An Open Letter to Pastors & Christian Leaders, RE: January 6, 2021

So much has already been said about what happened to our country on January 6th. I certainly echo many of their words in condemnation of what took place at the hands of American terrorists in our nation’s capital. But I don’t add to those words from a place of moral high ground, but as a plea to those in spiritual leadership and authority.

To pastors, theologians, and other leaders in sacred spaces: your people need you to speak. Better yet, we need you to act.

Your people need you to speak out against the idolatry of politics that led to what we’re now experiencing and to remove any semblance of that idolatry from ourselves and our organizations. This idolatry has misled American Christians into conflating these two identities (American and Christian) as one and the same, damaging the witness of the American Church to our country and to the world.

Your people need you to acknowledge the racism and white supremacy that have permeated the American Church for centuries and to dismantle it, arm-in-arm, with our brothers and sisters of color. To repent for your own role, however large or small, in perpetuating the dominance of white identity, and choose instead to hear — truly hear — the voices of Black and Brown men and women, many of whom were unsurprised by what took place at the Capitol Building.

Christian leaders, your calls for peace and unity ring hollow if we do not grapple with what has led us to where we are today. The very flavor of our witness is weakened when we present an incomplete gospel to a deeply hurting world, and more so when part of that hurt has been caused by our own hands. In fact, much of the chaos that has been sown in America these past years has been at the hands of those claiming Christ. They claim special access to God’s prophetic voice; they claim truths that aren’t; they demonize the other; and even carry Christian symbols with them in their attacks. What we are witnessing isn’t just that too few believe in Jesus; it is that too few believers are like Him. This failure of discipleship is on you and me.

Christian leaders, it’s nothing new to say that words matter — the very bedrock of our faith is rooted in believing words spoken by God and recorded by men. So, when we are cavalier about the words we preach or print, and also the things we don’t, it is too easy to let what isn’t godly seep in, sowing discord and perverting Truth. When we take Scripture out of context to suit our agendas, it is no longer God’s Word we speak, but our own. When we avoid the Scriptures we don’t want to obey because they don’t fit our politics, it is no longer God’s Word we follow, but our own. What happened on the Capitol grounds is but one result of that.

This country needs healing, no doubt. But in the context of this statement, the American Christian needs healing as well. That healing is likely to happen through the slow, tedious, and painful grind of relationship building. Conviction, repentance, compassion, and forgiveness are all necessary for healing. Author Ashley Hales writes, “Grace without the sting of sin and subsequent repentance is not good news.” How true that is for us who want to be whisked past our sins of political idolatry, American exceptionalism, racism, and self-righteousness.

While many resources exist to help with addressing these gaps in discipling the American Church away from a pseudo-gospel, may I humbly recommend these two to start:

The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby

Taking America Back for God by Andrew Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry

-Chris

Chris Lazaro is the author of Faith in Cities: How Better Places Make Better Neighbors (2020).