The Sickness in Modern America: a letter to the American Church

There is a sickness in the soul of modern America, and the American Church has not stood untouched by it.

America has become a people more eager to unite against an enemy than to unite around God. We know how to identify threats, expose corruption, denounce error, defend our tribe, and sharpen our outrage. We know how to speak with fire about what is wrong with the world. But too often we have forgotten how to burn with the love of God. Too often we have mistaken suspicion for discernment, hostility for holiness, and public anger for spiritual courage.

The result is that many who speak the name of Jesus have become more recognizable by who they oppose than by how they love. And this should grieve us.

Because Jesus did not say the world would know us by the precision of our enemies list. He did not say the mark of discipleship would be our ability to humiliate opponents, dominate arguments, or sort human beings into righteous and unrighteous camps with perfect speed. He said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” He said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” He said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

These are not decorative sayings for peaceful times. They are commands. They are kingdom speech. They are the unyielding words of the Lord to a people always tempted to prefer vengeance over mercy and tribal loyalty over obedience.

And here we are.

It is far too easy now to categorize enemies. We do it almost instinctively. We sort by political view, by social stance, by lifestyle, by race, by religion, by gender, by class, by culture, by ideology. We decide who is dangerous, who is corrupting the nation, who is ruining the church, who is beyond listening to, who deserves our scorn. We make moral maps that are simple enough to preserve our self-righteousness. We tell ourselves we are merely being clear-eyed, when often what we are really doing is hardening the heart.

This is one of the great deceptions of our age. We can call it conviction when it is really contempt. We can call it truth-telling when it is really the pleasure of denunciation. We can call it discernment when it is really fear baptized in religious language.

And yet the word of the Lord remains.

"Love your neighbor."

Not your agreeable neighbor only.Not your useful neighbor only.Not your culturally (or racially) familiar neighbor only.Not your politically safe neighbor only.

Your neighbor.

The one who troubles you.The one who votes differently than you.The one whose life confuses you.The one whose worldview grates against your own.The one whose background, identity, or convictions make you instinctively withdraw.The one you would rather discuss than know.

That person is not your first threat. That person is your neighbor.

And if we resist that word, we should be honest about what we are resisting. We are not resisting a sentimental idea. We are resisting Jesus.

The Lord has never permitted his people to build identity around hatred of outsiders. Israel was repeatedly warned against forgetting the stranger, oppressing the weak, or imagining that covenant privilege excused lovelessness. The prophets thundered against those who kept religious forms while neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness. They spoke against those who honored God with their mouths while their lives betrayed hardness of heart. And the same prophetic fire must be heard now, echoed in the words of Jesus Himself.

What does it matter if we can win every argument in the public square and yet fail to bear the character of Christ? What does it matter if our positions are crisp, our statements strong, our tribe well defended, but our hearts are becoming cruel? What does it matter if we say “Lord, Lord” while despising those made in his image?

God is not flattered by our correctness when it is severed from love.

This is where the American Church must hear a word of rebuke.

We have often been more animated by culture war than by communion with God. More eager to be right than to be holy. More committed to defeating ideological enemies than to becoming people who reflect the mercy, purity, and patience of Christ. In many places, we have become united less by adoration of God than by mutual alarm. We have found fellowship not in the Spirit’s peace, but in shared outrage. Our common enemy has become more emotionally compelling than our common Savior.

This is not renewal. This is distortion.

When a people become more energized by who they hate than by the God they worship, judgment has already begun in the house of God.

That is a hard word, but a necessary one.

Because Christians are not called merely to take stances. We are called to take up a cross. We are not called merely to defend moral boundaries. We are called to be conformed to the image of Christ. We are not called merely to spot darkness in others. We are called to walk as children of light. The issue is not whether conviction matters. Of course it matters. Truth matters. Holiness matters. Moral clarity matters. But truth without love becomes a weapon in the hands of the unhealed. Holiness without mercy becomes performance. Clarity without humility becomes violence of the soul.

The enemy-making spirit is powerful because it offers counterfeit righteousness. It lets us feel clean by identifying what is unclean in others. It lets us avoid repentance by staying preoccupied with the failures of our opponents. It lets us feel morally awake while our own hearts are drifting from God. Nothing is easier than using public evil to avoid private surrender.

But Jesus will not allow it.

He keeps bringing the matter back to the heart. Back to anger. Back to contempt. Back to hypocrisy. Back to the secret places where the soul learns either love or corruption. He asks not only whether our views are sound, but whether our lives smell like the kingdom. He asks whether the fruit of the Spirit is growing in us, or whether we are being discipled  by fear, rage, and resentment while pretending it is faithfulness.

And this is where many of us must tremble a little.

Because it is possible to be orthodox in belief and disordered in love. It is possible to oppose real evil while being inwardly shaped by the very darkness we claim to resist. It is possible to speak in defense of truth while becoming incapable of gentleness, patience, or mercy. It is possible to know the language of the gospel while losing the spirit of Christ.

The church must not let this pass unchallenged.

Every time we reduce a human being to a political label, we betray the image of God. Every time we speak as though race, religion, gender, ideology, or lifestyle has erased a person’s sacred worth, we have stepped outside the way of Jesus. Every time we delight in humiliating those we consider dangerous, we reveal that something other than the cross is shaping us. Every time our convictions become more precious to us than our obedience to love, we have made an idol of being right.

