You’re speaking to something that all of us exvangelicals have to go through. It’s just so painful. To acknowledge the people you trusted are just… lost? Persuaded away? I don’t know.
This picture of Steve Camp wearing a Brandon shirt breaks my heart. He was someone that was a giant in the faith for me for decades, through his music!
I can’t get my arms around how someone could have fallen into this who talks about loving Christ while wearing the most vulgar, disrespectful shirt I can imagine!
I’m sorry you are going through this pain. I’ve noticed that your posts are almost always kind. I appreciate that!
For the cruel evangelicals who are CN, I’m being firm, direct, and at times unrelenting. I think I told you that my grandfather was in the State department during and after WWII. My dad (his son) collected over 100 books and primary sources on Europe, leading up to, and during WWII. On those snowy weekends as a kid in a Chicago suburb, I plowed through at least 23 of them. I was interested in why? How could the most technologically advanced (at that time) country in Europe become this fascist country and be run by a comical looking man with a strange haircut that hated so many?
How did a country that was so medically advanced come to believe in just a matter of 6 years, that people like me, mildly disabled with cerebral palsy, were better off dead through mercy killings? (Most of the disabled children and adults in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and a couple of other countries were euthanized before any death camps were assembled and operational? How did a country, who had been fairly open about LGBTQ individuals, come to so quickly believe they were dangerous and must be slaughtered? The same for the Catholics? The Roma? Political dissidents? and finally Jews?
What happened? Unrelenting far right propaganda from multiple sources. The loudest and most persistent voices were from right wing leaders in the Evangelical Lutheran and Calvinist churches in Germany? The Catholic Church supported Mussolini at first, then tried to back off. By then, it was too late. Hitler, bullied the Vatican to support the 3rd Reich or have its leaders stay silent. (Much of the enabling and support of the churches is well documented in online materials available at the US Holocaust Museum. The churches were the engine that kept the Nazi fervor strengthening and killing during this time.)
Father Coughlin and prominent Fundamentalist radio preachers were trying to whip up similar fervor here in the US. (Watch Ken Burn’s documentary The US and the Holocaust or listen to Maddow’s podcasts “Ultra” to learn how close we became to becoming fascist here in the 1930s. Don’t just take my word for it from reading those 23 books)
It is right wing media and Christian Nationalist leaders who are doing the same here now. Because of social media, the impacts are more intense and faster than last century. The authoritarian movement is a worldwide campaign as we can see in Hungary, Israel, Italy, France, obviously Russia,, China, etc.
I refuse to be intimidated by Christian cyber bullies on Twitter. Because of the anti-vax, mask campaign, experts like Fauci, Peter Hotez, Eric Topol, etc have estimated an excess of 650K deaths of the elderly, disabled (like me) and immunocompromised have died through the pandemic because Christian Nationalist leaders were promoting their anti-vax/mask campaigns, turning healthier individuals who have been asymptomatic or could weather the disease, into deadly vectors to kill as many vulnerable as possible. Since then, there’s been the anti(CRT, LGBTQ, trans, women, groomer, …) and pro (gun, forced birth)campaigns. Bannon said “Overwhelm them with a firehose of s**t”.
But why have the current Evangelicals fallen in line? Right wing media, Kremlin back propaganda, and the SBC desperate attempts to distract and deflect from the awful abuse and coverups. Reporters at the Houston Chronicle, Texas-Tribune, and other papers have the receipts. There are audio tapes and emails detailing the distraction campaigns. Reports also suggest they have coordinated with the Clubhouse, the Kremlin, etc. That is why the DOJ has opened investigations into the SBC.
I won’t be silent. I will be diplomatic when I can, persistently firm when I can’t. This is something for we,as a country, and we, as gently, believing, loving Christians must speak loudly about. Our Constitution and our government was built on the understanding that all men are fallible. The checks and balances, meant to protect us are being destroyed by FELLOW CHRISTIANS. The rights the vulnerable have finally, over the years, obtained are being stripped away quickly. The pluralistic society the founders had hoped for is being dismantled in order to try to form a Christian Nation.
