Crucified Life

The Broken Element in Christian Nationalism

/ JSB / 1 Comment

“Blessed is the one who does not judge himself by what he approves.” (Romans 14:22)

As the fervor of Christian Nationalism continues to expand within the American evangelical Church, it’s vital that sincere, covenant followers of Jesus Christ be able to distinguish between what is New Testament Christianity, and what is a perversion of the Way. This task of discernment requires at least four critical elements.
1. It requires that we accept the Word of God as the first, last and foremost resource for the formation of true spiritual understanding.
2. It requires that we be people who actively listen to, and dialogue with the Holy Spirit, Who illuminates, and “teaches us truth”, from the Word.
3. It also requires that we cultivate an ear to hear the Spirit’s circumspect truth re the external issues in the fallen world, as well as honest perspective re the true, attendant issues (pride, fear, lust, hostility etc.) in our own heart.
4. It requires that we have a primary predisposition to die, and submit our sin-disposed selves to an ongoing journey of applying the truths that the Holy Spirit shows us in the Word, in our world, and within our own selves.

It is primarily in the neglect of this fourth element that many in our Christian family are becoming ensnared in the allurement of American Christian Nationalism. We say that we are people who “rightly divide” the Word of God, and apply its true light with objectivity to our lives and our culture. And so we may rightly deduce that the Word of God stands firmly against matters of sexual infidelity, atheism, destruction of human life, and the honor of God. But do we also hear what the Word says about the innate predisposition of our own soul to self-gratification, self-glorification, self-evaluation, self-determination, and self-sufficiency? Who is helping us to ruthlessly, and responsibly apply the truths of the Word that expose the pride, the lust, the covetousness, and the hostility that vexes our own souls? Are we committed to such excruciating integrity of character, even at the expense of our own “image”?

Simply put, where zeal for truth exists alongside a spirit that has no will or intent of being leveled by that truth, truth profits us nothing. Indeed, where this spirit persists you will find all kinds of pretentious viciousness, depravity and wickedness.

Where the corrupting plots of Christian nationalism are concerned, I do not pray for individuals to find “true truth”; by either discovering how evil, or good an individual, or talking point is. I pray for our neighbors, sisters, and family members to be swallowed up in a spirit of humility and cross-bearing that surrenders to Jesus, as the Way of truth…

This is an ENORMOUSLY IMPORTANT distinction.

It isn’t the false narratives that chiefly corrupt Christian nationalists. The subversive force of Christian Nationalism is its stubborn repudiation of the baseline dynamic that connects human beings to a Savior, and a King – humility, gratitude for mercy, meekness, quietness, deep trust, repentance, chesed-love, and despair of self.

What Christian nationalism offers our greedy culture is an endless appetite for “truth storylines” that will “guarantee” greater security, stability, and self-worth. By contrast, what heaven offers this same homicidal, and unstable world, is a baby.

This personalization of truth is what Pilate stumbled over. (John 18:38) It was also what offended the Pharisees when Jesus answered their theological questions by pointing to Himself. “Before Abraham was, I Am” (John 8:58), and “unless you believe that I Am He, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24), and “I (Myself) Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6), and “This is the work of God, that you believe in the One Whom He has sent.” (John 6:29).

Jesus’ scandalous personalization of truth is what offended many of His disciples to the point that they no longer followed Him. “Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood…” (John 6:53) Essentially Jesus was saying, “I Am pure theology. And I AM all the theology you need. Unless you feed on Me, all your theology getting will not profit you one bit. Unless you lose your life-seeking ways, you are not worthy of anything else I’m going to say.”

This is why Jesus didn’t feed His disciples nefarious conspiracies about the workings of an evil world. He knew their uncrucified selves wanted to build utopias on earth with this “dirt information”. Jesus knew what was in the heart of humanity… They wanted a king; a king who would make sure they had an abundant supply of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil… so that their unbowed souls could attain to the levers of power and influence that their prideful selves believed they deserved – and were even destined for. This innate, ubiquitous desire is common to all of mankind. It was what the Lord abhorred in Israel when they clamored for a king in (1 Samuel 8:7) “The Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do everything the people request of you. For it is not you that they have rejected, but it is Me that they have rejected as their king.'” 

(Aside: This is also the root of why the Christian nationalism that’s festering in our nation, directly parallels with the Christian nationalism that overtook the church in Germany less than a century ago. There was a reason the devil gave the Nazi’s a broken cross for its emblem. And through it, he achieved some of the greatest evil ever perpetrated in human history… something to meditate on…)

In place of our daily reach for “the truth”, the Lord, Who is Spirit gives us great grace to lay down our lives for the increase of His desire to intimately reign over all people. If you can receive it, this grace is an even more endemic and life-giving truth about ourselves, and His ability to intimately lead us; one that isn’t built on merely collecting greater insight and being able to identify the machinations of a curse-riddled world, but one which brings forth the breaths of life itself, through deeper, and more wholehearted unity with, and sacrificial love for the Lord of life, Himself.

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JSB • December, 2025

10 Pastoral Encouragements, and One Urgent Plea to House of Prayer Leadership

/ JSB / Leave a comment

No one’s asking me, but in light of the calls for the closure of #IHOPKC here’s one urgent plea, and 10 strong pastoral encouragements for the House of Prayer family as we respond to the fire-storm of revelations, and accusations being leveled against Mike and House of Prayer leadership:

1. Set-apart 3 – 6 (or more) months for this season of focused grieving, lamenting, confession and repentance.

2. Shut EVERYTHING on the base down and focus EVERYTHING on repentance before the Lord. (This is central to the radical, Joel Paradigm.)

