The Christian testimony that many Americanized Christians don’t want to hear is when someone tells of leaving their familiar fundamentalist/evangelical subculture in order to find Jesus.
In the second season of the documentary Shiny, Happy People, singer Dani Rocca-Herbert tells of “coming to terms with the fact that this Jesus isn’t my Jesus.”
Like many others, she was deeply involved in the once expansive and often abusive Teen Mania ministry led by charismatic personality Ron Luce and endorsed by high-profile fundamentalist and nationalistic leaders.
Painfully, she told of the controlling, shaming and often dangerous experiences deemed necessary to prepare young Christians for a manufactured culture war.
These damaging experiences finally drove her from such perversions of the Christian faith — but not from Jesus, fortunately.
“It’s a journey for sure,” Dani told filmmakers, adding: “I still identify as a Christian — the Jesus kind.”
What an interesting distinction one must make today. To identify as “the Jesus kind” of Christian goes against the flow of much of Americanized Christianity that so easily ignores what Jesus called his followers to be and do.
While one might think that following Jesus is central to all expressions of faith, it is not. In fact, Jesus is often missing from white Americanized Christianity — or relegated to simply exchanging a profession of faith for a ticket to a comfy eternity.
While the particular teen ministry explored in this latest documentary season is now defunct, the well-seeded rage of white male authoritarianism within the Christian faith now fills the church house, the schoolhouse and even the People’s House.
We are inundated with shady, angry people seeking to manipulate others into bastardized forms of religious-political thinking mislabeled as Christian.
As in the days of Native American slaughter and African slavery on American soil, hostile and demeaning acts are carried out against suffering people — all in deep contrast to Jesus’ teachings yet by those who bear his name.
Spiritual discernment, once again, is ignored in favor of favoritism.
Seeds of a militant, self-serving faith — that ignores Jesus’ life teachings and calling—continue to sprout throughout American churches and society creating a growing threat to both valued democracy and human decency.
Lovingly compelling others to Jesus is no longer the “good news” for which evangelicals were named.
Instead, coercive means are employed — seeking the heavy, helping hand of government to advance the beliefs and rituals of a religious-political ideology.
Such power-seeking religion is precisely what Jesus rejected and in full contrast to how he calls his followers to live.
Today, white Americanized Christianity is rife with the misguided and manipulative seeking of power over compassion and privilege over inclusion.
Fully ignored, is what Jesus said so clearly is the two-fold greatest commandment of loving God completely and neighbor broadly.
Yet so many professing Christians today have thrown their lot with those so eager to dehumanize, marginalize and even erase the very persons with whom Jesus clearly identified.
It is unsurprising that so many people are leaving misdirected subcultures of Americanized fundamentalism or evangelicalism — in order to find Jesus — or are repelled by what is seen from the outside.
As a result, the designation of “Christian” means either nothing or just about anything today.
The good news, however, is that Jesus is not being held hostage by those who boldly claim his name while ignoring what he said and did.
Assuming the “Christian” brand is not needed to follow Jesus. But for those who choose to retain or embrace it, an explanation is often necessary.
The question many will want to know is, “What kind?”
Are you the kind of professing Christian, like many, who chooses fearful, self-serving political power over the loving ways Jesus taught, lived and called all disciples to do likewise?
If so, the environment that fosters that perversion of faith is worth leaving in order to find Jesus.
Oh, how our nation and our world are in desperate need of “the Jesus kind” of Christians. Or those who seek to live by Jesus’ example without the damaged brand.
Then love, compassion and justice will mark our lives together rather than dishonesty, corruption and cruelty toward those we are called to embrace and serve.
Too often the title “Christian” is captured and redefined by those who insist on adherence to some version of doctrinal correctness or a preferred and therefore proper form of worship.
But Jesus called for none of that.
A disciple of Jesus— according to Jesus — is to be as loving as Jesus.
A Jesus kind of person.
The kind Jesus kind.
The kind that follows Jesus.
John D. Pierce is director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative (jesusworldview.org), part of Belmont University’s Rev. Charlie Curb Center for Faith Leadership. Join us for the first Jesus Worldview Conference, October 13-15, in Nashville.