the gospel doesn't begin with "you deserve to die."

it begins with "God so loved"

trigger warning : mentions of suicide. i’ve bracketed the section so you can skip over it.

Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think, that in the weeks after wrapping up my series of letters to the faith that raised me, and on the heels of announcing my new book, Growing up Saved - about hating myself because of the things I believed about God - a reel goes viral of a popular Bible teacher telling a group of children that they deserve to die?

The Christian and post-Christian internet is having quite the reaction to Jackie Hill Perry’s video and, rightfully so, I think. Her caption says to “argue with the text,” but I’m not interested in arguing with Jackie or the text. I think discourse is an important part of our spiritual formation, so this is my contribution to that discourse.

What I will do is tell you what the Bible says about children, how to teach them, and how to care for them. I think what she modeled in that video, and what a lot of people in her comment section think is hilarious, is spiritual malpractice and causes harm.

God shows his deep affection for children and his desire for us to care for them all throughout the Bible. Nowhere do we see anyone - rabbi, elder, prophet, parent, or even Jesus himself - speak to children in a way that shames them, condemns them, or tells them they deserve to die.

In fact, Jesus holds children up as a model of faith for us to follow. He warns seriously against causing them harm. (Matthew 18:1-6)

Children are welcomed into the presence of God without needing to recite or understand doctrine. Jesus gets angry at the idea of excluding them. He centers them as image-bearers and as a reality of the Kingdom of God. Not once does he gather them up and say “you deserve to die.” (Luke 18:15-17, Matthew 9:36-37)

When Scripture tells us to teach children, the context is relational, loving, conversational, a daily activity. (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

Children are a reward to be cherished, not terrorized by fear and threats of hell. They aren’t burdens of sin to be fixed. They’re gifts. (Psalm 127:3)

Paul tells us not to exasperate our children. God cares for the hearts of children and he’s teaching us here not to provoke them or frustrate them, but to bring them up in the way of Christ. Instruction is part of our daily life with our kids, and our tone matters. The words we say matter as much as the way we say them. (Ephesians 6:4, Colossians 3:21)

Jesus modeled proximity, welcome, and blessing toward children. Scripture views them as inherently valuable, not just souls to be saved. The Gospel message for children is invitational, relational, and rooted in love, not terror or shame.

As adults, we have a responsibility to care for the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being of every child in our lives. Children do not have the processing skills to understand complex spiritual topics or abstract concepts like sin, spiritual death, justification, or even death itself. They were never meant to carry what grownups can barely hold without breaking. Placing it on them harms them psychologically, developmentally, and spiritually.

We stack theological bricks on their shoulders before their bodies are ready to carry them then wonder why they collapsed under the weight.

In theologies that fixate on sin and death, children become collateral damage.

The Bible says God’s kindness will lead to repentance.
It says we need the supernatural power of Christ and all of his saints to even begin to understand his love.
It says that God isn’t willing for anyone to die.
It says that God is love.

The Gospel doesn’t begin with “you deserve to die.”
It begins with GOD SO LOVED.

tw : suicide

Did you know that during the days of Jonathan Edwards and Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, when the main message from the pulpit was that we are wretched, sinful creatures, destined for hell, that people fell into such spiritual despair that they killed themselves? Jonathan Edwards noted it himself. His own uncle took his life. Some historians believe the spiritual despair and the “suicide craze” is what effectively ended the Great Awakening.¹

If it had that affect on adults, capable of reason and understanding, imagine what it does to a child’s mind and heart.

end of tw

There’s a verse that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately in relation to harsh Christian teachers, authors, and leaders. It says, “They tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves aren’t willing to lift a finger to move them.”

God, may I never do that.

Regardless of what position of power you do or don’t hold, we all have a responsibility to not. do. that. You’re responsible for the words you say. You’re responsible for the harm you cause. You’re responsible for exposing children to things that are developmentally inappropriate or harmful to them.

And that’s why this matters.

Because what we hand to children in the name of God shapes what they believe about Him, about the world, and about themselves. And when we preach weight without gentleness, doctrine without development, fear instead of love - we’re not being bearers of Good News, we’re being careless.

Spiritual pride compels us to speak “truth” without care.

Self righteousness make us pass off responsibility and tell people to take it up with some other person or text, not us - the person who said the words and put the a heavy load on someone’s shoulders.

Idolatry makes us place people on pedestals and excuse the harm they’ve caused.

I’ve done and been all of those things. I’ve been self righteous and prideful and deeply wrong - but the most beautiful part of the Gospel, what’s distinctive about it, the whole point of Christ’s death and resurrection - is that it is redemptive.

IT’S GOOD NEWS.

This is the God I’m hoping to carry to you in these words - not one that would tell a child that he deserves to die, but one that loves you so much you can’t even begin to understand it.

If Jesus has held up children as an example of faith, then I think we’re ok, as adults, to react to a message of death the same way a child in Jackie’s audience did :

“That was a lot.”

It was a lot for a child.
And it’s a lot for an adult.
It’s ok to say that.

The Gospel begins and ends with love - a love that frees. A love that doesn’t coerce, guilt, shame, or manipulate. It’s a love that draws near and lifts heavy loads, not piles them on.

May we all have the strength to open our hearts to accept the love that God gives us freely and abundantly and allow him to free us from the shame and self hatred that we believe we deserve.

- Kristen

P.S. As I was writing this, I was thinking about my mom, a teacher, principal, a refined Southern-bred pentecostal pastor’s daughter and a pentecostal pastor’s wife, and what she would’ve done if she’d overheard a Bible teacher telling me I deserved to die. It would have been the most eloquent tongue lashing you’ve never heard cause it would have been whispered furiously as she covered my ears. ;)

---

I didn’t plan on telling you about my new book in this way, but seeing as it’s so relevant… If you missed the announcement over on instagram, it’s called Growing up Saved - When Loving God Feels Like Losing Yourself. It’s part spiritual formation and part memoir of a pastor’s kid who grew up in peak 90s Christendom and all the things I had to learn and unlearn as I found my way to a gentler faith. It comes out in March, but you can preorder now.

1. For more on this, read - Ann Taves, Fits, Trances, and Visions; Susan Juster, Sacred Violence in Early America; Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium, George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards : A Life