When Faith Gets Hijacked…
Finding Jesus Beyond the Divide
“This is not a finished argument, but an unfolding reflection – shared over the next few days as I put words to what has been weighing on my heart.”
Updated January 23rd: “This is not a statement against the Church. I love the Church—the Body of Believers. It is a statement against the obstacles we have created that keep people from entering freely, fully, and without qualification into the life of the Body.” – Pastor Brian
Day 1 – When Faith Loses its Center
There is a quiet grief I carry when I look at the state of faith in our world today – especially here in the United States.
It’s not because faith no longer exists.
It’s because faith feels increasingly misplaced.
Somewhere along the way, faith became easier to identify by its alliances than by its resemblance to Jesus. It became tied to political positions, cultural identities, social causes, and ideological camps. You can often predict what someone believes about God based on what “side” they’re on – and that alone should give us pause.
Because faith was never meant to belong to a side.
It was meant to belong to Jesus.
This isn’t a statement of neutrality. It’s a statement of alignment – just not the kind we’ve grown used to. Faith was always meant to be rooted in the fullness of who Jesus was and is, and in who God the Creator created us to be. Not trimmed down to fit a movement. Not repurposed to support power. Not simplified into slogans or talking points.
And yet, here we are.
We live in a moment where faith is often louder than it is loving. Where certainty is prized over humility. Where winning arguments seems more important than reflecting Christ. Where belonging is conditional and grace comes with fine print.
What troubles me most is not disagreement. Disagreement has always existed within the church. What troubles me is how easily faith now becomes a divider rather than a witness – how quickly it can harden into something that looks nothing like Jesus.
This reflection is not about abandoning faith.
It’s about reclaiming it.
It’s about asking hard questions – not to tear the church down, but to call it back to its center. It’s about noticing where faith has drifted, where it has been co-opted, and where it has quietly lost its way. And it’s about being honest enough to admit that many of us – myself included – have been shaped by these currents more than we’d like to admit.
I don’t write this as an outsider throwing stones. I write it as someone who loves the church deeply and believes the Gospel is still good news – especially for a divided world. But only if it remains rooted in Jesus.
Over the next few days, I want to slow down and examine what has happened to faith when it becomes tangled with power, fear, and control. We’ll talk about what happens when faith stops healing and starts harming. When it turns into a weapon instead of a witness. When we assume authority we were never given and begin deciding who belongs, who is welcome, and who needs fixing before they can even begin the journey.
This will not be comfortable.
But it is necessary.
Because if faith has lost its center, the answer is not to defend it harder – it’s to return.
Tomorrow, we’ll confront one of the hardest truths of all: what happens when faith, meant to bring life, is used to wound.
And we’ll ask the question we cannot avoid much longer:
What does faith look like when it no longer looks like Jesus?
“Tomorrow, we confront one of the hardest truths of all: when faith meant to bring life becomes a source of harm.”
Day 2 – When Faith Becomes a Weapon
There is a difference between faith that challenges us
and faith that harms others.
The first is part of discipleship.
The second is a distortion.
Somewhere along the way, Christianity began to be used not just to call people toward life, but to keep people at a distance. Faith, meant to heal and restore, became something sharper – something conditional. And when that happens, it stops looking like Jesus.
If faith requires us to discount, demean, or demonize people created in the image of God, then it is no longer Christian – no matter how carefully it is justified or how confidently it is proclaimed.
That statement may feel unsettling. It should.
Christianity was never meant to be used to exclude, shame, or discard. It was never intended to function as a sorting mechanism – deciding who is worthy of care, who is worth the effort, or who brings enough value to justify inclusion. When faith begins to operate on a return-on-investment mindset – who benefits the church, who drains resources, who is “too complicated,” who takes too long – it has already departed from the Gospel.
Jesus never treated people as liabilities.
He did not avoid those who complicated His ministry. He did not measure worth by productivity, usefulness, or readiness. Again and again, Jesus moved toward the marginalized, the misunderstood, the inconvenient – not because they were easy, but because they were human. Image-bearers. Beloved.
And yet, in our time, faith is often used as a boundary instead of a bridge.
