Good News Everyone
The Nationalists don’t own Jesus
I’m here, I’m queer, and I’m taking back the descriptor “evangelical.”
εὐαγγέλιον is the Greek term for “good news” which in English, we often refer to as “the Gospel.” The word “Gospel” comes from an Old English term godspel which has Germanic roots and means “good tidings.” εὐαγγέλιον is then where we derive the word evangelical which was originally an adjective that is derived from the word “evangelize” which is the verb form εὐαγγελίζω which comes from εὐαγγέλιον. Evangelical was originally used as an adjective to describe someone who announces the good news of Jesus Christ (one who evangelizes). It would then be applied to both theologies, ministry practices, and people’s general orientation towards relationship and life. To be “evangelical” in the way you lived was to point those that you encounter towards the good news of the coming reign of Jesus and away from the powers of “this world.” All of this language has been twisted and contorted over the years to be very good news for a very select few and very bad news to everyone that the Few have determined are indeed meant for damnation (thanks Calvin). Over time, evangelical started to be reduced down to a sweet sauce of some very particular markers. Eventually, the National Association of Evangelicals was formed in 1942 and the Moral Majority movement took hold in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Evangelical began to mean something very different.
Evangelical has been contorted into a political identity that, at least in the United States, is almost always associated with attacks on women’s reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, rejection of LGBTQ+ rights, anti-sexual education, pro-home schooling or private schooling, guns, Christian Zionism, anti-Science, Whiteness, and so much more. When we hear the word “evangelical” in 2025, we might think of Hillsong music, Megachurches, MAGA, young-white-dude-with-undercut-hair-beanies-and-tight-jeans pastors, and big trucks with militantly Christian bumper stickers (cross made out of AK-47 stickers are more than commonplace).
However, if “evangelical” derives from the Greek term for “good news” then how can any of that be evangelical? Not only that but the Greek for “good news” and “to announce the good news” both refer to a type of announcement before the coming of a king. Evangelical is supposed to point us to the coming of Jesus. Then if we, as evangelical practice tells us we should, read the Bible — we then find a clear reign of justice, mercy, and a radically inclusive Kingdom that opposes the powers “of this world.”
Evangelical Conservatives interpret this all to mean Jesus died to pay for our sin & we must follow our pastors’ interpretation of what that means in order to get into Heaven otherwise Jesus is coming back again to smite the Liberal Agenda and anyone who sympathizes with it. However, if we read the Bible in its entirety and with any critical understanding of Jesus and the Biblical author’s original intent and world view —we would quickly find that evangelical faith has nothing to do with proclaiming this weird distorted Christianity that solely focuses on getting to Heaven & avoiding Hell. Rather, the coming reign of Jesus was a radical proclamation that the militant powers of Empire were temporary & the loving kindness of Jesus was to reign forever. The Gospel news is that the poor and powerless will be seated highly while the greedy and powerful will be made low. The Gospel News is that women will be empowered with this goodness first & invited to share it widely. The Gospel News is that the outcast and morally ridiculed will be invited to the table and given their dignity. The Gospel News is that all people were called “very good” at Creation and all those who have not been afforded their rights, their dignity, or love on Earth shall receive it in eternity.
The Gospel News is that authoritarianism that favors money, power, and status shall not reign for eternity — it shall be struck down. Perhaps not in our lifetime, but in the grand arc of the cosmos. Domination and oppression will not win.
This is good news. It is good news that I feel compelled to share and proclaim. It is good news that I share in my very living and breathing. It is the good news that helps me roll out of bed every day and helps me sleep after long days of feeling hopeless. I have lived hoping that my peers could help me solve transphobia — that didn’t work. I have lived putting my trust in liberal governments and politicians — that didn’t work. I have lived thinking that I could solve it myself through sheer effort and merit — that didn’t work. I have come to a place of Christian faith from atheist-Buddhism through simply reading the Bible regularly enough & digging deep enough to know that the Gospel is speaking to the oppression, hurt, fear, and worthlessness I have been made to feel. The Gospel rejects the powers that make me feel that I must self-flagellate and contort how I was created in order to fit a cultural-moral standard that will allegedly “get me into” heaven. I found this to be incredibly good news and no one had to threaten me with Hell to get me to believe in the power of Christ’s story.
