, many of the issues that gave rise to the social gospel movement still resonate. The movement played a large part in women’s suffrage, child labor laws, the enactment of anti-trust laws, approval of food-industry health safety standards, and the establishment of building safety codes and settlement houses in inner cities which offered educational opportunities.

But the focus on social structures at the expense of man’s sinful nature, as well as growing criticism of biblical texts created a growing concern in the certain Christian circles. Many were frustrated with what felt like an abandonment individual salvation. Theological ethicist H. Richard Niebuhr reflected on the religion philosophy of this time as “A God without wrath [bringing] men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

This rift contributed to the rise of fundamentalism. Originally a badge of honor, the term “fundamentalist” denoted a person focused on specific Christian fundamentals: biblical infallibility, the deity of Christ, the Virgin Birth, miracles, Jesus’ bodily resurrection, and the substitutionary view of the Atonement.

Where the social gospel saw itself coming alongside popular culture as advocates, fundamentalists called people to separate themselves from an evil and decadent culture and receive personal salvation. As we saw with the Scopes Trial in 1925, this often put fundamentalism at odds with the culture. But through the quiet, systematic creation of fundamentalist-leaning schools, seminaries, and universities, evangelical fundamentalism took the reigns of American religious life.

Instead of social programs intended to respond to legitimate ills, the focus became getting individuals born again in large evangelistic crusades. It wasn’t long before mentioning the word “social” anywhere near the word “gospel” meant you were a bleeding-heart liberal. Eventually fundamentalism also embraced politics and a desire for reform, but instead of aligning with the belabored against powerful forces that would subjugate and marginalize them, they aligned with industry and power in an effort to create legislation to stem the tide of godlessness and sin.

This doesn’t mean that no social justice happened, it’s just that people who wanted to work within evangelicalism on behalf of human rights and equality had to begin with a very thorough statement of beliefs. No matter how good your cause was, if your beliefs didn’t line up with fundamental principles, you would find yourself marginalized.

What is systemic evil

My problem with the estrangement of the social gospel movement lies in the fact that systemic evil is real, and with the rise of fundamentalism and its focus on individual sin and responsibility, the church dropped the ball.

Systemic evil denotes diabolical structures that perpetuate misery, corruption, and wrongdoing. It’s a machine that functions without any real control or oversight by any individual. And the conviction and repentance of any cog in the device won’t negatively impact the machinery at all.

A good example of this phenomenon can be seen in our retail manufacturing industry:

1. Businesses close down their American manufacturing and ship it overseas to save money
2. Third-world companies bid for the contract
3. To keep their overhead down and production up, workers put in long hours with little pay in dangerous environments
4. Because of the rise of manufacturing in these countries, a lot of real estate is eaten up and other business are closed to make room for manufacturing work
5. Manufacturing jobs become an opportunity and a trap for third-world citizens
6. Lack of defined standards in many countries allow mass corporate pollution
7. Meanwhile in America, loss of manufacturing jobs shrink the economy
8. American middle-class workers feel they have to shop cheaply to make ends meet
9. The demand for cheaper products at the end of the supply chain puts more stress and demand on the supply side
10. The need for cheap products makes the problem cyclical

At one level or another, most of the players (minus the corporate CEOs who are the only ones benefiting) feel completely hopeless in their ability to extricate themselves from the system, and even if they did, they fear it wouldn’t make any difference—and they’re right. You might be able to identify the decisions that were made to create this oppressive structure, but it doesn’t matter now. It has grown into an almost sentient, institutional evil that exists to kill, steal, and destroy.

These systemic evils include, but are not limited to, the complex social networks that perpetuate racism, sexism, inefficient political processes, nationalism, eco-destruction, wage inequality, and xenophobia.

Confronting our oppressor

While most of my progressive brothers and sisters would be high fiving me, this is where I’ll probably start losing them. My belief that the church should be a waging war against systemic evil comes from my conviction that our world is inhabited by diabolical forces bent on opposing God and creating misery.

I have to be honest and say that I don’t hear a lot about the supernatural from most progressives. Maybe it just never comes up. Maybe like most liberal movements, progressives eschew putting any real stock in demonic activity. Maybe they’re in the closet because—like me—they know that believing in invisible spiritual beings is unsophisticated and laughable.

