He says the commission does not say what you think it does; it is shockingly political and deeply offensive to church leaders. He then introduces himself as Jeremy, a deep skeptic and also a pastor. A quick search of the internet will show his name is Jeremy Steele, a former youth pastor, an activist for progressive causes, and a queer pastor of the United Methodist church. He founded a radically inclusive online Discord community for agnostics, mystics, and spiritual seekers who do not fit into traditional churches called: Not Church. He wrote a book on “How to not suckas a Christian”. He even has a video on how his book was banned on TikTok, though of course he does not give the reason why it was banned from promotion. Just ask an AI why it was supposedly banned, not so terrible as he makes it sound.
He begins his deep skeptical teaching by joining the story of Christ after His resurrection:
Matthew 28:16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
“Right out of the gate he gets shockingly political when he says, All authority on heaven and earth gas been given to me. This is a political statement, Roman emperors were often spoken of with this idea of universal authority. And a bunch of scholars make the argument that this is modeled on, and really a parody of the Roman imperial proclamation. So if you’ve ever heard somebody say that they wish that their pastor wouldn’t be so political and that they would just support the administration that is in power and because god put them there, you don’t have a problem with that pastor you have a problem with Jesus…”
The first thing you notice should be that this verse is after the resurrection; it is in the 40-day period following the resurrection up to the ascension. It is, in fact, at a time when Jesus had no interactions with Romans or the Jewish leadership. It is a statement that most Christians take to mean that the Messiah has come and, by His life, death, and resurrection, proved that He is God. That all authority is held by God; it is not a political statement at all; it is theological; none of the disciples applied it as a political statement. It may be that a bunch of unnamed progressive scholars hold it that way, but that is not the historically accurate way of looking at the Great Commission. Unless someone assigns it as political, because in the Roman world, religion and government are both controlled by the government, which would make it much different from your pastor getting political.
The next thing you notice is that this progressive skeptic pastor seems to be in agreement now with the Christian Reconstructionism and the Dominion theology movement, which are the real Christian Nationalists, as opposed to Christians who are also nationalists. Though the progressives conflate them, and if you are a conservative or evangelical or fundamentalist, you are a Christian Nationalist in the mind of most progressives today. That is very curious when you think about what the progressives say about Christian nationalists. Get your hands off of politics is their usual message. They despise the evangelicals and fundamentalists because of how they vote for more politically conservative things. But hypocrisy, thy name is Progressives.
Steele actively utilizes his social media platform to oppose Christian nationalism, vocalizing sharp critiques against the weaponization of Christianity to strip away women's rights, voting access, and immigrant safety. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt3ZAPONR1w
But this led me down the path of why both the Reconstructionist type of Christian Nationalist and the Progressive Christian types now both look for a political solution. Which is much different than the historical Christian thinking in the United States of America.
Jesus’ primary conflict was an internal, religious debate with Jewish authorities, not a political rebellion against Rome. The average Christian views Jesus not as a political reformer, but as a spiritual savior. This perspective relies on several distinct historical and biblical points that directly challenge the progressive narrative. Mainstream Christians point out that whenever people tried to turn Jesus into a political or military leader, he actively ran away from it.
The Temptation in the Desert: When Satan offered Jesus "all the kingdoms of the world" (political dominance), Jesus refused. Matthew 4:1-11
Fleeing the Crowds: In John 6:15, after feeding the 5,000, the crowd tried to take Jesus by force to make him a king. Jesus responded by escaping alone to a mountain.
"My Kingdom is Not of This World": During his trial before Pontius Pilate (the Roman governor), Jesus explicitly stated, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight... But now my kingdom is from another place" (John 18:36). Mainstream Christians argue this is the ultimate proof that Jesus was not trying to reform human governments
Jesus' conflicts were with the Jewish Religious leaders. As seen in his “Woe To” speeches in Matthew 23. Jesus was correcting theology and heart attitudes, not municipal codes and Roman tax abuse. Such as when Jesus said Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's Mark 12:17.
The Romans did not think of Jesus as a political problem as Pilate said “I find no basis for a charge against this man Luke 23:4. As it turned out, Rome only executed Jesus because the Jewish religious leader demanded the execution and even then they offered a real choice of a political agitator or Jesus Christ to be set free and the crowd demanded the zealot to be freed. Zealots advocated for violent military overthrow of the empire.
In the USA, for most of its history, Christians saw Jesus as someone who came to solve the problem of human sin and the redemption from sin through salvation. The idea was that society changes from the inside out by changing individual people's attitudes, which would lead to good things in the world. Thus, the Christians thought of the church as a city on the hill. An example that would draw people to a new method of creating a society.
Let us now assume that Steele is right and that Jesus was shockingly political in the Great Commission. Is there any way the political relationship at the time of Christ is similar to that in today's America?
First-century Judea was an occupied territory governed by an absolute, authoritarian empire. Conversely, the United States is a constitutional republic driven by a representative democracy. These core distinctions manifest across several fundamental categories
Roman Empire. Ultimate authority rested with Caesar, an unelected emperor whose word was absolute law. You see this in the titles of the emperor, which ran from Imperator, meaning commander or general, Augustus, meaning majestic or venerable, Princeps, meaning First Citizen, and Dominus, meaning Lord or Master.
