A Shattered Lens: A Lament

We faithfully wore the bracelets
and asked the question:

“What would Jesus do?”

Would He feed the hungry?
Would He sacrificially love His neighbor?
Would he be kind to someone different from him?
Would He do the right thing
even if it cost Him everything?

We learned the answers and made the questions a habit.
We thought you did, too.

Now it feels like a betrayal, a performance
to see those who claim to follow Him
act nothing like Him.

To hear words spoken
that are neither true,
nor kind, nor loving.

Jesus taught us we would recognize
believers by their fruit,
yet your fruit is rotten.

We watch leaders profit in power and lies,
honoring Christ with their lips
while inflicting harm on
the very people He commanded us to love.

They preach a gospel of superiority
and prosperity that is foreign
to the teachings of Jesus.

The core Christian values we learned—
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness,
Goodness, Gentleness, Self-Control—
are swapped for political power,

a desperate attempt to legislate morality
that causes more souls to be lost than saved.

Why would they want to live like Jesus
when those who claim to follow Him
are so hateful, controlling, and cruel?

Humility is traded for pride.

Love is traded for hatred,
using your “Christian values”
to dehumanize those whom Jesus loves.

You seem to have forgotten that without love,
It is all meaningless.

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels,
but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong.
If I gave everything I have to the poor…
but didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:1, 3

We have watched the name of Jesus
be used to dehumanize,
to create a toxic idea that
only one American political party
is allowed membership.

They claim to know God,
but by their actions they deny him.

Titus 1:16, NLT

The WWJD era is gone.

Christian Nationalism pretends to be
a mirror of Christ,
but it is a shattered lens
that warps His image
and destroys the reputation
we were taught to protect.

The only path to healing the reflection is
to stop aligning His name with
coercive power
political agendas
and hateful rhetoric

And to truly love our neighbors
as he does
all of them
even if they see the world
differently than you do

We must return to the foundational choice
to embody the answer to the question
we wore on our wrists:

To choose
Love over hate
Mercy over vengeance
Humility over the hypocrite’s crown

For what does it profit a person
to gain the whole world,
if they lose their own soul?