What I Mean When I Say "Empire"

I write about "Empire" a lot, and every now and then someone asks what I mean.

Empire isn't one politician, one political party, one corporation, one church, or one billionaire.

It's the machine that convinces human beings they're only as valuable as what they produce. It's the system that teaches us to fear our neighbors, consume without thinking, stay exhausted, stay divided, and mistake obedience for peace. It's any institution that forgets people in order to preserve its own power.

The Bible has language for this from beginning to end.

Egypt was an empire.
Babylon was an empire.
Assyria was an empire.
Rome was an empire.

Each one promised order and security while demanding more from ordinary people. The prophets spent generations calling them out for crushing the poor, worshiping wealth and power, and confusing domination with righteousness. Jesus stepped into the shadow of Rome and proclaimed a different Kingdom altogether. He overturned tables, ate with the unwanted, touched the unclean, and kept reminding people that human beings matter more than systems.

History never outgrew Empire. It just changes uniforms.

Sometimes it wears a suit.
Sometimes a flag.
Sometimes a logo.
Sometimes a cross.
Sometimes a hashtag.

And before we get too comfortable pointing fingers, sometimes it wears our face. Every time we stop seeing people as people and start seeing them as obstacles, statistics, customers, enemies, or collateral damage, we're giving Empire another foothold.

That's why, in my writing, Empire isn't the point.

People are.

I don't want one empire replacing another. I want neighborhoods stronger than propaganda, families stronger than fear, friendships stronger than algorithms, and communities where the last, the least, and the forgotten are treated like they actually bear the image of God.

That's the Kingdom Jesus kept talking about.

Empire always demands more.

The Kingdom keeps setting people free.

