Mitch, this poem offers religious readers a difficult but necessary challenge: before defending an institution, look honestly at the people harmed in its name.
Your focus on the four Gospels is especially important. You ask readers to compare the compassion, mercy, and defense of the marginalized found there with churches that shame women, condemn queer people, frighten children, and make human worth conditional upon obedience. That contradiction deserves more than a rehearsed answer.
The line “I used to be one of you” prevents the poem from becoming an easy attack by an uninformed outsider. The speaker knows the language, the house, and the authority structure because he once participated in them. His anger comes from recognition—and perhaps from grief over what something intended to be loving was allowed to become.
A faithful response to this poem should not begin with defensiveness. It should begin by listening to the harm being named and asking whether the institution’s conduct resembles the love it claims to represent.
Keep asking that question, Mitch. Institutions rarely examine themselves willingly; sometimes someone who escaped the disguise has to turn around and name what was concealed beneath it.
This is excellent! 😍
Thanks Thorn!! Appreciate it!
Fire burning 🔥
Definitely did with this one 😅! Thanks Sattie!
Mitch, this poem offers religious readers a difficult but necessary challenge: before defending an institution, look honestly at the people harmed in its name.
Your focus on the four Gospels is especially important. You ask readers to compare the compassion, mercy, and defense of the marginalized found there with churches that shame women, condemn queer people, frighten children, and make human worth conditional upon obedience. That contradiction deserves more than a rehearsed answer.
The line “I used to be one of you” prevents the poem from becoming an easy attack by an uninformed outsider. The speaker knows the language, the house, and the authority structure because he once participated in them. His anger comes from recognition—and perhaps from grief over what something intended to be loving was allowed to become.
A faithful response to this poem should not begin with defensiveness. It should begin by listening to the harm being named and asking whether the institution’s conduct resembles the love it claims to represent.
Keep asking that question, Mitch. Institutions rarely examine themselves willingly; sometimes someone who escaped the disguise has to turn around and name what was concealed beneath it.