Greetings from the paunchy belly of the orange beast, Washington, D.C., where all government functions have been reduced to redecorating or renaming things and all government business is conducted in the new official language of Lying. I’m thrilled to be joining Good Faith Media from my perch in the land of bad faith. 

Speaking of bad faith, like many of you, I’ve come to realize that’s what I was raised with. And like many of you, I have since demo-ed that stuff like the East Wing of the White House.

By 2016, I had taken out most of the trash. But now that my former faith community has thrown in with Trump, I’m finding some of the trash can be repurposed. Stay with me. 

My personal faith remodel started in earnest when I got “unbiblically” divorced over 20 years ago. Even though there were no children involved and we both ended up happily married to other people, many of my white evangelical cohorts acted like I had committed a mortal sin, on par with enslaving people or supporting segregation (just kidding, those things are merely “regrettable”). 

I got treated to one of the classic rituals of white evangelicalism—the “I’m-concerned-about-your-Christian-walk” coffee/lunch/elder-bomb. I myself had doled out these “tough love” sessions in my time, which follow a predictable arc:

• Sweetly make light conversation for a hot minute 
• Tell the person you are “concerned” because you “love” them 
• Tell them their choices are “grieving the Lord” 
• Cherry-pick some Bible verses 
• Tell them you love them no matter what, but they will be ostracized and will probably go to hell if they don’t do what you say

As an exvangelical, I dispensed with this sort of Christian “love,” which presumes to know a person’s experience better than they do, claims to speak for a mysterious God, and renders all moral situations as clear. It declares certainty about the modern application of a book written at a time when allowing your female captives to grieve before forcibly marrying them was an improvement.

I adopted the “live and let live” moral relativism I had been warned would lead to humanity’s destruction.

I stopped condemning people for their choices. I no longer predicted the final destination of souls. I put on grey-colored glasses. I minded my own business. It felt great. 

So imagine my surprise, on the other side of Donald Trump, in the upside-down world he has created, of finding myself returning to the evangelical methodology of telling the truth in love, getting all up in people’s business, ruining friendships over belief, and seeing the world in stark moral categories once again. I have heard myself digging up such dreaded phrases like “The Bible is clear,” “God will not tolerate sin,” “Repent while there is time,”“I love you, but I cannot condone your choices,” and, of course, “Love the sinner, not the sin.”

I have cringed to hear myself, and I am once again exhausted by the moral burden of it all. The irony that all the people I am judging are the same people who practically invented judging doesn’t give me any satisfaction. 

But here’s the key, very essential difference between evangelical love and my current “tough love:” While my divorce caused no demonstrable harm, while the marriage of that gay couple costs nothing, while the trans kid next door isn’t bothering anyone, while the vast majority of undocumented immigrants are a net benefit to our country—the beliefs and behavior of white evangelicals are literally killing people. 

Renee Good. Alex Pretti. Isidro Pérez. And over 30 others.

The 600,000 people, most of them children, who have died as a result of USAID’s reckless dismantling. 

George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. The lives that continue to be lost as a result of our refusal to reckon with race. That’s not all on white evangelicals, but they continue to be among the most stubborn. Certainly, they continue to bathe racism in holy water. 

BUT ABORTION!

The unborn are still dying at the same rate, which was already at record lows before Trump. But now more of their mothers are, too. 

I’ve run out of space to detail all the oppression white evangelicals have doled out via their support for an authoritarian movement that unjustly targets and denigrates minorities, violates all of our most basic Constitutional rights, threatens global stability and prosperity, betrays our friends, empowers our enemies, and generally shakes the democratic foundations of human thriving. 

And I certainly lack the word count to cover all that came before Trump and continues to harm people, the trauma and abuse of purity culture, patriarchy, homophobia, rigid dogma, and a theology based on fear and manipulation. 

So, my dear evangelical friends, it turns out you were right about there being right and wrong. You were correct that the Bible is clear. And sometimes the unequivocal, painful truth needs to be spoken, judgments should be rendered, and repentance must be demanded.  

But you were grievously wrong about when. You were far from the point of how. You were not even in the ballpark of who. You rushed down to the dock but still missed the boat. 

Jesus (actually) said: “Ye shall know them by their fruit” (Matthew 7:16). Now, I probably can’t correctly rate fruit quality every time and continue to yield some icky stuff myself. But I must believe that death, violence, oppression and injustice are the most toxic of fruits, and the vines producing them need some serious tending. 

So I will not stop begging white evangelicals to get to that important work. Not just because I am “concerned for their Christian walk,” but because I am fearful for the well-being of my neighbors and for our very survival as a nation.