Hello, my friends,

I hope this finds you well. With the presidential inauguration occurring this week, there are a lot of thoughts and emotions swirling around about the future we are heading into. So today, I wanted to reflect with you about where I am personally with it all and conclude with eight things I'm committing to in the year ahead in hopes of being an encouragement to you and helping you to process your own thoughts and emotions over all this as well.

But before we get to that, here are some resources I recommend:​
​-Broken To Beloved: A necessary self-paced virtual gathering on spiritual abuse—how to heal, find wholeness,
and prevent it. I am honored to be one of the speakers at the Broken to Beloved annual summit, which is taking place virtually on January 21-25th. The goal of the summit is to discover language to express experiences of spiritual abuse, a path towards healing, and gain a community of people who understand and want to stop this global issue. I will be speaking on how the theology of power impacts this issue. Over 2,000 have registered already and if you are interested, you can read more about the summit and register as well through the link above.

​-This Pastor Thinks Idaho Christians Have Gone Too Far by City Cast Boise. I was recently a guest on City Cast Boise here in Idaho to discuss a proposed legislation that would require 20 verses of the KJV Bible to be read in our public schools before class every day. If you'd like to hear our conversation, click the link above.

​-Wellness 2.0: Rising to the Occasion by Hidden Brain Podcast. I recently listened to this episode, and it was very insightful and helpful. It focuses on the dynamics of leadership, what causes us to rise to the occasion in moments of crisis, and what does the opposite. I highly encourage you to give it a listen. It has a needed message for our time.

​-Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Katherine Stewart If you are looking for a clear-eyed and insightful look into the anti-democracy movement that has hijacked Christianity we are currently facing, I could not recommend this book more. Katherine Stewart is a brilliant investigative journalist and author. She not only explains the anti-democracy movement but provides helpful strategies we can take to oppose the movement. Click the link to read more about the book.

Okay, onto today's content.​
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Following Jesus Under The Shadow Of Caesar.

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I will never forget when my New Testament professor in seminary told me that the way God’s wrath often plays itself out in the Bible was to simply allow people to have the kind of reality they demanded and the consequences that came with that reality.

God’s wrath is a controversial and complicated topic, but a good way to think about God’s wrath in much of the scriptures is like gravity. God ordered creation at the beginning to function according to love, peace, harmony, and bounty. As we see in the Garden of Eden. So, going against that created order of things naturally causes harm and leads to destruction, which is a form of wrath. So, just like if we humans tried to fly on our own only using our bodies, the result from gravity could be very harmful. So, too, is the tragic result of violating the way of love. I think we can all point to a time in our lives when someone showed the opposite of love towards us and how painful that was.

A good example of this in the Bible is 1 Samuel 8. All the elders of Israel came to the prophet Samuel and demanded a human king to lead them so that they could be just like all other nations. This broke God’s heart and God said to Samuel in verse seven, “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.”

God even tells Samuel to warn the people of all the harm this would bring to them if they made this decision, yet the elders still insist on having a king. God then let them have what they demanded and King Saul was the tragic result of this demand. Subsequently, every other king in Israel’s history would also do all the things God warned the elders of Israel about in this passage. Out of a broken heart, God simply allowed them to have what they wanted, and calamity was the result.

It wasn’t what everyone in Israel wanted either. The prophet Samuel for example and those like him in Israel wanted to continue following God as their rightful king, yet they were subject to the demands of the elders and suffered from the consequences of that decision along with everyone else just the same.

I can’t help but think of how this relates to our time here and now, where even if we didn’t want the incoming administration and all that it is promising to do, we are still going to have to endure whatever happens just the same. This is such a difficult pill to swallow.

Personally, as one who has PTSD and who has already pastored through the first administration of the incoming president, I have been vacillating between anxiety and depression, all twinged with a forbidding sense of grief. My thoughts constantly drift to the needs and well-being of immigrants, women, minority groups, the poor, students, international security, peace in the world, the economy, the environment, and the kind of future my children will inherit.

I know you have heard the old saying that we are not supposed to be bothered by earthly transitions of political power because our “citizenship is in heaven.” But that is not rooted in reality, let alone Biblical wisdom or Christian tradition.

In the Book of Exodus, what did God say when God liberated Israel from Egypt? “I have heard the cries of my people.” Why were they crying out to God? Because of the ruthless and oppressive rule of Pharaoh. This is a trend we see all throughout the Bible and Christian history. God’s people still hold their identity to be in God alone, but they are also still deeply impacted by the whims of political power in this world. The same is true for us today.

