“The Gospel of Denial: America’s Christian Identity Crisis”
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Michael A. Smith
Associate Adjunct Professor
University of Maryland
The Gospel of Denial
America wears its Christian identity like a tattered mantle—visible, symbolic, yet worn thin from contradiction. Though never constitutionally declared a Christian nation, it long professed moral values rooted in faith: compassion for the vulnerable, justice for the oppressed, and humility before the truth. But in recent decades, this moral framework has shifted from conviction to convenience. Christianity is no longer the nation's conscience—it has become its cover.
We see this dissonance in a nation that bombs foreign soil under the pretense of peace, expels immigrants from land it once stole, and debates the morality of sex crimes with more concern for political optics than for victims. We see it in selective silence—the refusal to name and confront evil when it implicates the powerful. The Christian voice that once challenged injustice now too often blesses it, anesthetized by partisanship and moral amnesia.
This article does not seek to bury faith but to resurrect it: not through sanitized nostalgia, but by grappling honestly with America’s spiritual disfigurement. If the nation wishes to invoke the name of Christ, it must first recall the Christ who dined with outcasts, defied corrupt authority, and exposed hypocrisy—not the one conjured to justify empire.
I. The Illusion of Righteousness
America’s invocation of Christianity has long served as both comfort and camouflage. Political leaders often lace their speeches with Scripture, courts still inscribe “In God We Trust,” and the electorate lionizes candidates who publicly profess their faith, regardless of their ethics. Yet beneath this performance lies a troubling inversion: faith, once a check against corruption, now acts as an accelerant. The national conscience is anesthetized—not by the absence of religion, but by its manipulation.
We do not see Christian humility in our immigration policy. We see fences. Detention centers. Family separation. We do not see Christian mercy in our foreign engagements. We see drones. Airstrikes. Economic sanctions that starve civilians. These actions are not devoid of religion; they are done with its name invoked. A nation that once asked, “What would Jesus do?” now asks, “What can we get away with while wearing His name?”
Consider the paradox: America mourns the loss of “biblical values” in schools, yet cheers the political leaders who endorse violence, peddle fear, and suppress truth. Christianity becomes not a lens of compassion but a language of control.
II. Foreign Policy as Moral Hypocrisy
Beneath the banners of liberty and the echoes of “peace through strength,” America’s foreign engagements expose a troubling moral fracture. The nation's Christian self-image, constructed from verses on justice and mercy, erodes beneath the weight of bombs, sanctions, and indifference to human suffering abroad.
In Gaza, the United States continues to supply military aid and political cover to actions that have resulted in thousands of civilian deaths, including women and children. The Christian ethic of protecting the innocent is not merely neglected—it is reframed, often under the guise of “security.” Compassion is frequently viewed as weakness, while restraint is perceived as disloyalty.
In Iran, recent strikes on nuclear facilities have reignited questions about preemptive violence. These acts are justified as deterrents, but they also reflect a pattern: when diplomacy falters, the armament of righteousness is weaponized. Jesus may have said, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” but national policy often says, “Blessed are the dominant.”
And at home, the treatment of immigrants mirrors this global posture—punishment over protection, exclusion over empathy. Migrants fleeing persecution, poverty, and war are met not with refuge, but with razor wire and detention centers. It is challenging to reconcile this with a faith tradition rooted in stories of displaced peoples, wandering prophets, and divine hospitality.
If Christianity teaches the sanctity of every life, why do we place some lives above others—geopolitically, racially, economically? America’s foreign policy reflects not a lapse in strategy but a deeper spiritual misalignment. The beatitudes have been replaced with budget lines. The cross traded for drones.
III. Domestic Rot: Silence, Scandal, and Systemic Evasion
If foreign policy exposes America's external contradictions, its domestic conduct lays bare an internal crisis—a spiritual and ethical decay, cloaked in institutional preservation and selective outrage.
The Epstein case is emblematic. Allegations of widespread sexual abuse linked to influential individuals have been met with troubling bureaucratic evasions. The Department of Justice's recent assertion that there is no "Epstein client list" highlights a familiar pattern: when crimes involve the influential, the truth becomes a liability. The culture of silence isn’t just administrative—it’s moral. What does it say about a nation that debates the character of those named in a scandal, while the survivors remain voiceless?
America’s handling of sex crimes—especially those tied to elite networks—reflects a terrifying hierarchy of accountability. The victim is scrutinized, the system deflects, and the accused, if powerful enough, receives silence as a form of absolution. This is not justice. It’s sacrilege masquerading as restraint.
Meanwhile, in everyday communities, survivors of abuse fight for recognition, immigrants face targeted surveillance, and minorities navigate systems built to exclude. And still, Christian language is invoked—not to empower the vulnerable, but to normalize their exclusion. It is a moral inversion where piety protects power, and justice is sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
IV. Christianity as Conscience or Cover?
At its core, Christianity is a call to moral imagination—a radical empathy that inspires individuals and nations to strive for truth, justice, and humility. But in America’s civic life, the invocation of Christianity has often drifted from spiritual reckoning to strategic performance. Rather than functioning as a conscience, it has become a cover: a convenient symbol used to defer accountability and sanctify power.
