Who Do I Write For?

I write for myself, a misfit, an immigrant, a citizen of two nations and a resident of a third, a follower of Jesus seeking to live my life in a way that honours him. I am my primary audience when I write. Anything less and I wouldn’t dare share what I actually think.

I write for humanity. That sounds big and grandiose, but it’s true. I write for everyone created in the image of God. It’s my passion, trying to figure out how to embrace our full humanity in the world.

I write with other misfits in mind. I have no interest in simple answers. I write for those who value nuance and complexity. I write to challenge us to develop a mind more fully oriented towards Jesus. I write to push myself towards a new way of seeing the world, undoing the old ways, not being conformed to the patterns of this world, but being transformed by the renewing of my mind as Paul tells us in Romans 12.

I write with particular friends in mind. Friends who have walked away from the church because of what they have seen and experienced. Friends who have been abused by the church. Friends who through the toxic culture of American Evangelicalism and Northern Irish Protestantism still profess an interest in Jesus, but have been poisoned by the church.

I write against that poison. I seek in my own fallible way to offer an antidote to toxic masculinity, the refusal to address systemic racism, Christian Nationalism, legalism, fundamentalism, and any other systems that diminishes the humanity of others. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains, “Things do exist that are worth standing up for without compromise. To me it seems peace and social justice are such things, as is Christ Himself.”

I write for those on the edges, the fringes of the church. Those struggling to hold on. I write to remind people that they matter, that we all have dignity. That the way of Jesus is not the way of the religious elite.

I write in an attempt to explain why I think and live as I do. Seeking to follow the teaching of Jesus beginning with the Sermon on the Mount. Of which the great Bible teacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones says to those who think it some future oriented ethic, “How foolish to say that the Sermon on the Mount does not apply to Christians now but refers to the future, when the kingdom comes. No, it is for us now. Paul says, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink,’ which is exactly the same teaching. It is everywhere.”

I write without a care about what the religious elite and the gatekeepers of “orthodoxy” might say about me. Call me what you like, it doesn’t matter. I’m getting closer to arriving where Mark Thiessen Nation says Bohoeffer got to. Who, “In the midst of seeking to live out of ‘the unifying center of his existence’ - namely Jesus Christ - had truly been freed, like Jesus, to be at peace with being misunderstood by others.” So say what you want about me.

I write for myself and hope it encourages, pushes, challenges, and supports others.

I write in pursuit of truth.