3. Require all staff, leaders, group-leaders, pastors be present at these gatherings – multiple times each day. If they’re unwilling, kindly give them their exit papers.

4. Be as thorough as the blood of Jesus bids us to be. Let all of our “ways” get scrutinized and brought to the threshing-floor. Own it all. Without one plea; or an ounce of excuse. Stay in the number. Get entirely naked before God. Get to the roots of the mundane to the most wicked inclinations of our hearts.

5. Invite Houses of Prayer around the globe into this season; for their own well-being, for solidarity w IHOPKC, and ultimately for their own unique integrity before the Lord.

6. Establish and enforce an atmosphere of open prayer and grief that the “Tammy’s” and the “JaneDoes” tell us are “safe” and “real” before the Lord. Hire professional counselors to minister to those who “dare” come and need intimate, respectful, Christlike care.

7. Cultivate lament, tears and travail as values, and vital expressions of prayer in Houses of Prayer everywhere. Normalize these types of prayer as much as the Spirit does.

8. Let (John 12:24-25) be the driving vision of the whole of the base; no less than “changing the expression of Christianity in one generation” was in the past. Let the style; the ethos; the language; and the prophetic history die. Bury it. Erect “Achan memorial stones” (Joshua 7) over it. And then train every worship leader, singer, musician, intercessor, pastor and teacher in the theology of the cross, so that NOTHING is done apart from embracing the crucified, dead and buried life-style.

9. Hire a truly, independent, third-party investigation team. Let them do their work. Compare notes with their findings, and the prayer room’s repentance. Across the board. Post the findings to the IHOPKC web-site, as additional memorial stones.

10. Restart prayer and worship ONLY on God’s terms. Listen to the Lord for His design; His style; His formation; His unction; His vision. And gather objective prophetic, prayer leaders from the nations to speak into, help shape, ordain, and release the new expression of the tabernacle of David prayer according to their sense of the Lord’s timing.

None of this will be easy. But it IS what’s necessary. It’ll go against every natural inclination to “save self” that IHOPKC has been evidencing the last four months. For the sake of authentic healing. For the sake of the integrity of the prophetic histories of the beloved hundreds of individuals, and families who came to pray in this community at the behest of the Holy Spirit. Do. Luke. 9:24. Anyway.

Why is it imperative to have #IHOPKC #HouseOfPrayer leadership facilitating such radical, self-restrictive measures “today“? And why does the work of personal and corporate introspection, confession and repentance become exponentially more difficult the longer the time goes by without it?

We are not only personal beings, we are relational beings. We form norms, values, beliefs, language, histories and narratives between ourselves that shape how we view ourselves, our significant others, and our place in our world. Once a “narrative” is set, it is extremely difficult to unravel the thousands of threads of belief, value, normative behavior, histories and episodes that have formed that narrative.

This is the reason why millions could vaunt a Hitler in the 30s and 40s, and why billions looked on with horror at the warped beliefs, norms, values and episodes of the German people when they were finally exposed. Through their shared culture; conversations, relationships, propaganda etc. Germans were accumulating evidence for their narratives, and then reenforcing their values, norms, behavior with those pieces of evidence.

This was also the reason why the prophetic messages of Jeremiah were so adamantly opposed by the people of Judah. Their aggregated narratives had placed them in a paradigm of thinking and believing that WOULDN’T ALLOW FOR YHWHs WORDS to be embraced as TRUTH and REALITY.

The point? If the current leadership of #IHOPKC does not quickly, do an about-face, cease with its narrative of persecution, and cultivate an atmosphere where it trusts the independent, objective analysis of both God and other brothers and sisters, the dominant, self-saving narrative will become too engrained within the people; too engrained for them to want to do the thorough self-crucifying work of untangling the months and years of accumulated belief, values and episodes. This is the ONLY WAY any of us will come through the chaos of this tribulation into vibrant righteousness.

ASIDE: I generally believe, pray and hope for the continuance of the Spirit’s authentic worship and intercession through my #IHOPKC family. (Mike’s profound sins, do not have the ability to negate the millions of sincere expressions of love and adoration to Jesus, the brilliant, Kingdom-enhancing friendships, the testimonies, the gazillions acts of Kingdom witness, the healings, the souls saved, nor the many, many miracles manifest over the decades.)

HOWEVER, the base, (the WHOLE base) MUST let go of self, and undergo a long, radial, self-abasing, self-analyzing, self-crucifying fire of the Holy Spirit. Without this arduous, focused work being engaged, we should not entertain any hope of the Father’s anointing upon us. (I honestly can’t swallow that I am saying this.)

PRAY FOR the current leadership at #IHOPKC. Pray for #HouseOfPrayer leaders in the nations. Pray that we/they would abase our/themselves before the objective analysis of the Holy Spirit, and humble our/themselves before what He says is true and real, that we might appropriate the Father’s authentic healing and righteousness. He IS a complete, and mighty Redeemer.

This is where I’m aiming my little energy in this hour.

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JSB • February, 2024