We see it when people are reduced to labels instead of stories. When differences become “disqualifiers.” When “truth” is wielded without love and conviction is stripped of compassion. This is how faith becomes a weapon – not through overt cruelty, but through quiet dismissal. Through theological correctness without relational responsibility.
To be clear, this is not a call to abandon truth.
It is a call to refuse cruelty in its name.
Truth without love hardens.
Conviction without compassion wounds.
The Gospel holds tension better than we do. It tells the truth about sin while never losing sight of dignity. It confronts brokenness without crushing the broken. And it does so because every person – before belief, behavior, or belonging – bears the image of God.
When we forget that, faith becomes dangerous.
Not because Jesus is dangerous – but because we begin using His name to defend things He never modeled. Exclusion. Shame. Disposability. These are not fruits of the Spirit. They are symptoms of fear masquerading as faith.
But the problem runs deeper than behavior alone.
The issue isn’t just what we’ve believed.
It’s the authority we’ve assumed.
Somehow, we moved from witnesses to gatekeepers. From ambassadors to enforcers. From inviters to inspectors. And tomorrow, we have to confront the uncomfortable question that follows:
Who gave us permission to decide who gets to come to God?
That’s where this reflection leads next – because until we address the authority we’ve claimed, we will continue repeating the harm we claim to oppose.
Day 3 – Who Put Us in Charge of the Door?
There is a subtle shift that happens when faith moves from invitation to inspection.
It doesn’t happen all at once.
It happens quietly. Gradually. Often with good intentions.
At some point, we stop asking how can we help someone take a step toward God?
And we start asking are they ready, qualified, or acceptable enough to begin?
And that’s the moment faith begins to trade trust for control.
One of the most honest questions we can ask right now is this:
Who decides who gets to come to God?
Somewhere along the way, belonging began to require pre-approval. People were expected to understand, agree, behave, and conform before they could even begin the journey. Faith became gated. Managed. Monitored. And often justified with the language of “truth,” “order,” or “protecting the church.”
But Scripture tells a different story.
Jesus did not position Himself as a gatekeeper. He revealed a God who is a Shepherd – one who notices the one who wanders and goes after them. In Matthew 18, Jesus describes a Father who is not willing that even one should be lost. Not written off. Not delayed. Not deemed unworthy of pursuit.
That image alone should disrupt how we think about authority.
Because the Shepherd does not stand at the gate demanding explanations.
He leaves the ninety-nine and goes looking.
And yet, so often, we reverse the posture. We wait. We watch. We evaluate. We decide whether someone is “ready enough” for belonging – as if belonging were a reward rather than the starting place.
But invitation always precedes transformation.
People do not walk with God because they were first accepted by us. They walk because they were invited into relationship. Growth comes later. Conviction comes later. Change unfolds over time. And Scripture is clear: that work belongs to God.
We were never called to be convictors.
We were never called to be judges.
We were never called to be gatekeepers.
Those roles were never assigned to us.
Peter reminds us that God is patient – far more patient than we are – “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” God’s patience is not permissiveness; it is mercy. It creates space for return, not barriers to entry.
When the church assumes control over access to God, it does more than overstep authority – it misrepresents God’s heart.
This doesn’t mean boundaries don’t matter. It doesn’t mean truth disappears. It doesn’t mean everything is affirmed or resolved instantly. But it does mean that belonging is not conditional. It is foundational.
The Gospel does not begin with “prove it.”
It begins with “come.”
And perhaps that’s what unsettles us most.
Because releasing control means trusting God to do what only God can do. It means loosening our grip on outcomes, timelines, and appearances. It means remembering that our role was never to manage doors – but to walk with people once they step through.
Tomorrow, we’ll turn the corner toward something freeing – and challenging:
remembering our actual role in this story, and releasing the one that was never ours to hold.
Day 4 – Some Plant. Some Water. God Grows
There is a quiet relief in remembering what was never ours to control.
For many of us, faith has become exhausting – not because we don’t care, but because we’ve been carrying weight we were never meant to hold. We measure progress, monitor outcomes, and worry when growth doesn’t happen fast enough or look the way we expected. Over time, faith begins to feel less like trust and more like management.
But Scripture offers a different rhythm.