Walter Wink is right when he says, “We moderns cannot bring ourselves by any feat of will or imagination to believe in the real existence of these mythological entities that traditionally have been lumped under the general category “principalities and powers.” We naturally assume that the ancients conceived of them and believed in them the same way we conceive of and disbelieve them. We think they thought the Powers quite literally as a variety of invisible demonic beings flapping around in the sky, occasionally targeting some luckless mortal with their malignant payload of disease, lust, possession, or death . . .”

I completely understand how belief in demonized Powers would be considered a throwback to a more ignorant time. I might as well believe in bleeding sick people or that rotting meat naturally turns into maggots. But I honestly don’t know how you can believe the biblical witness in other areas and deny one of it’s most central elements. I guess at some point, you can’t follow Christ and look sane to the rest of the world.

What I do know is that I don’t believe in most of the evangelical ideas about the devil. In keeping with the individualistic view of salvation as simply “me and Jesus,” I find that there’s a similar “just me and the devil” image of demonic activity. We tend to give these entities godlike powers, and believe they are more intimately interested in us than they probably are. The New Testament does give us a picture of demonic oppression that is focused on individuals, so I know it’s possible—but it doesn’t make sense as a strategy.

If I was the devil and ran a hierarchy of demonic beings, I’d fire anyone who spent all their time focusing on persecuting one our two individuals. Why waste effort on making a couple people suffer if I can automate a process that increases suffering a thousandfold? If I can influence the creation of an misery machine, why wouldn’t I do that as often as possible—especially if the little idiots I was terrorizing were just greedy, narcissistic, and  ignorant enough to assist me?

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.“—Ephesians 6:12

Paul is warning us that there is a malevolent force at work that is greater than any individual demon or devil. It’s a network of evil that is behind the scenes inspiring and perpetuating agony. It’s not that the powers themselves are evil, it’s that wicked spiritual forces are at work in them, and, like the rest of creation, these powers need to be resisted and redeemed.

Perpetuating systemic evil

The church’s job is to prayerfully confront institutionalized evil—the refusal to do so makes us complicit. We do this by recognizing and naming it. Every time racism raises its head, and we go out of our way to downplay its significance or pour our energy into defending our participation, we only embolden and strengthen the machine.

Every time we refuse to work with another organization or individual who shares our goals because their statement of faith doesn’t mesh with ours, we invigorate systemic evils.

As we work together to recognize and resist the ingrained sin that’s operating with impunity within our social and governmental structures, we’re going to find that we have more in common than we think. And the gates of hell? They won’t prevail against us.

The post Does Systemic Evil Exist and Does It Matter? appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

Conflict is inevitable. Even if you’re the kind of person who goes out of their way to never say or do anything provocative or contrary, you’ll find yourself in a confrontation. Maturity comes in learning to navigate it, and more importantly, in learning not to avoid it.

Jesus says it this way, “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you . . .” (Lk. 6:26) It’s not a sign that you’re on the right track. In fact, it probably means that you’re not. Jesus finishes the statement this way, “so their fathers did to the false prophets.” The implication is that being aligned with truth will create friction with people around you. If there’s no friction, there’s probably little substance.

Winston Churchill agrees:

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”—Winston Churchill

The whole New Testament promises that followers of Jesus will find themselves at odds with their culture. John tells us not to be surprised that the world hates us (1 Jn 3:13).

Being hated by the right people for the right reasons

But here’s the thing I think every time I see someone share this Winston Churchill quote: just because someone’s mad at you doesn’t mean you’re standing up for truth. The truth is that you might just be a jerk. If I had a nickel for every time someone used “I’m just telling you the truth” as a pretext for being insufferable, I’d be on Creflo Dollar’s fundraising email list.

One of the biggest problems with Christianity’s public image is that too many Christians are perfectly happy picking fights with anyone. Because they see “standing up for their faith” as a virtue, they judge their faithfulness by conflict.

There’s no question that conflict is unavoidable, and that people serious about Christ’s message are going to find themselves in contention with others. The question we need to be asking is, “are we in conflict with the right people for the right reasons?”

Who would Jesus piss off?

Christianity’s message doesn’t change . . . and I don’t think the institutions and people challenged by it do either. Jesus encourages us to take up our cross and follow him. Obviously we’re following him to a crucifixion. We just need to make sure we’re willing to die on the right hill.

Who was challenged by Jesus? Who did he come into conflict with? Who was willing to have him killed? We need to answer these questions to know whether or not we’re engaging our culture in a way that honors the Gospel. So if we’re truly like Jesus, who are going to be pissing off?

