From college and campus ministry, through seminary, and into parish ministry, I became increasingly aware of the damage done by some theologies within the church: specifically, the "Believe in Jesus or to go Hell" theologies. Knowing people who turned away from the church and from God because they'd been lambasted by such theologies, I decided to address those beliefs head on and look deeply at scripture, rather than simply ignore the tricky passages.
My goal was and is to bring healing to folks who have been harmed by those older, even foundational theologies, and to help free people from those theologies - people who don't believe in "believe in Jesus or go to Hell", but also don't know how they can't believe in them without ignoring much of scripture.
May you find peace and healing in the pages of this book, and may you help bring that healing to others.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston June 21, 2026 Proper 7, A Jeremiah 20:7-13 Psalm 69: 8-11, (12-17), 18-20 Matthew 10:24-39
So, my family and I were watching the movie “Wake Up Dead Man” last weekend. It is the third of the “Knives Out” movies, murder mysteries with the Holmesian detective Benoit Blanc. In this one, the mystery revolved around a very angry priest who was constantly preaching fire and brimstone sermons about the sheep and the wolves. He believed the church were the sheep, the world were the wolves, and the church had to fight like hell to overcome all of the wolves out there. He saw sin all over the place; he saw it infecting the church, saw wolves infecting the church, and so his approach was to call out the sins and drive out the wolves, and fight. Always fight. Things may not have turned out overly well for him; I can’t say for sure.
The idea is cute, though, sheep verses wolves, with the sheep fighting like hell against the evils of the wolves in the world. I think it would make a good cartoon movie, maybe, but sheep don’t actually fight wolves. The shepherd keeps the sheep safe from the wolves. I think that’s part of why Jesus called us sheep. We’re not supposed to fight the world.
The Gospel is not the church against the world. The Gospel is Christ for the world. Jesus is for the world, and Jesus proclaimed good news for the world, the good news that “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Then again, we get our reading from today in which Jesus said,
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
So, how is that good news, and what does family members being against one another have to do with the kingdom of heaven that has come near? Well, the kingdom of heaven is God’s way of love, lived out among us, and yet Jesus said he came to bring a sword. Ah crud, I guess no more love. No, obviously not. God is love, and God became human as Jesus, so Jesus was the very love of God living God’s way of love in the world, and God’s love for us is absolute.
That is good news for the world that desperately needs to hear good news. Sadly, like with the priest in the movie, there is a lot of anger and hatred coming from the church to the world. There are a lot of people in the church thinking they need to fight the world because Jesus said he came to bring the sword, and so there is anger and hatred being dressed up as if it were the love of God. Sheep being told to fight the world, family members being told to fight one another, rather than love one another and show the healing love of God.
That was so much of Jesus’ proclamation, showing people love. He healed folks, ate with folks, cast out demons, and raised up the lowly. Jesus shared the good news of the kingdom of heaven by living the kingdom of heaven, then he told folks about the kingdom of heaven and that they could live it too.
Then, Jesus also promised that even as we live the love of the kingdom of God, we will still be harmed in this world. When he said family would rise up against family, son against father, mother against daughter, mother-in-law against son-in-law (no surprise there), everybody against everybody in a family, he wasn’t telling his disciples, “You must reject your family.” Jesus was warning his disciples that when they went out and started proclaiming the kingdom of God, their family members reject them because they were going to think them heretics. So, be ready for that, Jesus was telling them, and don’t turn against them. Just be ready for the fact that they might turn against you, and when they do, continue to offer them love.
That may have meant leaving home, in the disciples’ case. Whoever loves their family more than me is not worthy of me, he said, so if the disciples’ families said to them, “If you walk out of this house following that Jesus fella, then you just keep on walking,” then, Jesus was saying, you may have to say goodbye.
People may reject you for following Jesus’ ways and teachings, and if they do? Go out and shout on a street corner, “Y’all are all sinners, and you’re going to…’”. No, he just said, if people reject you, go to someone else.
People today may want nothing to do with the way of love or a Gospel that preaches and lives the way of love. Ok, they don’t have to. Our job is not to treat them as wolves, and fight them, and force them to accept Jesus. Sheep tend not to stand up against wolves. They tend to walk the other way, which is what Jesus said go on to somewhere else if they won’t accept you.
Even so, we…no, I won’t say we. I often become a wolf, particularly when something has just really upset me, and I’m really angry. In traffic, I’m almost always a wolf. My daughter actually said she’s afraid when I drive (ok, sorry sweety, I’ll do better). I will say that after 48 years of life, being a wolf has thus far never been really helpful for me, getting so angry that I’m against whoever it is.
