WWW.KIRTELEWIS.COM Kirt Lewis

Mom and I - circa mid 1970’s
















































































































It’s about as important of a question as they come. Who is my family? It seems synonymous to another question: Where do I belong? Apparently Jesus instinctively paired them together as recorded in the twelfth chapter of Mathew, verses forty-six through fifty.
While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him.  Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”
He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”  Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
damn, jesus, that’s cold!I’ve written elsewhere about my close connection with my mother. While it is not universally true, there does seem to be a special connection between mothers and their sons just as there often is between fathers and their daughters. I can certainly attest to both. When it comes to the former, that is what makes these supposed words of Jesus all the more shocking. Certainly by all biblical accounts, Mary and Jesus did not have a cold and distant relationship. Mary is portrayed as having both a warm affection and subtle reverence for her son as a young child (Luke 2:19). And Jesus, even while in the deepest of agony while he hung on the cross, was so committed to his mother that he took time to appoint a disciple to care for her in view of his immanent death (John 19:25-27).
And yet on another occasion when informed that his mom, along with his brothers, were waiting outside and wanted to speak to him, Jesus basically told the crowd that his gang of often clueless disciples were more family than the woman who gave birth to him and raised him! I mean, damn, Jesus, that’s cold! He goes on to clarify that what qualifies someone as a member of his family is if they do “the will of the Father”. But wasn’t the very fact that she was his mother based on an angelic declaration of God’s favor on her life (Luke 1:30)? Isn’t it fair to assume that said favor is based, at least in part, on a fair amount of effort on Mary’s part to follow a righteous path? But none of that mattered now in this moment for Jesus and Mary. On that day, Mary and her other children wouldn’t receive from Jesus even the attention commonly provided to distant relatives.
the loss of familyWhat caused Jesus to be so harsh? Well we get a hint in another passage in the book of Mark (3:21), where we learn that apparently the fever pitch of Jesus’ self-ascribing Messianic talk had gotten too extreme for the family, even though Mary was given plenty of advance warning about Jesus’ unique, God-ordained mission (Luke 1:32-33). According to Mark, Mary and Jesus’ brothers thought he was “out of his mind”.
Well I am NO Jesus, believe you me! But in this story I find some sense of a shared experience and therefore some fellowship with this man from nearly 2,000 years ago. The last few years have been very hard because I have grieved the loss of so many loved ones, not from physical deat

So we've looked at why evangelicals might consider a financial boycott of their church (Part 1) along with certain 'Christian' media companies and schools (Part 2).  In the conclusion of this series, we turn our attention to two more evangelical industries that you might want to take a second look at when it comes to doling out your dollars.
CHRISTIAN BUSINESSES (other than media)You've got to love the not-so-secretive code sign: the Jesus fish!  Ah yes, just subtlety slap that baby on your company truck, business card, or website, and your prospective evangelical customer is sure to get the message. "Have us mow your lawn, do that kitchen remodel, or cater that wedding (so long as your not gay!), and you can be sure that your money isn't going to support some pagan business that is probably operating unethically because the owner doesn't have Jesus in his or her heart."




















































































































But don't make the mistake of assuming that the sell of religiously superior ethics is the only thing in mind when it comes to most evangelical leaders in the market place.  No, there is a far greater cause that has been cemented into the psyche of many Christian business men and women.  Make sure you check out a previous article I wrote that looks at the evangelical idol of power.  The piece includes an especially revealing video made to inspire Christians to "take back" the seven mountains of culture.  In it, there is a particular emphasis on Christians reclaiming leadership in the domain of business so as to effectively resource the effort to return America to its Christian heritage.  Whether stated explicitly or not, this is one of the chief visions fueling this call to join the cadre of Christian capitalists, perhaps only eclipsed by stories of saving lost souls through a God-style economy.  You can find 'fellowship' in this effort through one of any number of Christian business associations, like The Christian Business Network, Christian Business Fellowship, or Convene.  The fact that the old religious right's culture war narrative is lurking not to far below the surface of these networks of success-hungry crusaders is made pretty obvious when the home page of the Northern Californian Christian Business Directory features a video promoting the Genesis Apologetics App.  This mobile tool will equip your good Christian teens to pretend like they know what they are talking about in the fight against public school teachers and their evil doctrine of evolution.  

























Our mobile app includes dozens of videos that debunk evolution theory taught in public schools.



But let's get back to ethics, where I am sure that the Bible has something to say about things like fair wages (Jeremiah 22:13 and James 5:4) or that Jesus taught his disciples to not embrace viol

In Part 1 of Boycotting Bad Religion, we talked about the justification for evangelicals to withhold their 'tithes and offerings' from their local church.  Again, if you are a part of another Christian denomination or an entirely different faith all together, I leave it up to you to decide whether this is necessary.  But for those who are choosing to stick with the evangelical tribe and who want to employ economic withdrawal as an instrument of reform within evangelical institutions, you will have to focus on more than your local church.  There is the world of so-called 'para-church ministries' that I would argue have in some ways caused even more damage to true faith as they aligned with the religious right's despotic march towards the gospel of America.  So put on your Robin Hood hats as we look at the first two of four evangelical industries that should be starved of our 'offerings' until they fully reject their idols or perhaps more ideally just go away (we will cover the last two in Part 3).
'Christian' EducationAs Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, (and) even when he is old he will not depart from it."  Well that's all good...unless you are training them to embrace ignorance and intolerance.  And so goes the first golden calf of conservative evangelicalism--that being, private Christian education.  Aside from taking over the Supreme Court, evangelical schools is their most cherished bulwark against the liberal hordes who dare threaten their ethno-religious dominance.
Fighting against the LGBTQ community has been a particular hallmark of their bellwether educational institutions, the term 'bellwether' being oh so fitting given that it originates with the image of a castrated ram leading a bunch of sheep.  Their 'stand' on 'the sanctity of marriage' and 'biblical sexuality' is a great way to narrow down your list of where NOT to send your children and your money.  Simply locate a list of schools claiming Title IX exemption and you'll find my alma mater, Multnomah University, or a college just a short drive from my house, William Jessup University, among many, MANY others.  The majority of the list is a veritable who's who of evangelical academia.
What is particularly maddening is that even if you choose to not support these schools by contributing to your son's or daughter's tuition or through other charitable gifts, you are still supporting them through paying taxes, thanks again to that wonderful legal loophole of Title IX exemptions.  If you would like to learn more about that injustice and what public policies would set things right, make sure to check out my two-part series, Church $ State: The Public Subsidization of Religion.
In the meantime, let's make sure they don't have one more penny than that which we are legally required to give them.
'Christian' MediaIn the same way that Billy Graham had previously figured out that television and radio would be essential tools in his evangelistic efforts, the religious right knew they needed to leverage these modern mediums to indoctrinate the evangelical masses on their paranoid and politically power-hungry world view.  And so was born outlets like the Christian Broadcast Network, started in 19

Profiles in Courage

Faith v Religion

Armchair Imagineering