Author: John Pavlovitz

At times in this life it can be a challenge to figure out who the bad people are, but sometimes they help you. Sometimes they do the work for you. Sometimes with their every vulgar, bitter word from their mouth, they testify to their personal malignancy and they make it easy to identify them. Generally speaking, there are things that good people do and things good people don’t do. Good people don’t refer to entire countries as “sh*tholes” — most notably countries that have given birth to our very humanity; ones that for hundreds of years have been colonized...

Sometime truth is just volume. The loud people get to write the story that everyone hears, the one they come to believe is the only story. In this way, they get to define what is true for those looking on who may not hear anything else. Right now there is a story being written about Christians in America; a story saturated with cruelty, one absent of compassion, and because the author’s volume is so great and their profile so high—that is becoming the singular story. It is becoming true for all of us. But that is not our story....

A letter to anyone with a friend who has been angry since last year’s election, and wonders what can be done to help. Dear Friend, Thank you for your note to let me know you’re worried about me, that you’re concerned about my health — that you’re not sure that I realize I’m coming across as really angry lately. Your assessment is correct. I am angry. I’m sorry. I can imagine I’m not all that fun to be around right now, and that from time to time my words come across as combative or abrasive. I’m probably more than...

Donald Trump has reportedly banned the CDC from using the following words in their policies, budgets, and communications. This is not exactly true. This is not Donald Trump’s handiwork. He is not the author of this list: Evidence-based Science-based Fetuses Transgender Vulnerable Entitlement Diversity He isn’t smart enough to come up with a combination of words so perfectly synchronized to hurt and silence marginalized people. Only Evangelicals can do that. As a Christian and twenty-year pastor, one who’s served for much of that time in the American Bible Belt — the list is eerily familiar. It’s the extreme Evangelical...

American Evangelical’s annual campaign against the supposed “War in Christmas” began early this year, with the President promising the perpetually oppressed faithful that we would once again be a nation that says “Merry Christmas.” “Praise the Lord,” shouted the ever-victimized choir. Yes, it certainly has been a long time since those happy golden days of yore, hasn’t it? Gone, the President assured them, will be the national scourge of “Happy Holidays” in all its pluralistic, inclusive sickness. After nine years of unmatched persecution, American Christians will once again be free to cram their religious beliefs down people’s throats; to...

Please Stop Giving Trump Supporters a Stupidity Pass. A friend recently offered a theory that I hear all too often from seemingly reasonable adults right now: Trump supporters are somehow victims of the partisan media/Religious Right Church alternate reality that they’ve been raised in and are still captives of. They’re surrounded by fake news and false stories, and so they aren’t bad people—they just aren’t seeing what we are seeing. We need to be more understanding. I’m sorry but this isn’t an acceptable justification. It may have been in a pre-Internet era, but today there simply isn’t a reasonable...