Slideshow image

“When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world.”
 — C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”
 — Matthew 23:13

 

In a recent New Yorker interview, Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a well-known voice in American evangelicalism, tried to explain why he supported Donald Trump in 2020 after calling him a sexual predator in 2016. "Not Donald Trump," he said. "But everything else."

For many people, especially those watching from outside the church, this landed hard. It felt like confirmation. That Christianity isn’t really about Jesus. That it's just a tool for gaining or holding power. That its loudest defenders will pivot when the pressure rises, and moral clarity will melt away if the moment feels desperate enough. It seemed to prove what a lot of people already suspected: that Christian conviction is flexible if the tribe demands it.

But the deeper issue isn't just the flip in allegiance. It's how Mohler explains it. He doesn’t claim that Trump’s character improved. He doesn’t walk back his original concern. Instead, he describes a shift in urgency. The culture war had intensified. The stakes were too high. The alternative was too dangerous. He says, very plainly, that there was a “pragmatic, utilitarian dimension” to his decision.

And that’s the part that should really make us stop and think. Because the moment you begin making moral choices based on outcomes, something subtle and serious has already shifted. The frame moves. The center of gravity relocates. You stop reasoning from conviction and start reasoning from consequence. You stop asking what Jesus commands and start asking what will keep your side afloat.

This shift rarely feels sinister at first. In fact, it often feels responsible. It presents itself as practical. Reasonable. Wise, even. But the problem is that once this becomes the normal way of thinking, it gets easier to justify things you once would have rejected out of hand. Instead of asking what is right, you ask what is necessary. Instead of what is true, you ask what is useful.

Eventually, you stop listening for the voice of Jesus altogether and start listening for the sound of what will work. The music might still be playing, quietly, somewhere in the background. But you are not hearing it. Not really.

If this whole dynamic has made you feel uneasy, if something in it sounds like faith but feels hollow, you are not alone.

Which brings me to music.

John Dickson, an Australian historian, once said that Christianity is like a beautiful piece of music. A Bach cello suite, maybe. Something quietly brilliant. If you play it well, it moves people. If you play it badly, it still exists. It is still beautiful. It is just being handled poorly. The problem is not the music. It is the performance.

Christianity has a tune. That tune is Jesus.

Jesus taught us to love our enemies. To speak the truth. To serve the lowly. To reject pride. To give instead of grasp. These aren’t decorative touches. They are the melody. The structure. The heartbeat. When Christians live in ways that contradict these teachings, they are not revealing a flaw in Christianity. They are simply off key.

Jesus saw this coming. His sharpest critiques were not for the outsiders but for the insiders. For the ones who used religion to protect their own positions. For the ones who twisted truth. For the ones who thought the appearance of holiness was enough. He called them hypocrites, not to shame them, but to call them back.

And even so, there have always been those who listened closely and played the tune with beauty and courage.

  • Gregory of Nyssa, a bishop in the fourth century, became the first person in recorded history to argue that slavery itself was morally wrong. Not just its abuses, but the whole institution. He said this because he believed in the image of God in every person. Because he had been listening to Jesus.

  • Julian of Norwich lived through plague and political collapse and still somehow managed to write some of the most radiant reflections on Christ's love that have ever been put to paper. Her faith was not flashy or idealistic. It was slow-burning and rooted deep in the soil of Christ.

  • Sojourner Truth, born into slavery, became a preacher of the gospel and a fierce advocate for justice. Her power came not from institutions but from a soul so tethered to Jesus it could not be shaken loose.

  • Frederick Douglass saw the rot and hypocrisy of slaveholding Christianity and called it out. He did not abandon the gospel. He drew a line between the Christianity of Christ and the Christianity of the culture around him. And he clung to the first.

  • William Wilberforce spent decades fighting to end the slave trade, not because it was politically advantageous or personally satisfying, but because it was good. And he believed good was worth pursuing even when it was slow and costly.

  • Oscar Romero preached peace in El Salvador during a time of extreme violence. He was murdered at the altar while serving the Eucharist. His sermons still echo because they were soaked in the words of Jesus. Especially the ones from that other sermon, the one on the mount.

None of these lives were perfect. That is not the point. The point is that the tune was real. And they heard it. And somehow, through pain and pressure and compromise all around them, they managed to play it.

It is tempting to focus on other people’s betrayals. Mohler. Christian nationalism. Political opportunism. Whatever headlines are making the rounds this week. But this is also about me. And about you. About the thousand tiny ways we stop listening. The subtle recalibrations we make when faithfulness feels too risky. The ways we shift our tone. Change our justifications. Accept a strategy in place of a calling.

We all do it. Some of us dramatically. Some of us with quiet resignation. But Jesus doesn’t storm offstage when we miss the melody. He stays. He forgives. And he invites us to hear it again.

Christianity is not a strategy. It is a song. And Jesus is still singing it over the world. Still inviting us to join in.

The tune still matters. And it is still worth playing.

 

----------------

A Prayer for Grace
 A Collect for Guidance
 O heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being.
 We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit,
 That in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you,
 But may remember that we are ever walking in your sight.
 Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

----------------

 

PS - For Further Reflection
 John Dickson’s Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History is a thoughtful companion for anyone wrestling with how the church can go so wrong and yet still be rooted in something so beautiful. It listens honestly. And it helps you hear the tune again.