Ep 2: Escaping Society's Cardboard Prison

Ep. 4: Band-Aid's Don't Heal Critical Injuries: An Urgent Message For The Post-Kirk Church

Disclaimer: This essay steps into complex and uncomfortable territory. I’ve linked key terms and claims to reputable sources for readers who want more context. You may not agree with every conclusion, and that’s okay. My aim isn’t to provoke anger but reflection—to help us think more deeply, especially when we differ. If you find anything I say here to be problematic, I’d like to encourage you to visit statz.substack.com where you can find this episode in essay form with all key terms and claims linked to reputable sources. Get full access to Statz Don't Lie at statz.substack.com/subscribe [https://statz.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Ep. 3 - Performative Persecution: The American Church's Obsession With Oppression

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, breakdancing made its debut as an official sport, to the excitement of older hip-hop heads like myself. Some of the best breakers in the world competed on a global stage—a huge moment, though one that won’t return in 2028 or 2032. Yet what most remember isn’t the exceptional creativity of b-boys and b-girls like Canada’s Philip Kim (Phil Wizard), who won gold. Few can name a medalist, but nearly everyone remembers one competitor: Rachel Gunn, aka Raygun. Raygun lost all three battles in the round-robin stage without scoring a point, and her routines didn’t resemble breakdancing in any traditional sense. Which would be fine—if she weren’t competing at the highest level of the sport. Breakdancing has a clear history of demanding power moves that take years of sacrifice. Raygun may be a good dancer, but her routines looked like something from a weekend workshop, not the culmination of years mastering hip-hop’s most athletic element. Her “kangaroo hop” and “sprinkler” went viral, overshadowing the athletes who earned their place on that stage. Soon after, Gunn retired from competition, citing the wave of negativity and its toll on her mental health. I’m not here to attack Rachel Gunn. Maybe her intentions were pure. But what the world saw looked like stolen valor—her inclusion cheapened the art form and robbed others of their moment. This essay is about that same effect in our public faith: American evangelicals often perform persecution while others endure it — and the performance cheapens real suffering. Clear Definitions To talk seriously about persecution, we need clean definitions—specifically in the context of religious persecution, particularly of Christians. Persecution: the deliberate targeting of a person or group for their beliefs. Christian tradition holds that the apostles were martyred for preaching Christ—that’s persecution. Oppression: when structures, laws, and policies are weaponized to restrict the dignity and freedom of believers. Oppression turns persecution into policy. Cultural opposition: the natural clash of worldviews in a pluralistic society (like a Democratic Republic made up of a diverse group of people).People may reject Christian values, criticize them, or choose others—but that is not persecution. Granted, these categories can overlap and sometimes feel unclear. But even then, an objective look at the circumstances is usually enough to make the distinction. And now we can land the analogy: If there were an Olympic event awarding medals to the most persecuted and oppressed Christians worldwide, American evangelicals—white evangelicals especially—would show up front and center, eager to don their laurels and wave to an adoring crowd. But like Raygun, their performance would look like stolen valor. Their “persecution” would be exposed as little more than cultural opposition, staged on the same platform alongside brothers and sisters enduring actual persecution and oppression. The result? Their theatrics would cheapen genuine suffering, damage our Christian witness, and divert attention from those who deserve our solidarity the most. Not to mention, the backlash they recieved would become the newest controversy they weaponize to victimize themselves and their beliefs instead of seeing it for what it is. Manufactured Martyrdom In the U.S., religious freedom and the separation of church and state are two pillars of our system. Remove either, and the other quickly collapses. Yet in recent years, politicians and celebrity pastors have increasingly portrayed Christianity as under siege. From Trump’s rallies (“They’re not after me, they’re after you”) (Reuters), to Franklin Graham warning that Christians are being pushed out of public life (PBS), to Paula White framing cultural disagreements as spiritual war (Christianity Today)—persecution has become a political talking point. Even federal agencies stumble into this narrative: when the Department of Homeland Security posted the 1872 painting American Progress, critics said it glorified Manifest Destiny and evoked white Christian nationalism (Los Angeles Times). Nationalism thrives on fear. To weaponize the church, leaders need believers to feel attacked, persecuted, oppressed—to see an enemy at the gates. That outrage can then be harnessed, not for Christ’s kingdom, but for political power. To be fair, Christians in America do sometimes encounter bias or exclusion—whether in media caricatures, workplace conflicts, or elite cultural spaces. Those experiences can sting, and they shouldn’t be brushed aside. But they aren’t systemic persecution. Too often, cultural opposition or loss