1. The powerful

Jesus wasn’t even potty trained before he found himself in the crosshairs of the establishment. Herod was willing to kill a town full of children to ensure that his authority wasn’t challenged. His power came from his religious affiliation, and he was going to kill the messiah in order to maintain the status quo.

Jesus didn’t fair much better with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the governing body of the Sanhedrin.

It’s important to point out that it wasn’t because he was inciting rebellion against authority figures. He was still encouraging people to submit to their authority (Matt. 23:2–3). But all the while he was undermining the control they exerted through shame and religious intimidation.

You can’t get around the fact that when Jesus’ did come into direct conflict with authority, it was on behalf of people. Whether he was standing between a woman caught adultery (John 8)—a woman who orthodoxy would say should have been killed (Lev. 20:10), or turning over tables in the temple, he stood firmly on the side of broken humanity.

I can hear my detractors saying, “Well, Jesus did tell the woman to go and sin no more.” Yeah, after he put his life on the line to protect her from the mob. His willingness to be counted among society’s less desirable individuals gave him tremendous influence. And we don’t know the tone of voice that was used. I imagine it to be kind and said with concern. Most people who think they’re in a “culture war” imagine it was said through gritted teeth.

Jesus spoke truth to power, and power got butthurt.

2. The orthodox

Trigger warning: If you are uncomfortable with ambiguity, you might want to skip this section. It’s only going to make you break a molar or write me mean emails.

First-century Jewish culture had scrolls inspired by God. These scrolls were copied and interpreted by priests and lawyers—and the life that they prescribed from their analysis of Scripture wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t just that they were wrong at points, it’s that when they were right, they extrapolated truth in ways that hurt people.

Purity was a huge element of religious culture which means one couldn’t associate with the wrong element. An orthodox gentleman better avoid women (let alone prostitutes), Samaritans, tax gatherers, the demonized, etc. Understand, this wasn’t just a different choice, it was an affront to conventional Judaism and the Jewish understanding of holiness.

One of my favorite moments in the gospels centers around Jesus taking up a Pharisee on his offer to dine with him. A woman of ill repute, likely a prostitute, comes in and starts carrying on and weeping, anointing Jesus’ feet with expensive oil, washing them with her tears and wiping them with her hair. The Pharisee remarks with a scoff that, “if Jesus was really a prophet, he wouldn’t let this woman near him because she’s a sinner.” He says this because obviously everyone at the table subscribes to the same image-oriented view of righteousness. Needless to say, Jesus takes this guy to task (Lk. 7).

Christ’s frustration with the Pharisees was that their orthodoxy was used to control others, and not to liberate them. Ultimately, their orthodoxy was pretense (Matt. 23:2). They did the visible things that made them look devout, and neglected the true acts of devotion (which no one would see).

As Jesus points out in his parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9–14), the temptation of orthodoxy is self-righteousness—defining your closeness to God by how right you are, and not be how zealous you are to be close to God. Orthodoxy too easily becomes tribalism and exclusivity. And while the tax-gatherer is probably closer to God because of his contrite spirit and desire for reconciliation, the Pharisee wears his righteousness like a badge.

Don’t get me wrong. I think we should all be striving to get as close to theological accuracy as possible. I am in no way advocating for having no doctrines or right practices. I’m saying Jesus would be against us finding our value or worth in them, or using them to exclude others. Every sect has it’s own flavor of orthodoxy, and that should humble and not embolden us.

You might pride yourself on all the visible religious elements: how often you attend church, your understanding of Calvinism (or some other “ism”), or the fact that you don’t swear. What is true about your relationship to God will not be seen by anyone else. These secret acts of devotion: prayer, charity, kindness, Bible reading for personal edification—these are the identifiers of a submitted heart.

If our orthodoxy is simply a convenient boundary between us and those that are unwelcome, you can guarantee that we’ll find ourselves on the receiving end of Jesus’ contempt.

Choosing the right side

We are not at war with our culture. We are at war with every boundary erected between common people and the Gospel. Too often this is a religious culture that wants to align itself with power in order to legislate holiness. Jesus was willing to be at odds with the power structures in order to build relationships with the people who needed an advocate.

If you’re getting pats on the back for “telling the truth” to sinners or standing up to them because of your values, you might just be aligning yourself against Jesus.

