First off, my heart is breaking right now. I’m not angry. I mean, I have been. I think we’ve all had our moments this year. With the stress of a pandemic, whether it’s dealing with it hands on, like me as a nurse, or the side effects of the virus, like financial loss or a failing small business, it’s been weighing on us all. I’ve been described as a frontline worker since March, but aren’t we all frontline workers in one way or another? The difficulties of this year haven’t missed a one of us. That inherent stress is what I’ve been blaming public response on for the past couple of months. When someone acts like a jerk, you try and remind yourself how kind they normally are. You know, before the world fell to hell in a hand basket (minus the basket).
So, for months I’ve watched the transformation of people on social media. I initially blamed it on 2020 stress, but then I started to wonder.
I asked myself, “is this year just bringing out true colors?”
As a Christian writer I get a lot of friend requests from strangers on social media. They see my words, whether from a Facebook friend, my own website, or even other Christian sites that share my work, and they shoot me a request or a follow. I’m used to that. I usually hit their profile, ensuring they’re not a fake account or something bizarre, and unless I get a weird feeling in my gut, I’ll usually accept. But last week I had a situation that gave me pause. And when I say pause, I mean it broke my heart. I literally felt like I might weep for the way our Nation is going. The thing is, I got a request from a stranger, per usual, but when I went over to the profile I found the introductory information made me wince.
Conservative Christian
It said other stuff too. I can’t recall the exact descriptive terms. It was probably something like mother, wife, friend of animals or something. The point is that only two words made me stop and consider if I wanted this person having access to my life.
Conservative and Christian. It wasn’t the words separately, mind you, but the combination that scared me. Before this year I had never responded this way, but the magnifying glass applied by a pandemic and a racial injustice awakening had changed things for me. That. Broke. My. Heart.
I am a Christian. I am a Conservative. I am a Republican. These are all titles I have used and proclaimed when asked for as long as I can remember, but that was before this year happened. Something has changed.
Starting around the end of April (yes, after the stress of isolation), I began to see those true colors I mentioned. I saw friends (like, actual people I knew) on social media saying the most awful things. These were people who used the title, Christian, but the words they were spewing were the most un-Christ-like things ever. I saw everything from, “only nasty people with poor hygiene in poor neighborhoods get COVID-19,” to “this is God’s punishment for homosexuality.” I could have filled a notebook with the horrible things that came from the mouths of Bible-believing folks, but at the time I just tried to push it away from my mind.
Next came George Floyd. Y’all know what I’m talking about. True colors if ever there was such a thing. I’m telling you, you could spot a bigot from a mile away after that happened. My heart hurt, though, because I watched as “good” people, Christian friends I had always respected shared heinous memes and heartless words. I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears, and I watched the great divide begin.
A segment of the population emerged that wanted to embrace the hurting with love. It made my heart proud to see so many join spiritual hands to lift up the fallen and broken. Slowly, though, the snakes emerged. People intent on coming up with reasons why they couldn’t love, couldn’t speak love, show love, or be love. Excuses emerged covered in religious rhetoric, and my heart broke.
Supporting a marginalized people was equated with Marxism, and I think that’s when I first noticed it. A large majority of my Christian friends shared the same words. No, I don’t mean like a similar sentiment. I mean they shared the exact same words, y’all. It was as if everyone had copied off the same kid in class when cheating on a test. Everyone turned in the same plagiarized paper. As I sought truth my Christian friends shared with me the same videos, speaking the same words, and deriving from the same websites. Conservative Christian, Right-leaning, Red State, Republican websites. It turns out it was repetitive for a reason. Everyone was drinking the same kool-aid, and everyone was gobbling up the same ideas like they were Gospel truth. My thing was, what about the real Gospels?! This stuff didn’t sound anything like Jesus.
Look, this isn’t some pride thing, but just a little background. I read my Bible everyday. If I’m off work (four days a week, typically) I will read my Bible, pray, and seek the Lord for hours. That’s just my life. My husband does the same thing. It makes us happy. It gives us peace. The other thing it does? It gives us the perspective of Christ. When you read His words enough times, it kinda sticks. It seriously becomes who you are. I had been devoting serious time (like, beyond reading a devotion or two in the morning or just church on Sunday) to extensive Bible study and listening to the Holy Spirit for a few years. It. Changed. My. Life. For the better, I might add. The problem for me was a lot of what I was seeing from these articles shared from Conservative Christian friends did not coincide with the words from the Bible. I mean, it quoted scripture and such, but it also bent it to suit its need. That didn’t settle well with me.
