Whether unintended or by design, shifting one’s priority from following Jesus to a conflicting ideology while attempting to retain the Christian trade name allows for doing — or at least accommodating — that which earlier would have been morally unimaginable.
Yet that is precisely what has happened — and is happening — within much of Americanized Christianity due primarily to large scale susceptibility to the well-stoked flames of fear.
And this is occurring at the most basic level of values, attributes and priorities.
“Basic” is a well-used word but not one that gets much attention. That is because it is widely understood to mean what it simply means.
As Oxford Languages defines it, basic means “forming an essential foundation or starting point; fundamental.”
If asked to identify the most basic values conveyed to me during my childhood and youth, two would be foremost in mind: honesty and compassion.
Those were foundational principles on which “living right” was largely based. And they were taught repeatedly by family, neighbors, church members and schoolteachers — all out of a strong Christian orientation.
Therefore, it is dizzying, disillusioning and disappointing today to discover so many professing Christians — including those who long embraced and conveyed such basic lessons— for whom those values are now easily expendable or excused.
Honesty and compassion are being heaped upon the altar of fear. And the stench is nearly unbearable.
How did this happen?
It starts when Christianity gets redefined as affirming a few select and often passionate doctrinal/political positions rather than the priority of following Jesus in giving full attention to his life, teachings and calling.
This shift allows for basic Christian/human values to no longer be considered basic or valued.
What drives so many professing Christians from a defining emphasis on following Jesus is fear.
And those seeking control of others know precisely how to increase fear, hostility and division by continually spewing angry, untrue and grievance-producing messages through every possible media source — and even some pulpits.
Tragically, so tragically, white American evangelicals are showing themselves to be most susceptible to these tactics.
As a result, anxiety rages over age-related losses, unfamiliar societal shifts and an insecure sense of losing one’s cultural dominance — drowning out the voice of the very one they once professed as savior and lord, who repeatedly said, “Fear not.”
In the same way perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18), we see that fear so easily casts out love.
Pointing out this reality, however, is not well received. A strong defensiveness arises when the sacrifice of basic human and Christian values are noted.
Oddly, conviction, confession and redirection don’t come easily for those whose professed faith is rooted in the very notion of conversion.
Therefore, the tragic irony of ironies is that if honesty and compassion — along with the related values of equality and justice — are preserved to any degree in our shared national future it will be in spite of, not because of, a large segment of fear-captured citizens who claim most strongly to being Christian.
Perhaps a pause is needed here to let that last sentence soak in a bit.
Whether overt or implied, a major lesson being taught in the name of Christianity today is that honesty, fairness and concern for the common good may be discarded if one is deeply afraid of an uncertain future that will not resemble a familiar and now romanticized past.
Apparently, “Be ye kind one to another” (Ephesians 4:32 KJV) was a mere memory verse for little kids. As adults, demeaning vulnerable people is fully acceptable if treating them kindly, respectfully and fairly might infringe on one’s own sense of privilege.
Bearing false witness — though one of the 10 oft-posted commandments —gets a pass as well if it works in one’s favor better than embracing easily verifiable truth.
These contrasting, by-example lessons — though at odds with ones conveyed so long— teach that even the most basic values in life, like honesty and compassion, are highly adaptable and even dismissible.
They are heaped upon the smoldering altar of fear.
How odd that this embrace of highly adaptable values comes from those who speak of firm faith and have long warned of the dangers of situational ethics.
This truth-burning, love-consuming sacrifice on the altar of fear makes a mockery out of any claim of following Jesus — when his foundational teachings of loving God and others go up in smoke.
If there is a divine qualifier that allows followers of Jesus to conveniently dispense with such basic values as integrity and compassion when scared, I must have skipped the Sunday it was taught. And one thing is sure: in my upbringing, we didn’t miss Sundays.
Or perhaps I dropped my Bible during Sword Drill when we were trying to locate the verse that tells us to behave in any way we wish if we sense losing cultural dominance and having to share personal power with those unlike ourselves.
Now, I do remember bonfires that burned up Beatles albums — seeking to silence such subversive and demonic messages as, “I want to hold your hand” and “She loves me yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Books that challenged cultural norms were burned too. But no one told us we could one day sacrifice the basic values of honesty and compassion out of fear.
But that’s what is being done today. It can be smelled from miles away.
Yes, it stinks. And will do so for a long, long time.
John D. Pierce directs the Jesus Worldview Initiative (jesusworldview.org), part of the Rev. Charlie Curb Center for Faith Leadership at Belmont University.