We see this distortion most clearly in moments of scandal. When questions swirled around Donald Trump’s possible ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the public gaze was met not with transparency but with confusion and contradiction. The Department of Justice's refusal to release a "client list" has led many to believe that political proximity—not justice—guided the silence. Pictures of Trump and Epstein from decades past still circulate, while conspiracy theories thrive, often fueled by a lack of disclosure and bureaucratic evasion.
Here, Christianity reemerges—not as a moral guidepost, but as a rhetorical refuge. Politicians and institutions invoke religious values not to expose wrongdoing, but to redirect the narrative. As chaos unfolds—from mass detentions at the border to questions about elite abuse networks—faith language is wielded to distract, rather than clarify.
The question is no longer whether America is a Christian nation. It’s a matter of what kind of Christianity it practices: one that upholds prophetic truth, or one that protects privilege. One that speaks for the voiceless, or one that sanctifies silence
V. A Call to Moral Clarity
There was a time when distance gave the Church perspective—when its voice stood apart from the tides of political ambition and cultural compromise. But in America, the Church has become entangled in the machinery it was meant to critique. No longer a mouthpiece for virtue, it too often functions as a megaphone for tribalism, nationalism, and institutional self-preservation. The trumpet sounds—but not with clarity. And when the sound is uncertain, how shall the people prepare themselves for battle?
Scripture offers both rebuke and rescue: “Come ye out from among them, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.” It is a call not to isolation, but to moral differentiation—to be in the world, but not to be truth-tellers in a landscape crowded with comfortable lies. America’s religious institutions must decide whether they will be chaplains to power or prophets to the people.
True Christianity does not cower behind party lines. It confronts injustice even when it implicates itself. It does not baptize silence—it breaks it. The Church must recover its prophetic voice, not by reclaiming dominance, but by recommitting to the virtues of justice, mercy, humility, and truth.
If the nation is to invoke the name of Christ, it must do so with integrity, not as a nostalgic relic, but as a radical force for reckoning and renewal.
Many thanks to Professor Michael Smith for sharing words of wisdom that are very much needed in today's chaotic world, where God's Truth seems to have been ignored by our political representatives... If your heart hurts when you see all the hate, prejudice and outright criminal actions, then join us in ensuring that God's Truth is shared across the world... TODAY!
America wears its Christian identity like a tattered mantle—visible, symbolic, yet worn thin from contradiction. Though never constitutionally declared a Christian nation, it long professed moral values rooted in faith: compassion for the vulnerable, justice for the oppressed, and humility before the truth. But in recent decades, this moral framework has shifted from conviction to convenience. Christianity is no longer the nation's conscience—it has become its cover.
We see this dissonance in a nation that bombs foreign soil under the pretense of peace, expels immigrants from land it once stole, and debates the morality of sex crimes with more concern for political optics than for victims. We see it in selective silence—the refusal to name and confront evil when it implicates the powerful. The Christian voice that once challenged injustice now too often blesses it, anesthetized by partisanship and moral amnesia.
This article does not seek to bury faith but to resurrect it: not through sanitized nostalgia, but by grappling honestly with America’s spiritual disfigurement. If the nation wishes to invoke the name of Christ, it must first recall the Christ who dined with outcasts, defied corrupt authority, and exposed hypocrisy—not the one conjured to justify empire.
I. The Illusion of Righteousness
America’s invocation of Christianity has long served as both comfort and camouflage. Political leaders often lace their speeches with Scripture, courts still inscribe “In God We Trust,” and the electorate lionizes candidates who publicly profess their faith, regardless of their ethics. Yet beneath this performance lies a troubling inversion: faith, once a check against corruption, now acts as an accelerant. The national conscience is anesthetized—not by the absence of religion, but by its manipulation.
We do not see Christian humility in our immigration policy. We see fences. Detention centers. Family separation. We do not see Christian mercy in our foreign engagements. We see drones. Airstrikes. Economic sanctions that starve civilians. These actions are not devoid of religion; they are done with its name invoked. A nation that once asked, “What would Jesus do?” now asks, “What can we get away with while wearing His name?”
Consider the paradox: America mourns the loss of “biblical values” in schools, yet cheers the political leaders who endorse violence, peddle fear, and suppress truth. Christianity becomes not a lens of compassion but a language of control.
II. Foreign Policy as Moral Hypocrisy
Beneath the banners of liberty and the echoes of “peace through strength,” America’s foreign engagements expose a troubling moral fracture. The nation's Christian self-image, constructed from verses on justice and mercy, erodes beneath the weight of bombs, sanctions, and indifference to human suffering abroad.
In Gaza, the United States continues to supply military aid and political cover to actions that have resulted in thousands of civilian deaths, including women and children. The Christian ethic of protecting the innocent is not merely neglected—it is reframed, often under the guise of “security.” Compassion is frequently viewed as weakness, while restraint is perceived as disloyalty.
