On Heartbreak

I don’t know how to say any of what I want to say here. I have held it close for years and tried to find a shape or words for it, and been constantly unable to. But I think I need to try.

It is Wednesday, November 4th 2020 and the US presidential election has yet to be decided. I know, though, that whatever happens, however the next 4 years look, I will be quietly devastated. I have been for ages now, while I watch the churches and faith leaders that I grew up respecting and heeding, give way to some of the worst human instincts.

I have walked out of sermons where a white preacher railed on Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel, only to go on and say nothing about racial injustice or borders shut to refugees or babies torn from their families for the offense of trying to seek sanctuary in America. I have heard professing Christians speak the name of Jesus in one breath and describe the poor and stateless as poison with the next. I have heard law enforcement praised and supported by my faith community while not a word is ever said about black brothers and sisters lying dead in the street. At every turn, those who strive to work for justice and equity have been described by the evangelical churches that I grew up in as rioters or rebellious, people unsubmissive to authority, as if submission to government at any cost is the linchpin salvation rests on, rather than a relentless love for God and others.

I have seen church leaders hound and denigrate women who speak up on behalf of their own gender–demeaning their attempts to draw attention to the disrespect and abuse of our sex that goes on within sacred spaces. I have seen those same leaders cling to power with stomach-turning desperation, willing to do whatever is necessary in order to maintain their position and influence. They have shown themselves ready to support anything–pride, profanity, adultery, blatant hatred of others that has led to death and chaos and deep-rooted bitterness on a national scale–all for the sake of one thing.

Religious liberty, applied only to themselves.

And I don’t think that in this life, my heart will ever mend. This is the church that taught me “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.” That pointed me to Jesus, who reserved his harshest words for religious leaders who sought their own advancement at the expense of the needy and the wronged. Who called such leaders “broods of vipers” and “whitewashed tombs”, and drove those who profited from their faith out of his house with righteous anger and a scourge. Who touched the unclean, who loved the unlovable, who chose to spend his time with sex workers and former con artists and social outcasts. Who summed up the law and all the prophets in four words.

Love God. Love others.

The thing is, I paid attention. I listened. I believed. I took every word to heart. I still trust implicitly in the God presented to me by a church that has shown itself to be run through by hatred and decay. But I cannot trust an institution that for years now, has striven against the interests of those it has a sacred duty to honor and defend.

The poor. The unhoused. The sick. The despairing. The desperate.

There is more to defending life and dignity than the unborn. The children struggling through a pandemic in this nation, falling through the cracks of our imperiled social safety nets because they were born into poverty, or waiting in immigration facilities for families that may never be found, or living in fear that they may be shot because of the color of their skin, all deserve the advocacy and support of those who claim to follow a man who said “let the little children come to me.”

I don’t know what to say anymore. Nothing seems to make much difference, in the conversations I have. I’ve run out of ways to attempt to convey that Christianity has always been beautiful–is still beautiful–because it demands that its adherents practice radical compassion and understanding: a willingness to listen, and to love without parameters, and to put the needs of others before their own, even unto death.

Not religious liberty, but religious self-sacrifice.

I am heartbroken over what the evangelical church has shown itself to be.

No election result will change that.