Warhorse
The Inconvenient Christ
Should never have typed that name in and looked at his posts on social media. Really shouldn’t let it get to me. Troubled by what I see. Something within me itches at the underside of my skin to get away, to step back from the artillery of hate. Fringe and brutal machinations that are penetrating the conversations around me, warping good intentions into hostility—good people crouching into reflexive postures. Got their dukes up, fists curled around curated headlines. Reframing constants like truth into confusion. AI fucking up the rest.
Lots of guns on here, too. Jesus and guns, some liquor and gym bros, and hating liberals. Jesus with a .50 cal. Kill the infidels—who are liberals and foreigners mostly. Rambo Christ has entered the chat. Defend the fatherland. Motherland. Whatever.
And just a few days ago, the white guys are always the bad guys, someone says. I don’t say anything because I’ve already said it. Maybe a frown like what the fuck are you talking about but we’ve done this dance before. Smart people unwilling to self-evaluate. Unwilling to consider they are part of the equation in our self-sabotage. The narrow stream of consciousness that never empties into an ocean of awareness, just keeps eroding at the land, cutting deep permanent lines into the earth between us.
Can’t say I’m a Christian now, can I. Too loaded. Really has nothing to do with Jesus anymore. It’s just leverage. Control. And really, I don’t think they ever got over him riding a donkey—they keep imagining him white, strong, with ammo belts across his chest, riding a warhorse. Conquest. Domination. Evisceration. They fetishize the Book of Revelation, waiting for apocalypse and blood. Judgement on their enemies.
If God looks like you, sounds like you, loves who you love, hates who you hate—you might just be staring at a mirror.
Asked a few years ago why I seem so angry at christians. Hypocrisy. It’s that simple. But what of grace, they say? Any grace for the church that raised you? If Jesus comes to judge anyone, it will be the church, I think. Only a little sarcastic. And let the thought hang there in the air.
Love your enemies is subversive and incongruent with American exceptionalism. With empire at all. You can’t keep turning Christ into a warlord. Or, maybe, you can, but then just be honest about it so we can openly disagree on what love your neighbor means.
Your kingdom come, your will be done.
I’m riding the same wave, brother.
Thank you for this. So many of my feelings but put together into words in a way I am not able. "Really shouldn't let it get to me." But it does, has for ten years. Stays near the top. "Rambo Christ...riding a warhorse...fetishiz[ing] the Book of Revelation...Christ into a warlord" How do so many good and smart people do this? Exceptionalism is surely a powerful force...winning, better than, more deserving, me first, me, me, me, I, I, I. Phil 2:1-11 should be enough, nothing else needs to be said. And yet...Appreciate what you are doing, please keep writing.