of privilege is rebranded as martyrdom (The Atlantic). Organizations like the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) capitalize on this fear. They frame every courthouse nativity or school-prayer dispute as the first domino on the road to gulags. It’s effective fundraising, but it blurs the line between discomfort here and real persecution abroad. Meanwhile, our brothers and sisters elsewhere face the real thing: Christians in Nigeria massacred during worship (BBC [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61726541]), Sudanese believers tortured in prison (Christian Solidarity Worldwide), churches in Syria bombed (Carnegie Endowment), pastors in China imprisoned (Human Rights Watch), and Coptic Christians in Egypt killed in targeted attacks (Al Jazeera). Supporting them is righteous and necessary. But when the same voices that mobilize compassion abroad also insist that moving a Ten Commandments monument at home makes us victims, we’ve lost perspective. The New Testament gives us the plumb line. Jesus said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad” (Matt. 5:11–12). Instead of rejoicing in suffering for righteousness’ sake, too often we throw tantrums over opposition. Instead of endurance, we lash out whenever someone challenges our privilege. This is not maturity. It is spiritual infancy. The Roots of the Narrative If you’ve listened to me much before, you know I resist the urge to put people in boxes. When we focus on the box, we lose sight of the people inside it. What I’m going to say next may strike a nerve, because to be honest about the present we have to talk about a history that involves people many of us love and revere. I am not discrediting everything they did. One of the reasons I confront nationalist tendencies in my fellow believers is because of how subtle—and how deceptively powerful—they are in shaping our worldview and the way we treat others. I don’t point these things out for the sake of argument or to cause division. On the contrary, I long to see us turn the world upside down in the way the gospel calls us to: through loving community, caring for the poor, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow (Deuteronomy 10:18–19); doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly (Micah 6:8); and witnessing by our love for one another and our neighbors (John 13:34–35). Nationalism, however, will lead us away from the true heart of the gospel, even when our intentions feel righteous. Despite the real good these leaders and organizations may have done, there is also a well-documented pattern of Christian nationalism being weaponized. That doesn’t mean every action or advocacy they supported was or is wrong. It does mean we must learn to discern when the gospel is being used as a tool for something other than liberating our neighbors from spiritual bondage. My aim is not to denounce people we admire but to denounce the idols we have made of them (1 John 5:21). We are in a moment that requires difficult conversations. We must be honest about history and the present, and hold our convictions up to the mirror of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16–17). We must recognize and tear down idols in our traditions—especially the ones built out of good things. Those are the hardest to spot, and the most necessary to remove if we are to grow in the Lord (Exodus 20:3). Since the late 20th century, American evangelicalism—particularly white evangelicals—has been steadily mobilized as a political force. The rise of the Moral Majority in the late 1970s and 1980s, led by figures like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, gathered conservative Christians around hot-button issues: opposition to abortion, outrage over the removal of prayer from schools, and resistance to changing social norms on gender and sexuality. These leaders framed such causes as part of a larger struggle to “restore” America’s Christian identity (Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right; Daniel K. Williams, God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right). Stepping back, it’s clear this activism was often co-opted politically to accomplish more than protecting religious freedom. It became a bid to reclaim cultural dominance. And that’s where the tension lies: the push for greater public influence often clashed with the very principles of religious freedom and pluralism meant to protect all beliefs equally. For non-Christians—and for Christians outside that conservative bloc—evangelical politics often looked less like a defense of liberty and more like an attempt to impose one group’s convictions on a diverse society. As Christians who live in this nation, there’s nothing wrong with ensuring our individual rights aren’t infringed upon in the practice of our faith. But as citizens of God’s kingdom, we must be careful not to spend our energy trying to legislate the morality of the very people we are called to love. But when evangelicals cry “persecution,” what they often feel is actually pushback. Society pushing back on attempts to legislate morality. Courts pushing back against privilege. Neighbors pushing back against the expectation that Christianity should sit at the head of the table. Recognizing this history makes something clear: evangelical claims of persecution don’t arise in a vacuum. They exist in a web of competing freedoms. And often what feels like persecution is simply the natural friction of a pluralistic society resisting religious imposition (The Atlantic [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/the-christians-who-believe-theyre-being-persecuted-in-america/488468/?utm_source=chatgpt.com]). The Zoom Call: Firsthand Testimonies Now we have to shift gears and talk about one of the most deadly ways poiticians and people in power have traditionally used nationalism to weaponize the convictions of well-meaning Christians. America’s foreign policies. Last year, I worked with the Appalachian Peace Education Center to press Senator Tim Kaine to oppose weapons transfers to Israel and call for a ceasefire. When word reached his office that we were planning a protest at Trail Days in Damascus, Virginia, his staff reached out and offered us a meeting instead. We gathered in a local church pastored by a man who had just returned from the West Bank. It felt like a holy collision: A large group of us came together, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others standing in solidarity with the innocent men women and children of Gaza who were being killed in staggering numbers by an Israeli administration that had taken things too far. Months later, after continued pressure, Kaine’s office granted us a follow-up meeting, this time over Zoom. Since the meeting was going digital we were able to include a broader group of people to present to the Senator their stories. One of those speakers was Father Fadi Diab, rector of St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Ramallah and one of the authors of Kairos Palestine [https://www.kairospalestine.ps/index.php/about-kairos/kairos-palestine-document]. He told us about Layan Nasir, a young Sunday school teacher, taken from her home at 3 a.m. at gunpoint by Israeli soldiers and placed in administrative detention without charge. He wasn’t allowed to visit her even as her pastor. She remained in custody for many moths after that. He also shared a personal story that had just happened a couple weeks before our meeting. He himself had been attacked by Israeli settlers while driving with his son, their windshield shattered by stones and side windows broken. By God’s grace, they made it out okay. What he said next I’ll never forget: the Christian population of Palestine has dropped from about 17% a century ago to less than 2% today. “It would be devastating,” he said, “for the Holy Land to become a museum of empty churches without its living stones.” The next speaker was Philip, born and raised in Jerusalem, now living in Virginia but with much of his family in Gaza. He told us there are now only about 1,000 Christians in Gaza [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/1/under-israeli-attack-who-are-the-christians-of-gaza?utm_source=chatgpt.com], down sharply from around 3,000 in 2007 [https://ucs.nd.edu/learn/palestine/?utm_source=chatgpt.com]. One of the sanctuaries, St. Porphyrius, was bombed—18 Christians killed, including some of Philip’s relatives. Also, his 84-year-old cousin Ilham Farah, who had been sheltering in the church for weeks, finally risked walking home to change her clothes. An Israeli sniper shot her in the leg. She lay bleeding for hours while ambulances and rescuers were fired upon. By morning, once they were finally able to recover her body, an Israeli tank had rolled over. Finally we heard from, John, a minister who spent two decades in Gaza founding The Lighthouse School, the only Christian school there. He spoke with visible grief. He told us how every family he still tries keeps in contact with has been displaced at least once. Many of the children were still missing. He showed us a photograph of one of his kindergartners lifeless in the rubble, one small shoe still on his foot. He told us how a tank shell crashed through the office wall of his apartment near the school, and that they were still fortunate that area hadn’t been shelled to the point of destroying the school. Only the cafeteria suffered significant damage. But then he shared something else—a video from Gaza: the school’s playground had been repaired by a few staff members who managed to reenter the area. There were children laughing again, joy breaking through dust and misery. This is persecution. This is oppression. This is what it means to suffer. How can it be that many of the same American Evangelicals whose hearts break for suffering Christians around the world, can’t seem to find that same compassion for their brethren in the Holy Land? The apostle Paul said, “When one part of the body suffers, all suffer together” (1 Cor. 12:26). But our Palestinian brothers and sisters have suffered while we turned away. The great deception of having Christians supporting the persecution of some of their own brothers and sisters in Christ, while mourning for the persecution of others, is a fruit of the theology of empire. That is what nationalism does to Christianity. It is the idol we must tear down. Conclusion I’m not advocating for the church to exit the public sphere, or to leave politics to the secular population while we all just love everybody and hope for the best. I’m asking us to examine the ways politicians appeal to our faith. In America today, nationalism is being used to weaponize the church like never before. Political leaders portray themselves as the last line of defense between “faithful Christians” and the so-called “radical left” that seeks to destroy everything you call holy. They are depending on you to feel attacked, persecuted, oppressed — to see an enemy at the gates. And in your outrage at those they’ve labeled the enemy, you’re too distracted to notice the