Just a couple weeks ago, Monday morning, my coffee mug got stolen from Lord of the Streets, when we were inside, just before a meeting, someone stole my coffee mug. I don’t know who did it, but whoever it was, my gut instinct, my natural way of doing things was to get really angry with the person and hold on to that grudge and become Captain Resentment. I’m really good at that, which is basically a way of becoming a wolf. Instead, I thought to myself, “What am I going to do if I find out who took it? Am I going to go punch the guy? Am I going to do anything about this to try to get my coffee mug back? No, I’m not. Well then, it’s not worth harboring a resentment over.”
So, I just let it go. I mean sure, it still bothers me, but alright, I’m out a handy way to hold my coffee. I’ll live. My gosh, I was close to becoming a wolf over something as simple as a coffee mug, but then I chose a different way. That’s the way of Jesus and the way of love in the world. That’s the way of being a sheep in the world.
Now, if we look at the church and how we do things in the church, we have a really good history of becoming wolves, and we have a really good history of being sheep. Our challenge is to continue to strive to be sheep, and what that means is first and foremost we stick to Jesus and we follow in his ways.
We daily reflect, daily look back. “Am I following in Jesus’ ways? Am I being a sheep, or am I turning against people and insisting that they follow Jesus’ ways? Do I become a wolf about how I want them to?” That’s not being a good sheep to our shepherd.
If we really want to proclaim the kingdom of heaven, then we’re often going to lay aside our desires for how we want the world to work, and we’re simply going to sit at Jesus’ feet and try to follow him, try to find that peace and that love that he gives so that we can offer it to others.
We live out the kingdom of heaven, then, by bringing others in, and welcoming others in, finding out who they are and sharing love with them that they may share love with us too. This is something the Episcopal church has done pretty darn well in the last, well, often, but particularly in the last 50 years or so.
Women used not to be able to preach, teach, or be priests or bishops. You could polish the silver, but otherwise…Then the Episcopal Church realized we don’t really see that as the way of the Gospel. We don’t see that as a way of sharing love, and so women became priests and bishops in the church and became fully members of the church.
More recently, our LGBTQ brothers and sisters became fully members of the church. They have been able to be married and to become priests and bishops in the church. This has been not without contention. Some parts of the church want nothing to do with that, and others fully embrace it. What we’ve done a really good job of, as the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Texas is say, “Groovy cool. We don’t all have to embrace that.”
We don’t all have to live out our way of life in exactly the same way. So, the communities within the church that have felt that full inclusion of LGBTQ members is their way, they’ve gotten to do that. Those who have not, have not had to.
The problem still, is that so often these different groups within the church have still become wolves, as family rising up against family. “Those are the wrong ones, and they are just horrible, hateful, awful people.” “Those are the wrong ones, and they don’t care at all about doing things right or following scripture.” “Bring the sword of Jesus and turn against them!” We become wolves and fight with one another in the church, when we’re called to be sheep, when we’re called to do our darnedest to follow Jesus as our shepherd and offer that way of love to others.
We offer the way of Jesus, the way of love to others as best we see it and understand it, and sometimes those others don’t see it the way we do, and so we’re just told to wipe our feet as we leave. If they’re wrong, God’s gonna deal with it. We get to show them the way of love because we’re not wolves. We’re sheep, and Jesus is our shepherd.
With other churches who do things differently, ok. I don’t have to be right. They don’t have to be wrong. They’re following the way of love the best they can in a way that works for them, as are we. The church is pretty darn big, and there are a lot of different ways that we can live together. We don’t have to force each other to live the way of love exactly the same way.
Jesus said to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, Jesus told his disciples. Go, and proclaim the kingdom of heaven by healing people, by loving people. Let that way of healing and love be your proclamation.
So, we today in the church, we often want to become wolves towards those other ones, whoever they are, for doing things wrong and sometimes terribly wrong, but we aren’t called to become wolves. We aren’t commanded to rise up as family member against family member. We’re warned that those conflicts may happen, and when they do, we’re called to love. We’re sometimes called to walk away. We’re called to seek to heal others, with Jesus as our shepherd, not our own wants, desires, angers, and fears. We cast those upon Jesus and ask that he will lead us as his flock, as his family, sharing the way of love.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston May 31, 2026 Trinity Sunday, A Genesis 1:1-24a Psalm 8 Matthew 28:16-20
“Drop religion’s rules and listen to the voice and direction of love.” I heard that said by Michigan state representative candidate Joanna Whaley in a radio interview with Rand Mintzer on his show THNX on KPFT here in Houston. Joanna was talking about some of painful and harmful religious practices she had endured as a pastor in an evangelical megachurch. She eventually left that church but is still a Christian, and in talking about her experiences with Christian Nationalism and Evangelicalism, she said that she would love to see Christians, “Drop religion’s rules and listen to the voice and direction of love.”
