Four biblical responses when Christians are stigmatized

Jennifer Welch was an Oklahoma City-based interior designer and reality show actress before launching a podcast in 2022. Titled “I’ve Had It,” her podcast now has 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube and 4.5 million followers across social media. She has interviewed former President Barack Obama, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), then-Vice President Kamala Harris, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, among many others.

Known for her profane rants against conservatives—she claims the 2024 assassination attempt on President Trump was “totally staged,” for example—she has now turned her ire on evangelicals.

Bonnie Kristian reports in the Free Press that Welch recently called us “the worst people in our country” and said in May, “I detest, with every molecule . . . in my being, evangelical Christianity. I think it is a dumb factory.”

Welch claims that “evangelical Christianity is the biggest racket on the planet” and repeatedly uses the epithet “cancer” to describe us. In her view, “Until we start dealing with this horrific cancer that is white evangelical Christianity in this country, we’re going to continue to have these problems.”

Kristian notes that “scorn heaped on evangelicals is not new.” She cites Yale University legal scholar Stephen L. Carter, who wrote in 1994 that secular progressives saw evangelicals as “wide-eyed zealots.”

Political scientist Ryan Burge explains: “People on the left side of the political spectrum need an enemy. They need to personify what the other side is, and because white evangelicals are so prominent in America, they have become the totem for all the liberal ire against conservatives in America.”

As corrosive to the common good as Welch’s rhetoric is, it is also a signal of something even more systemic, a trend we must recognize clearly so we can respond redemptively.

The four-part strategy continues

My wife and I watched a television show this week in which one of the female characters develops a romantic relationship with another woman. The other characters respond with delight that their colleague has finally “found someone” and hope their relationship lasts.

I was reminded again of the LGBTQ strategy that has been developed and followed over recent decades: normalize unbiblical immorality, legalize it, stigmatize those who disagree, and criminalize such disagreement.

However, the apparent chronological staging of this strategy is deceptive. Those who follow it will continue their efforts to normalize such immorality until they convince us that it is not immoral. Many will continue their work to legalize their immorality, as with current efforts to protect and legalize pedophilia. And they will continue stigmatizing those who disagree until there is no one left to disagree, all the while criminalizing such opposition in the service of the first three stages.

Jennifer Welch’s profane diatribes against evangelicals are obviously in the service of the stigmatizing stage. If Dr. Burge is right (and I think he is), we should not assume that there will not be others, or that criminalization of evangelicals who defend biblical morality is not in our future.

Numerous efforts have already been mounted to threaten our religious liberty, as the so-called Equality Act that passed the House twice demonstrates. Christianity Today reports that “across Western Europe, Christians report ‘discrimination and bullying’ and in some instances even ‘loss of employment’ for expressing faith-based opinions in their workplaces.” Some have even faced repercussions for views they expressed in private conversations or posted on private social media accounts.

Of course, such persecution does not begin to rise to the opposition believers face in North Korea, China, Cuba, and parts of the Muslim world. But when evangelicals are so blatantly stigmatized on one of the most popular podcasts in America, we should take note of where things are and where they may be going.

An “anonymous Christian” is a contradiction in terms

At this point, you might be discouraged by what you’ve read. My purpose, however, is just the opposite.

Jesus assured his followers, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5:11, my emphasis). Our Lord warned us that we would be persecuted just as he was persecuted, which makes sense: those who saw him as a threat would see his followers as a threat. If they opposed him for proclaiming truth, they would oppose his followers for doing the same (cf. Acts 5:17–40).

A simple way out of this, of course, is to be silent about our faith as we hide our beliefs from those who would oppose them. However, an “anonymous Christian” is a contradiction in terms. If a “Christian” is a “Christ imitator” (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:1; 1 John 2:6), we cannot imitate our Lord and be anything but vocal and courageous in speaking his word and advancing his kingdom (cf. Acts 4:19–20).

As a result, the more we are stigmatized for our faith, the more we can know that we are being appropriately public with our biblical beliefs. And the more we can know that Satan himself is using those willing to be used as he fights truth with lies.

Four practical responses

In this sense, it is an odd compliment when someone like Jennifer Welch castigates us so profanely and hatefully. Our response should be to expect such attacks, then to redeem them for God’s glory.

Here’s how the Bible teaches us to respond to those who oppose our faith:

1. “Forgive others their trespasses” (Matthew 6:14), choosing to pardon rather than to punish in the knowledge that we have been forgiven much as well (cf. Luke 7:47).
2. “Pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44), recognizing that the more they reject biblical truth, the more they need it.
3. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27), seeking tangible ways to meet their needs so as to earn the right to share Christ with them.
4. “Be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:9), asking God to help us “continue to speak your word with all boldness” (Acts 4:29).