truth. They just need your vote. If the American Church wants to be a light to the world, we have to detangle the stars and stripes from the cross. We have to learn the difference between cultural opposition and persecution. We need to be honest in the role we’ve played in stirring up much of that opposition. And we need to stand against persecution wherever it is, recognizing our selective compassion as a distortion of the gospel. If we keep mistaking opposition for persecution, we risk turning our witness into little more than a viral blooper — remembered not for faithfulness, but for theatrics. I know these things are hard for some to hear. But at some point, its time to wisen up and realise, as Raygun did, that regardless of our intentions, our obsession with oppression has become a stumbling block to the gospel, and its time to retire from competing… in victimhood. When you finally remove the veil that nationalism puts before your eyes, you’ll discover that many of the people placed in that box the president has labelled the “radical leftist lunatics who are an enemy to christianity” are actually your own brothers and sisters in Christ. As the Pew Research data depicted below shows, white Christians disproportionately lean Republican, while the vast majority of non-white Christians align elsewhere. And even if there weren’t a mosaic of Christian belief that appears all across the political spectrum, we’ve got to stop letting politics lead us to demonize people who Jesus would have broken bread with. Step back, and you’ll see: these leaders are not defending your faith — they are teaching you to trade love for fear, and fear for hatred. Stop giving them that power. Defy Get full access to Statz Don't Lie at statz.substack.com/subscribe [https://statz.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Ep 2: Escaping Society's Cardboard Prison

The Problem With Boxes We all do it. Across the spectrum, it doesn't matter where you stand—we've been conditioned to categorize. Putting a vast group of different people into the same box because of one shared label is obviously problematic. So why do we do it every day? America is a country of roughly 340 million people, and we're no monolith. I would argue—and often do—that diversity is our greatest strength. And this isn't just true of population, ethnicity, or culture. Diversity of opinion is crucial for genuine growth and development in reasoning skills and intellect. Diversity strengthens markets. Diversity strengthens communities. Diversity strengthens faith. Iron sharpens Iron. Boxes keep us from seeing that potential. When we reduce people to boxes, they lose their individuality in our eyes. It's hard to stand face to face with a person and speak your mind, but when you're addressing a box? You can dehumanize them all you want and walk away with a clear conscience. The more you put others in boxes, the more you box yourself in. That's because we use these boxes as building blocks to fortify our own narratives, but we create walls that cut us off from reality—and from the beauty of God's diverse creation. The Recession of Trust I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the political landscape in America has been a real clown show in recent years. At this point, I couldn't care less what your political affiliation is. I'm baffled that so many still blindly defend one side or the other after the lies and failures of both parties. And according to recent polling, nearly a third of Americans now reject both major parties.1 [https://statz.substack.com/p/escaping-societys-cardboard-prison#user-content-fn-1] Party "dealignment" is real: independents are growing,2 [https://statz.substack.com/p/escaping-societys-cardboard-prison#user-content-fn-2] partisanship is weakening, and trust in both Democrats and Republicans is collapsing.3 [https://statz.substack.com/p/escaping-societys-cardboard-prison#user-content-fn-3] People are waking up to the fact that they've been existing in boxes, and they're realizing the labels on those boxes don't reflect their convictions, actions, or beliefs. Gaza as a Shattering Example Nowhere is this clearer than in the debate over Gaza. For decades, support for Israel has been a bipartisan rite of passage, a sacred cow in Washington. But the war has fractured partisan lines in ways few other issues have. Among Democrats, sympathy for Palestinians has surged,4 [https://statz.substack.com/p/escaping-societys-cardboard-prison#user-content-fn-4] with majorities now opposing more aid to Israel—even as many Democratic leaders vote the other way.5 [https://statz.substack.com/p/escaping-societys-cardboard-prison#user-content-fn-7] Independents lean the same direction, and even younger Republicans are questioning the official narrative. So while the fracture is most pronounced inside the "blue team," it's not exclusive to them. Gaza has exposed a deeper reality: across the board, Americans are tired of seeing their taxes leave our country to fund endless wars—and now a live-streamed genocide—while their own needs are ignored.6 [https://statz.substack.com/p/escaping-societys-cardboard-prison#user-content-fn-5]7 [https://statz.substack.com/p/escaping-societys-cardboard-prison#user-content-fn-6]8 [https://statz.substack.com/p/escaping-societys-cardboard-prison#user-content-fn-8] I watched Mehdi Hasan respond to a question that captured this tension. A woman said she was disoriented as a Democrat: her party had ignored its base to keep sending billions to Israel, while the only public figures