Addicted to Applause

What will people think? This question has haunted me ever since I said my “sinner’s prayer” at the age of five. The worst thing I could imagine was a scenario in which my family, friends, church, and community turned their backs on me because I was no longer a “good” person. The fear of abandonment and rejection was enough for me to comply with whatever standards and expectations that were placed on me. There was no need to live in the uncertainty of genuine relationship when I could rely on my church and culture to mandate how I could dress, cut my hair, talk, think, and interact with others. In following the rules, I found one of the most valuable commodities on the planet: social currency.

From a young age, I learned that social currency could buy me the love and affection of just about anybody. The more expectations I met and rules I followed, the more love and respect I received. In other words, conformity led to admiration. This was quite the realization for a young 16-year-old preacher who needed churches to preach in and people to listen. If my reputation as a “goody two shoes” had closed doors to high school parties, it surely opened the flood gates of recognition and respect among the local Christian community. Before I knew it, I had become addicted to applause.

I have come to believe that church is the ultimate arena for the contest between respectability and authenticity. If you’ll allow me to confess my own shortcomings as a person and preacher, I know too well the temptation to exchange the cross of Christ for a respectable reputation and the praise of a community. In all honesty, I think preaching often offers the respect and admiration that many men have always wanted but were never able to attain, at least not to a sufficient degree. From personal experience, the pulpit renders a lot of social power…and it’s not always from Heaven.

Lest you think I’m being too harsh on those who preach, we should note that our leaders often become the products of our own iniquities. Preachers face enormous pressure to perform, please, and pamper their congregations because we have created a church culture that punishes authenticity. We don’t like prophets. We like puppets. We like when we can threaten our tithes, church attendance, and social influence in order to keep our church leadership “in line.” Therefore, our preaching and theology become reflections of the culture around us and reinforce what we already believe.

Matthew 16:26 reads, “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” This is now the question that haunts me. What will I profit if I attract large crowds and fill churches to the brim but forfeit the Gospel of the least of these? Sure, I may keep my reputation, honor, and respect, but have I lost sight of the Crucified One? We worship a man every week who was arrested and crucified for challenging those with heaps of social power, those much like ourselves in fact. My hunch is that we were never really interested in following Jesus to Golgotha. We seem more interested in the thirty pieces of silver that “pro-life” Republicans and “progressive” Democrats have offered us. We have neglected the poor in aspirations of power. We have forsaken justice in exchange for judges. We have cheapened grace with corporate greed. We have lost our love in the calls for law and order. Friends, we have become chaplains of the empire.

James Cone writes, “Church people must be able to point to something in their congregational life that is not simply a religious legitimation of the values of the social order in which they live.” Simply, if our churches are nothing more than factories of American socialization, then perhaps we gather weekly to worship something other than the Palestinian refugee named Jesus. I get it. We love the narrative that God is on our side and blessing the USA because we are so morally superior to the rest of the world. However, I am not ready to concede that God was “blessing” the Roman Empire, with all its might and power, when it murdered Jesus. Similarly, I’m not ready to concede that God has “blessed” the USA, with our enormous GDP and ungodly nuclear arsenal, when we live on land forcefully taken from indigenous peoples and live in an economy built on the forced labor of black bodies. I say this not because I detest America. Rather, I say it because I love America and believe our highest ideals of freedom and equality may still yet be achieved. If America is ever to be viewed as “great” in the eyes of God, our churches and preachers must realize that we have never been a country that prioritized the last over the first.

In their new book Taking America Back for God, Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry rightly argue, “Christian nationalism is significant because calls to ‘take America back for God’ are not primarily about mobilizing the faithful toward religious ends … They are instead seeking to retain or gain power in the public sphere – whether political, social, or religious. Christian nationalism is, therefore, ultimately about privilege. It co-opts Christian language and iconography in order to cloak particular political or social ends in moral and religious symbolism. This serves to legitimate the demands, wants, and desires of those embracing Christian nationalism in the transcendent. If God says the United States should take a particular stance, or pass a specific law, who are we to argue?” I certainly am not here to argue with God, but I am here to argue with the gods of militarism, greed, and racism to which we have so willingly bowed in allegiance.

So, what will people think if we do not bow? I’m not so sure it matters. The gate has always been small, and the road has always been narrow that leads to life, that leads to Jesus…and few find it (Matt. 7:14). Ironically, we can ignore the poor, reject the stranger, deny healthcare to the sick, starve the hungry, and chain the captive and still be seen as good, moral, respectable Christians as long as everyone else sees us walk through the church doors on Sunday to sing “Amazing Grace.” Fortunately, for those who know how exhausting, agonizing, and dishonest a life lived for others’ praise and respect can be, Jesus extends an invitation to authenticity and love, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 16:24-25). Christianity may be just another t-shirt, arena, or country club to our commodified culture, but I still believe the cross of Christ offers the power of liberation for those living in the “Land of the Free.” May we be brave enough carry it.