Christianity has really bad public relations, and I think a lot has to do with the Christian right or Christian conservatives. Again, Christian right is diverse and have internal divides, but I’m generalizing to what the majority or average Christian conservative right and behaves. The Christian right advocate for policies and legislation aligned with their flavor conservative Christian beliefs, like pro-life advocacy and opposition abortions, promoting “traditional” family values and opposing the LGBTQ+, and trying to push their values into education. They also have a kind of puritanical skew of trying to censor media and making the culture less secular. The public sees Christianity as that old conservative religious nut that’s stuck in a bubble of bygone traditions. It’s not a good look.

There’s another weird ideological framework brewing in America among the Christian right [Donald Trump, January 6, Marjorie Taylor Greene]: Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism merges Christianity with national identity, asserting that a nation should be defined by Christian values and that its government should promote those values in laws, policies, and public life. It often implies that Christianity should have a privileged role in shaping the nation’s culture, institutions, and policies. The Christian Right uses Christian Nationalist rhetoric to motivate voters and justify policies by invoking religious heritage and divine purpose. And it’s no surprise it’s making a comeback these days with society becoming more secular and the church losing its power of people. They mobilized voters for conservative political candidates through evangelical churches and advocacy groups, and they’re trying to gain more power. This is starting to sound f-f-f-fascist.

What’s the relationship between fascism and Christian nationalism? Although Christian nationalism and fascism are distinct ideologies, they share authoritarian, exclusionary, and ultranationalist traits.  Recent Christian nationalist movements in the U.S. share authoritarian, nationalistic, and exclusionary rhetoric similar to historical fascist movements. The calls to merge church and state, enforce biblical laws, and view certain demographics as threats echo fascist principles. Fascist regimes historically used religious institutions when it suited their goals, while Christian nationalism seeks to place Christianity at the core of national identity and governance. When Christian nationalist movements adopt authoritarian policies or suppress dissent under the guise of “defending” religious values, they risk moving toward a fascist-like structure, blending religious zeal with political power. Back to the good old days of the medieval times.

Is Christianity committed to conservative positions? Is Christian doctrine inherently bigoted?  No. These views on abortion, gay rights, and purity are based on narrow readings of the bible and these political views have been largely developed by the church and its contrived morality throughout history. We need to look at the cultural influences on biblical interpretation and how this has emerged into a church morality. As a historical text, the Bible is a collection of a lot of different texts with different genres, cultures, histories, and theological perspectives. The biblical canon, as we know it now, didn’t even exist until the fourth century, and a bunch of important people landed on 27 books (pulled out of their historical contexts) and lumped it together to make the new testament (and a bunch of other stuff, the apocryphal books, didn’t make the cut). The complexity increases when theologians and church councils try to extract ethical lessons from it. Obviously there’s going to be a bias towards interpreting texts that correspond to their particular cultural norms and self-interests. 

For example, homosexuality is condemned by a literal reading of Leviticus [insert passages]. But are Christians supposed to be extracting literal ethics from this text that reflects ancient cultural norms, or are they rather supposed to see the context of the literature and find the nuanced principles? Leviticus reflects the legal, moral, and ritual concerns of the ancient Israelites, living in a tribal, agricultural society. Understanding its cultural background helps explain its focus on purity, temple worship, and ancient justice. These laws aimed to distinguish Israel from neighboring pagan cultures by setting strict moral and ritual standards. The lesson isn’t literal, it’s symbolic and allegorical. Purity laws symbolically represent spiritual cleanliness and not just empty physical practices. Leviticus is about God’s covenant with Israel, highlighting the responsibilities of the people in maintaining that relationship through obedience and ritual observance. Look at the spiritual principles behind the rituals, like reverence for the sacred, respect for life, and community justice. Use Leviticus to reflect on ethics, social responsibility, and the meaning of sacred living in a secular world.

We do this all the time for other pieces of literature. For example, take the story of Icarus. Before he was a super smash bros character, he was in a classic Greek myth: Icarus’s father gave him a pair of wings to fly around, but his father said not to fly too close to the sun; of course he does, the wax in the wings melt, and he falls into the sea. Do we read this text literally and extract the rule that “if given a pair of wings, we should not fly too close to the sun”? Or is it a fiction based on the historical context and contains a nuanced principle warning against hubris and the consequences of overreaching without listening to wise counsel.

Other conservative Christian commitments are just a product of historical contingency in the church. The Bible does not explicitly mention abortion, and Christian interpretations have varied historically. The idea of “sexual purity” developed within church tradition, influenced by Greco-Roman ethics and medieval church teachings on sin and virtue. While Christian institutions have historically been associated with bigotry (e.g., racism, colonialism, sexism), they originate from political power struggles and institutional corruption, and nothing in Christian doctrine supports this and likely condemns it. Christian communities have historically driven social reform, including civil rights movements, poverty alleviation, and refugee advocacy.

