Letter to So-Called Christians
By Robert Alex Stubblefield
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
Hope you had a Good Easter season. I know you know how important this is to our faith. I also know that you know that the message and joy of the Resurrection means that just as Christ conquered death, so shall we conquer and rise over all foes. A beautiful thing indeed. Yet, I cannot help but feel that many of you have lost the message not only of the Crucifixion but of the message of the Bible itself. Indeed, I am particularly disturbed that many of you have subscribed to a form of Christianity that if Jesus himself were to walk the world right now, not only would he not recognize the religion that bares his name, but many of you would not allow him your churches and look down him just like the Pharisees and Sadducees of old.
Let me begin first with your obsession with Apocalypticism and being an alleged victim. This obsession with the end times borderlines on myopic fixation. Meaning that is all you focus on. Due to that, you use this fixation on the end times to judge people who do not believe what you want and as an excuse to justify your bigotry and hatred towards different groups of people. Let me begin by saying that how many times does it have to be said that we do not know when the end times are coming? Jesus clearly stated “That the day will come like a thief in the night.” Last time anyone checked, thieves do not tell anyone when they are coming. Second, Jesus clearly said that on the final day of Judgment that you will be judged by your fruits. Hating on people who are different goes against our faith. Need you be reminded of the Parable of the Good Samaritan? Clearly a refresher needs to be had. As described in Luke 10:30–35
“Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have”
Samaritans, as you may or may not be familiar with, were a different group of people, who practiced a different faith and had different customs and yet the Samaritan in contrast to the priest and Levite who were of the same ethnic group. Our neighbor is anyone who is need regardless of background. Yet you have abandoned that. I would like to use this to also discuss your victim mentality. How are you claiming to be a victim when you are, per the Pew Research Center roughly 64% of the majority of the population? I could be a bit more understanding if we were in a place where we are in the minority and there is clearly repression going on. But here in the United States where we have been for all intents and purposes been catered to, how are we victims? If anything, we, collectively speaking have been the victimizer. Some of you have been key in book bans and in some cases, book burning, doxxing librarians, passing some of the most repressive laws against women and members of the LGBTQ community, anti-blackness and anti-police reforms and in many cases justifying the killing of Black People by police terrorists. Is that that mark of a Christian or a Fascist? Is that the mark of a victim or a bully?
To continue on from the preceding paragraph, I would like to continue this hatred you have of immigrants, the poor, the marginalized. Beginning with immigrants, I have had the unfortunate pleasure of hearing your views of what is going on and being done to the immigrant community. To be frank, this siding with unjust power goes against everything our faith stands for. There are many scriptures that mandate us showing kindness and fair treatment for immigrants. You may not be familiar with Leviticus 19:33–34 but here it is:
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“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. 34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
This is from the Old Testament that clearly mandates us not to mistreat any foreigner that comes among us. Yet with immigrants being attacked by a corrupt government, we are clearly violating this mandate. If this Scripture is not enough here is Jeremiah 22:3 which reads as follows:
3 This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.”
This is a clear command from the lord. Do not wrong or commit violence to the foreigner. By constructing and praising holding cells for immigrants, this commandment is clearly being violate.
James 2:5–6 reads as follows: Listen My Brothers and Sisters: Has God not chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you to the court? What this verse from James reads is that the poor are not only where God is found but he condemns the wealthy who are constantly oppressing the poor. In the context then and now, the wealthy would drag the poor into to court to not only rob them of their land and increase the debt of the poor, but also to ensure that the poor are seen as pariahs in the yes of society. Even now with the wealthy pushing for data centers, they are disregarding those of us who protest data centers because of the clear harms to be paid protestors.
I also want to address your silence in the rise of Christian Nationalism/Christo-Fascism. I must admit where does it say that we side with unjust power as we are seeing now? Christianity demands by its very core to challenge unjust power. To side with the oppressed and to uplift the sick, the prisoner, the widow etc. We must remember that Jesus was from the oppressed peoples. The fact that many of you are not only silent but are actively endorsing statues of the current president and praying over it is not only blasphemous but it violates what Jesus said in Matthew 6:24 when he said “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon.” Mammon, is a term in Aramaic that means status, possessions and wealth earned via deceitful means. As history shows and teaches us that exploiting the poor contradicts everything we are taught to believe as Christians.
While it is nice to attend church regularly and read the Bible, if this is all you do, it makes you a modern-day Pharisee. Pharisees in addition to reading the Bible, but they use the Bible as a microscope for other peoples’ sins instead of a mirror for ourselves. For once you use the Bible as a mirror, it will tell things about yourself that you won’t like and will hold you accountable for the things you haven’t been doing. Being a Christian is to build a table and welcome people, not exclude. Be Humble and call out injustice, not side with it. If you continue this way, you aren’t a Christian. You are just a modern-day Pharisee. And that is something we as the Body of Christ need to stop doing. We must renounce what we have become and reclaim the liberatory message of Christ and actively be involved in our communities and organize along the oppressed.
#socialgospel #Christianity #LiberationTheology
Robert Alex Stubblefield is a poet, author, lay minister, lay theologian and activist-organizer currently located in the DMV. He is a member of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition, Racial Justice Now! Montgomery County Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, Young People for Progress, No Hindutva MD, and co-founder of the Black United Front and Moco Liberation Collective. He has been published in Black Agenda Report, Maryland Matters and Medium, writing on fascism, police brutality, cemetery desecration, and reparations. When not fighting the power, he can be found exercising or hanging with friends and family.