The post Is the Church Pissing Off the Right People? appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

As we always do, my wife and I sat down to watch the sixth season of Masterchef. (If you’re not familiar with the show, it is a fun cooking competition— and one of Gordon Ramsey’s 750 shows on Fox.) And among the season’s collection of chefs was a local Seattle girl in a hijab. 

Amanda Saab’s love of cooking was obvious, but I was drawn to the kindness, gentleness, and sincerity she exuded. I started really paying attention to the little things: how did she interact with and speak about her fellow competitors? How did she carry herself? How did she respond to winning and losing? It wasn’t too long before I was firmly team-Amanda, and like so many others, wept when she was inexplicably beaten by a cake.

I have since gotten to know both her and her husband, Hussein, and I couldn’t think more highly of them. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook, and check out her great food blog Amanda’s Plate.

I pitched the idea for this post and she jumped at the opportunity to share her heart and her faith. And I’m excited for you to get to know my friend Amanda. Here are 5 things she wishes Christians understood about Muslims. 

1. Islam means peace.

The base word for Islam is “salam” which is Arabic for peace.

I grew up going to our local mosque and also attended Islamic school. There I was taught to show compassion and respect to all people. I was also taught to be kind and generous, to helpthe poor and needy, and to volunteer my free time and dedicate it to the betterment of society.

In Islam’s Holy Book, the Quran, it reads: “if any one killed a person, it would be as if he killed the whole of mankind; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the wholeof mankind…” [5:32].

Contrary to the media perpetuation, fundamentalists are not considered Muslims according to Islam. One of the five core pillars of Islam is to give to the poor and needy. So, growing up we volunteered at a soup kitchen in the heart of Detroit. It is required of Muslims to donate of their surplus money at the end of each year to charity! Imagine if everyone adapted this practice, there would be no homeless or hungry in the world. These acts of kindness, generosity and love are my way of practicing Islam.

2. We love Jesus and his mother Virgin Mary

That’s right. Jesus (Peace be Upon Him) is a very important Prophet in Islam. He is mentioned 25 times in the Quran, which is more than the Prophet Mohammed (Peace be Upon Him).

The miracle of Jesus’ birth to a virgin mother is told in our Holy Book and his virgin mother, Mary, has an entire chapter devoted to her; Maryam, Chapter 19.

“O Mary, indeed Allah gives you good tidings of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary – distinguished in this world and the Hereafter and among those brought near [to Allah]. He will speak to the people in the cradle and in maturity and will be of the righteous.” [3:45-46]

The Virgin Mary is highly regarded in Islam. She is one of the four most pious women in history, according to Islam. Muslim women veiling themselves with hijab is adopted from Mary.

3. And we love you too!

We are taught to love and respect all of humanity, regardless of their race, faith, or ethnicity.

Imam Ali (the successor to the Prophet Mohammed, Peace be Upon Him), said: “People are of two kinds, either your brothers in faith or your equals in humanity.”

Also, in the Quran Chapter 49 verse 13 “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that ye may know each other (not that you may despise each other).”

4. Islamophobia is real

And what an unfortunate reality it is. With many American Muslims being murdered, attacked, profiled and discriminated against in schools, places of employment and their own homes, it is impossible to deny that the media has shaped America’s perception of Muslims.

There have been many incidents of Islamophobia here in the Land of the Free. In Chapel Hill North Carolina, Deah, Yusor and Razan were murdered in their own home by a neighbor. In Irving Texas, a 14 year old boy named Ahmed Mohamed was arrested after a teacher thought his homemade clock was a bomb. In Sterling Heights, Michigan the zoning committee and city council ruled unanimously against the building of a mosque, after their mayor made several Islamophobic remarks on social media.

I turn to my Christian brothers and sisters to help combat this and to reject the notion that Muslim Americans are inferior. Together, we can overcome all forms of injustice!

5. There are some amazing Muslims contributing to society in really cool ways!

Aside from all the great historical contributions Muslims have made to the world (the first hospital was started by Ahmad ibn Tulun in Cairo, Alegbra by Al-Kwarizmi and the world’s first university by Muslim women Fatima and Mariam Al-Firhi in Morocco; Considine, C.), there are many American Muslims contributing to the greater good of society.

It is estimated that there are 50,000 American Muslim Physicians in the US (ISPU report, 2012) and I feel that number is consistently increasing as demonstrated by our countless friends who are in medical school or in residency.

Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, Ibtihaj Muhammad is training to win an Olympic Gold for the USA Fencing team, and Rashisa Tlaib Michigan State Legislature, Kadra Mohamed a hijab wearing police officer in Minnesota, Melanie El-Turk the founder and CEO of Haute Hijab who has recently written for Elle Magazine. And these are only some of the Muslim women doing awesome things!

I’d like for us all to focus on we, the children of Abraham, have in common, rather than the minute differences. If we choose to focus on the differences, we will not be able to work together for the betterment of society.

“The thing that separates Christians from Muslims is perception! I can’t fly a plane and I do not own a gun and yet those things are done in my name, I carry them as an American. The problem is Americans carry less of the weight because we see ourselves as separate individuals first, but do not afford Muslims the same identity.” (Burton, Winifred, 2015).

In the end, when we reflect on life and our purpose, we should strive to accept, love, and respect one another.

Amanda Saab completed her Masters Degree in Social Work at Wayne State University before moving to Seattle with her husband Hussein. She is a passionate social worker, practicing in a Seattle hospital. In her free time about is a food blogger at amandasplate.com   Her love for food led her to compete on MasterChef on Fox. Amanda’s recipes have been featured on the Huffington Post, Seattle Magazine, Fox 2 Detroit, Q13 Seattle and The Detroit News.

If you’re interested in understanding your Muslim neighbors better, you can check out Al-Islam.org and the Five Pillars of Islam.

You can also leave a comment or question for myself or Amanda. Bear in mind that Amanda is my friend, and rude comments (as defined by me) will not see the light of day.

Peace!

The post 5 Things I Wish Christians Understood about Muslims appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

One of Jesus’s Most startling prophecies was a simple statement, “Because of lawlessness the love of many will grow cold. (Matt. 24:12)”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. For many in the church, the focus of this saying is on the lawlessness, the iniquity.

We hear it in the voices that say, “It’s because of things like abortion, adultery, and [insert your cultural malaise of choice] that our culture is in the trouble it’s in.”

But what if those kinds of issues are more effect than cause? What if we’re focused on the symptoms and not the disease?

What is lawlessness? In our minds, we think of lawlessness as a barren Mad-Max-style dystopian nightmare. But I don’t think Jesus would see it that way. In his mind, the whole law was summed up simply as:

• Love God with your heart, mind, and soul
• Love your neighbor as yourself

If love is the law, then lawlessness is simply a lack of love. It’s almost like Jewish parallelism, “The vacuum created by your lack of love will begin sucking the love out of everything you touch.” The negative aspects we see in our culture are not the problem, but the natural progression of a people losing their ability to put the good of others above their own.

It makes sense that Jesus saw it that way. There was no end to the cultural problems that Jesus could have addressed. But instead of seeing prostitution as a social ill that needed to be demolished, he saw prostitutes as women who needed to experience love.

In the end, it was love that transformed hearts and kindled a fire of love in the people it touched. Love is transferable… and so is indignation.

Are we responsible for lawlessness?

One of the problems with God’s people is our inability to trust the transforming power of love. It’s one of the most elemental things we see in the life of Jesus, and his harshest words were for others, like us, who put their confidence in censure and control to combat lawlessness.

The response of loveless people to a loveless message is rebellion.

We were left here to be Christ to the world and create disciples who also emulate Jesus. We are ambassadors for a kingdom to come (2 Cor. 5:20). Ambassadors who carry the spirit of their home with them wherever they go.

We are not called to make converts to a religion, a philosophy, or an ideology. We are entrusted with the responsibility of making disciples of Christ. People who walk like Jesus, love like Jesus, and sacrifice like Jesus.

Love is our apologetic. People experience the beauty of God’s kingdom when they see our love, joy, patience, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Of these things Paul says there is no law. Why? Because they’re the identifiers of someone living out the law.

When we create converts based on arguments, policing, judgment and prodding. We are not creating disciples of love, we are encouraging lawlessness. We are growing a kingdom of people who believe love is expressed by delivering painful truths without anesthesia.

I can’t think of a worse ambassador than one who knows all the words and behaviors of his king, but feels no obligation to personify them.

#YesImAChristian

After news broke about the religious overtones in the Roseburg, OR. shooting, Christians seized on the “stand up for your faith” element of the drama. It isn’t dissimilar to the “she said yes” movement after Cassie Bernall responded to questions of her Christian affiliation with a “yes,” and was shot during the Columbine massacre.