In all things, we must remember that we are not “culture warriors” for whom people like Jennifer Welch are our enemies, but cultural missionaries for whom they are our mission field. The good news, as my wife writes in her latest blog, is that God’s Spirit can fill us with the same agape love that God’s Son has for us.

Then, as Janet notes, “we can love like Jesus.”

Whom do you know who needs such love today?

Quote for the day:

“The good man has his enemies. He would not be like his Lord if he had not. If we were without enemies, we might fear that we were not the friends of God, for friendship of the world is enmity to God.” —Charles Spurgeon

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A man was released from custody early this morning after being detained for questioning in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie. He said he had been in his car last night when police officers asked him for his name and then detained him. He was held for several hours, he said, before he was released with wrists swollen from handcuffs.

The news came after the FBI released video Tuesday showing a masked person with a handgun holster outside Ms. Guthrie’s front door the night she disappeared.

In other Tuesday headlines, seven people were found dead in a shooting at a high school in Tumbler Ridge, a remote community in British Columbia. Among them was a person believed to be the shooter, who died from an apparent self-inflicted injury.

Another person died while being transported to the hospital from the school; twenty-five people suffered injuries that were not life-threatening. Two other people were found dead in a local residence that police believe is connected to the shooting.

Jefferson, Lincoln, and the “will to power”

Since the Fall, vice has been a feature rather than a bug of human nature. From Cain to today, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The two phrases and experiences are connected and causal: “The wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lᴏʀᴅ. In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 10:3–4).

In reading Joseph J. Ellis’s American Dialogue: The Founders and Us, I found two examples that make the psalmist’s point.

The first concerns Thomas Jefferson, without question one of the most brilliant of our presidents. Yet according to Ellis, Jefferson “regarded it as self-evident that ‘blacks are inferior to whites in the endowments of both mind and body.’” As a result, he could not see an end to slavery: he was convinced that any mixing of blacks and whites would produce an inferior American race, so freed slaves would have to be deported from the US, but Jefferson could not identify a plausible way to do so.

The second concerns Abraham Lincoln, usually ranked by historians as the greatest of our presidents. Yet Ellis reports that he also considered a deportation scheme for freed slaves to be enacted after the Civil War, even dispatching a presidential commission to Panama to explore the viability of a black homeland there.

Both presidents illustrate the perennial fact that the “will to power” inflames and empowers fallen human nature (cf. Genesis 3:5). But Jefferson was right to write: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

Is there a way forward?

Ben Sasse on the source of meaning

In a perceptive new Wall Street Journal article, former Sen. Ben Sasse reminds us: “America works only if we remember that government is the source neither of our rights nor the meaning in our lives.” Given that Mr. Sasse is dying of pancreatic cancer, his wisdom resonates with particular urgency.

He is right: If our hope lies within us, we have no real hope. But if we will use the discouragements of the news and our culture to turn from ourselves to our redeeming Lord, he will do in us what we cannot do in ourselves.

While “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9), our Maker will give us a spiritual heart transplant: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you” (Ezekiel 36:26). When we trust Christ as our Lord, we “become children of God” (John 1:12) and a “new creation” as “the old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

However, if you’re like Paul (and me), you still struggle with temptation: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19).

The good news is that there is no sin we must commit (1 Corinthians 10:13). And there is a practical way we can experience “victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” every day (1 Corinthians 15:57).

“We need to reprogram our mind and heart”

In a recent Wisdom for Each Day devotional, Billy Graham likened our minds to computers that are programmed at the factory. Unfortunately, much of what programs us comes from our fallen culture and corrupts us. Dr. Graham therefore advised that “we need to reprogram our mind and heart; we need to replace the bad things that have taken root there with good and true things.”

The key is the word “replace.”

Years ago, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an important article titled “How People Change.” He cited a “trove of research suggesting that it’s best to tackle negative behaviors obliquely, by redirecting attention toward different, positive ones.”

Erasmus (c. 1469–1536) had similar advice, encouraging us to use temptation as an opportunity to trust more fully in God’s power to defeat it. He noted that Satan hates nothing so much as for evil to be used for good.

In practical terms:

• When we see something in the news that discourages us, pray for those involved. Ask Jesus to make himself real to them. Pray for God to use his people to make a difference where they have influence. Ask the Spirit to replace our fear with the “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,” knowing that it “will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

• When we face temptation, pray for the strength and wisdom to replace sin with godliness. Identify a positive action that would benefit us and others. Then ask Jesus to make himself real to us as he empowers us to be “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

The key is both simple and profound:

“Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

How fully will you be “transformed” into your Father’s image today?

