Silence Is Not Holy

What Trump's Fight Night Revealed About Christian Patriarchy and the Power of Silence

The following is a pushback written as a loving boundary. I hope it is taken in the context in which it is offered—an opportunity to peek into the mind of a person who is honored to shepherd people as they untangle and heal from Christian patriarchy. May this perspective help you understand why I refuse to stay silent and the importance of naming what bigotry looks like when it is linked to faith.

“Stop talking about Trump. You’re just giving him the attention he craves!”

It isn’t uncommon for me to receive a comment like this when I speak about something Trump has said or done, something that has happened within the Trump regime, or something said by someone in Trump’s circle.

There are a few reasons that people give for their request/demand that I stop speaking about Trump. A few examples:

→ where we focus our time gets amplified: By giving time to Trump, we’re inviting more of the same into our lives
→ it further hurts those he has harmed: They are forced to repeatedly hear the things he has said or the actions he has taken that hurt them
→ it’s exhausting to hear his name: Focusing on the good in the world will help people live in peace
→ focus on the strategy: Educate people on actionable steps to take rather than amplifying yet another horrific thing Trump says

There are other reasons, but you get the idea. And mind you, I do, too. I get it that this gets old. Really old. Like, “that one second after you wake up and things feel a little normal, before you remember you’re living in a country spiraling toward fascism at breakneck speed” old.

I’m absolutely sick of it.

Which is why I chose to stay completely away from the UFC Freedom 250 fight that Trump branded as an honor to America’s 250th birthday. It was really about Trump draining the swamp into the Rose Garden, then the reflecting pool so the algae could symbolically flourish, then the East Wing, and ultimately the South Lawn of the White House. I purposefully stayed off social media and didn’t listen to any news.

I chose to honor Trump’s 80th birthday by ignoring it, and it was delightful. I cooked. I gardened. I read. I did everything but give him a minute of my time.

It wasn’t until I awoke Monday morning to the news that I heard the first thing about the UFC Freedom 250 event. It came in a video about a fighter I had never heard of using a slur against Michelle Obama.

I was enraged, and I knew that I needed to turn that outrage into a teaching moment.

Why? Because this is what I do best—turn what others meant for harm into something that helps people deconstruct another layer of their Christian indoctrination.

So let’s talk about it.

I posted a quick video on my social media platforms and wrote a note here on Substack. The comments are predictable with many thanking me for sharing my insight, and, not surprisingly, toxic comments defending the fighter.

The videos have reached a point where managing the comments is not sustainable. Most of the most toxic are most likely from the bot farms that are so prevalent on social media right now. Even if they are humans, pause for a moment of gratitude that you are no longer beholden to a system that praises racism and lays it at Jesus’ feet as they pay homage to the homophobic, racist God they have created in their image.

Then there were a few that said some version of “Don’t post about this.”

When I saw those arrive, I knew it was time for that loving boundary and a lesson on why silence is not Holy.

At least it isn’t for someone teaching people how to deconstruct and heal from Christian patriarchy.

Especially the non-melanated ones who grew up in Christian patriarchy, like me. We not only handed over our spirituality to church leaders, we also handed over our moral compass, including our moral outrage. We were trained to look to church leaders, those white Christian men supposedly ordained by God. That meant what they said was as God-breathed as the Bible, so if they said something was good or sinful, holy or unrighteous, sacred or sacrilegious, we believed them. We didn’t have to think for ourselves. And over time that developed a “check your brain at the door because it’s not needed in church” type of mentality that put spirituality on lather/rinse/repeat.

Don’t think.
Just tithe, obey, submit and shut up.

One of the most powerful tools that this side of Christianity uses is silence. If church leaders are silent on a matter, then it isn’t important enough to be addressed. It’s just a problem that belongs “out there,” in the world where we aren’t supposed to be a part of anyway.

In the world, not of it?

That verse is incredibly subjective, and therefore powerful. It creates a floating morality that is decided by church leaders. It’s how they get away with hypocritical decisions that punish one pregnant unmarried teenage girl, while the pregnant unmarried daughter of the pastor gets celebrated and honored with a church-wide baby shower. That’s just one example, and it’s true. Watch how someone in the comments will no doubt share their own story of abuse from church leaders, because this example will trigger a memory from a deconstructing Christian on why they are now reading my writings instead of looking to those church leaders who taught them that silence is a sacred response to suffering if the suffering is out there in the world.

It isn’t.

It’s weaponized empathy, a gross emotional and spiritual manipulation that is useful in the hands of the powerful, and deadly to the ones being harmed, being marginalized, being dehumanized.

And make no mistake about it.

That is exactly what Josh Hokit did when he stood on the White House lawn and yelled into the camera that Michelle Obama is a man.

Let me be very clear here—I am not speaking on behalf of Black and Brown people who are saying they refuse to name this harm. I respect their decision and am honoring their right to do so. But I am also listening to the many Black creators, many of whom are my mutuals and mentors, who are screaming at the top of their lungs for white people to call this out—to name the harm, to show up in this moment as a testament to our desire to be a helpful advocate or ally.

This moment isn’t either/or; it’s yes/and. Both can be true, and it’s my responsibility to push back on the toxicity of a white supremacy culture that Christian patriarchy has been protecting.

Why? Because I may have been harmed by it, but I also benefited from it.

Christian patriarchy taught me that white Christian men were ordained by God to lead, to be warriors of the family, and defenders of the faith. It was our responsibility to uphold that system, even when Christian patriarchy invited a bigot to the pulpit, or placed him in a fighter’s ring on the lawn of the White House.

I’m not going to draw this out any longer than it has to be, so let me close with this:

Silence is not a neutral act—it is itself a theology.

Other creators may be able to avoid this moment because their audience is not the same as a deconstructing Christian audience.

They don’t need that deconstructing Christianity lens to process what happened.

My audience is different.

Many of you are still inside Christian spaces, or actively making your way out of them. And many of you are still watching—watching how Christians respond—to figure out how you’re supposed to respond. You need someone who can say: this is what this theology produces.

This is why.
And here is how you hold that truth while you are still deconstructing.

I am not doing political commentary.

I am helping people wake up to the myriad of ways that Christian patriarchy still impacts their lives. That role specifically demands that bigotry and white supremacy get called out, because guess what? It’s been front and center inside Christian patriarchy since long before the Civil War.

When a teacher in the deconstructing Christian space opts out of a pivotal moment like this, people are left with no framework for integrating what they just watched into a mindset that is still influenced by white Christian men who want the world to believe that they are the keeper of knowledge, truth and God’s will for this country.

That is toxic, bigoted theology.
We are deconstructing from it.
We do so by calling out hatred, especially when Christianity wraps it in a flag and pretends that it’s ‘Merika.

My job is to make sure you don’t forget.
I said it, and I meant it—we mustn’t forget.

But you cannot memorialize what you will not name.
You cannot resist what you are not allowing yourself to clearly see.

So I am naming it.
I am keeping it in frame.
And I will not apologize for that.
That’s my loving boundary.

Activism is not passive.
And silence is not Holy.
Being an agent for good trouble and change is Holy.