she saw speaking against it were Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owens—figures she's never agreed with about anything. Hasan acknowledged this paradox, and admitted they were "at least more correct than the rest" on this issue, but reminded her they still had their own agendas. He closed with: "I think we can see a free Palestine without aligning ourselves with white Christian nationalists." I understand the sentiment. But I firmly disagree. Hear me out. A Different Playing Field We're witnessing a massive ideological shift across the spectrum. It's being driven by economic pressure, political corruption, and moral clarity. People from all walks of life are waking up and asking: "Why are we unconditionally shielding Israel from accountability?" Their motivations are as diverse as the people themselves—ranging from Jewish Holocaust survivors determined to prevent another genocide in their name, to neo-Nazis exploiting the outrage to stoke antisemitism. Even here in the southern "Bible Belt", for the last two years I've stood shoulder to shoulder with Jewish, Muslim, and Christian brothers and sisters in demanding our elected officials work to stop arming Israel. And once it became a united policy in most western nations to dispose of any voice critical of Israel to the "antisemite" box—once used to shine a light on real hatred—that box has since burst from the weight of people calling out the evils they see with their own eyes. The Value of Coming Together Coming together on this issue can push public policy away from cosigning the slaughter of civilians, but it can also produce dialogue between right and left, middle and margins, that just might knock down these prison walls. True progress starts with a willingness to wield the truth with the logic of love—not as a weapon to defeat "them." The simple, risky act of meeting people where they are, on whatever small patch of common ground can be found. That's where grace enters, and without it, real progress is impossible. And here's the ripple effect: when you take that first step toward real conversation, you're not just talking to the person across from you—you're talking to everyone listening from inside their box. You may be the first voice they've heard pierce their echo chamber. Your words may sound foreign, even jarring, but they might plant the question that makes them pause, wonder, and look for the door out. It may even lead you to see the people in that box differently. How Boxes Break So how do boxes actually break? Not through debates. Not even through facts. But through relationship. When you meet a person and your experience with them goes against everything the label on the box told you about their people, you'll see their people differently. You'll start noticing their people as…people. The Power of Community I learned this lesson as a young man. I grew up in the Tri-Cities regions of southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee. My peers were a bit more diverse than maybe the average person growing up in the area, and interracial friendships were completely normal to me. But not everyone in my family shared that reality. I'll never forget the first time my aunt began dating a black man, my grandmother was furious, and I was shocked–at my grandmother's outrage. She was deeply serious about her Christian faith. She's the one who read the Bible to me at night and kept us in church when I was growing up. Hearing prejudice from her felt completely out of character. So I asked her the one question that's saved me from my own prison of prejudice my whole life: why? Why does her boyfriend being black make it wrong? Her answers crumbled under simple questioning. Society taught her as a youth that there was something immoral and ungodly about "mixing races," but she'd never had an experience in her life that prompted her to even consider how true that sentiment was. But despite the doubts I may have sown with my questions, her conviction only broke the day my aunt's boyfriend came for dinner. They sat together, broke bread, conversated, treated each other with dignity, and by the end of that night, my grandmother walked out of a prison she didn't even know she was in. No argument could have done that. Only relationship. The Universal Power of Connection I learned the power of connection again in prison—not a cardboard one, a real one of concrete and steel. I spent a decade inside, and eventually became a leader during that time with many men looking to me for guidance. That place was a microcosm of the greater American church, with every race, denomination, and ideology represented. Being effective in that environment meant cultivating relationships with people very different from me and focusing on truth instead of nitpicking errors. One of my closest friends during that time was the imam of the Sunni community, who lived just a few cells down from me. We were the same age, we were both thrust into leadership even though we were genuinely just trying to be a help to our communities without getting entangled in the machinery of organized religion, and despite our theological differences, we shared the same struggles and inter-community drama. This relationship and others like it were the only things that could have ever freed me from a lifetime of propaganda and indoctrination concerning our Muslim "cousins." All that to say: I know the value of sitting at tables with people I share little common ground with. My relentless curiosity has made me a natural-born box cutter, always