I must continue to speak loudly against what I know to be wrong.
Related to this, I strongly urge you to read Kristin Kobe’s Du Mez’ most recent Substack entry, as we come to the end of “Women’s History Month”. The current CN “comp” leaders appear to be endorsing and embracing the ancient Greco-Roman ideal of sex (power, penetration, dominance), not the Biblical understandings I’ve learned. When I read her entry yesterday, I felt nauseated into the night. The Ned Beatty scene from the classic movie “Deliverance” kept haunting my thoughts. That scene, in particular, illustrated the banality of evil from the ideas power, penetration, and dominance instead of the mutuality and love Jesus intended for us. Yet those “power” based ideas are now considered the Christian ideal in the minds of these deluded leaders. In
You're very correct throughout this comment. I'll second that "Ultra" recommendation, especially, for anyone who isn't familiar with the history of Coughlin and his fellow travelers. I do want to add one thing though, on this point:
> The authoritarian movement is a worldwide campaign as we can see in Hungary, Israel, Italy, France, obviously Russia,, China, etc.
This is both true and false. Authoritarians, nationalists, fascists, tribalists, whatever you want to call them - they may take solace in other people behaving similarly elsewhere in the world, but they are fundamentally parochial in their concerns, and cannot form a genuine global movement. Every one of these nationalist movements is distinct, and they often prey on some sort of real concern particular to their nation or culture. This leads to blindness at times ("it can't happen here" is a mistaken extrapolation from the true fact that it won't happen *in exactly that way* here) in those of us who oppose authoritarianism. Nevertheless, it is a reserve of strength - we can draw on the experience of other nations, of other peoples, with a speed and effectiveness our opponents cannot even dream of, simply by allowing ourselves to join with them.
Trump is holding a Neo-Nazi fest at his Doral club this week. (Watch the 1st block of Rachel’s show tonight). CPAC traveled to Hungary again last week. As before, Orban welcomed them with open arms and racist rhetoric. The killer in Allen, Texas was a Latino neo-Nazi, posting on the Russian OK (4chan like) Nazi board. Fox is having a field day saying that Mexicans cannot be Nazis. Have they learned nothing of the dictators throughout Latin America throughout their history? A guest tonight on Rachel, Kathy Belew, a historian at Northwestern, talked about Pinochet’s fondness for dropping his racial dissidents from helicopters over the ocean. Hitler,Mussolini, and others worked together on many fronts.
Camp seems to have eaten the forbidden fruit. He sounds full in MAGA: hateful, delusional and unconcerned with the facts. You’re healthier without him.
Jesus was not always gentle. Jesus was not always kind. I wrote a paper on Jesus' conversation with the Syto-Phoenician woman because I was so amazed by the whole exchange, which basically went
SPW: *polite request*
J: *snark*
SPW: *acknowledges snark, asks again*
J: *dismissive snark*
SPW: *acknowledges dismissal, with clever but respectful rebuttal*
J: Touché, not only will I do what you asked, but your faith has literally changed my ministry.
So Jesus was always correct, always good, but not always gentle, sweet, and kindly. We're allowed to be human. I think you're doing a good job. Of being human and of being a shepherd.
I used to listen to Camp’s Justice Album all the time. It was his dismissal of Beth Moore that prompted me to set his music aside. My wife is a pastor - it seemed hypocritical for me to continue listening (and seemingly supporting) to someone who would have opposed my wife. I was grieved by the whole thing.
I wasn't raised in the church. I became a Christian at 18 years old in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the early 90s I worked in the Christian music industry. We booked Steve Camp at a church venue. He was already somewhat callous and dismissive back then. That was the last time I listened to Steve Camp. I'm still very much a Christian. But also, his music got old for me.
This makes me both sad and angry - but more sad. (BTW, it looks as if we have a number of mutual friends on FB- and all of them are compassionate and thoughtful people.)
