A Gospel of Show
A former pastor confronts the emotional economy of American religion—and the moral bankruptcy of those who preach compassion while dismantling it.
John Ball, once a spiritual leader within the Christian church, reflects on his departure from organized religion and the bitter irony of a movement that calls itself “pro-life” while gutting the systems that sustain actual lives. In this essay, he examines how emotional spectacle replaced moral substance in modern faith—and how political cruelty cloaks itself in prayer.
I used to show up early. I wanted to feel that familiar tremor — the one that would begin at the base of the spine when the music swelled and the congregation rose to its feet. That was how I knew, or thought I knew, that “the Spirit was moving.” I now recognize it for what it was: endorphins released in response to perfectly timed theatrics. It was choreography, not revelation. That was my former life as a “spiritual leader,” and I was good at it — good enough to make the faithful weep on cue.
Each week, my colleagues and I were judged not on doctrine or clarity, but on how well we could make people feel. The measure of holiness was emotional reaction. If the crowd left misty-eyed, the Spirit had “fallen.” If they didn’t, well — the pastor must have missed the mark. The show was never good enough. There was always someone, usually well-intentioned and handsomely tithing, who found the sermon insufficiently touching or the music not quite anointed enough. The show, you see, was a living organism — and the organism demanded constant feeding.
I escaped that world before it consumed me entirely. Had I stayed, my emotional well-being, and very likely my financial stability, would have been spent in the endless pursuit of spiritual applause. Because that’s what it became: a business of feelings masquerading as faith.
The intimidation was subtle but ever-present. A raised eyebrow here, a polite admonition there: “You have no business mixing spirituality with politics.” Translation — you’re making people uncomfortable, and we’d prefer you didn’t. The last thing a congregation wants is to be reminded that their salvation might require them to question their own comforts.
I know the game now, and I know it well. I know precisely which nerves to touch to make a sanctuary quake. Merely mention the LGBTQ community, and the pious will begin to perspire. For years I tried to cultivate a radical community of faith — one that centered the dignity of queer people and those with disabilities. The response was telling. “What about us?” they’d ask, meaning the comfortable and the already-included. “When do we get to feel special again?” And so, inevitably, the focus returned to them. To their music, their tears, their catharsis. Tears are the currency of modern religion; every Sunday is an emotional exchange rate.
I no longer identify as a person of faith, yet I still hold genuine respect for the rare few who do. There are those who live what they profess, who translate creed into compassion. They are exceptions — shining ones — and they remind me that sincerity and superstition are not the same thing.
Fast forward to a more recent Friday. During our monthly meeting with my son’s caseworker — the bureaucratic ritual by which the fate of our family is discussed — I felt that old chill again. But this time it was no spiritual ecstasy. It was shock, anger, and the unmistakable ache of helplessness. We were told that our autistic son’s support hours were being cut yet again. Overnight care, gone. Supervision hours, reduced. The fragile scaffolding of his daily life was being dismantled piece by piece.
The reason? Another round of Medicaid cuts — the inevitable consequence of the current administration’s crusade against public welfare, now neatly branded as Project 2025. Medicaid is the central nervous system of our son’s care. When it is injured, everything else collapses.
One needn’t dig far to find the moral obscenity behind the policy. Over seventy percent of those who identify with this administration call themselves white evangelical Christians. Their institutions collectively rake in about $1.2 trillion annually — a sum that could feed, clothe, and house every vulnerable child in America several times over. Yet less than ten percent, and by some estimates closer to five, of that income goes to what could meaningfully be called the public good. The rest supports staff, mortgages, and the pageantry of production. Churches depend on full seats, and the currency of the faithful is spectacle.
Meanwhile, the new White House ballroom addition cost $300 million — yes, privately donated, but still a revealing gesture of national vanity. In this same nation, families like mine are told that essential support for disabled children is “unsustainable.” The arithmetic is almost theological in its hypocrisy.
The same people who campaign under the banner of “pro-life” have built an economy that punishes the living. And they are fixated — truly obsessed — with the private lives of those least threatening to them. Less than one percent of the population identifies as transgender, yet the Christian right cannot go a single sermon or legislative session without probing the contents of someone else’s trousers. It is the oldest trick in the demagogue’s manual: distract the flock with phantom sins while the real thieves pick their pockets.
In the last month alone, four prominent clergy have been arraigned on charges of sexually abusing minors, one of them a personal spiritual advisor to Donald Trump. I mention this not for shock value but for proportion. Not one of those accused was transgender.
Trump himself, that moral beacon of the movement, has pardoned multiple individuals convicted of defrauding Medicaid — Philip Esformes, Salomon Melgen, Sholam Weiss, John Davis, and Michael Grimm — all wealthy donors to his campaign. Cutting public benefits, then, is not about stopping fraud. It is about punishing poverty while rewarding proximity to power.
It is impossible not to recall, in this moral carnival, the words of Jesus himself: Blessed are the poor. The Sermon on the Mount remains, even stripped of divinity, one of the most revolutionary manifestos in human history. Were it actually followed, it would overturn the very hierarchies on which the Christian Right depends. But it’s easier to embroider those verses on throw pillows than to live by them.
A few months ago, I ended a long friendship after realizing that our values were irreconcilable. The parting words were familiar: “I’m still the same person. I care about my community. I care about your son.” I replied that caring, in the absence of action, is merely sentimentality — the narcotic of the pious. “I’m praying for you,” they said. I told them not to bother.
After three decades working with people, I have learned that most of us hover near the lower rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy — those devoted to safety and self-preservation. Self-actualization, that rarefied state in which one acts selflessly for others, is as elusive as heaven itself. The failure to reach it has consequences: societies that reward greed, churches that sanctify hypocrisy, and families that prefer comfort over conscience.
Some will call this the lament of a “flaming liberal.” That’s fine. Labels are the last refuge of those who refuse to think. What matters are outcomes. Decisions, not dogmas, determine who suffers and who survives.
Senator Cory Booker, a man of more faith than most bishops I’ve met, put it best: “Before you speak to me about your religion, show it to me in how you treat other people.” It’s the simplest and most terrifying metric imaginable, because it renders sermons and slogans irrelevant.
So yes, I’m angry. Of course I am. Who wouldn’t be? My child’s life is being dismantled in real time while the self-proclaimed guardians of morality hold prayer breakfasts and boast of “family values.” But my anger is not merely personal — it is civic. It comes from the conviction that we are meant to be a society, not a marketplace; that compassion is a collective duty, not a tax-deductible option.
My wife and I have two sons, a remarkable daughter-in-law, and a cause that will occupy us until our last breath: confronting hypocrisy and cruelty wherever they wear the mask of virtue. The world may mock the so-called “bleeding heart,” but I’ll take an open wound over a calloused conscience any day.
And so I end where I began — with that shiver down the spine. Once it came from hymns and hallelujahs; now it comes from truth and outrage. It is the same physical sensation, perhaps, but born of a different source — not divine inspiration, but the moral realization that we are all implicated in the suffering we ignore.
Whether one believes or not, the line still rings true: Blessed are the poor. For in the final tally, it will not be the kings, nor their courtiers, nor the sycophants who kissed their rings, who inherit whatever kingdom remains. It will be those who had the least — and gave the most.
John Ball, former Methodis Pastor
Key Takeaways
- The church has become a stage where emotional manipulation masquerades as divine experience.
- The “pro-life” movement’s policies dismantle the very social systems that preserve life.
- Spectacle, not spirituality, now drives the American religious economy.
- Hypocrisy is sanctified while genuine compassion is penalized.
- Faith without justice is just another form of moral theater.
