Awhile back, I was reading about the latest church-celebrity \u201cI\u2019m-not-a-Christian-anymore\u201d social media post when my insightful friend Sherri asked me a question:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHey, did he ever mention Jesus?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDid he mention Jesus in his \u2018goodbye\u2019 post? I noticed the last guy didn\u2019t… the celebrity pastor. Did this one mention Jesus?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I skimmed it again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why no, he didn\u2019t. It\u2019s strange that neither of these posts mentioned Jesus, and maybe even stranger that few of us seemed to notice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Presumably, when they became believers, these men said something about Jesus. So many of us do when we become Christians. Something like, \u201cI believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God,\u201d and we keep saying and singing things like that, like \u201cJesus is Lord.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWho do you say that I am?\u201d <\/em>Jesus asked his best friends. It was, and remains, the question for believers and for those who would walk away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Who is this man?<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Because if he\u2019s the Christ, the Messiah, the hope for the world, sent by a living God, well\u2026 the rest of my complaints about church folk in my Instagram post don\u2019t really add up to a reason to abandon my faith in Him. And if He\u2019s not all that stuff, well, no list of justifying complaints is necessary to head for the door. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus is still the issue. The question stands. So why don\u2019t they even mention him? If they can\u2019t say who they\u2019re converting from<\/em>, what was it they converted to<\/em>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n And if they\u2019re not leaving Jesus, what exactly are they leaving? The Christian stage? The charade of stage religion? The cultural currency their \u201cfaith\u201d once bought? I honestly wonder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is because I\u2019m not without compassion for these guys. I understand disillusionment, especially if their faith has largely been played amid fake fog on evangelical mega-stages in front of adoring crowds. This is a soul-killing way to live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If my \u201cfaith\u201d is about church culture, or being a Christian celeb, or politics, or Worship Music (TM); or if it\u2019s a means to attention and significance, well\u2026 I could certainly \u201cde-convert\u201d pretty quickly. And when I leave, maybe I\u2019ll post all about it on Instagram. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026but then there\u2019s Jesus. I have to know what to do with Him. That\u2019s always been the question, isn\u2019t it? Do I think He\u2019s the authority or not? If I don\u2019t, well, I\u2019m out. I\u2019m not in this for the Christian movies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d likely just decide to quit bucking the tide and accept myself as my personal lord and savior. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026but wow, Jesus is compelling. He challenges the very hypocrisies I complain about. He lifts up the truly humble. He sees through posers and still loves us. He cuts through our moral preening and calls us what we are: Soul-sick, in need of a real doctor. He turns the tables on the moneychangers! (We love that part!) <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026and then He dies for those moneychangers hours later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus doesn\u2019t just acknowledge human brokenness and the mess we are making of things, He actually does something about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What are we to do with Jesus? <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pontius Pilate was asked that question. He tried to dodge the issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n History has judged Him a coward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho do you say that I am?\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Brant Hansen Awhile back, I was reading about the latest church-celebrity \u201cI\u2019m-not-a-Christian-anymore\u201d social media post when my insightful friend Sherri asked me a question:\u00a0 \u201cHey, did he ever mention Jesus?\u201d “What?” \u201cDid…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":1167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archived"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-13 09:39:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/a>Midday Show Host, STAR 99.1 | Listen Now<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"