I've worked a good deal in the area of moral philosophy & moral psychology and I think that anger (not "wrath") is a good thing. So, too, is sadness - when these emotions are prompted by the right (or wrong) things.
It appears that Mr. Camp is angered by many of the wrong things and that his wrath has taken its toll on him - and this is so very sad. But it's also a wrath that is prompted by an extremely narrow reading of the Scriptures (this is also very sad).
In any case, thanks for this thoughtful narrative here.
I could t have been as kind. That he believes lies and publishes lies and laughs at people who aren’t like him. How sad? To be so snowed under by the trump folks. I don’t think you did wrong.
Stumbled upon this post when looking through my lps & Camp's "For Every Man" from '81 popped up. I probably agree with Suzanne Fallon's post most. We are all sinners & need Him...in prayer, daily scripture, & in fellowship. Being open as a believer in a now post-Christian culture is going to become increasingly necessary. Will we respond with the truth of scripture in a Christ-like manner, despite the growing cultural persecution, or will we lean to worldly pride? Ray Comfort & Sean McDowell, for example, respond differently than Camp, it appears, yet are all 3 aligned scripturally? Of course we all can do better in responding in a Christ-like manner. John Cooper's (Skillet) approach to responding with scriptural truth is pretty firm too, yet he appears to back statements up with scripture. Hopefully Camp's heart can soften/ temper in delivery. I don't agree with the t-shirt but share in his concern for treatment of Christians, especially in the United States. If the truth of scripture is present, I pray he and others may be able to reach more...yet always with a balance of both truth & grace, as Jesus perfectly modeled for us all.
This is one of the worst things about the MAGA movement, that it has shown us a dark side to the people whom we thought we knew, who had seemed to be full of love and kindness. This snotty, snide “FJB” stuff seems to be the epitome of it, and is embraced so enthusiastically. My best friend, who I have known since pre-school, fell victim to it. She had always been kind and thoughtful, even consoling me at her house when I was going through what to me was the horror of election night 2016. Now she is all in on the Brandon stuff and wished she had been there on Jan. 6 to befoul Nancy Pelosi’s desk. It’s appalling and inexplicable. I still try to maintain a delicate friendship with her, because I might be her one link to a kinder, gentler world. I seldom speak of politics with her, because her current social set (I am about 1700 miles away) is pretty much far right. Maybe I should follow your example and speak Christ to her more, He is the reason I cannot fathom the attraction to Trump for Christians.
It makes me sad to know that someone with so much hate and misinformation leads his own flock. It is also hard, as humans, to not sometimes be outraged. Don’t be too hard on yourself dear friend. You always have a retrospective and learn something more about yourself that makes you a better person…and often has me thinking about my interactions as well.
I was sent this link by a friend. Incredible. What an asshole (Steve, not you). I'm never surprised anymore. I always remind my kids that half the population is below average when it comes to intelligence. I'm sorry to see which half Steve seems to fall into.
Ironically I was at a church in Ohio my senior year in college one Sunday to meet with the missions committee.
He happened to be a guest worship leader that Sunday. Pastor at the end of service asked me to close their worship in prayer. I was intimidated.
I never met the man that Sunday.
Here I am 27 years later, married, 2 adult children, and my only goal in life is to live for Jesus.
I’m not working in ministry professionally as it seems God closed that door years ago but despite working a regular job and ministering voluntarily I still encounter people who are broken hearted. Broken marriages, broken families, addicted to various sins. I have the privilege of counseling them, praying for them, encouraging them to.
I have no room for politics regardless of what this world thinks.
I know plenty of people who fly their Christian flag on the same flag pole as their political flag pole.
I don’t even entertain such conversations.
Jesus came to seek and save the lost.
Jesus is coming and I’ve been called to hasten his return by sharing the Gospel
You’re speaking to something that all of us exvangelicals have to go through. It’s just so painful. To acknowledge the people you trusted are just… lost? Persuaded away? I don’t know.
It hurts.
Thanks for putting words to this.
This picture of Steve Camp wearing a Brandon shirt breaks my heart. He was someone that was a giant in the faith for me for decades, through his music!
