In His Steps...

 I attended an Evangelical middle school, and during my eighth grade year we read the book In His Steps by Charles Sheldon (published in 1896) for English class. This book is the origin of the phrase "What Would Jesus Do?", which was once so beloved by Evangelicals that there was a whole line of bracelets and clothing with the logo "WWJD" as a constant reminder to the wearer and their Evangelical peers of how they ought to behave. 

One of the class exercises we did was to pick a character from the book and act in character, without saying the name of the character, to see how long it would take our classmates to guess which character we'd chosen. And, if I could somehow be transported back to that classroom as 13-year-old me and do it over, I'd want to say this:

"The majority of America's Christians, especially the ones in rich conservative churches, are deeply hypocritical. They are far more interested in the pursuit of wealth, power, political gains, and satisfying their own egos than in following the example and commandments of the savior they claim to worship (who lived and died penniless and refused to pursue political power even though he could easily have had it). They are fully invested in maintaining a status quo that grinds people into poverty and homelessness, drives people into alcoholism and political extremism, and is creating a Gilded Age of wealth inequality that is certain to end in global disaster. 

If the church is to have any credibility at all, then church members need to stop trying to change the behavior of other people and start changing their own. They need to stop trying to force other people to follow their religion's principles and start actually following their religion's principles. If the church cannot do that, it has no real purpose at all, and its current functions would be better performed by a country club.

But hey, what do I know, I'm just Charles Sheldon, the author of a book from a century ago. Surely by the time you're reading my book, conservative American Christians will have learned the lessons it teaches, repented and changed their behavior accordingly, right?...

...

Right? ...

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RIGHT?????

...

..."

*deep sigh*