asking why, always needing to see for myself. So We Burn Our Boxes, Then What? American society maintains a strange Ricky Bobby-style patriotism that shapes our worldview. If you're not first, you're last. Winning is everything. Coming out on top is the only option. Ironically, many Americans have blended that sentiment with a faith that declares the first shall be last, and commands its followers to pour themselves out for the sake of others. To build a wall that blinds a person from that incoherence, you need a lot of boxes. Nelson Mandela knew real peace after apartheid would never come by "winning" or "coming out on top." He led with the logic of love. He knew progress required reconciliation, and he was willing to take the first step. He showed his enemies a dignity they had never shown his people, and in doing so, created space for a future that would have been impossible otherwise. And that's the hard truth in front of us now. After our boxes are gone, reconciliation isn't optional—it's a necessity. Like it or not, that same work must happen between groups as far apart as the American left and MAGA. The future depends on whether enough of us are willing to take that first step toward those we've been taught to despise. Bonhoeffer said: "We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer." That's how we learn to look past labels, to peer inside the box and see the human being within. Conclusion This is the work before us: to break out of the prisons of our own making. To resist labels. To take the first step of grace—meeting people where they are, on whatever small patch of common ground can be found. Stop writing people off because of their views. Make a real effort to get to know people different than you. If you're a Democrat, get to know a MAGA Republican in a way that doesn't involve politics. Build a rapport, and when you're at a place that you can do so without raising their defenses, ask them…why? If you're a MAGA Republican, find a Democrat and get to know them. If you're an American Christian, find a Muslim friend. If you're appalled at the notion of trans-rights, get to know someone who belongs to that community. Because history shows us: once a society grows comfortable putting people in boxes, it's only a matter of time before people end up put in boxes they can never again climb out of. "When you lose sight of the humanity of your enemy, you begin losing your own." So you want to stop a genocide but don't know where to start? Start with that neighbor you disagree with. You may both find that underneath narratives and biases, you both want the same things out of life. Begin the work of recognizing the building blocks of the boxes you’ve used to fortify your prison—and then burn them down. Make no mistake: if we have any realistic hope of seeing a free Palestine, it will take as many of us as possible—left, right, independent, faith communities, skeptics, everyone—to stand together against the full power of Empire. To my fellow box burners, I love you all. Stay stirred up. Statz Don't Lie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Statz Don't Lie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Statz Don't Lie at statz.substack.com/subscribe [https://statz.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Ep. 1 - The Freedom To Be Lonely

We live in a culture that celebrates independence, but I’ve learned the hard way that independence and isolation can coexist in unhealthy ways. During my decade in prison, I found the most authentic Christian community I’ve ever experienced — one forged in chaos, diversity, and desperation. Ironically, eight years into my freedom, I sometimes feel lonelier than I did behind those walls. This is about that paradox. It’s about what community means, how easily it fractures, and why the gospel ties love and connection together at the deepest level. It’s also about the cost of standing for truth when it pushes you away from the people you love most. If you’ve ever felt disconnected in a world that’s more “networked” than ever, I think you’ll find yourself in these words. “The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.” I first read those words from Bonhoeffer’s Life Together in my mid-twenties, serving a ten-year sentence and just beginning to lead and mentor many broken men in a very broken place. I wanted to be like him—wise beyond his years, overflowing with love, unwavering in the struggle against injustice. His vision of self-sacrificial love was one voice among many that spoke to me through the pages of the books I’d devour. Their words filled the stale air of my cell—and my heart—with divine wisdom the church seems to have largely forgotten. In that wretched place, I was blessed to taste real community. Strange that now, years into my life of freedom, I find myself more isolated than ever—craving the very spiritual connections I once had in prison. We were created for community, and without it we are incomplete. Zion Hill Out of my decade of incarceration, four and a half years were spent at Northeast Correctional Complex in Mountain City, Tennessee. I visited there again last night—something I’ve been doing for a little while now—returning to the ministry where I once served as associate pastor, Zion Hill. It’s always surreal going back. Many of the same men are still there—men I knew well, who became family to me. I stood in that same room week after week, teaching, preaching, worshiping, and taking part in a movement that made a real impact on everyone it touched. It was the most