You might ask: isn’t your interpretation of a more liberal Christianity also just an interpretation, and isn’t it possible that “true” Christianity is really bigoted and you’re just creating a new sect of liberal Christianity? A “new” Christianity like “new” atheism? Maybe, but I’m not doing anything new and just echoing old ideas here. This area of scholarship is called hermeneutics or the theory and methodology of interpretation (or exegesis) of text. Just like any historical text, there are better and worse ways of interpreting them, and what scholars do is argue that this way is better than another. That’s what we’re doing here. The reason most people don’t know about these more nuanced and sophisticated ways of looking at Christianity is that it isn’t what we see around us. Conservative Christians might point to me as a heretic that’s spouting false teachings, that I’m going to hell, and that their approach to Christianity is the right one. But I can only follow what I think is the most true and argue that this interpretive approach to the Bible comes closest to “true” Christianity. I’m probably missing a lot of nuance here, but it’s a YouTube video and there’s only so much theology research I can bare to do sober.

It might be useful to draw an analogy between interpreting the Bible and interpreting, say, the US constitution. One dominant camp of interpreting the constitution, called “originalists”, asserts that the meaning of the U.S. Constitution should be understood based on the intent of its authors or the original public meaning at the time it was written. Like literal interpretations of the bible, we’re supposed to understand the text as a fixed and timeless piece through the lens of the original writer. But even originalists today, while holding onto originalists principles, concede to the development of new precedents or cases that apply the law in different ways; on the other hand, literalists of the bible ignore theological developments and hold that the words are unchanging and divinely inspired. I take this to be an untenable way of reading the Bible. You’re going to end up with absurd literal readings of things, like the world being created in literally seven days, that conflicts with basic understandings of the natural world and scientific progress. You’re also going to be committed to literal pieces of archaic morality that’s situated in an ancient time when survival was difficult, women were property, and civil rights were unheard of.

In Canada, our approach to interpreting the constitution is what’s known as living tree constitutionalism. Surprise, we have a constitution; a lot of Canadians don’t know that we have a constitution from 1867. Living tree constitutionalism is a separate camp from originalist interpretations, and it approaches the constitution as a dynamic and evolving document that must be interpreted in light of contemporary societal values. Like a “living tree”, it can grow and expand gradually. I think this is the right approach to reading the Bible. The core doctrine, or the trunk of the tree, remains in place, but the branches and leaves can grow and change with the times. Obviously, we need some boundary for the core Christian doctrine, and some conservative sentiment of preserving tradition is probably right when it comes to like Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Although I like their short sleeve dress shirt look.

But the problem with modern Christianity comes from the peripheral debates on political issues that have somehow become central in the church. Christianity needs to separate from politics and Christians need to distance themselves from the Christian right or conservatives. If it wants to engage with the people and make society better, start by focusing on the marginalized like Jesus did. That happens to be the people the Christian Right don’t like right now: the poor, the refugees, the minorities, or the LGBTQ+. What happened to Christians today? What’s wrong with Christians? Why are they like this?

Well, let’s go straight to the source. What’s making Christians? The institution of Christianity. The church. I think Christianity’s bad PR problem begins and ends with the church. Churches have lost their focus, scope, and original purpose. Churches aren’t meant to dive into political issues, nor are they supposed to do all the thinking for Christians for them, nor are they supposed to police a morality to follow. Churches are supposed to guide people to truly follow Jesus. Churches have failed Christians.

And I’m not even talking the obviously bad ones, like the mega churches with millionaire pastors or the ones with sexual scandals. I’m talking about your average church. They led them astray with a focus on a weird church morality instead of focusing on the core teachings of Christianity. Again, church morality is not Christian morality; rather, they’re a weird parasitic mutant of Christian morality. It’s another remnant of medieval churches. There’s a weird hierarchy and power dynamic, and subtle rules and repressions that have continued throughout generations. Like you’re not supposed to swear or have premarital sex, but why are those things put front and center while ignoring things like helping the homeless, victims of sexual abuse, or advocating for the rights of the marginalized? Is it a coincidence that restrictions on foul language has also been emphasized by the morality of the upper class? Or that virginity was historically linked to patriarchal property rights? We saw a history of people coopting church morality for their own agenda.

The church is carrying on historical blunders and not learning from their mistakes. The overemphasis on church morality leads to arrogant, hypocritical, preachy Christians. They’re sheltered from engaging in any real social issues and are fed conservative church ethics. The focus on proselytizing while being sheltered from the rest of society leads to invasive and insensitive and out of touch Christians. The church needs to update its approach to doctrine. I’m seriously not sure how this can be done and what it takes to change a lot of people’s minds. It’s like trying to get somebody who is politically far right to become politically far left.

Maybe education? Start by educating the people in power at the churches and hope it trickles down? There’s certainly a lot of good scholarship out there and information is readily accessible more than ever. But there might be too much information and it’s not the job of pastors or church leaders to be scholars. There’s also the risk that they take the bits and pieces of scholarship, misconstrue it, and use it to reaffirm their established beliefs. It’s common for people not to change their views, and church leaders might see their obtuse commitments to their theological beliefs to be a virtue and fail to ever consider different points of view. They present facile accounts of other religions, ignore the complexities of social issues, and have no nuance when it comes to challenging problems. But it’s not their fault. Partly because of their job and partly because of the dogmatic church morality, they are insulated from much of the secular world and only experience a small slice of it. Maybe it’s not their job to engage with the various issues in the modern world and have a complete answer in a single hour sermon or to radically change the institution of the church and its moral commitments that have survived generations. Maybe more direct education is the answer.

