Christians Should Hate The Religious Right's Theocracy. Jesus Does.

Photo by Diana Vargas on Unsplash

There's nothing more dangerous or terrifying than professed Christians who have no real interest in Jesus.

They're rather easy to spot if you're paying attention.

They're usually the ones most loudly claiming religious liberty while methodically swallowing up the personal freedoms and elemental rights of other people.

They incessantly broadcast their devotion to God on their bumpers, bellies, and social media profiles, while living antithetically to the compassionate heart of Jesus found in the Scriptures.

Their spirituality is largely performative: a showy firework display of culture war talking points and religious buzzwords that distracts from the truth that their lives are yielding almost nothing truly loving to anyone but people who agree with them on everything—or those they see as their own kind.

Most telling, however, is that their theology is built on an idea that Jesus fully rejected: compulsion.

At the core of Jesus' movement two-thousand years ago was a personal invitation to follow him in the ways of empathy, mercy, and justice. It was at its core, an appeal to the voluntary orientation of the heart of each human being he crossed paths with. It was something to be embraced or rejected without fear of repercussions.

In other words, it was and is nothing like the Christianity of the current Republican Party.

The greatest border crisis in America today is at the one between Church and State.

Day by day under Project 2025, we are falling into theocracy at the hands of a small and powerful minority of professed followers of Jesus—and it would have made him sick to his stomach. Watching the highest court in this nation being weaponized by a small number of religious extremists to legislate their morality on the majority, it's a good time to remember that this wasn't merely something Jesus would have refrained from or quietly objected to—it was the very poisoned, institutionalized expression of faith that he outwardly and passionately railed against throughout his time here.

If you read any of the Gospels (even the ones in the Trump-autographed Bible), you realize pretty quickly that if Jesus' feet were on the planet right now, the Conservative Church in America would be one of the first tables he'd flip over.

You see, Christianity as modeled by Jesus was never meant to hold power. It was never about control or brute force or dictating the laws of the land or imposing itself on people's lives. It was never intended to be a political or religious institution but a chosen community of like-hearted people working together for the common good.

This is why actual followers of Jesus don't want Conservatives' compulsory Christianity.
They don't want legislated morality.
They don't want people's bodies, bedrooms, and marriages invaded by someone else's theology.

Actual followers of Jesus understand that spirituality is the most intimate of expressions, wholly and deeply personal and made by human beings for themselves alone.

They aspire to a life tangibly emulating Jesus in the world and perpetuating the compassion they find there, but they would never pile those expectations on anyone else.

Actual followers of Jesus believe their personal faith shouldn't dictate the laws others live under because they know he preached a way of countercultural living that transcended the systems and paradigms of this place.

They want a world where people's most intimate relationships and decisions are not under the jurisdiction of any faith tradition because they recognize that taking or avoiding a spiritual path is a sacred and singular decision.

Actual followers of Jesus want no part of the Republican Party's empathy-averse alleged Christianity because Jesus would have wanted no part of it.

They all want something that gives people the freedom to choose or reject religion.
They all want something that feeds and heals and cares for their neighbor.
They all want something Christlike.