This essay was originally published in Interfaith America Magazine on April 12, 2023
“I am not one of them.”
I said this in dismay as I witnessed, on the news, white evangelicals dragging a Christian flag across the halls of the besieged American capitol. Though there was much to mourn about this terrible event, I particularly grieved how the ones leading the insurrection were those who deemed themselves “evangelical.” As someone who grew up a “born-again” Christian in the Philippines — also known as a “Filipino evangelical” — the evangelicalism on display at the capitol was unrecognizable to me. In many ways, it went against my convictions as someone who identifies with the evangelical movement.