Soon Twitter and Facebook was awash in people standing up to declare their Christian faith with the hashtag #YesImAChristian. I don’t really have a problem with asking yourself the tough question of what you would do in that sort of situation. That seems like a fairly introspective thing to ask.

The troubling aspect of the hashtag is the us vs. them, muskox tone that keeps revealing itself. For so many, the hashtag is line in the sand, and not a response to deep reflection.

Trolls have proven what the bible has said about us being mocked for our faith #YesImAChristian

— Ryan V (@RyanShaun84) October 5, 2015

#YESIMACHRISTIAN And please quit calling islam a religion. It is a cult. We are at war with islam by default,… http://t.co/6Vr6aX4oQu

— Craig Carman (@NiceSign) October 5, 2015

Ask me if I'm a Christian and I will answer "#YesImAChristian. Why? You got a problem with that?"

— Double Joe (@doublejoe10) October 4, 2015

A picture of my dad taking a selfie got 48 likes but a #YesImAChristian status got 2 likes. That's what's wrong with people.

— Blessed Belle (@BWBitch15) October 4, 2015

It isn’t my desire to undermine the horror of the lives that were lost in Roseburg. But being hated for Christ’s sake comes packaged with Christ’s message:

• “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.”—Matthew 24:9
• “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”—Matthew 10:22
• “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”—John 15:8
• “However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.”—1 Peter 4:16

It’s good to remind ourselves that, in response to potential persecution, we should be willing to align ourselves with Christ. But the fact that we do so out of indignant surprise is a sign of a religion that has enjoyed privilege and preference so long that it’s completely forgotten the plot.

The biggest indicator of the truth of #YesImAChristian isn’t having the wherewithal to post an update with that hashtag, it’s whether you’d sacrifice yourself for a targeted Muslim, Atheist, or anyone else who is an “other.” That’s what Jesus would do, that’s what Jesus did . . .

Rekindling flames of love

Jesus left us here as the keepers of love’s flame, and that’s not an easy job. You don’t get better at it by reading more Christian fiction books. You don’t get better at it by attending worship services or small groups. You don’t get better at it from writing blog posts or trending hashtags. You get better at it by being plugged into the vine of Christ.

Our work is spiritual by nature, not intellectual. In fact, it confounds the wise.

We don’t just love those who love us . . . even Hitler did that—big deal. And we aren’t about “loving the unlovable;” that’s an arrogant and condescending way to look at love. We are loving those that Christ loves and was willing to die for. We are loving those who also have yet to discover their own capacity for love.

Love is more profound and life changing than a hashtag. Love is transferable and transformational. I know because it changed me.

The post Beyond Hashtags: Embracing a More Transformational Model of Christian Love appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

Brendt Wayne Waters

Thanks to social media, I get to know a lot of wonderful, intelligent people. Brendt Wayne Waters falls under that category. I had linked to the article he discusses here and he did some follow-up, and wanted to know if I’d be interested in running his thoughts on the topic. “Of course I would,” I said.  And this post is the fruit of his labors.  

Yesterday, I posted on Facebook a link to a Yahoo News article whose headline read: “Statistics Show White Supremacy is a Bigger Threat to the U.S. Than Radical Muslims.”

Some of the pushback that I got on this came from those who admitted to not reading the article, but simply were responding to the headline. But other pushback came from those who had read the article and still had reservations. So, I decided to investigate further to see if these reservations were valid.

Breaking it down

The article cites a statistical analysis of data gathered since (but not including) the 9/11 tragedy. In
that period of time, 48 Americans were killed by “white extremists and other non-Muslim extremists,” while 26 were killed by “self-proclaimed [Muslim] jihadists.” To be fair, the fact that the former number includes “other non-Muslim extremists” can bring doubt to the veracity of the headline. So, I looked more carefully at the numbers.

The statistics included 13 murders carried out in the name of anti-government sentiment, and two incidents (totaling four murders) whose influence wasn’t completely clear. Even if we discard those “other non-Muslim” incidents from consideration, we are still left with 31 murders committed by white supremacists. This (obviously) is more than the 26 murders committed by jihadists; so, the comparison made by the headline is verified.

It should be noted, also, that the Islam-driven events do include such things as the incidents at Foot Hood (in 2009) and the Boston Marathon (in 2013). So, even though the current administration chokes on the words “extreme Islam” like Fonzie chokes on admitting that he was “wr-wr-wr-wrong,” the statisticians have no such qualms.