And so began my turmoil. I struggled. So many people I loved, friends from years’ past, they were not on the same page. I wondered if I was the problem. I dug deeper, prayed more, sought Godly counsel. Everything came back the same. Conservative Christianity had changed. Somewhere along the way it had become about politics foremost, and everything else second. My heart broke. Again.
I felt like a light had come on. Suddenly I could see the hate veiled under the title Christian. I could understand why so many people had left the church. I continued to watch hate spew from the mouths of “Christians” online, but then I understood why. It wasn’t Christ they were serving anymore. I think they thought they were, still think they are, but in reality they have lifted up an idol much higher than Jesus. My heart breaks.
I’m trying to figure out when Christianity began to equal Republican Party? I can remember during the election in 2016, Conservative Christians banded together. We voted for life. We chose the candidate who supported a pro-life stance. That’s what you were/are supposed to do as a Christian. Being pro-life, I had no problem getting behind this idea. The problem for me started shortly thereafter.
You are worshipping politics over Christ if you can support politicians who carry zero fruits of the spirit, but agree to wear the red tie. If you can turn the other way when a politician speaks hate, vulgarity, and divisive language, but promote them holding up a Bible, you’re a hypocrite. I couldn’t do it anymore. I was still a Conservative Christian, but I couldn’t serve a political party only. I had to serve my fellow man.
If you blindly accept only “news” from right-leaning websites then you serve politics over Jesus. If you will believe every word from a documented liar’s mouth, but not listen to friends with a differing opinion, you serve a political party over Christianity. If you can respond in hate before love when someone disagrees with you, you are beginning to model the behavior of a president over the behavior of our Savior. These are hard facts. If you are more inclined to memorize and share the words from the political site of your choice than read, listen, think about, and live out the words in scripture, you have placed Conservative Christianity on a pedestal above Christ. My heart breaks.
When you believe a stranger on a viral video more than a personal friend, I would suggest you ask yourself why. Are politics clouding your vision? Are you serving the Republican Party more than the hurting people in your own neighborhood? Are you repeating, believing, and walking out a belief system instilled by politics and the people around you, or are you trying to follow the words of Jesus? My heart breaks.
And that’s the jest of it. My heart is breaking. It’s breaking for a people who are serving the wrong master. We cannot pick a handful of big issues and allow that to be our compass for good. We cannot celebrate pro-life while simultaneously demeaning immigrants and minorities. We cannot stand firmly on what the Bible states is sin, but then sin towards others. We cannot serve a God who is love, yet not love.
1 Corinthians 13: 1-7 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Do you know what love does not do. It doesn’t serve earthly masters. It doesn’t place a political party, president, and those particular agendas above fellow man. Love also understands the battle we face, not one of flesh and blood, but one of principalities and powers of darkness. Love knows the real enemy is Satan and his demonic army, not Democrats or the infamous Left. Love hates sin, but it doesn’t hate mankind. God is love, and we must begin to serve love and in love rather than the ideas of man and this world. Politics have become a stronghold, a chain around the necks of good people, and this year alone has shown the deception and clouded vision it can place over children of God.
Conservative Christians are good people, friends I love, and it’s even a title I go by, but it is not whom I am. It isn’t who any of us are. As a Christian you are a child of God the Father, and that should be the only label you allow this world to put upon you and allow to shape your actions. Let all that you do be done in love. We are the church, and we must start acting like it before it’s too late.
Jessica says
My heart breaks every time a scroll through my newsfeed. I literally just typed up and deleted a whole paragraph for this comment at least five times but I don’t have words for what I’m feeling. You have said what I’ve been trying to put to words for the last five months. Usually that comes as a relief but my relief is tainted today and I’m sad that it’s hard to see people in an unexpected light and then try to go forward pretending to have something in common with them. These are people I love and respect, work with, go to church with, and call friends and family. So many that I go to church with. So. Many.
