We love Jesus in the way we like prescription medication...

We love Jesus in the way we like prescription medication.
We expect him to improve outcomes.

The thing keeping us from heaven
and from living “our best life now” is “sin,” we say.

Faith as antidote to sin (by which we mean embarrassment)
or as “worldview” (by which we mean political agenda).

We explain the humiliation of the incarnation away
as "power"...but..."under control.”

Being “missional” then is marketing 
and “evangelism” sales.

We say the “way to financial peace,” is “to walk daily with the Prince of Peace….”
and read past “the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

We strain to measure “needles' eyes” and promise to “give all we can”
soon as we're done “making all we can.”

“Pastor” and “CEO” became interchangeable,
and their platforms became “the kingdom.”

When pastors and priests abuse those in their care,
we should measure “repentance” by willingness to live in obscurity.

Instead we preach “forgiveness” to the victims
In order to defend the “cause of Christ.”

It's good PR to think “Jesus forgives”
without a public reckoning.

In churches I grew up in,
Old Glory took its place beside the cross.

We say Charlie Kirk “knew if he could get all of you rowing in the streams of liberty,
you'd come to its source, and that's the Lord.”

The unborn, we understand, are made in God's image
but we act like the undocumented aren’t.

We imagine angels protecting presidents
and justify officers who kill our neighbors in the streets.

We liken presidents to King David
and erase the prophet Nathan in our story.

We say we're voting for someone “who is going to defend our way of life,
versus someone who is going to try to end that way of life.”

Which is a statement of belief in politics and power:
Jesus as garnish for a favorable Supreme Court.

We sometimes say, if public figures can't keep their marriage vows,
how can they keep their oaths of office?

Then when we want to vote for that kind of character,
we say, “we're not voting for a pastor.”

We say God made marriage between one man and one woman.
And then we act like legislators can revise what God has made.

We were taught—because that's how God made marriage
we should not have sex outside of it.

Some pastors' warned against “emotional promiscuity,”
by which they seemed to advocate emotional detachment.

Which on reflection looked less like loving God and neighbor,
more like keeping sex as casual as possible.

A friend once felt dismay a minister “so sound on other things”
concluded Genesis 1 didn't speak of 24-hour days.

My friend was less concerned how much
his own interpretation borrowed from materialism.

We say we celebrate the resurrection,
but we prefer “people who weren’t captured.”

We use the Conquest of Canaan in defense of Wounded Knee,
when “the voice of our brothers' blood” cries out from the ground.

We don't consider how Jesus the crucified
would see photo opportunities in front of caged inmates.