I was just a kid in the late 70’s heading east from Colorado on I-70, ready to pull an all-nighter traveling through the Kansas high plains. Having already listened to my two 8-track cassettes (Burt Bachrach’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and a little funk from George Duke) I decided to turn on late night radio. I picked an AM Christian evangelical station out of Oklahoma and settled in for a long night. The preacher was telling me a thing or two about what it means to be a Christian and he said something that has helped define my relationship with religion. In a booming, authoritative voice, he said, “Jesus is the son of God. The Bible is the word of God. And if you don’t believe these, you’re damned to go to hell.” In a matter of seconds, this stranger on the radio confirmed my childhood doubts about the validity of the Bible and this man/deity named Jesus Christ. From that day forward, there was no doubt that I was not a Christian.
Having raised three children of my own, I can now reflect much better on my own upbringing. I have to applaud my father for allowing me, as a boy, to make independent choices and learn from my mistakes. My father wasn’t one to offer advice unless asked. As a result of his parenting style, I was allowed to challenge authority, and this included the authority of the church. One Sunday morning, standing in the aisle of our Presbyterian Church as we left to go home, I was angry and feeling trapped by the dogma of the church and its’ ‘one size fits all’ church service. My father asked, "What's the matter with you?” I said, “How can you do this? How can you read a prewritten statement with the rest of the congregation that says I have sinned?” The corner of his mouth came up in a slight smile and he looked me square in the eyes and gave me the best advice: “Why don’t you just get out of this what you need?”, he said.
My fathers advice helped me to be the man I am today. He helped me learn about personal and societal moderation. His comment actually made me more interested in religion. I now enjoy studying the benefits of many religions, but I’m also wary of the detrimental effects religion can have on individuals and society as a whole. I’m particularly intrigued by the new sect of Christianity that has its origin in American exceptionalism. This brand of Christianity doesn’t follow the teaching of Jesus, but instead uses the Bible as a tool to be racist, misogynistic and just plain cruel to those who live a different lifestyle or cherish a different faith. To these Christians, loving your neighbor is a show of weakness. Empathy is a sin. Their use of the Bible is simply a tool to consolidate power for white, heterosexual men.
I also know Christians who cherish their faith and contribute goodness to this world. So at some point, you have to ask yourself this question: what is a good Christian? Am I one to judge the good Christian from the not so good Christian? Hardly. But is there an empirical tool that can help us see deeper into this Chrisitan confusion that helps us identify those Christians with moral and theological clarity? In his 10/16/25 opinion article in the New York Times, entitled Something Is Stirring in Christian America, And It’s Making Me Nervous, David French comes about as close as I’ve seen to helping us better understand Christians and their moral intent. Mr. French, who describes himself as an evangelical Christian, gives several examples of revival. He describes Christian revival as repentance, acknowledging sin, which in turn leads to the love of God. He describes this new sect of Christian as MAGA Christians. MAGA Christians do not repent for their sins but instead say that YOU have sinned. Their objective is a change in political order, replacing pluralism and individual civil rights with MAGA Christianity. In French’s words, “Look closer, however, and you can see that religious revolution is antithetical to religious revival.” Revival seeks the love of God. Revolution simply seeks dominance and power.
I previously mentioned that I enjoy studying religion. I am not a theologian, but rather a theologist. Studying the MAGA Christian movement is both fascinating and disheartening. My interest in this movement may take me to the revolution, to observe and report. But this revolution is founded in falsehoods. We know that when a revolution is founded upon falsehoods, it will eventually become just another pothole in the road to true enlightenment.
I may also be there for the revival. But there is no need for me to repent. I’ve been innocent all along.