Quote for the day:

“Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” —John Owen (1616–83)

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The American alpine ski racer Lindsey Vonn has been one of the most compelling stories at the Winter Olympics. A gold medalist at the 2010 Games, she retired in 2019 after a variety of injuries and underwent a partial knee replacement in 2024. After the surgery, she felt so healthy that she decided to return to her sport and prepared at the age of forty-one to compete in the current Games.

A week before competition began, she tore her left ACL during training. She persisted with her dream despite the pain. But she crashed in the downhill final Sunday and fractured her left tibia, an injury that will require multiple surgeries to repair.

“Have the courage to dare greatly”

Lindsey shared a lengthy Instagram post on Monday, in which she wrote:

While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets. Standing in the starting gate yesterday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget. Knowing I stood there having a chance to win was a victory in and of itself. . . .

And similar to ski racing, we take risks in life. We dream. We love. We jump. And sometimes we fall. Sometimes our hearts are broken. Sometimes we don’t achieve the dreams we know we could have. But that is also the beauty of life; we can try.

I tried. I dreamt. I jumped.

I hope if you take away anything from my journey, it’s that you all have the courage to dare greatly. Life is too short not to take chances on yourself. Because the only failure in life is not trying.

I marvel at the discipline and sacrifice that someone like Lindsey Vonn displays. And I feel inspired by her decision to use her platform at this very painful time to encourage the rest of us to follow her example, to “take risks in life” and to “take chances” on ourselves. She deserves our admiration for her courage in competing on behalf of our country.

However, I need to think with you about her last sentence I quoted. Her sentiment is by no means unique with Lindsey. In fact, it expresses powerfully what could be called the defining ethos of our day.

And this fact defines the greatest challenge of our day.

What our “greatest fear” should be

The author and pastor Francis Chan warned: “Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” This is another way of restating the old parable about the man who climbed the ladder of life only to discover that it was leaning against the wrong wall.

Of course, our postmodern, post-Christian, highly secularized culture has abandoned any notion that there is such a thing as a “wrong” wall. There’s no right or wrong, we’re assured, just what’s right or wrong for you, so do what makes you happy.

In this context, Lindsey’s admonition makes perfect sense: “The only failure in life is not trying.”

But the only failure in life, in a biblical context, is not trying to do God’s will in God’s power for God’s glory.

Why is this?

“A sense of being really at home in earth”

In C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, a chief tempter named Screwtape advises his demonic apprentice that humanity’s quest for prosperity “knits a man to the World. He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it,’ while really it is finding its place in him.”

Screwtape elaborates:

His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of being really at home in earth, which is just what we want.

If we do choose faith in the Lord, Lewis adds that Satan wants us to do so “not because it is true, but for some other reason.” Our enemy would rather we manipulate our faith for nefarious ends such as clergy abuse scandals. But he will accept our using faith for good reasons, so long as they are not the best reason, which is intimacy with the Almighty himself.

Anything less than such intimacy cuts us off from the source of life, which is the living Lord Jesus. He alone is the “cornerstone” of our faith (Ephesians 2:20). It is only when we “abide” in Jesus that we can bear “much fruit” (John 15:5).

Nothing we do in our fallen and finite capacities, even for our Lord, can replace what the God who made the universe can do in and through us.

Words I need to pray every morning

This is why Paul prayed that God would grant the Ephesian Christians “to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being” that they might “have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16, 18–19).

The apostle could offer his prayer in confidence, knowing that God “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (v. 20, my emphasis). His prayer is recorded in Scripture so it can be ours today.

I have often warned over the years that self-sufficiency is spiritual suicide. I didn’t read that in a book—I learned it personally. Depending on ourselves keeps the Spirit from doing what he can do only in lives fully yielded to him. This is why Satan loves to tempt us with the self-reliance that is so pervasive in our existentialist culture.

And it is why Jesus is knocking at the door of our hearts right now, seeking true intimacy with us (Revelation 3:20). As David said to our Lord, “Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life” (Psalm 23:6, MSG).

The bad news is that I need to pray these words from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer at the start of every day:

To my humble supplication
Lord, give ear and acceptation.
Save thy servant, that hath none
Help nor hope but thee alone. Amen.

The good news is that I can.

So can you.

Quote for the day:

“We are all servants. The only question is whom we will serve.” —R. C. Sproul

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Denison Forum