Contrary views

I would now like to examine two issues raised in contrary to the overall thesis. One is a question raised by a friend; the other is something that I anticipate might be questioned.

“What about 9/11?”

The events that drive the statistics gathered span from July 4, 2002, to June 17, 2015 — just under 13 years. This is not a statistically insignificant period of time; so, the numbers stand on their own merit. But let us argue that 13 years is statistically insignificant. We do not suddenly achieve statistical significance by adding one more year to the time frame. So adding the 9/11 tragedy to the mix does not disprove the theory.

If the statistics gathered are too narrow, then we need to significantly expand them. So let’s make it 100 years. And we won’t limit it to the United States. While I’m sure that the number of murders committed in the name of Islam would sky-rocket (particularly in the Middle East), those numbers would still pale in comparison — ridiculously so — to those killed by the Nazi party. The number 6,000,000 is very familiar, but it only refers to the number of Jews killed. When you add other demographics — all killed in the name of a specific subset of white supremacy — the number jumps well into eight figures.

Now, to be fair, I have chosen a range (both temporal and geographic) that skews the numbers heavily in favor of my argument. But such skewing is also done by decrying the fact that 9/11 is not included in the original statistics. So, either both arguments are valid or both are invalid — it can’t be one of each. All things being equal, then, the original statistics are worthy of consideration in and of themselves.

“RIGHT WING”

The table that lists the statistics gathers the murders committed by “white extremists and other nonMuslim extremists” under the heading of “Deadly Right Wing Attacks.” This classification is unfortunate and unnecessary.

The term “right wing” is often inflammatory, and could potentially draw one’s attention away from the numbers. It also could be inferred that the author of this table believes that violence in the names of racism or anti-government beliefs are solely in the realm of extreme conservatism, and that is clearly not the case. However, I would urge you to look beyond this obfuscation (intentional or not) to examine the objective facts.

So, what’s going on here?

I believe that there are two issues at play here that cause pushback against such a claim. One is heinous; the other is fairly innocent.

The heinous

Like it or not, there is a strong strain of anti-Muslim sentiment in this country. In the face of Muslim extremism, a man felt perfectly comfortable in asking Donald Trump what he planned to do to rid this country of all Muslims. To my knowledge, no one has asked Ben Carson how we can get rid of all the white people. And no one has asked Bernie Sanders what his plan is to eradicate the goyim.

Many charge that the United States’ actions in the Middle East are simply racist and/or driven by some other prejudice against entire nations. Such claims are specious and are most often met with the argument that we are at war with terrorism, not wholesale demographics. But if we limit our focus to terrorism carried out by extreme Islam, then the charges of prejudice are given a great deal of credence.

The (fairly) innocent

Contrary to what we might believe, anti-Muslim sentiment is not limited to one party or ideology. News coverage and publicity of extreme Muslim activity comes from (and continues on) all corners of the media, whether mainstream, alternative, or even social.

In contrast, white supremacy activity falls off the radar much more quickly. And sadly, to the degree that it remains news, the focus is often driven by race-baiters and others seeking to exploit the incident for furtherance of their own agenda.

Even more sadly, those who do not fit that category (but simply want the focus to remain) get lost among such charlatans.

Given these facts, it is somewhat understandable that there would be pushback against the Yahoo News article. The theme of everything that we’re told is that the major (if not total) focus on terrorism should be that which is perpetrated in the name of the Muslim faith.

So, what’s your point?

My point is two-fold.

First, note that I said that such a perception (as described in the last section) is fairly innocent. Scripture tells us that Christians are given “the spirit of a sound mind” and instructs us to be “wise as serpents.” When we fail to use the brains and wisdom that God gave us to sift through all the noise and get to actual facts, we are culpable.

The statistics presented are a piece of what we need to absorb. The fact that they go against the common mantra does not make them wrong.

Second, and more generally, hate is hate. When we focus on the victims of one brand of hate, we do a great disservice to the victims of all other brands.

Brendt Wayne Waters likes to do almost anything, as long as he doesn’t have to leave his computer. He wrote and edited for the first online Christian music magazine in the 90s and continues to write whenever possible. While born in Philadelphia, he has lived outside Atlanta since his teens, and married a Southern girl to take up any remaining slack in his Yankeedom. He is on staff at his church, playing the role of in-house geek.

The post Is White Supremacy a Bigger Threat Than Radical Islam? appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.