Paul reminds the church in Corinth of a simple, grounding truth: some plant, some water – but God brings the growth. Not some of it. Not eventually. God brings the growth. And in that reminder, something shifts.
Faithfulness is not the same as control.
We were given roles, not outcomes. We were invited into participation, not ownership. The Kingdom of God was never built on competition, comparison, or control – it was built on collaboration and trust. Different people play different parts, at different times, in different ways. No role is superior. No contribution is insignificant.
And yet, we often measure people by speed, productivity, or usefulness. We celebrate quick change and visible results, while quietly growing impatient with slow growth, complex stories, or lives that don’t follow a clean trajectory. When results aren’t immediate, we grow weary. When progress is uneven, we get discouraged. And without realizing it, we start to manage people instead of walking with them.
This is where faith subtly shifts again.
Because when we try to control growth, we inevitably control people.
We control access, pace, expectations, and outcomes. We adjust belonging based on progress. We reward those who move quickly and sideline those who take longer. And in doing so, we confuse fruitfulness with faithfulness.
But the Kingdom doesn’t operate on efficiency.
The work of God unfolds over time – often slower than we want and messier than we expect. Growth happens beneath the surface before it ever becomes visible. And the moment we accept that, something important is restored: patience. Humility. Trust.
This doesn’t mean effort doesn’t matter. It means effort has limits. Planting matters. Watering matters. Showing up faithfully matters. But growth – real, lasting, transformative growth – belongs to God alone.
And that truth frees us.
It frees us from burnout rooted in false responsibility. It frees us from competition disguised as calling. It frees us to celebrate faithfulness in ourselves and in others, even when the harvest is still unseen.
If this is true – if God brings the growth – then everything about how we measure success must change. And so must how we measure people.
Tomorrow, we turn toward the final question this reflection demands: what actually establishes worth in the Kingdom of God – and what happens when we finally let that truth reshape how we see one another.
Day 5 – A Faith Worth Returning To
If faith is worth anything at all, it must be worth returning to.
Not returning to certainty.
Not returning to comfort.
Not returning to control.
Returning to Jesus.
Over these past days, we’ve named some hard truths – about faith entangled with power, about harm done in the name of belief, about authority assumed instead of entrusted, and about the exhausting weight of trying to control what only God can grow. None of this was written to tear faith down. It was written because faith matters too much to be left distorted.
Jesus never reinforced the hierarchies we cling to. He dismantled them.
Again and again, He inverted the systems we trust. The first were not always first. The powerful were not always right. The qualified were not always chosen. In the Kingdom Jesus announced, value was not earned through pedigree, performance, or position. It was given – freely – because every person bears the image of their Creator.
That truth changes everything.
Worth is not conditional.
Belonging is not a reward.
The Kingdom of God does not operate on human categories.
There are no prerequisites to dignity. No moral résumés required for welcome. No qualifications that elevate one image-bearer over another. Race, ethnicity, wealth, education, housing status, political belief, addiction, mental health, faith background, or who someone loves – none of these disqualify a person from being seen, valued, and welcomed as fully human and deeply loved by God.
If faith demands that we rank people, it has drifted from Jesus.
If faith requires us to withhold belonging, it has lost the heart of the Gospel.
The invitation before us is not to abandon faith. It is to be honest about what faith has become – and brave enough to return to what it was always meant to be. A faith rooted in Christ. A faith that trusts God with growth. A faith that refuses to lose even one. A faith that sees people not as problems to solve, but as lives to love.
This is not a call to agreement.
It is a call to honesty.
And I want to be clear about something as this reflection closes.
I love the Church. I cherish the Body of Christ. I believe in her calling, her beauty, and her witness in the world. I write these words not from a place of distance, but from deep belonging. From lived experience. From wounds felt and carried. From moments of disillusionment – and from moments of profound healing.
I share only what I believe God continues to lay on my heart: the hurt I see, the hurt I have felt, and the growing joy of understanding as His healing becomes real in my own life. This is not about accusation. It is about hope. The kind that tells the truth because it believes restoration is possible.
There is a faith worth returning to.
Not because it is easy.
But because it looks like Jesus.
And that is where I choose to stand.
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