Seeing lots of tweets today about how we shouldn't be telling ministers how to address this situation or congregants to leave over the response. I've spent the last 8 years in full time ministry, and I disagree.

I'll attempt some nuance in this thread.

We have reached a crisis point with white Christian nationalism. What we saw this week was a crowd full of Christian insurrectionists and they were radicalized by propaganda that we have allowed to flourish in our churches.

After 2016, my church became a place where...

lies for the sake of justifying political beliefs began to flourish. I tried the gentle, subtle, one-on-one conversation approach to it.

But, here's the thing about idolatry. Either you tear the idol down or people become like the gods they worship.

It changed what we were allowed to talk about. For example, the Good Samaritan story could no longer reference immigrants or other marginalized people. That was too controversial. So, I saw that story preached as a sermon against abortion.

Eventually, I had to hear...

political propaganda every time I was in the church building. It dominated conversation.

Trump's wall became a popular topic of discussion when a Hispanic person would visit.

Some of my elders began emailing me things about the liberal Snowflakes trying to destroy our country

Gentle one on one correction did not turn the tide. It just kept escalating.

More topics became off limits.

My church didn't take covid seriously, and I'm pretty certain their constant stream of folks like Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck fed into that. We had conflict.

In the midst of that conflict, the Black Lives Matter protests happened this Summer.

I didn't take an extreme stance. I didn't even fly a flag. As a high risk person concerned about Covid, I didn't go to any in-person rallies.

I publicly argued that we should not write the...

entire movement off as violent based off of the few incidents of violence started by a plurality of actors.

In conversations with my congregants, I pushed back on a popular narrative in my community (just outside Danville, the Last Capitol of the Confederacy). People were...

saying there has never been any racism here. I said that wasn't true. People of color do deal with racism here. I pointed to some real incidents, keeping identities confidential. And I said we should stop arguing and just listen to what our black brothers and sisters in Christ...

are saying.

It was the final straw. I had "cast the church in a dishonest and negative light" and "endangered the congregation".

I was told, "If you want to be some kind of activist, you should consider another career path."

I wasn't even an activist, y'all. My quiet actions

do not deserve that label. I tried the route of subtly confronting the idolatry. And eventually, even the quiet correction can't be tolerated. I was fired.

This week, we saw that idolatry begin to flourish in the same thing idolatry always produces: hatred and violence. So...

while I'm sympathetic to the difficult position ministers are in and to the stress of having your congregation mad at you over silly stuff so often, there are also times where you must stand firm for the sake of the sheep. A wolf has been in our midst destroying the people...

we were called to shepherd. It is past time for us to clearly point out that this white Christian nationalist movement is not compatible with the way of Jesus. Go read through Judges, Kings, and Chronicles and see the difference between religious leaders who tear down...

idols and those who try to exist peacefully alongside them. The idols always win if we let them occupy space.

I watched a lot of people I knew and loved warped by this stuff over time. I never believed some of them would become this.

My leadership hasn't spoken to me since...

firing me 6 months ago. But it's a safe bet that most of them view what happened at the Capitol at worst as a low-level riot that got out of hand. It's condemnable, but not that serious. I worry that some of them might think it was justified, because they've been calling...

Democrats the enemies of the American people for at least 4 years now.

That's the power of idolatry and rituals built around idolatry. These things aren't impotent. They shape us.

Now, for nuance, I get that some of this call to confront risks being performative...

as churches that aren't really battling this look down on churches that are. And so, yeah, there isn't a one-size fits all approach to how this should be dealt with.

But, as someone who watched his church transformed until he wasn't allowed in it anymore, I also don't want us..

to underestimate how dark and dangerous this stuff is.

And if you're at a church where this stuff is growing, it must be confronted or it will consume your congregation and even your leadership.

Avoiding the hard discussions for fear of anger, backlash, or even people leaving

is bowing the knee to the idol. If there was a growing movement of sexual immorality in your congregation and many would get mad and leave if you asked them to stop committing adultery, you wouldn't back down. This isn't any less serious.

So, yeah. I agree with the sentiment...

that this topic must not be addressed performatively.

I disagree with the idea that we should give ministers leeway to address it more subtly. I'm telling you that doesn't work. It needs to be clearly and publicly condemned.

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In my attempt to be concise, I don't want to be inaccurate. I want to be clear that I wasn't the lead minister. I was a youth minister. Functionally, I was sort of like an associate minister as well.