raw and real Christian experience I’ve ever had. Last night, after I shared a bit, Eddie Sawyer got up to preach. He was the pastor I served under when I was inside. He is probably the most consistently faithful man of God I’ve ever known. As I listened, nostalgia hit me hard. Hearing his prophetic voice deliver manna from heaven for my starving soul—it just hits different within those walls than it does anywhere else I glanced down at my Bible, the same Bible I carried during my time there—the same one I preached from, wept over, consulted, and studied. The one that I’ve walked away from and stumbled back to ever since. Inside that Bible was a piece of paper I remembered well—an old prayer request sheet from one of our Bible study nights. A paper with hardly any space left to write on, filled with glimpses into the pain and brokenness of men whom society despised. It was an intense part of my journey. The prison itself was in turmoil at that time. The state of Tennessee had just appointed a new commissioner over the Department of Corrections, and he wasted no time shaking things up. A barrage of major policies changed overnight, mass transfers shuffled men at random all over the state, uprooting many who had spent years working to get there to be close to their families. And as movement restrictions tightened on the inmate population and more constructive outlets were taken away, violence rapidly surged across the state. In the midst of all that, Zion Hill exploded. Our ministry team was stacked with men from every race, gang affiliation, age bracket, and walk of life—all full of love for one another despite having nothing in common but their current residence and their love for Christ. Our weekly services became packed. Even the Wednesday Bible study grew from only being three or four people for years to fifty or sixty crammed into a hot classroom with floor-to-ceiling windows that the sun beamed into that time of day. The stank of body odor was only overshadowed by the thickness of the Spirit in that place. They gladly endured it because real discipleship was happening. I saw violent gang members drop their flags, enemies reconciled, and men set free from addictions. Men tithed hygiene and other essential commissary items bought with their meager prison job wages so the church could provide for anyone in need—no questions asked. And as tensions rose across the compound, our community became a force for peace. It was something only God could create. United in diversity. A motley crew of society’s boogiemen doing Kingdom work from inside a cage. The purest spiritual community I’ve ever known. And it still survives to this day. My wife joined me on my first trip back in. She was absolutely terrified going in. But after spending a few hours in a room with over 100 prisoners, she couldn’t contain her shock and amazement on the drive home as she told me how she had just been treated with more respect, and felt more protected, than she had ever felt around any group of men in her entire life. This community in this place is a microcosm of what church is meant to be in the world. Created for Connection “It’s not good that man should be alone” isn’t only about marriage. We were made for connection. Gangs are one manifestation of this—men standing together to survive in a hostile environment. But the same impulse drives every club, church small group, recovery meeting, book club, political rally, sports team, and every online echo chamber. Regardless of how it manifests in our lives, it’s only in the gospel that we find what our restless hearts are seeking. This is because love is the driving force of the gospel. But what is love if it isn’t shared? What good is love if it never flows from me and reaches someone else? God created and redeemed us to participate in His love. It is what draws us to Him and to each other. To live cut off from community is to live against our design—and that hunger for connection can drive us toward darkness without love. Freedom and Loneliness Eight years out of prison now, and it’s been quite a journey. I’ve done meaningful ministry and activist work, married a beautiful woman, became a present father to my daughter who was born in the first three months of my incarceration, and I’ve had a good career. I can’t call myself a failure, but my heart is restless because I know I’m not walking in my purpose, and the burden of that knowledge is heavy. Life has buried me under work, bills, stress, responsibility. I’ve made more money than ever, but it’s consumed all my time and energy for far too long. In addition to that, Gaza has fractured my spiritual community in ways I never thought possible. Because of twisted theology and a worldview shaped by American mythology, things I once could “agree to disagree” about have formed a chasm between myself and a great majority of my spiritual community. Theological differences that once seemed secondary now enable horrors broadcast live to the world, and in my attempts to help my brothers and sisters see it all for what it is, I’ve pushed many away. Speaking out has meant standing against people I love, cherish, and once leaned on. Advocacy has left me disconnected from other believers in ways I’ve never experienced before. Haunted by Violence In prison, I saw things that scarred me: horrific scenes of savage violence I can still see in vivid detail—sometimes even happening to people I knew and cared about. Over time I grew numb to it as a defense mechanism for my own sanity. But that led to great internal