It does not mean that we are not invited to work in tandem to make this happen. Many secular or Atheist critics position a belief in Eternity or “heaven” as a cop-out for having to do the work on Earth. However, Christians indeed believe we are called to be co-creators with God and that we are meant to help God’s kingdom come, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Unfortunately, the Far Right has constructed a false god and promoted it as Jesus.
I am an evangelical (adj.) pastor. I am a pastor who enthusiastically proclaims and shares the good news of God’s coming kingdom. I want people to know they are “very good” (Gen. 1:30-31). I want low-income people to know that the powers of banks taking their homes, employers outsourcing their jobs or exploiting their labor, or corporations destroying their communities does not hold determination of their worth as people or the promise for their future. I want communities forgotten by the government for generations to know that there is hope in the grass roots & in their neighbors when government agencies move slowly (if at all) and when politicians couldn’t give a shit about their flourishing. I want people to know one another and hear the good news in each others’ stories of survival and thriving.
I want people to know that Jesus didn’t come to slut-shame you for wearing a crop top, scold you for getting a tattoo, hate you for finding love, ridicule you for making mistakes, judge you for suffering from your addictions, abandon you for someone better, or punish you with disease because you weren’t “faithful” enough.
Jesus came “to preach good news to the poor,
to proclaim release to the prisoners
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to liberate the oppressed,
19 and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”-(Luke 4:18-19)
Why would I not want to spread this particular good news? If it is simply because a political party that I view as increasingly authoritarian, is claiming its ownership over Jesus & Christian “values” then I certainly must insist on proclaiming the true Good News. The Evangelical Right often claims authority because they “read the Bible literally” but I have yet to find anything literal about their reading of the Bible. I think they take the Bible as they find fit without any context or value put on the cohesion of God’s story — something that they ironically accuse Liberal Christians of doing. Surely, my critique of Liberal White Christianity is that it seems to have developed an allergic reaction to Christ language at all. Pastor friends of mine have been accused of being “too conservative” for liberal congregations due to their centering of Jesus language rather than generic replacements like “Creator” or for still proclaiming “kingdom” instead of “kin-dom.” Ironically, these pastors are often BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+ pastors who find great healing and freedom in continuing to use orthodox language but through a new and truer lens.
From the left & the right, faith-workers and Christians from experiences of oppression are policed into falling “in-line” with whatever the socio-political culture in proximity to us would like. However, I consider myself “evangelical” in the sense that I have devotion and loyalty to no institution, no authority, and no narrative but that of Jesus the Jewish rabbi of Nazareth who lived in service to all, suffered under imperial rule, was killed by human authority and power, and experienced the suffering of sheol’s darkness then was raised again so that we will never have to be separated from the goodness of God.
I consider myself an evangelical pastor in the sense that my primary calling is to spread the Good News wherever I can, as often as I can, and to whoever might receive it as a freeing and liberative truth. Perhaps not through door-to-door tracks, shouting Bible verses in public, picketing public events, or any of the syndicated news-making ways.
Rather, I work through late night conversations on back porches, prayers in the ICU with people who aren’t quite sure what they believe but they desperately need comfort, conversations with coworkers in cubicles, invitations to church with confidence but not a desperation, sermons in my church, sermons in other churches, public speaking at colleges, lectures in classrooms, helping high schoolers with homework, counseling young adults about post-secondary choices & their value as a human versus their value as a worker, or many other meaning-making moments that points people towards Jesus.
If we think all that Jesus needs from us all to “proclaim” that Jesus IS our personal Lord & Savior then I certainly know we are NOT reading the Gospels literally and I definitely know that we’ve lost complete sight of the good news in favor of perhaps Paul’s complicated life and writing.
The far-right doesn’t own Jesus nor do they own the Good News. It’s time to stop fearing association with those who are militantly confident that their distortions are correct just because they slap the same words on it.
I am a gay, transgender evangelical pastor and I won’t stop proclaiming the Good News self-evident in scripture. I will not bend to the request of liberals uncomfortable with this characterization of my faith and not at the demand of authoritarian Christians who refuse to be associated with me.
I live and work in pursuit of God’s Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven.
