Notes on Faith.

Simple notes today. On faith. On things that have been on my mind. Turning over and over, taking me back to my past as a Christian and every area of evolution that life has brought me to. It hasn’t been easy. There is so much pressure to perform, to desire power; to limit the questions and curiosity; to never wonder why our faith is doing what it is doing. This is an ode, I guess, to the kind of faith I think we need.

A devotion, I guess. A prayer, maybe.

I have heard people say, “keep politics out of it” or “Jesus wouldn’t take sides” or “just preach the gospel”. They use this to suggest we meet in the middle without realizing that Jesus flipped tables, dismantled toxic theologies, healed bodies, and was radically inclusive. The reason he was murdered wasn’t because he was nice. It was because he radically loved. 

Be clear: Jesus ain’t white. America isn’t a Christian nation. Jesus believed and acted as if no one is free if everyone isn’t free. The gospel is a message of love and liberation. Diversity and progress is not the problem — white supremacy and bad faith is. White Conservative Christianity isn’t the only Christianity. My Christianity is the reason I want everyone free. 

As a minister, I want you to hear me clearly. The greatest threat to Christianity isn’t “wokeness” or “secularity” or “inclusion”. It is certainty and this obsessive need for power over people, control rather than love. When you are so convinced that you are right, then you will create all types of enemies and cut yourself off from all the ways God is active in another person’s experience. 

Christian faith would be so much more healthier if we didn’t see our faith as a war to be won or enemies to be defeated but as worlds to be explored and people to be loved. Faith dies when it is seen only as a way of winning arguments, control, and power. Faith lives when it becomes a way of liberating and loving people. 

If I’m honest, over the last few months, as this administration is weaponizing Christianity more and more, I have felt a sense of despair and confusion about what it means to be a person of faith — what kind of work we are to do and message we are to preach. It seems as if the main voices are those who represent the worst of our traditions. Like the prophet, I have wondered: is there not a word from the Lord? 

I can hear someone say, “ahhh, religion is not the problem, people are.” That may very well be true but also we have to ask, “why does our faith create and protect such terrible people?” What is our faith doing to us? Reflection and honesty is the beginning of liberation and kindness. Is it truly helping us or is it making us unkind, unloving, and unwilling to see others the way God sees them? 

In the stillness of this morning and the chaos of our country, I have crawled back to the words of James Baldwin on faith. In his final essay, just before he died, he writes, “Salvation is not flight from the wrath of God; it is accepting and reciprocating the love of God.” It may not mean much, but in a time where faith is a weapon, I am returning to faith as divine, good, holding us together when everything is falling apart.

It is better, as the Bible says, to mourn and stand with those who are oppressed and brokenhearted than to celebrate and stand with those who are powerful. If you are feeling more sadness than happiness today, that is okay. You don’t owe anyone performative joy or performative faith. Grief also protects your humanity and is a pathway to liberation. 

James Baldwin, in an interview says, “Well …. I take my cue from Jesus Christ, really, who told me and told all of us to love each other, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and visit those in prison.”

A note of beauty and desire from the poet’s heart:

“and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do — 

determined to save

the only life you could save.”

— Mary Oliver 

An affirmation:

My faith is not a weapon, 

God is love and liberation.