Pulpit Puppetry

There is a fracture forming in the foundation of the Church. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating, and not for emphasis, but because the crack is widening. And many still don’t see it.

Across decades of American Christianity, the institutional Church has become more concerned with how it looks than how it listens. And in doing so, it has invited something into the sanctuary that Christ would have overturned like the money tables in the temple.

From the nineties onward, I grew up in the institution. I remember the euphoria—the sense of belonging. Youth groups, small cell groups, even the music, it felt vibrant, it felt real. But even then, even in my teens, I could sense the image factor creeping in. The self-consciousness. The quiet social contracts. The unspoken dress codes. There was a large degree of performative worship and deed going on, usually unbeknownst to them as it most often on the subconscious level.

The Church wasn’t asking the real questions. It was preserving a culture. A language. A uniform. It was exchanging orthodoxy for social order. And even then, I could see it.

But what’s more concerning, what’s mutated in the years since—is how American Christianity began courting political power under the name of evangelism. And in doing so, it replaced the slow, listening humility of Christ with the aggressive, image-obsessed fervor of Christian nationalism.

We’ve built a new gospel, and its savior is not Christ, it’s control.

The clearest example? The moment Trump held the Bible for a photo op. Not the orientation of the book. That doesn’t matter. The problem was the emptiness. No words. No explanation. Just a hollow gesture. A banana sticker with no banana. A bottle label floating in the wind with no contents. He didn’t need to understand what he was holding, because the institution had already decided he represented them.

And that was the moment I realized: the Church wasn’t just failing to represent Christ, it had become a platform for his opposite.

Now children grow up seeing this leader, someone who embodies pride, cruelty, deception, and vengeance, and they’re told, this is God’s chosen man. And they look back at their parents and say, Wait… if this is what you believe, what else are you lying about?

That’s how fractures form. Not all at once, but a millimeter a day. And before you know it, the foundation splinters, the column weakens, and the ceiling collapses.

We are courting people into faith using emotion. Not logic. Not truth. Just emotional sales tactics, because emotion is easier to manipulate. It appeals to insecurity. To guilt. To desperation. To the person who’s made a mistake and doesn’t know how to forgive themselves. They hear a swelling musical cue, a voice trembling with affect, and they think they’ve entered the holy of holies. But really, they’ve walked into a well-rehearsed script.

That kind of courtship produces tenuous faith. People feel the burn, but they never receive the blueprint.

And we justify this with numbers. We throw huge haunted house “evangelism” events like Nightmare, hoping fear and spectacle will do what love and listening should. And sure, the numbers come. But the conversions are shallow. The roots don’t go deep. Because we don’t disciple, we enlist.

We treat faith like recruitment. We celebrate emotional decision-making, but then fail to provide structural foundations. So what do we get? A congregation full of people whose relationship with God is rooted in trauma, guilt, or neediness, but not in understanding.

And understanding is everything. Without it, we drift.

The Church became so obsessed with visibility, getting God into headlines, onto bills, into courtrooms, that we stopped asking: What did Christ actually do? How did he move? Speak? Listen?

He listened.

That was Christ’s quiet superpower. The one we don’t preach on. People followed Him because He made them feel heard. Not manipulated. Not shamed. Not cornered. Heard.

But we’ve replaced that with agenda. With salesmanship. And worse, many of our ministers are no longer shepherds. They’re CEOs. Or performers. Or worse.

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The Four Ministers

I believe there are four kinds of ministers:

1. The Listener — the true shepherd

This minister believes deeply, preaches softly, and simply shares what they’ve come to understand. They aren’t trying to impress. They aren’t running a show. They walk the walk—and their life becomes the sermon.

2. The Divided — seduced by vanity

They started sincerely. But ego crept in. They worry more about money, growth, optics. They make compromises. And in doing so, their integrity starts to bend. They might still preach truth—but their decisions are now guided by fear and performance.

3. The Enricher — the prosperity performer

This one still believes—but they believe in enrichment, too. They want wealth. Comfort. Public proof of God’s blessing. They frame it as faith, but their actions say otherwise. They may be devout—but they are double-minded.

4. The Deceiver — the unbelieving machine

This is the sociopath in the pulpit. They don’t believe. They don’t care. But they know the script. They say all the right things. And because they lack conscience, they’re never tripped up. They’re smooth. Unbothered. Effective. And because we’ve trained ourselves to look for charisma instead of character, they slip through undetected.

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The element that is most severe: the deeper Christian faith is merged with nationalism & human emotion the less discernment the church has. We don’t test the spirit. We don’t weigh them against Christ’s actual teachings. We just ask, Did it feel right?

But the truth doesn’t always feel right. Sometimes it cuts. It convicts. It’s a double-edged sword.

And we don’t like swords. We like safety. So we build churches that feel like brands. Institutions that train you in outward behavior—but not inner transformation.

That’s how you get people who only behave like Christians inside the building. The moment they leave, they revert. Why? Because the grid only exists in the building. It’s institutionalized righteousness.

So when a homeless man asks for help, the Christian’s first instinct isn’t to feed him, it’s to say, “You should come to our church.” No. That’s not the move. The move is to sit. To listen. To see where he’s hurting. And then, when the time is right, to say, “Can I share with you what helped me?”

That’s how it spreads. Not through laws. Not through headlines. Through love.

The Crux of It

Christians should be the greatest therapists in the world, because we have the template. Listening. Compassion. Humility. Wisdom. But instead, we point fingers. We perform. We say the right things in groups and stay silent in pain. We legislate faith instead of living it.

This isn’t about denominations. This is about discernment. This is about truth. We have allowed the antithesis of Christ to become the figurehead of our political alignment, and in doing so, we have betrayed the next generation.

Because when they look up and see us backing someone who lives nothing like Christ, they won’t ask what’s wrong with him—they’ll ask what’s wrong with us.

And maybe, if we’re honest, we’ll finally admit: we were more interested in being loud than being right. More interested in optics than obedience. More invested in a savior on a ballot than a Savior on a cross.

But there’s still time.

Time to return to the Word, not as performance, not as propaganda, but as truth.

Time to throw out the sales pitch, the vanity, the emotional manipulation, and just listen.

Time to be the Church that Christ actually founded. One built on compassion, not control. Truth, not theater.

Because when that Church rises again, it won’t need a stage.

It will sit quietly.

Listen deeply.

And change the world, one real conversation at a time.