Part of me wants to say, “Amen to that and sermon over,” and if you want to stop listening at this point, you got the message, but I will dig a little deeper.
Before ascending into heaven, Jesus said to his disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” We have this command from Jesus for evangelism. Go make disciples. Baptize people. That’s about the last thing Jesus said, in Matthew’s gospel, so as Jesus’ disciples we kinda want to obey that one. We’re maybe not sure how, but we definitely feel like we have to because Jesus told us to.
Ok, so obedience is a lovely thing, doing what Jesus said to do, but how we choose to be obedient is really, really important. Telling people they are going to hell for not believing in Jesus, for example, is not a good way to be obedient to Jesus. In fact, telling people they are going to hell is not actually obeying Jesus’ command. Telling people they are going to hell for being sinners isn’t obeying Jesus’ command, and yet that’s what Joanna Whaley was told after she left her church. “You’re going to hell.” That’s what a lot of Jewish children are told by their Christian classmates, “You’re going to hell.” That’s what I’ve heard some people say in this community, in Bible studies, that these people, or those people, or people who don’t believe in just the right way are going to hell.
Now, they didn’t hear that from me; they never heard that taught here, but many people who come to our church have been harmed by other pastors in other churches, just as Joanna was harmed by her pastors in her church. People and pastors threatening folks with hell and thinking they are fulfilling Jesus’ commandment to make disciples, baptize people, and teach them to obey what Jesus commanded. Notice, “You’re going to hell,” doesn’t fulfill any of Jesus command. “You’re going to hell” doesn’t fulfill anything other than anger and cruelty. In the words of one of my colleagues, “Some people have become so focused on evangelism that they forget to be human.”
See, when Jesus told his disciples to make disciples and baptize folks, he did so with a heart full of love. Therein lies the big difference between how Jesus commanded his disciples to evangelize and how the “You’re going to hell,” group does it. True evangelism is done in love, not fear of eternal torture. True evangelism is done in the image of God, who is love.
Love does not threaten, coerce, or say, believe in Jesus or else. Any theology, therefore, that believes in such coercion as, “believe in Jesus or go to hell,” is not a theology rooted in love and therefore not a theology rooted in God. Evangelism done in the images of fear, anger, or contempt may be masked as love, but coercion and threats of hell are not love.
Love looks at people not as a project for evangelism. Love looks at people and just loves them. That’s what humans do. That’s how we were made. What’d we hear in Genesis? We are made in the image of God. Every human being who ever was, is, and will be is made in the image of God, and as we know form 1 John 4:8, the image of God is the image of love.
So, when Jesus said to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he was saying to baptize in the name of love. We believe God is those three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we also believe God is one, which makes perfect sense if God is love. God is a community of three persons bound up together so completely in love that they are one.
That’s the only explanation of the Trinity that has ever made any sense to me. God is a relationship of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bound together so perfectly in love that they are one.
Being made in God’s image, then, we are made to love one another as well. We are made to honor each other and care for each other.
So, what does this have to do with evangelism? What does being made in the image of God, the image of love, have to do with making disciples of people, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey what Jesus taught?
Remember that evangelism means sharing good news, and being made in the image of God is good news. The fact that we are made to honor and care for one another is good news to people who have been abused and used by others. For women who have been treated as little more than sexual objects by others, the truth that we were made to be honored, respected, and loved by others is good news. If every person, and especially every man, who claims the name of Christian were truly to follow Jesus’ teachings, then there would be a lot fewer women used and abused as sexual objects.
If we truly were to make people into disciples of Jesus, then teaching people to honor women and not treat them as objects for sex would be a really good place to start. You really want to be an evangelist? Don’t threaten people with hell, just teach people not to use and abuse women as sexual objects. That would be good news in this world. That would be teaching what Jesus taught. If you ever mentioned Jesus, lovely. If you didn’t mention Jesus, you’d still be helping women not get groped, raped, and sexually assaulted, and Jesus would be extremely pleased.
That goes for men, and children, and everyone else, too. If you really want to be an evangelist, if you really want to tell people about Jesus, then share good news by how you treat people. Honor, respect, and love people. That’s probably the best evangelism anyone can do. Honor, respect, and love people. That’s living into the image of God, the image of love, in which we were made.
If we are truly to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that [Jesus commanded]” then we need to remember to be human first. If we really want to live and proclaim the way of Jesus, then we ought to remember Joanna Whaley said, “Drop religion’s rules and listen to the voice and direction of love.”