In Iran, recent strikes on nuclear facilities have reignited questions about preemptive violence. These acts are justified as deterrents, but they also reflect a pattern: when diplomacy falters, the armament of righteousness is weaponized. Jesus may have said, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” but national policy often says, “Blessed are the dominant.”
And at home, the treatment of immigrants mirrors this global posture—punishment over protection, exclusion over empathy. Migrants fleeing persecution, poverty, and war are met not with refuge, but with razor wire and detention centers. It is challenging to reconcile this with a faith tradition rooted in stories of displaced peoples, wandering prophets, and divine hospitality.
If Christianity teaches the sanctity of every life, why do we place some lives above others—geopolitically, racially, economically? America’s foreign policy reflects not a lapse in strategy but a deeper spiritual misalignment. The beatitudes have been replaced with budget lines. The cross traded for drones.
III. Domestic Rot: Silence, Scandal, and Systemic Evasion
If foreign policy exposes America's external contradictions, its domestic conduct lays bare an internal crisis—a spiritual and ethical decay, cloaked in institutional preservation and selective outrage.
The Epstein case is emblematic. Allegations of widespread sexual abuse linked to influential individuals have been met with troubling bureaucratic evasions. The Department of Justice's recent assertion that there is no "Epstein client list" highlights a familiar pattern: when crimes involve the influential, the truth becomes a liability. The culture of silence isn’t just administrative—it’s moral. What does it say about a nation that debates the character of those named in a scandal, while the survivors remain voiceless?
America’s handling of sex crimes—especially those tied to elite networks—reflects a terrifying hierarchy of accountability. The victim is scrutinized, the system deflects, and the accused, if powerful enough, receives silence as a form of absolution. This is not justice. It’s sacrilege masquerading as restraint.
Meanwhile, in everyday communities, survivors of abuse fight for recognition, immigrants face targeted surveillance, and minorities navigate systems built to exclude. And still, Christian language is invoked—not to empower the vulnerable, but to normalize their exclusion. It is a moral inversion where piety protects power, and justice is sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
IV. Christianity as Conscience or Cover?
At its core, Christianity is a call to moral imagination—a radical empathy that inspires individuals and nations to strive for truth, justice, and humility. But in America’s civic life, the invocation of Christianity has often drifted from spiritual reckoning to strategic performance. Rather than functioning as a conscience, it has become a cover: a convenient symbol used to defer accountability and sanctify power.
We see this distortion most clearly in moments of scandal. When questions swirled around Donald Trump’s possible ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the public gaze was met not with transparency but with confusion and contradiction. The Department of Justice's refusal to release a "client list" has led many to believe that political proximity—not justice—guided the silence. Pictures of Trump and Epstein from decades past still circulate, while conspiracy theories thrive, often fueled by a lack of disclosure and bureaucratic evasion.
Here, Christianity reemerges—not as a moral guidepost, but as a rhetorical refuge. Politicians and institutions invoke religious values not to expose wrongdoing, but to redirect the narrative. As chaos unfolds—from mass detentions at the border to questions about elite abuse networks—faith language is wielded to distract, rather than clarify.
The question is no longer whether America is a Christian nation. It’s a matter of what kind of Christianity it practices: one that upholds prophetic truth, or one that protects privilege. One that speaks for the voiceless, or one that sanctifies silence
V. A Call to Moral Clarity
There was a time when distance gave the Church perspective—when its voice stood apart from the tides of political ambition and cultural compromise. But in America, the Church has become entangled in the machinery it was meant to critique. No longer a mouthpiece for virtue, it too often functions as a megaphone for tribalism, nationalism, and institutional self-preservation. The trumpet sounds—but not with clarity. And when the sound is uncertain, how shall the people prepare themselves for battle?
Scripture offers both rebuke and rescue: “Come ye out from among them, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.” It is a call not to isolation, but to moral differentiation—to be in the world, but not to be truth-tellers in a landscape crowded with comfortable lies. America’s religious institutions must decide whether they will be chaplains to power or prophets to the people.
True Christianity does not cower behind party lines. It confronts injustice even when it implicates itself. It does not baptize silence—it breaks it. The Church must recover its prophetic voice, not by reclaiming dominance, but by recommitting to the virtues of justice, mercy, humility, and truth.
If the nation is to invoke the name of Christ, it must do so with integrity, not as a nostalgic relic, but as a radical force for reckoning and renewal.
#GospelOfDenial #ChristianConscience #FaithAndJustice #ChurchAndState #MoralClarity #ThreadsOfBetrayal #ReclaimTheNarrative #AmericanContradictions #PoliticalAccountability #EpsteinFiles #TruthOverPower #JusticeDelayed #ForeignPolicyFails #GazaCrisis #IranBombings #ImmigrantRights #ComeOutFromAmongThem #PropheticVoice #TrumpetClarity #FaithNotFacade
Many thanks to Professor Michael Smith for sharing words of wisdom that are very much needed in today's chaotic world, where God's Truth seems to have been ignored by our political representatives... If your heart hurts when you see all the hate, prejudice and outright criminal actions, then join us in ensuring that God's Truth is shared across the world... TODAY!
God Bless
Gabby
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