I can’t get my arms around how someone could have fallen into this who talks about loving Christ while wearing the most vulgar, disrespectful shirt I can imagine!
Goodbye Steve. I don’t need your message!
I’m sorry you are going through this pain. I’ve noticed that your posts are almost always kind. I appreciate that!
For the cruel evangelicals who are CN, I’m being firm, direct, and at times unrelenting. I think I told you that my grandfather was in the State department during and after WWII. My dad (his son) collected over 100 books and primary sources on Europe, leading up to, and during WWII. On those snowy weekends as a kid in a Chicago suburb, I plowed through at least 23 of them. I was interested in why? How could the most technologically advanced (at that time) country in Europe become this fascist country and be run by a comical looking man with a strange haircut that hated so many?
How did a country that was so medically advanced come to believe in just a matter of 6 years, that people like me, mildly disabled with cerebral palsy, were better off dead through mercy killings? (Most of the disabled children and adults in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and a couple of other countries were euthanized before any death camps were assembled and operational? How did a country, who had been fairly open about LGBTQ individuals, come to so quickly believe they were dangerous and must be slaughtered? The same for the Catholics? The Roma? Political dissidents? and finally Jews?
What happened? Unrelenting far right propaganda from multiple sources. The loudest and most persistent voices were from right wing leaders in the Evangelical Lutheran and Calvinist churches in Germany? The Catholic Church supported Mussolini at first, then tried to back off. By then, it was too late. Hitler, bullied the Vatican to support the 3rd Reich or have its leaders stay silent. (Much of the enabling and support of the churches is well documented in online materials available at the US Holocaust Museum. The churches were the engine that kept the Nazi fervor strengthening and killing during this time.)
Father Coughlin and prominent Fundamentalist radio preachers were trying to whip up similar fervor here in the US. (Watch Ken Burn’s documentary The US and the Holocaust or listen to Maddow’s podcasts “Ultra” to learn how close we became to becoming fascist here in the 1930s. Don’t just take my word for it from reading those 23 books)
It is right wing media and Christian Nationalist leaders who are doing the same here now. Because of social media, the impacts are more intense and faster than last century. The authoritarian movement is a worldwide campaign as we can see in Hungary, Israel, Italy, France, obviously Russia,, China, etc.
I refuse to be intimidated by Christian cyber bullies on Twitter. Because of the anti-vax, mask campaign, experts like Fauci, Peter Hotez, Eric Topol, etc have estimated an excess of 650K deaths of the elderly, disabled (like me) and immunocompromised have died through the pandemic because Christian Nationalist leaders were promoting their anti-vax/mask campaigns, turning healthier individuals who have been asymptomatic or could weather the disease, into deadly vectors to kill as many vulnerable as possible. Since then, there’s been the anti(CRT, LGBTQ, trans, women, groomer, …) and pro (gun, forced birth)campaigns. Bannon said “Overwhelm them with a firehose of s**t”.
But why have the current Evangelicals fallen in line? Right wing media, Kremlin back propaganda, and the SBC desperate attempts to distract and deflect from the awful abuse and coverups. Reporters at the Houston Chronicle, Texas-Tribune, and other papers have the receipts. There are audio tapes and emails detailing the distraction campaigns. Reports also suggest they have coordinated with the Clubhouse, the Kremlin, etc. That is why the DOJ has opened investigations into the SBC.
I won’t be silent. I will be diplomatic when I can, persistently firm when I can’t. This is something for we,as a country, and we, as gently, believing, loving Christians must speak loudly about. Our Constitution and our government was built on the understanding that all men are fallible. The checks and balances, meant to protect us are being destroyed by FELLOW CHRISTIANS. The rights the vulnerable have finally, over the years, obtained are being stripped away quickly. The pluralistic society the founders had hoped for is being dismantled in order to try to form a Christian Nation.
I must continue to speak loudly against what I know to be wrong.