One of the main differences in our time, though, is that those who will hold the highest positions of political power in our country are strongly supported by many Christians, who believe they are doing God’s will in the world. They didn’t just demand a king; they demanded a Christian king. A Christian king who would oppose what they saw as threats to their version of Christianity and America. Just as Christian history has also shown, with the likes of Constantine, Charlemagne, or Hitler, whenever Christianity is nationalized, those who are seen as “enemies” of that kind of Christianity always suffer the most. It seems we are fine with the ways of Caesar as long as Caesar claims to be a Christian like us. When will we learn from our history?

"Don't Cave To Culture."

Having been in the church all my life, I grew up hearing fellow Christians say, “We can’t cave to culture! We must stand for truth!” I still hear this same sentiment today. What grieves my heart so much about this mentality is how this statement is said to actually justify “caving to culture” for the sake of political power rather than actually standing for the truth of the gospel.

When our culture became more authoritarian, many Christians caved to this.

When our culture became more bigoted, many Christians have caved to this.

When our culture became increasingly anti-intellectual and anti-science, many Christians caved to this.

When our culture became more hostile and xenophobic toward immigrants, many Christians caved to this.

When our culture praises the wealthy and shames the poor, many Christians caved to this.

When our culture disregards the planet for the sake of profit, many Christians have caved to this.

When our culture became increasingly controlling towards women, many Christians caved to this.

When our culture developed an unhealthy preoccupation with guns, many Christians caved to this.

When our culture became more fear-based towards people who live and believe differently, many Christians caved to this.

When our culture turned Christianity into a weapon to consolidate wealth and political power, many Christians caved to this.

When our culture becomes less empathetic, less generous, and less caring, many Christians caved to this.

What is worse, since the rise of movements like the Moral Majority in the late 1970s, many Christians have not just caved to these things, but have led the way in them. All under the banner of a culture war waged in order to “stand for truth.”

How starkly different from the description of the gospel Jesus described and lived out. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” -Jesus (Luke 4:18-19)

Tragically and ironically, these attributes Jesus advocated for in his sermon, like bringing good news to the poor and healthcare to the sick, have been so demonized by cultural Christianity that when any fellow Christian advocates for these things being carried out in any collective and substantive way, they are criticized by other Christians as if they are the ones “caving to culture.”

How devastatingly upside down.

Cultural Christianity has a long legacy in our nation, becoming virtually indistinguishable from nationalism, rugged individualism, xenophobia, predatory capitalism, anti-intellectualism, patriarchy, authoritarianism, jingoism, and bigotry. So many of our churches have become places where these things are so tirelessly fused together with the scriptures that one simply concludes that they are one with the truth of the gospel.

In my lifetime as a Christian, I’ve also constantly heard warnings from fellow Christians against moral relativism, only to see many of them fall into moral relativism themselves when it came to political power.

I believe one of the most blatant forms of Christian hypocrisy in our time is Christians holding all the ordinary people we share this country with accountable to the most rigid moral standards while simultaneously holding their preferred politicians accountable to no standards at all.

During the Bill Clinton scandal for example, I heard many of my fellow Christians declare, “Character matters!” only to see them now justify politicians who have done exponentially more than Clinton ever did simply because they see them as “on their side.” That’s moral relativism.

Our society witnesses Christians demand that the Bible be taught in our public schools and the Ten Commandments be posted on the walls of public places while shamelessly supporting politicians who live their lives and treat other people in ways that contradict scripture and those sacred principles. That’s moral relativism.

Our society witnesses Christians hold all the ordinary people in our country to unflinchingly rigid moral standards while simultaneously holding their preferred politicians accountable to no moral standards at all. That’s moral relativism.

We have so fused the unbridled pursuit of wealth and power with Christianity that we can no longer tell the difference between them. What is more, they have been fused together for so long that when you critique the unbridled pursuit of wealth and power, many people think you’re criticizing Christianity.

So what does standing for truth look like right now?

“Standing for the truth” right now looks like clearly understanding the lenses and filters we Christians have been given and told to interpret the Bible and define the gospel through them in our time.

“Standing for the truth” right now looks like refusing to allow our sacred faith to continue to be hijacked by those who are only interested in securing and maintaining their own wealth and power.

