I spent this morning reading through the latest Barna data, and I’ll be honest: my coffee went cold before I finished the first page.
They call it a "retreat" of faith. They look at Gen Z adults walking away from the pews and they see a tragedy. But as I sat there in the quiet of a Florida December—the air thick with that strange, heavy stillness—I found myself whispering a word that might sound like heresy to some: Good.
For decades, we’ve been told that to be a "Good Christian" was to be a "Good American." We’ve spent forty years building cathedrals out of nationalism and calling it the Gospel. We’ve turned the Prince of Peace into a Secretary of Defense. But as we look at the political landscape of 2025—saturated with Project 2025 rhetoric and the absolute weaponization of "biblical principles"—the Ghost is finally leaving the cathedral.
And thank God for that.
The Great Un-Naming
We are living through a "Great Un-Naming." We are finally calling "Christian Nationalism" what it is: a weapon of mass destruction aimed at the soul of the poor. When we hear leaders talk about "reclaiming America for God," they aren't talking about the God who told us to welcome the stranger or feed the hungry. They are talking about a god of borders, a god of hierarchies, and a god of exclusion.
If your "Gospel" requires a deportation force to function, it’s not a Gospel. It’s a manifesto.
Planting in the Graveyard
A lot of my colleagues on Blogger are writing about the "death of the church." They look at the empty seats and they see a graveyard. But as a student of spirituality and religious philosophies, I know something they don’t: Things grow best in graveyards.
The "Silk Gospel" of the early 2000s—the high-end, seeker-sensitive, feel-good theology—is dead. It didn't survive the $15-an-hour economy. It didn't survive the housing crisis. Our friends aren't looking for a "vibrant kid's ministry" anymore; they are looking for a community that will help them pay their light bill and look them in the eye without judgment.
They don't want a "Christian" version of the world. They want a world that actually looks like Jesus.
The Radical Middle of Nowhere
So, where do we go? We go to the "Blind Spots."
We go to the places the system has forgotten. We stop asking "How do we get people back into the pews?" and start asking "How do we get the pews out into the streets?"
Following Jesus in 2026 isn't going to look like a Sunday morning program. It’s going to look like:
Mutual Aid: Because SNAP benefits aren't enough, and a parable doesn't fill a stomach.
Radical Sanctuary: Because the "National Identity" is a lie when it requires the suffering of the immigrant.
Theology of the Body: That moves beyond "sexual autonomy battles" and back to the radical idea that everyone is a bearer of the Divine Image.
A Christmas Eve Prayer for the Disillusioned
Tonight is Christmas Eve. Somewhere, a preacher is going to stand behind a pulpit draped in a flag and tell you that God is on the side of the powerful.
Ignore them.
Look instead to the manger—the original "blind spot." God didn't show up in a palace or a policy paper. God showed up in a barn, to a family of displaced nobodies, in the middle of a census ordered by a strongman.
If you feel disillusioned, you aren't "falling away." You are finally getting close enough to see the Truth.
What do you think? Are we ready to stop watering the dust of the old institution and start looking for the riverbank? Leave a comment below. I'm challenging us to be better.