conflict as I approached my return to the free world. I couldn’t help but wonder if my conscience would return, and I was still trying to understand how I lost any sense of it in the first place. But nothing I saw compares to the images out of Gaza these past two years—emaciated children, murdered journalists, grieving families. Every day I see more and more hell on earth. I see Judaism and Christianity being weaponized to advance empires of greedy men instead of the Kingdom of God. To have my own mentors, who I’ve always revered for being the most loving and selfless people I know, listen to every moral, legal, and scriptural argument I present to them while pleading with them to reconsider their unconditional support for the modern state of Israel, and dismiss it all with, “Unfortunately, war is ugly, this is God’s will for His people”—that broke something in me. How can I tell Bisan, whose cheerful countenance has lost all hope, or precious little Hind Rajab while she’s calling for help, or the thousands of starving, traumatized, adolescent amputees with no living relatives left that war is ugly, but this is God’s will? I don’t say this as a “woe is me” story. My frustrations are small compared to the suffering of those I stand in solidarity with. But the toll it’s taken on my heart has been deep. And it’s only pushed me further into my current state of isolation. Broken Bonds Looking back, I see how much loss of community has shaped me. At 20, my whole world vanished in one night. Every relationship I’d ever known, a distant memory. The next decade was spent living in what might as well have been a different universe, forging deep bonds and living a whole different life, only for that reality to be ripped away in an instant as well. Coming home is its own war. One of the hardest parts relationally is to assimilate back into your own household. Life has carried on without you. Everyone has settled into roles at home, and reinserting yourself after so long can bring challenges you never saw coming. Being part of something as intense as my journey through prison, then having it all just suddenly end and being dropped back into a life that feels foreign—it leaves scars you can’t explain and challenges you never expected. Eight years into my life after prison, I still struggle to maintain consistent friendships. Some of that is on me, but much of it can be attributed to the hustle of everyday life. I’ve also struggled to maintain a spiritual kinship with many who have always been pillars in my spiritual community. This has a lot to do with the direction my ministry has taken, challenging the theology behind Christian Zionism and Christian Nationalism. I don’t regret my activism for Palestinians, and anything I experience as a result is a small inconvenience compared to the oppression they’re experiencing, but it’s contributed to a level of spiritual disconnectedness I’ve never known since I started pursuing Christ. And lately, I’ve been feeling the effects. It’s been weighing on my heart. I know I need connection again. I need to be part of a body of believers. I need community and relationships beyond my clients and industry peers. A Word for This Season This is why, when I returned to the prison last night, it was a conscious attempt to reconnect and quiet my soul. As I sat there listening to Eddie and holding that old prayer request form like a holy relic, my eyes turned to the blank pages at the beginning of my Bible. Only mine aren’t blank. They’re covered with profound quotes I heard or read while I was incarcerated there, and as I turned to them one immediately stood out to me: “The less you’re involved in other people’s lives, the worse things are in your own.” A former mentor of mine spoke that in a sermon here many years ago. It hit me again like it did the first time I heard it, on a prophetic level. Not prophecy like predicting the future, but illumination of the present. It shined a light on my current state. Isolation has been eating away at me, and I’ve let it happen. Another wise man I had the privilege of knowing in my time there once told me, “When a banana separates itself from the bunch, it’s fixin’ to get peeled.” I guess it’s no wonder it feels like life’s been peelin’ my wig back lately. Rat Park and the Gospel In the 1970s, researchers put rats in two environments: one group isolated in cages, the other in a kind of utopia they dubbed Rat Park, complete with toys, space to move about, and most importantly, other rats. Both groups were given access to drug-laced water and regular clean water. The isolated rats overdosed and died. The rats in community? They rarely touched the drugs. Instead they thrived together despite the easy access to such a euphoric poison. The conclusion was simple but profound: the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety—it’s connection. Without connection, without loving community, we’ll eventually destroy ourselves. With it, we flourish. In the gospel we discover the deepest connection of all—the love of God binding us to Himself and to one another. Don’t make the mistake of thinking your adherence to religious tradition is more important than your relationships with those around you. 1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. - 1 Corinthians 13:1-7 We need God. We need each other. I love you all. Stay stirred up. Statz Don't Lie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Statz Don't Lie at statz.substack.com/subscribe [https://statz.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]