Related to this, I strongly urge you to read Kristin Kobe’s Du Mez’ most recent Substack entry, as we come to the end of “Women’s History Month”. The current CN “comp” leaders appear to be endorsing and embracing the ancient Greco-Roman ideal of sex (power, penetration, dominance), not the Biblical understandings I’ve learned. When I read her entry yesterday, I felt nauseated into the night. The Ned Beatty scene from the classic movie “Deliverance” kept haunting my thoughts. That scene, in particular, illustrated the banality of evil from the ideas power, penetration, and dominance instead of the mutuality and love Jesus intended for us. Yet those “power” based ideas are now considered the Christian ideal in the minds of these deluded leaders. In
You're very correct throughout this comment. I'll second that "Ultra" recommendation, especially, for anyone who isn't familiar with the history of Coughlin and his fellow travelers. I do want to add one thing though, on this point:
> The authoritarian movement is a worldwide campaign as we can see in Hungary, Israel, Italy, France, obviously Russia,, China, etc.
This is both true and false. Authoritarians, nationalists, fascists, tribalists, whatever you want to call them - they may take solace in other people behaving similarly elsewhere in the world, but they are fundamentally parochial in their concerns, and cannot form a genuine global movement. Every one of these nationalist movements is distinct, and they often prey on some sort of real concern particular to their nation or culture. This leads to blindness at times ("it can't happen here" is a mistaken extrapolation from the true fact that it won't happen *in exactly that way* here) in those of us who oppose authoritarianism. Nevertheless, it is a reserve of strength - we can draw on the experience of other nations, of other peoples, with a speed and effectiveness our opponents cannot even dream of, simply by allowing ourselves to join with them.
Yes. I agree on all your points!
Trump is holding a Neo-Nazi fest at his Doral club this week. (Watch the 1st block of Rachel’s show tonight). CPAC traveled to Hungary again last week. As before, Orban welcomed them with open arms and racist rhetoric. The killer in Allen, Texas was a Latino neo-Nazi, posting on the Russian OK (4chan like) Nazi board. Fox is having a field day saying that Mexicans cannot be Nazis. Have they learned nothing of the dictators throughout Latin America throughout their history? A guest tonight on Rachel, Kathy Belew, a historian at Northwestern, talked about Pinochet’s fondness for dropping his racial dissidents from helicopters over the ocean. Hitler,Mussolini, and others worked together on many fronts.
Camp seems to have eaten the forbidden fruit. He sounds full in MAGA: hateful, delusional and unconcerned with the facts. You’re healthier without him.
Jesus was not always gentle. Jesus was not always kind. I wrote a paper on Jesus' conversation with the Syto-Phoenician woman because I was so amazed by the whole exchange, which basically went
SPW: *polite request*
J: *snark*
SPW: *acknowledges snark, asks again*
J: *dismissive snark*
SPW: *acknowledges dismissal, with clever but respectful rebuttal*
J: Touché, not only will I do what you asked, but your faith has literally changed my ministry.
So Jesus was always correct, always good, but not always gentle, sweet, and kindly. We're allowed to be human. I think you're doing a good job. Of being human and of being a shepherd.
I used to listen to Camp’s Justice Album all the time. It was his dismissal of Beth Moore that prompted me to set his music aside. My wife is a pastor - it seemed hypocritical for me to continue listening (and seemingly supporting) to someone who would have opposed my wife. I was grieved by the whole thing.
I wasn't raised in the church. I became a Christian at 18 years old in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the early 90s I worked in the Christian music industry. We booked Steve Camp at a church venue. He was already somewhat callous and dismissive back then. That was the last time I listened to Steve Camp. I'm still very much a Christian. But also, his music got old for me.
Rough stuff….but an inspiration to us all on how to navigate the emotional waters.
Hi Kevin:
This makes me both sad and angry - but more sad. (BTW, it looks as if we have a number of mutual friends on FB- and all of them are compassionate and thoughtful people.)
I've worked a good deal in the area of moral philosophy & moral psychology and I think that anger (not "wrath") is a good thing. So, too, is sadness - when these emotions are prompted by the right (or wrong) things.