Please just know that someone else sees your heart in this and feels your pain through it. When we don’t have the words to pray, God hears our heart’s deepest cry without us saying any words.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you for the comment. Like I said numerous times in the post, my heart breaks. But so many have told me since I posted that their heart has been feeling the same pain. That actually helps me to feel like God is moving to awaken hearts and align them to His.
scotloyd says
Thank you for your thoughtful piece! So important to know and understand.
Dee Colson says
My.Heart.Breaks.
I wonder about my Father’s heart and think maybe His is breaking too.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Me too.
Patricia Sweeney-Pakiz says
I’m a Catholic Charismatic Christian nurse and have lived with conservative Christians. I’m a prolife feminist. I have been ostracized by conservative Christians who seem to not only have Christ but all the answers as well. Thank you for sharing because my heart breaks as well but it’s for this country which I have always seen as basically strong and sound in its path. I hope we can get that back after this very damaging and dangerous time.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
I pray also for His mercy.
Lisa Pierce says
My heart breaks too Brie. You’ve stated precisely how many of us feel. I’ve been avoiding social media for my own sanity. I have been dealing with depression for 6 months and just can’t deal with a lot right now. I’m not burying my head in the sand, I’m burying it in God’s word. I’m praying for those verses in 1 Cor. to become a reality for our nation. Satan is smiling while God is probably saying what He did in Genesis and regretting making mankind.
I’m praying for our country and for you and your family to stay safe and healthy.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
I completely understand. I’ve had to bury myself in His presence numerous times lately.
Cheryl says
Brie, thank you for your articulate thoughts! So hard to be salt and light and the “sweet savor of Christ” in this world where even as believers we are sooo divided. I have come to the point where I cringe to call myself a “conservative Christian” anymore – and my. Heart. Breaks.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you.
Charlene Wurtz says
Once again Brie you have been given great discernment from the Lord on this issue. I hung to every word you have written here thanking God that you have the courage to speak up and speak out for His Church and His Word! Bless you. In talking with another woman this week God opened my understanding of just how much Satan is working using division as his tool. Thank you for the reminder than being a Christian is being a Christ follower and we get our direction from His Word. May God keep you and protect you – you are such a dear saint in His army!
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you so much ☺️
Black Woman with a Broken Heart says
Thank you so much for your words. As an African American Christian woman, I would like to sometimes use the word Conservative Christian to define my relationship with Christ. But I realized that I and many of the people I love have been excluded from the commonly used definition. And then my heart breaks.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you. My heart breaks with you, my friend.
Natalie Calk says
My thoughts for share – as a society, we need to stop basing our lives under definitions of titles that are defined by the wayward politics and rhetoric of propagated idealism – case and point “we all banded together in 2016 for prolife voting”. When it convenienced a definition of titleship, no heart breaking. But now looking through the backsight mirror, people in general are having to find new identities. Why? Because your identity was worldly to begin with, not God based. We all claim to be deep into a relationship with Jesus Christ until something challenges our status quo within the relationship.
My recommendation for us all is to stop pooling in victimization and stiffen our backbones to represent righteousness over worldliness always – not just when it conveniences a political identity associated to religion preferences. In theory, there should not be a banding of any kind when God’s people represent His will 100% of the time. But as you point out so many times in your blog post, Christians are LUKEWARM for God….and we know what God does with that per scripture. Stand up, speak up and stop identifying with propagated titleships. Represent the One Body of Christ – and when we see or hear differently, take up arms in spiritual warfare. Travail for your fellow Christians – pray for your enemies of faith and show the devil it takes more than this to kick your faith in His One Body!
Mary says
Excellent thoughts! We must always remain rooted in the identity of Jesus Christ, of who God is, not in the labels of this world. That said, if we keep ourselves aloof and silent while the system and institutions of Democratic Capitalism are destroyed — because, as you may have noticed, the popular rhetoric is now “we can’t reform the system, the system was never meant for us” — we sin by omission.
Dorothy Mattison says
Thank you for your realistic look at our nation today. I am a Christian, a liberal and a Democrat who believes that God loves the least of us, unequivocally, and expects us to view all of our decisions through his lens of love.
TIGER NEWKIRT says
Brie,
Thanks for the blog post. You have articulated the argument that I have struggled to make with my conservative brethren. Take heart; while we may have to endure this pain today, ‘this too shall pass’.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you ☺️