Evangelexit

When campus pastor Brandi Miller tweeted on the night of the election that she was serving her divorce papers to Evangelicalism, I could relate. It seemed the perfect metaphor.

I too was disgusted: white evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for someone with none of the qualities they had taught me were Christian. My gut reaction was to run away from them: Evangelexit! I was ready to renounce all association with evangelicalism and encourage people to leave their evangelical cliques and wake up to justice, truth, and mercy.

A lack of these three qualities and an overemphasis on dogmatic rules were the reason Jesus reamed out the religious leaders of his time (Matthew 23). Today, many evangelical leaders have traded mercy for a wall and truth for a passel of lies they want to believe. And a lot of people in their pews have followed.

My advice: Don't follow those religious leaders avoiding a victim dying in the ditch on the other side of the road to Jericho.

A main point in the parable of the good Samaritan is that a member of a religious group despised by many Jews is the one being a good neighbor. Jesus confronts religious prejudice. Today, the well-paid head of Samaritan's Purse encourages discrimination against the Samaritans of our day, even, and especially, those lying by the side of the road.

I suspect Franklin Graham considers himself a paragon of mercy. True, his organization helps many people in need. But he has embraced as public policy a rejection of the pleas of Syrian victims while promoting lies about the danger they pose.

Some in those evangelical pews do not embrace the lies and still see the church as an advocate for mercy to the most vulnerable. Should they walk out? I thought they should. I was ready to urge them all to leave their churches. Evangelexit!

I still would never fault them for leaving, but I recently realized I had it backwards. Embracing lies and spouting bigotry IS walking away from the good news. Those who willingly repeat lies without bothering to check whether they are true, who rush to label victims as dangerous, they are the ones who take another step away from the faith with every false repetition and every blanket condemnation.

If members in churches that encourage spreading ideological lies stay put and insist on truth and mercy, more power to them. They remain grounded in the faith. There may come a day when they are compelled to shake off the dust and move on, but if they stay and advocate for the good news, they are to be admired.

Maybe some day those marching through the wide gate down the broad road away from the gospel will return. But now they abandon truth and trample mercy. They are the ones making an Evangelexit.