“Standing for the truth” right now looks like understanding and opposing all the ways Christianity has already deeply “caved to culture” and working to untangle and repent from the ways it has distorted who we have been called to be as followers of Jesus.

Jesus also said, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14).

Cultural Christianity is the broad way that leads to destruction. It is well-funded, very politically organized, and has such mass appeal that it can sway elections and legislation in its favor.

In light of this reality then, “standing for the truth” will be the more difficult way, with far less power and influence, but it is the way that leads to life. Not just for a few, but for all. It is the way they will win out in the end. Not by coercion or hoards of wealth, but by wisdom, compassion, and genuine, life-giving love. The same love that led Jesus to the cross and then to walk out of that tomb.

The bottom line is, that we Christians simply can’t claim to “stand for truth” when we so quickly become moral relativists when it comes to political power and those who we support wielding such power. All this does is declare to the world that we worship political power rather than follow Jesus.

So hold fast to the truth, my brothers and sisters. Do not let the cultural Christianity of our time convince you that you are the heretics.

In a world where Christianity has fused itself with authoritarianism, following Jesus will make you look like a heretic. Follow Jesus anyway.

Personal practices for the years ahead

Below are 8 practices I am committing to in the year ahead. While I wrote them for my personal life, I thought I would share them with you in case you find them helpful as well.

1. Don’t let them define you.

I am committing to not allowing hostile people to turn me into a hostile person. I refuse to allow hateful people to turn me into a hateful person. I refuse to allow controlling people to turn me into a controlling person. Instead, I choose to respond to hostility, hate, and control, by pursuing compassion, justice, and peace. In responding this way, I hope hostility, hate, and control are overcome by love in others.

2. Don’t waste time on those who refuse to listen.

I have spent far too much time talking with people who think I’m ignorant and wrong in my beliefs. I believed for a long time that if they could just hear me out or just see things from what I’ve learned and my experience, they might see things just a little bit differently. Yet this is rarely, if ever, productive. Often, what happens is I expel all my mental and emotional energy on someone who was never going to respect me no matter what I said, which caused my well-being and my work to suffer. So, I am now going to choose to save my energy for more productive and life-giving interactions.

3. Pay more attention to peacemakers

Because I spent so much time talking with those who were saying negative things to me, I would naturally miss opportunities with those who were reaching out to me seeking peace and growth just like I am. So I am committing to prioritize them from here on out and giving them my first and best attention.

4. Prioritize my health.

I am committing to continue making time for exercise, meditation, prayer, mindfulness, therapy, eating right, and getting enough sleep. I am also committing to spending as much time in nature as I can. I have learned that these practices are essential for me to be able to show up fully for my family and for my work.

5. Disciplined media diet

I am committing to putting boundaries around my media consumption. With social media being a big part of my ministry, I am going to create strategic times during the work week when I can post and interact with people online. During these times, though, I will keep scrolling to a minimum. I have found that a steady diet of headlines and posts that come from social media have a negative impact on my state of mind. So I am choosing to use social media for the purpose of productive connection with others and put boundaries around the ways it can negatively impact my state of mind. I am also committing to finding my news from sources other than social media, like the radio, newspapers, peer-reviewed articles, and local trusted journalists.

6. Local Action

Being involved in my community has always been so important to me through my ministry and this year I am committing to be more focused and proactive in getting more involved with other local faith leaders, community leaders, and nonprofits. I believe all change begins locally and I want to be more involved in making that change happen.

7. Prioritize community.

With Rebecca and I having small children and both working full time, it can be difficult to find time for personal connections with the people we care about. In the year ahead, I am going to commit to doing what I can to connect with others. Even if it is just a few minutes on the phone, I want to find even micro ways to build community with others. I am also committing to find more intentional ways to create an online community for those looking for healthy places to process and express their faith, but who have felt out of place or even pushed out of the church.

8. Never stop speaking the truth, no matter how futile it seems.

Since the election, I have had what many therapists are calling"hope fatigue.” With such an uncertain and daunting future, filled with seems dictated by major institutions and people with great power, all of which is so beyond my control, it caused my hope to plummet. This weight has been made all the more heavy with my being a father and a husband. It made me question the point of my work. It caused me to question if I was making any kind of positive difference in the world around me. Through many conversations with trusted friends though, I came to realize that the goal is to continue being faithful to people and advocate for the truth no matter what the future holds. So, I am committing to love God, love people, and speak the truth about the circumstances that come, no matter what the future holds. We really are in this together.