I want to be careful here. I want to be precise.

I am not talking about the church broadly. I am not making a sweeping indictment of every pastor, every congregation, every tradition. I am talking about something specific that I have seen enough times in enough places that I can no longer call it an anomaly.

There is a version of the gospel being preached in a significant number of churches right now that is built primarily on fear. Not the fear of the Lord — which is a real and biblical concept meaning reverence, awe, and the recognition of who God actually is. The other kind of fear. The fear that keeps people small and compliant and afraid to ask questions and afraid to think for themselves and afraid to leave because they have been convinced that leaving is the same as falling away from God.

That is not the gospel.

The gospel of the New Testament is a message of liberation. It is the announcement that the thing that separated you from God has been dealt with. That the weight you were carrying has been lifted. That you are not condemned. That you are not on probation. That you are not one wrong move away from being cast off. That nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

That gospel produces people who are free. Who can ask hard questions because their relationship with God does not depend on having the right answers. Who can disagree with their pastor because their access to God does not run through their pastor. Who can sit with doubt because they know the God on the other end of the doubt is not threatened by it.

The fear gospel produces something different. It produces people who are managed. Who stay in line not out of love but out of dread. Who give not out of joy but out of anxiety about what happens if they do not. Who would never question the man behind the pulpit because they have been taught — directly or indirectly — that questioning the man is the same as questioning God.

I have sat in rooms where that conflation was made explicitly. Where scripture was bent to protect the speaker rather than illuminate the listener. Where the congregation’s compliance was the goal and the Word of God was the tool used to secure it.

It is possible to recognize that without being bitter. It is possible to name it without hating the church. In fact naming it is an act of love for the church. Because the fear gospel is driving people out of faith entirely. People who experienced that version of Christianity and decided the whole thing was a control mechanism are not wrong about what they experienced. They are wrong about what Christianity actually is.

The real thing is better than what they were handed. It deserves to be defended.

Stephon Rudd