It appears that Mr. Camp is angered by many of the wrong things and that his wrath has taken its toll on him - and this is so very sad. But it's also a wrath that is prompted by an extremely narrow reading of the Scriptures (this is also very sad).
In any case, thanks for this thoughtful narrative here.
I could t have been as kind. That he believes lies and publishes lies and laughs at people who aren’t like him. How sad? To be so snowed under by the trump folks. I don’t think you did wrong.
You handled it well. Kind and firm. Your opinion is as right as Pastor Camp. Keep up the good fight and thank you
Kind and firm, and anchored to reality is the best that we can do.
Stumbled upon this post when looking through my lps & Camp's "For Every Man" from '81 popped up. I probably agree with Suzanne Fallon's post most. We are all sinners & need Him...in prayer, daily scripture, & in fellowship. Being open as a believer in a now post-Christian culture is going to become increasingly necessary. Will we respond with the truth of scripture in a Christ-like manner, despite the growing cultural persecution, or will we lean to worldly pride? Ray Comfort & Sean McDowell, for example, respond differently than Camp, it appears, yet are all 3 aligned scripturally? Of course we all can do better in responding in a Christ-like manner. John Cooper's (Skillet) approach to responding with scriptural truth is pretty firm too, yet he appears to back statements up with scripture. Hopefully Camp's heart can soften/ temper in delivery. I don't agree with the t-shirt but share in his concern for treatment of Christians, especially in the United States. If the truth of scripture is present, I pray he and others may be able to reach more...yet always with a balance of both truth & grace, as Jesus perfectly modeled for us all.
This is one of the worst things about the MAGA movement, that it has shown us a dark side to the people whom we thought we knew, who had seemed to be full of love and kindness. This snotty, snide “FJB” stuff seems to be the epitome of it, and is embraced so enthusiastically. My best friend, who I have known since pre-school, fell victim to it. She had always been kind and thoughtful, even consoling me at her house when I was going through what to me was the horror of election night 2016. Now she is all in on the Brandon stuff and wished she had been there on Jan. 6 to befoul Nancy Pelosi’s desk. It’s appalling and inexplicable. I still try to maintain a delicate friendship with her, because I might be her one link to a kinder, gentler world. I seldom speak of politics with her, because her current social set (I am about 1700 miles away) is pretty much far right. Maybe I should follow your example and speak Christ to her more, He is the reason I cannot fathom the attraction to Trump for Christians.
It all begs the question - What part of Christ's teachings are MAGA folk following?
Tell Steve Camp that Brandon is coming over to kick his ass.
It makes me sad to know that someone with so much hate and misinformation leads his own flock. It is also hard, as humans, to not sometimes be outraged. Don’t be too hard on yourself dear friend. You always have a retrospective and learn something more about yourself that makes you a better person…and often has me thinking about my interactions as well.
I was sent this link by a friend. Incredible. What an asshole (Steve, not you). I'm never surprised anymore. I always remind my kids that half the population is below average when it comes to intelligence. I'm sorry to see which half Steve seems to fall into.
I still listen to his 90s stuff.
Ironically I was at a church in Ohio my senior year in college one Sunday to meet with the missions committee.
He happened to be a guest worship leader that Sunday. Pastor at the end of service asked me to close their worship in prayer. I was intimidated.
I never met the man that Sunday.
Here I am 27 years later, married, 2 adult children, and my only goal in life is to live for Jesus.
I’m not working in ministry professionally as it seems God closed that door years ago but despite working a regular job and ministering voluntarily I still encounter people who are broken hearted. Broken marriages, broken families, addicted to various sins. I have the privilege of counseling them, praying for them, encouraging them to.
I have no room for politics regardless of what this world thinks.
I know plenty of people who fly their Christian flag on the same flag pole as their political flag pole.
I don’t even entertain such conversations.
Jesus came to seek and save the lost.
Jesus is coming and I’ve been called to hasten his return by sharing the Gospel