Russell Moore told NPR that evangelical pastors he works with are facing pushback when preaching the words and ethics of Jesus. He said, “Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount [and] to have someone come up after to say, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?’ … What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.’”

When Christians are quick to publicly proclaim that the teachings of Jesus are antiquated and weak, we have a crisis on our hands. As my friend Rev. Benjamin R. Cremer always says, “when you worship power, things like mercy, empathy, and compassion sound like weakness.”