Many North American Christians have missed the point of Jesus’ teachings and lost the plot of his resurrection. He’s not coming back for a church in three locations that is just a short walk to amenities and adjacent to the North American empire for easy accessibility. Capitalism, neocolonialism, and the hyper-politicization of community have co-opted Jesus’ gospel.

Mascot presidents are masked to make us believe we are all on the same team, rooting for the same thing, and that we will share the same victories. But they are the political elite, the ruling class and the rest of America’s citizens are far beneath them. This is an oligarchy and Christians need to work to ensure that there remains considerable, measurable space between the church and the state.

It’s going to take more than preaching. This is not the work of a ten-minute sermon. This call to action cannot be printed on a bulletin or shared during church announcements. 

This is not a Sunday morning commitment, a call for volunteers or committee members. Meetings will not include coffee, donuts, small talk or sports metaphors. No matter how good the game was, we’ve heard them all before.

Instead, there is a need for the embodiment of an alternative community, but not merely for the sake of side-by-side comparison. Still, I cannot tell the difference between some Christians and the insurrectionists. They wave the same flags and the demands sound familiar.

“To those who identify themselves by political category, every person is a representative person,” Wendell Berry wrote in “The Need To Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice.” “To liberals, all conservatives are the same, are committed to the same bad causes and are describable by the same adjectives.” 

He continued: “To conservatives, liberals are similarly homogenous and equally objectionable. Each political side readily supposes that everybody on the other side is perfectly in agreement, focused entirely on politics and forever collaborating and conspiring for unconditional victory. This sort of contention lives and thrives upon oversimplification, which in turn leads to and depends upon exaggeration. Exaggeration is a violence of language, which in politics, is full of the threat of violence of other kinds.” 

No matter the us-versus-them bracket, the results are the same. Dueling relationships defined by false binaries and history of antagonism will always have two sides and no middle ground where we see each other face to face or better still, eye to eye. 

Instead, we will continue to experience each other in bulk groups with pre-labeled categories, making me question baptism’s efficacy. Is nothing dead in the water?

This also calls into question the agenda of the North American church. The focus is no longer on widows and orphans (James 1:27). When was the last time you did something for “the least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46)? 

This is not synonymous with mission trips. Africa is not the face of need. New narratives are invited to apply, please and thank you.

Further, instead of simply giving, God-given rights are taken and decisions are made to a feigned predestined end, which was America’s beginning. Colonization through paternalization continues because European colonizers and now, politicians know what is best for you and me. Pause to consider that nationalism in America is described as Christian.

It is well past time to replace propagandist descriptors used for America, such as “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” While this sounds good on paper, it doesn’t reflect the country’s actual history. 

Ask the First Nation people. No, not you, Christians; the churches were in on it.

See also phrases like “leader of the free world” as the president now has free reign, thanks to the