They Sold Us Heaven by Franchising Hell

I saw a meme this morning.
“They invented Hell so they can sell you Heaven.”
And like most memes, it takes a complicated theological, historical, and philosophical argument and beats it into one sentence with a tire iron.
Which, honestly, I respect.
Is it completely accurate?
No.
Is it uncomfortable enough that we should probably stop scrolling and sit with it for a minute?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
Because somewhere along the way, Christianity became really fucking good at selling fire insurance.
Believe the right things.
Say the right prayer.
Attend the right church.
Read the right translation.
Vote for the right people.
Don't say fuck.
Don't be gay.
Don't ask too many questions.
Definitely don't question the pastor.
And if you fail to properly complete this celestial terms-of-service agreement before your heart stops beating, an infinitely loving God will apparently keep you alive forever for the specific purpose of torturing you.
Forever.
Not a hundred years.
Not a thousand.
Not until you've learned your lesson.
Forever.
And we're told this is justice.
More than that, we're told this is love.
I have questions.
Apparently, that's dangerous.
Jesus Did Talk About Judgment
Let's get this shit out of the way before somebody starts warming up their keyboard to save my soul.
Yes.
Jesus talked about judgment.
He talked about fire.
He talked about Gehenna.
He talked about outer darkness.
He talked about destruction.
He told stories about people finding themselves on the wrong side of things when the Kingdom of God arrived.
I am not trying to turn Jesus into a sandal-wearing motivational speaker who wandered Galilee telling everyone they were perfect exactly as they were.
Jesus could be fucking terrifying.
Ask the Pharisees.
Actually, don't.
They probably blocked him.
But here's the thing that started bothering me once I actually began paying attention to the red letters:
The people Jesus threatened most often weren't the people modern Christianity keeps threatening.
Jesus wasn't wandering around first-century Judea screaming at prostitutes.
He wasn't organizing rallies against the sexually impure.
He wasn't standing outside taverns with a sign.
He wasn't checking pronouns at the gates of the Kingdom.
Again and again and again, his harshest words were aimed uphill.
At religious leaders.
At hypocrites.
At wealthy men who ignored suffering.
At people who used God as a ladder to climb above everybody else.
“You load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.”
That's Jesus.
Not Marx.
Not some blue-haired college student with a nose ring.
Jesus.
“You devour widows' houses.”
Jesus again.
“You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.”
Still fucking Jesus.
And that last one should scare the absolute hell out of anyone who makes a living deciding who God doesn't want.
Because Jesus seemed particularly pissed at religious people who stood between humanity and God and charged admission.
Then We Built a Better Sales Department
Fear works.
We know this.
Every abusive parent knows it.
Every dictator knows it.
Every cult leader knows it.
Every marketing executive who has ever put a countdown clock beside a BUY NOW button knows it.
Create a problem.
Intensify the anxiety.
Then sell the solution.
Your body is wrong.
Buy this.
Your house isn't safe.
Buy this.
Your children are falling behind.
Buy this.
Your country is being stolen.
Vote for this.
You are fundamentally disgusting to God and deserve eternal conscious torment.
But good news.
We have a pamphlet.
We have a prayer.
We have a membership class.
We have a building campaign.
We have a pastor with very white teeth who would like to explain God's financial plan for your life.
Please make checks payable to the ministry.
That's cynical.
I know.
It's supposed to be.
Because we've watched institutions do exactly this shit for centuries.
Take something mysterious.
Define it.
Build walls around the definition.
Declare themselves the authorized distributor.
Then punish anyone selling bootleg grace in the parking lot.
And Jesus?
Jesus was constantly handing that shit out for free.
Jesus Was Terrible at Gatekeeping
This is one of my favorite things about him.
Jesus was an absolute nightmare for religious middle management.
Someone would bring him a theological question and he'd answer with a story about a farmer.
Someone would ask him who was worthy and he'd point toward the person everybody hated.
Someone would demand punishment and he'd start writing in the dirt.
Someone would tell him the wrong people were getting too close and Jesus would invite them to dinner.
The Kingdom of God, according to Jesus, was like yeast.
A seed.
A hidden treasure.
A wedding banquet.
A fucking weed growing where nobody planted it.
It kept escaping containment.
That's the part of Christianity I fell in love with.
Not the polished stage.
Not the fog machine.
And that's saying something because I fucking love a fog machine.
I fell in love with the Jesus who kept walking across boundaries religious people insisted were sacred.
The Jesus who touched the unclean.
Spoke to women he wasn't supposed to speak to.
Praised foreigners.
Fed people before checking their theology.
Healed people without asking if they'd tithe afterward.
Forgave people before they understood the doctrinal mechanics of forgiveness.
That's a dangerous God.
Because you can't franchise him.
But Hell Is Useful
Hell solves a lot of institutional problems.
Why should people listen to us?
Hell.
Why shouldn't they leave?
Hell.
Why shouldn't they question doctrine?
Hell.
Why should they bring their children here?
