evangelicals and exvangelicals: where's my mission field?

I'm gonna get on a soap box for a bit here...

We, in the United States, have lived in a divided country. It has been for many, many years. It's something many of us have come accustom to. Democrats vs. Republicans. Liberals vs. Conservatives. Religious vs. Secular.

But recently I came across a movement that honestly hurt me. Wasn't what they said or did, but the backstory of this movement bothered me to my core.

So, here's the story, like many an American, I frequent social media, and am avid follower of Timothy Keller on twitter. I greatly enjoy his grasp of scripture and his teachings. Pastor Keller made a post stating "If you have a God powerful enough to be mad at because of evil, then you have a God great enough to have reasons that you can't fully get." and I saw someone who ran by the twitter handle "almightygod" respond with "10,000 children starve each day with prayers on their lips. all part of My perfect plan." 

I have long since fully believed that if something touches your heart, if something truly bothers you, that's God speaking. that's your call to do something. If children hungry troubles your soul, that's God's call to go feed his children. If knowing a people group doesn't know Christ, that's God call for you to go to them on the missions. So I stated as much as I could fit into a tweet.

and a storm came of people I had yet to encounter, questioning my motives and my faith, throwing hashtags of #exvangical and #notyourmissionfield

the last hashtag I admit ruffled me. I'm a missionary. I have been on the field and I support missionaries in North America, South America and overseas.

What got me even more angry is when I read what it said of evangelicals and what it is to be evangelical. And even more angry, it's true in many places.

I copied this 'checklist' from Christopher Stoop, one of the front runners of the Exvangical movement's blog, 'Not Your Mission Field'.

Here’s #HowToEvangelical:

1. Be White
2. Believe that Jesus was White
3. Idolize your #WhitePrivilege
4. Only watch @FoxNews
5. Unwaveringly support Donald Trump and Roy Moore
6. Lie about “All being welcome in your churches” but secretly long for Segregation/Jim Crow days again

*note: I changed the name of what he called Donald Trump, don't like him either but I try to avoid name calling regardless of who someone is*

Now brothers and sisters, don't start picking up stones and start denying any of this, as I've witness these very things in many churches and in the lives of many of my brothers and sisters over the years.

This is honestly what I've been afraid of happening for many years. We've pushed politics into the church and it's turned a Gospel of hope into a political platform.

Billy Graham, one of the first major recent Evangelicals always warned us in 1981 "I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."

First off, to answer all five of his points, I'm only a check mark on 1:

I'm white. in yet, I believe race is a construct of the secular world, we are all descendants of Adam and Eve and we are all made in the image of God. we all bleed the same and we all have souls need saving by the blood of Yeshua the Messiah.

2: Believe Jesus was white. I'll be frank. that's stupid. Anyone with half a brain would know Jesus, actually Yeshua, was born in Israel to the tribe of Judah. So many will be very surprise when they meet a dark skinned curly dark haired man with a curly beard. Sadly, there's people who actually believe, thanks to movies and pictures, that Jesus was blue hair blond with creamy white skin and smooth perfect beard. sigh... moving on.

3: idolize your white privilege. there are some who sadly do. and there are some who don't even realize it. white privilege doesn't mean you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth, or you don't have to work for what you've got. it means not being stared at when you go into store or mall and being expected to try to steal. it's not having a fear clinch your stomach when you get pulled over, it's being afraid instead of getting a ticket getting shot or arrested. it's not being worried about being harassed for being an 'illegal' even if everyone in your family for generations has been American. As Christians we are to humble ourselves, we are to do what is best for others before ourselves. Don't believe me? ask Paul. 1st Corinthians. It's in there.

4: Only watch Fox News... do yourself a favor... please, don't... it's just as twisted and agenda pushing as the others. It really is.

5: unwavering support of Donald Trump or Roy Moore. whew... that one is a doozy. There are so many brothers and sisters who treat Donald Trump, and then Roy Moore, as the second coming of Christ. if you take off the political glasses and look at them, they truly do not faithfully represent what conservative or Christian values are supposed to be about according to Christ's teachings. And what's sad... there are so many who do basically worship the President, and honestly I don't think they realize it! I can understand this frustration. I have been confronted by brothers who questioned my faith, and said I needed to get right with God because I questioned Donald Trump and didn't support the GOP.

Let me tell you something right here. Voting Republican will not get you into heaven. Voting Democrat won't get you into heaven. Voting Independent won't get you into heaven. Not voting AT ALL won't get you into heaven. It's not how you are in American Politics, it's whether or not you have been adopted into the family of YHWH. it's if you have been marked by Christ as a child of God. It's not what you do at all. It's what Yahweh did through Yeshua's sacrifice and resurrection. He did it. You didn't. it's faith in Him and submission to the Holy Spirit. Period. End of story.

6: Lie about “All being welcome in your churches” but secretly long for Segregation/Jim Crow days again...

this one angers me. And this one I've seen too many times. I praise God for the church I belong to and the pastor I sit under who does not believe in skin color but loving everyone who comes through that door. And to quote him, if you don't welcome someone into the church because of the color of their skin, then you're not welcome here either. And I feel the same way. If you treat someone badly, or push them away. The person doing this will see a side of me they will not like. Paul said in Galatians that there was neither Jew nor Greek, no Slave no Freeman, No Male nor Female, for we are ALL One in Christ. And Paul made it even more clear in Romans, "For God shows no partiality." Let me tell you, I welcome anyone, and if anyone for whatever reason is made unwelcome, they won't walk out alone.

What's sad, is to some extent this is happening almost everywhere, and you can almost take the almost out. Church, we're hurting people we are called to love! We're being so much worse than the churches Paul rebuked in his letters.

We are not to follow Donald Trump, we are not to follow Roy Moore, we are not to follow Franklin Graham, We are not to follow Paula White, We are not to follow James Dawson, we are not to follow Jerry Falwell Jr., we are not to follow Steven Furtick, we're not to follow Scott Packett, we're not to follow Michael Hodgsdon, we're not to follow Dusty Vaughn, we're not to follow Peter, we're not to follow Paul.

WE ARE TO FOLLOW CHRIST AND CHRIST ALONE!!!

"So don’t boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you— whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you,  and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God." - 1 Corinthians 3:21-23

a hash tag and theme of the exvangicals is "not your mission field"

Well, God tells me it is. And not just those who have been hurt by foolish sinful selfish actions by members of the Church, but also to those in the church who instead of following Christ's command to love their neighbor, use Christ as a platform to hurt others and build themselves up. To know that people identify my Savior with emotional and spiritual abuse not only breaks my heart but angers me and saddens me. They obviously don't understand the true love of Christ. And because of their misunderstanding be it unintentional or intentional, they have passed on the misunderstanding and added pain to others. And it needs to stop. We need to honor the late Billy Graham's wishes for the Evangelical Church, and have it solely focused on loving Christ and loving one another. We are not called to be divided. We are called to be one Church. One Family.