Religious and civic titles: Pontifex Maximus, meaning Chief Priest, as the emperor was the head of the Roman state religion and supervisor of all public rituals. Pater Patriae, meaning Father of the country, and Tribunicia Potestas, meaning Tribunican Power, the traditional powers of a plebeian tribune making his person legally sacred and giving him the power to veto any law or magistrate.
Honorific and Military victory titles such as Pius and Felix , meaning blessed by the gods..
Divine titles used while living: Divi Filius, meaning Son of God, first used heavily by Augustus because the Roman Senate deified his adopted father, Julius Caesar. Augustus styled himself as “Son of the Divine” to claim sacred legitimacy without claiming to be a god himself. Dominus et Deus, meaning Master and God, was introduced by Emperor Domitian in the late 1st century, as the title was dropped after his assassination.
This all takes us back to Steele's suggestion that the Great Commission was Jesus' parody of the Roman rulers. Which, if anything, was a parody, it would be the Roman rulers and Jesus asserting that Christ is the one who forgave sin and conquered death. But very clearly, a political activity in the 1st century is nothing like a political activity in the United States, which is a constitutional republic driven by a representative democracy. In America, citizens hold constitutional rights to freely vote, protest, voice grievances, run for political office, and legally replace their leadership through elections. In the days of Christ, those living in Judea were subjects of an empire, not citizens with rights, zero legislative representation, no power to vote on laws, and no ability to elect or replace their leaders.
In the Days of Christ: Complete integration of civic duty and religious devotion. Roman emperors claimed divine titles like "Son of God" and required subjects to declare loyalty to Caesar as Lord. Locally, Jewish life was governed simultaneously by Roman law and the Sanhedrin (a religious council of Pharisees and Sadducees). In the United States, with constitutionally protected Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment. The United States explicitly forbids a state-mandated religion, separating religious governance from civic and secular administration.
So it is pretty clear that if one takes Jesus as being shockingly political, it is entirely from a religious and theological perspective. Jesus was definitely bringing a new view of God and religion into the world, which is one of the main reasons that Christians talk of the New Testament, or New Covenant. It is in no way the same as the politics of the United States. It was political in its claim of ultimate sovereignty. By placing supreme authority over all earthly nations in Jesus rather than the imperial throne, it stripped Caesar of his divinity and absolute power, establishing an allegiance that superseded any earthly government.
Steele and his progressive fellows and the Reconstructionists insert their desire for changes as the political basis for their activities. This puts the progressives and the Reconstructionists, Christian Nationalists, on the same side. Thinking that their Christianity calls them to shape the nation based on their particular Christian beliefs. This is not, however, what the majority of Christians desired in the United States. Almost everyone across the theological and political spectrum wants the church to engage with real-world, structural issues. Very few active groups believe Christianity should only be about private, internal spirituality.
Though these two groups seem to think that their religion calls them to take over the nation, their views and goals seem to be very different. The fundamental, irreconcilable difference is not that they want to change society, but how they diagnose the problem and what kind of structural change they are aiming for, two completely opposite visions for the world.
1. The Christian Nationalist Vision of Structural Change
Christian Nationalists view the primary "structural issue" as a moral and spiritual decay caused by a nation turning its back on God.
The Goal: To align the laws, culture, and institutions of the nation with historic, conservative Christian principles.
The Structural Target: They focus on structures of law, governance, and education. For them, structural engagement means passing laws that restrict abortion, protecting traditional definitions of marriage, keeping Christian values in public schools, and ensuring Christians hold positions of high cultural and political power.
The Justification: They believe that a nation is only blessed and successful when its official legal structures honor God.
2. The Progressive Christian Vision of Structural Change
Progressive Christians view the primary "structural issue" as systemic oppression, inequality, and suffering inflicted on marginalized people.
The Goal: To dismantle hierarchies and redistribute power and resources to ensure human flourishing for everyone, regardless of belief, except conservative Christians, who are very frequently disparaged. Steele holds to the deconstruction of most traditional Christianity.
The Structural Target: They focus on economic, racial, and social structures. For them, structural engagement means reforming the prison system, fighting wealth inequality, expanding healthcare access with universal Medicare, creating illegal immigrant rights, and ensuring full equality for the LGBTQ+ community. These are synonymous with the Democratic Socialists of America positions.
The Justification: They believe that God's kingdom is realized when the poorest and most vulnerable members of society are liberated from systemic harm, mimicking Jesus' critiques of the Roman and Temple elites.
Progressives look at Christian Nationalists and say: "You are just using political power to coerce people, control their personal lives, and maintain dominance.
Christian Nationalists look at Progressive Christians and say: “You have abandoned the true Gospel and just turned the church into a secular social justice club for left-wing politics."
Both sides believe they are doing exactly what Jesus would do with
structural, real-world issues. One side is trying to build a society
structured around moral purity and divine alignment, while the other
is trying to build a society structured around systemic equity and pseudo-inclusion.
Yet as we see with Steele's book How Not to suck as a Christian. Inclusion of the conservative or traditional
Christian is something that they do not seek. The progressives seek
to change society using the leftist Critical Theory, which is an
intellectual tradition that originated as a direct outgrowth of
Marxism, but it evolved to critique, modify, and expand traditional
Marxist ideas to fit the 20th and 21st centuries.
While orthodox Marxism focuses heavily on economics, Critical Theory shifts the focus to culture, psychology, and social institutions. Oftentimes shortened into the oppressor vs oppressed view of society.
