Okay, progressive white Christians, enough is enough.

Enough of being polite.

Our politeness has rendered us irrelevant. Our politeness has rendered us obsolete. Our politeness has rendered us silent.

Our politeness has rendered us faithless.   

That’s right, I said it.  We have spent the last 30 years trying NOT to be like those “impolite” Christians who knock on doors and talk about sin and hell fire.  We have spent the last 30 years defining ourselves only by stating who we are NOT (namely those Christians who knock on doors and talk about hell fire).

We have spent the last 30 years lamenting that our sanctuaries are empty and that young people just don’t care about church.  We have spent the last 30 years trying to prop up cumbersome institutions. We have spent the last 30 years longing to return to the 1950’s when our Sunday School classes were brimming. We have spent the last 30 years somehow forgetting that every great social movement in US history was started in the church!

We have spent 30 years using politeness as an excuse to remain unengaged and comfortable.

And now, we have Donald Trump in the White House stacking his Cabinet with white male extremists.

Jesus was not polite. The prophets before him were not polite. They were fierce. They were outspoken. They were political. They made people uncomfortable.

They were faithful. 

We have not been faithful.  We have been negligent.  All. Of. Us.

Before you start #notallwhitechristians, I remind you that all Muslims are seen as complicit to any terrorist attack. I remind you that all black people are seen as complicit to any violence perpetuated against police officers. I remind you that all Latinos/Hispanics are seen as complicit to illegal immigration.

While we have have been worrying over budgets and empty pews, the evangelicals have been MOBILIZING.  While we have been too anxious about seeming pushy, the religious right was taken over state houses across the country and gerrymandered their happy little hearts out. While we have been too frightened to offend anyone inside our churches, the most vulnerable people outside our churches have been battered (figuratively and literally) and scapegoated in OUR name.

It is time to repent and to ask forgiveness. It is time to be fierce about the fact that our Christian faith requires us to be politically engaged. It is time to proclaim that God’s peace and unity is never created at the expense of the most marginalized.

It is time to take Jesus and the bible and our country back…because people’s lives depend on it.