This does not mean that all views are equal or all moral claims are harmless. It does not mean Christians must become vague, soft, or unwilling to confront falsehood. The prophets were not vague. Jesus was not vague. The apostles were not vague. Love is not the absence of truth. Love is truth governed by the character of God. Love tells the truth without surrendering to hatred. Love warns without dehumanizing. Love grieves evil without feeding on contempt. Love refuses to call darkness light, but it also refuses to forget that even those in darkness remain human beings for whom Christ’s call to mercy still stands.

There is a world of difference between holy resistance and enemy obsession.

Holy resistance is anchored in prayer, grief, humility, and obedience. Enemy obsession is fueled by fear, pride, and the need to belong to a tribe. Holy resistance seeks the good even of those it must confront. Enemy obsession needs opponents to remain monstrous, because without monsters, its sense of righteousness begins to wobble.

And this is what makes our moment so dangerous. In modern America, many people no longer know how to be together except through a shared enemy. Entire communities are built on suspicion. Entire media ecosystems survive on outrage. Entire identities are maintained by keeping hostility warm. People are more united by who they refuse to become than by any positive vision of the good. It is possible now to feel deep solidarity with someone simply because you hate the same people.

The church must not mirror this and call it faithfulness.

We are not one because we have all found the same enemy. We are one because we have been brought near by the blood of Christ. We are not held together by shared disgust. We are held together by grace. We are not a people because we have perfectly diagnosed the nation’s villains. We are a people because God in Christ has forgiven our sins, broken down dividing walls, and called us into one body.

If that is true, then the church must become a place where people are not first sorted by ideological usefulness, but seen as neighbors under God. A place where conviction is real, but never permitted to become cruelty. A place where truth is spoken, but not as a performance of contempt. A place where repentance begins with us, not just with them. A place where prayer is deeper than panic. A place where holiness and tenderness still belong together.

And let us be honest. This kind of life will cost us. It is easier to preach to the choir than to love a difficult neighbor. It is easier to post than to pray. Easier to condemn than to understand. Easier to build identity through opposition than through surrender. Easier to protect ourselves with labels than to risk seeing another person in the full complexity of their humanity.

But discipleship has never been the easier path.

Jesus did not call us to the broad road of constant outrage. He called us to the narrow way of cruciform love. He called us to bless those who curse us, to pray for those who wound us, to refuse retaliation as the shape of our lives. He called us to embody a kingdom that does not run on the old machinery of revenge and tribal fear.

And here is the pastoral word beneath the prophetic one. This is not a call to moral confusion. It is not a call to abandon conviction, blur truth, or pretend that evil does not wound. It is a call to remember who we belong to. It is a call to let the love of God become more formative than the fears of our age. It is a call to be so rooted in communion with Christ that we no longer need enemies to tell us who we are.

Some of us have been spiritually malnourished on a steady diet of anger. Some of us have grown so used to conflict that we no longer recognize how it has shaped our souls. Some of us are weary, brittle, and suspicious, and we have mistaken that condition for maturity. The Lord is not shaming us in order to crush us. He is confronting us in order to restore us. He is jealous for his people. He wants more for us than a faith propped up by hostility.

He wants us back.

Back to prayer.Back to repentance.Back to tenderness.Back to holiness.Back to the difficult, unmistakable command to love our neighbor.

That command will not let us keep our enemies at a safe distance. It will force us to see them as persons. It will force us to remember the image of God where our instincts would rather see only danger. It will force us to choose obedience over tribal applause. It will force us to ask whether our lives are being shaped more by news cycles than by the Holy Spirit.

And in that asking, perhaps the church may yet be purified.

Because the world already knows how to gather around hatred. It does not need the church to baptize the practice. The world already knows how to divide, mock, categorize, and destroy. What it does not know well is what it looks like when a people tell the truth and still love, when they hold conviction and still show mercy, when they resist evil without becoming consumed by it, when they refuse to let common enemies become the deepest bond between them.

That kind of people would be a sign of the kingdom.

That kind of people would look like Jesus.

So let the church hear the word of the Lord.

Put away the luxury of contempt. Refuse the counterfeit fellowship of shared hatred.Do not let your politics become more sacred than your baptism. Do not let your outrage become more formative than Scripture. Do not let your enemies disciple your heart.

Love your neighbor.

Not because truth no longer matters, but because God’s command matters more than your appetite for victory. Not because the world is simple, but because Christ is Lord. Not because everyone is right, but because every person still bears the mark of the Creator.

In an age drunk on enmity, the church must become sober again.

We are not called to slay enemies as the center of our vocation. We are called to love our neighbors as those who have themselves been loved by God.

And if we do not recover that, then all our noise will be nothing more than a clanging cymbal dressed up in religious fire.

But if we do recover it, if the love of God becomes our center again, then perhaps the church may yet become what she was always meant to be.

Not a tribe gathered around common hatred. But a holy people, gathered around the living God.

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This post was written by Joseph Dea. Joe is a writer for his own blog at https://kfmbroadcasting.wixstudio.com/buddywalkwithjesus and is one of the directors and writers for KFM Broadcasting.