The critique of the church, church goers, and their moral failings is nothing new. We saw Martin Luther and his 95 theses, but there have been several others: Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) critiqued certain church practices and advocated reason alongside faith. Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) criticized religious hypocrisy within the church while defending Christianity through works like Pensées, emphasizing the limits of reason and the necessity of faith. John Locke (1632–1704) criticized religious intolerance and advocated for the separation of church and state in A Letter Concerning Toleration. Paul Tillich (1886–1965) critiqued traditional religious dogma while seeking to reinterpret Christianity through existential and philosophical frameworks in works like The Courage to Be. Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) criticized both religious idealism and secular liberalism, arguing for a Christian realism that recognizes human sinfulness in politics and society.

But my personal favorite is by a guy named Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher that lived from 1813-1855. Kierkegaard argued that the institutional church turned Christianity into a bureaucratic system where rituals and dogma replaced authentic faith. In Attack Upon Christendom, he criticized the Danish Lutheran Church for being too entangled with the state and serving societal respectability rather than spiritual transformation. He viewed the clergy as being more concerned with power, social status, and maintaining political control than with guiding people toward experiencing authentic Christianity. He described them as “officials” rather than spiritual leaders, and he accused them of reducing Christianity to a set of rules and moralistic preaching. He argued that church leaders promoted a “Christianity without Christ” and reduced the radical message of Jesus to a set of moral platitudes and political alliances. Kierkegaard emphasized that Jesus Christ was a radical figure who opposed social privilege and hypocrisy. You can see why I like this guy so much. He should have made this video.

Modern Christianity and the church is still the way Kierkegaard describes the churches of his day. It’s become a social club with a touch of spirituality mixed in. People like being a part of crowds and something bigger than themselves. At least that’s what they told me at the AA meetings–it’s sacrament wine, how bad could it be? I’m not going to go into the psychology of the church and religion here; many other people much smarter than me have written so much on that topic. But I worry about how many people these days that call themselves “Christian” are being deluded into a “false” Christianity.

Kierkegaard criticized churches for making Christianity easy and comfortable. He believed that individual faith was at the core of Christianity and that salvation could not be mediated by the church or through external rites. He believed that the church presented faith as a routine, reducing it to weekly attendance, passive acceptance of doctrines, and church membership. He opposed the notion that being “Christian” was merely about cultural identity or following a set of norms. He argued that true Christianity required an existential leap of faith which is like an intense personal commitment to God.

True Christianity, for Kierkegaard, is not about belonging to a church, rather it’s a personal and existential commitment to Christ. True Christianity, requires struggle, risk, and commitment, and it’s characterized by personal suffering, self-denial, and individual responsibility before God. He considered reliance on the church as a way people avoided confronting their spiritual struggles, thus deepening their existential despair. He emphasized the “leap of faith”, where an individual must confront existential despair and make a personal, unconditional commitment to God (beyond rational understanding; Kierkegaard’s philosophy of religion is complicated). Kierkegaard stressed that authentic Christianity is a difficult path requiring radical obedience to God. Apparently about 2.5 billion people around the world call themselves “Christian”, but how many of them are the type of Christian as Kierkegaard describes?

There’s a type of person who calls them Christian that aren’t “really” Christians in this sense, especially from the way they behave. Obviously we can’t know their internal states or what personal issues they struggle with, but I think there’s an intuitive understanding. If I protest and throw slurs at a gay soldier’s funeral and claim I’m a Christian, that seems so far removed from what Jesus would do that you probably wouldn’t call them Christian. That’s one extreme example as an illustration. But there’s another type of Christian that Kierkegaard suggests also aren’t “really” Christian, and there seem to be a lot more of them.

CS Lewis calls them “lukewarm” Christians. You might call them the “Sunday” or “causal” Christian. If Kierkegaard is right, then these people likely aren’t true Christians either because they behave in a way that doesn’t reflect an absolute unconditional commitment to God. They follow the rites and rituals of Christianity, they go through the motions of being a church goer, maybe they’re even better people for following the moral example of Jesus, but they haven’t made the radical leap to fully commit themselves to God. CS Lewis seems to agree with Kierkegaard that true Christianity is all-or-nothing. He writes, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” Either Christianity it true, there is a God, and your entire world and way of seeing everything is turned upside down because of it, or it’s not true and who cares about some fake religion. I wouldn’t waste my time with Christianity if it wasn’t true. 

But I do think it’s true. And it structures my entire being and gives me a happiness and fulfillment that I can’t explain. And I want other people to have that. But it can’t be done by shoving religion down people’s throats. And people are so off-put by the current state of Christianity that they wont even consider it. Christianity needs to earn trust with the rest of the world.