Hell.
Why should they suppress their doubts, sexuality, anger, grief, curiosity, and sometimes their entire fucking personality?
Hell.
You can control a human being pretty effectively if you convince them their thoughts have eternal consequences.
Ask anyone with religious trauma.
There are grown-ass adults walking around terrified that a question they had at fourteen may have pissed God off permanently.
People wake up in panic because they dreamed something sexual.
People stay in abusive churches because leaving feels like leaving God.
People cut their children out of their lives because a pastor convinced them loving those children might jeopardize their own salvation.
And somewhere in the middle of all that carnage, somebody stands behind a pulpit and calls it the Good News.
Good news?
Brother, your marketing department needs a meeting.
What If Salvation Isn't Fire Insurance?
This is where I start getting myself in trouble.
What if Jesus didn't come primarily to give us an evacuation plan?
What if salvation is bigger than avoiding punishment after death?
What if “eternal life” isn't just an infinite extension of the calendar?
Jesus said the Kingdom of God was at hand.
Here.
Near.
Breaking through.
Right fucking now.
What if salvation looks like addicts becoming fathers?
I know something about that.
What if resurrection looks like a man waking up one morning and realizing he doesn't want to die anymore?
I know something about that too.
What if being born again isn't becoming an unbearable religious asshole with a Christian bookstore bumper sticker?
What if it means the person you were actually dies?
The violence.
The hunger.
The shame.
The endless fucking need to fill a hole that doesn't have a bottom.
And slowly—painfully, imperfectly—something else crawls out of the grave.
Still tattooed.
Still swears.
Still fucks up.
Still occasionally wants to burn the Empire to the ground.
But alive.
Actually alive.
I have experienced that salvation.
Not theoretically.
Not because somebody explained Romans Road to me on a napkin.
I lived it.
I've been to hell.
Maybe not the theological one.
I don't know.
I'm not dead yet.
But I've lived in places where the sun came up and I was disappointed.
I've chased oblivion with everything I could get my hands on.
I've looked into mirrors and hated the bastard staring back.
I've hurt people.
I've been hurt.
I've spent nights surrounded by people and felt like the last living human being on Earth.
And no demon with a pitchfork was required.
We build hell remarkably well on our own.
Maybe That's the Warning
Maybe when Jesus talks about destruction, we should listen.
Seriously.
Maybe fire isn't something to casually explain away because it makes us uncomfortable.
Fire destroys.
Hatred destroys.
Greed destroys.
Empire destroys.
Religious hypocrisy destroys.
Shame destroys.
Addiction destroys.
I have watched people feed themselves into those fires.
I've been one of them.
Maybe Jesus wasn't threatening us with a torture chamber as much as standing beside the fucking cliff screaming:
THAT ROAD KILLS PEOPLE.
And humanity, being humanity, formed a committee, built a church beside the cliff, and started charging admission to a seminar about falling.
Because that's what we do.
We turn warnings into weapons.
We turn mystery into doctrine.
We turn grace into currency.
We turn prophets into mascots.
We take a homeless Jewish troublemaker executed by an empire and hang his body in gold above the throne.
Then we wonder why people don't trust us.
I Don't Know What Happens When We Die
There.
That's my official theological statement.
I don't fucking know.
Neither do you.
We've got scripture.
Tradition.
Philosophy.
Near-death stories.
Visions.
Ketamine trips.
A guy on YouTube who died for eleven minutes and now sells supplements.
We've got theories.
Some beautiful.
Some terrifying.
Some clearly invented by men who desperately needed everyone to stop masturbating.
But certainty?
No.
I believe in resurrection.
I believe death isn't the end.
I believe in Jesus.
I believe I've encountered something I call God in moments when I had absolutely no business finding anything holy.
But I refuse to pretend I have a detailed map of the afterlife folded up in my glove box.
And I am becoming increasingly suspicious of anyone who does.
Especially if they're selling tickets.
They Invented Hell So They Could Sell You Heaven
Maybe that's historically too simple.
Probably is.
History is messy.
Theology is messier.
Human beings have imagined underworlds and judgment long before Christianity showed up.
Jesus didn't invent the language of fire, death, or consequence.
But institutions absolutely learned how to weaponize it.
They learned fear keeps asses in seats.
They learned terror makes children obedient.
They learned eternal stakes can silence temporary questions.
They learned if you convince people God is furious, they'll pay almost anything for someone who claims to know how to calm him down.
And I think Jesus would flip those tables too.
Because the gospel I keep finding in the red letters isn't:
God hates you. Luckily, Jesus talked him out of killing you.
It's closer to:
God has come looking for you.
In the ditch.
At the well.
In the crowd.
At the table.
In the fucking tomb.
God keeps showing up where religious people swear he shouldn't be.
Maybe Heaven was never supposed to be a product.
Maybe grace was never supposed to have a gatekeeper.
Maybe salvation isn't something the Church owns.
Maybe Jesus didn't come to franchise Heaven.
Maybe he came to tear down the fucking toll booth.
And if that makes me a heretic?
Fine.
I've been called worse things by better people.
—St. Tin