Moral Clarity & Courage: A Pastor's Call to Resist

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I want to begin with a story from the Gospel of Matthew, specifically chapter 12, where Jesus says something that has confused and even frightened people for generations. He says, in essence, that you can be forgiven for almost anything. You can even speak against him and still be forgiven. But there is one thing, he says, that won’t be forgiven: blaspheming the Spirit.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up being deeply anxious about that. What does it mean to “blaspheme the Holy Spirit”? Could I do it accidentally?

Growing up in a Pentecostal context, where the gifts of the Spirit (speaking in tongues, healing, ecstatic worship) were central, I was taught that mocking or dismissing those expressions might count as blasphemy. And yet, like most kids, we joked around anyway. We’d come up with phrases that sounded like tongues if you said them fast enough. It felt harmless at the time, but also a little terrifying, just in case.

But the more I’ve studied this passage, the more convinced I am that this is not what Jesus meant.

If you look at the context in Matthew 12, Jesus is responding to religious leaders who accuse him of doing good (healing the sick, liberating people from oppression, etc.) by the power of evil. They claim his goodness is actually demonic.

And Jesus responds, essentially: That makes no sense.

But more than that, he draws a line. You can misunderstand me. You can criticize me. But when you begin to call good evil, when you twist love, healing, and liberation into something wicked, you are doing something far deeper. You are corrupting your own moral compass.

That, I believe, is what it means to blaspheme the Spirit.

Because throughout the Gospels, the Spirit represents that which moves us toward love, compassion, healing, and justice. To call those things evil. to reject empathy itself, is to close yourself off at the deepest level. It’s a kind of spiritual disorientation that becomes very difficult to come back from.

The “Sin of Empathy”

We see this dynamic playing out in our world today.

There’s a growing idea in some circles that empathy itself can be sinful, that allowing compassion to guide how we treat others is somehow dangerous or unfaithful.

We hear this in conversations about LGBTQ+ people. About migrants. About the vulnerable and marginalized. We’re told that responding with empathy is weakness, or worse, moral compromise.

But this stands in direct contradiction to what Jesus taught.

When Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves and to treat others as we would want to be treated, what is he describing if not empathy?

Empathy is not a threat to faith. It is the fulfillment of it.

To reject empathy is, in many ways, to do exactly what Jesus warned against: to call something good, something sacred, evil.

Why Moral Clarity Matters Right Now

This is why I believe we are living in a moment that demands moral clarity and moral courage.

By that, I mean the willingness to clearly name injustice for what it is, and the courage to resist it.

It means refusing to be gaslit into thinking that cruelty is normal. It means recognizing racism, xenophobia, and authoritarianism when we see them. It means telling the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable or costly.

And yes, this includes the Church.

Because too often, the Church today sounds a lot like the religious leaders in Jesus’s time: twisting love into something suspect, and treating compassion as if it were a threat.

Ironically, those same voices will affirm that the greatest commandment is to love your neighbor. But they haven’t fully reckoned with what that actually requires.

Who Are the Real Moral Relativists?

As progressive Christians, we’re often labeled as moral relativists.

We’re told we’ve abandoned truth because we ask questions, challenge tradition, or extend inclusion.

But I would argue the opposite.

If someone can excuse or normalize racism, cruelty, dishonesty, or abuse of power, if those things can be justified depending on who is doing them, that’s moral relativism.

Moral clarity means we don’t shift our standards based on convenience or allegiance. It means we call something wrong, even when it’s politically inconvenient or personally uncomfortable.

The Story We’re Writing

Here’s the reality: we are living in a moment that future generations will look back on.

They will ask what we did when human dignity was on the line. When truth was contested. When compassion was under attack.

We are writing that story right now.

And we don’t have to start from scratch.

Movements for justice throughout history like civil rights, LGBTQ+ liberation, and resistance to oppression have always been, at their core, movements fueled by moral courage. And often, they were deeply spiritual movements as well.

Faith has played a powerful role in inspiring people to act, to organize, to risk everything for the sake of love and justice.

Why I Still Believe

Now, I know some people struggle with religion, and for good reason.

Religion has often been used to harm, to control, to exclude.

There’s a quote often attributed to philosopher Slavoj Žižek: Without religion, good people would be good and bad people would be bad—but it often takes religion to make good people do bad things.

There’s truth in that.

So why stay? Why still claim Christianity?

For me, it’s because Christianity is too important to give up.

It’s too rich, too meaningful, too full of liberating potential to surrender to fundamentalism or misuse. These stories, our shared sacred stories, have power. They connect us. They move us. They call us into something bigger than ourselves.

And at their best, they point us toward love.

I’m also reminded of the words of James Baldwin, who said that if God has any meaning, it must be to make us “larger, freer, and more loving.” If our understanding of God doesn’t do that, then we need to rethink it.

I agree.

Faith as a Source of Courage

At its best, faith doesn’t make us smaller, it makes us braver.

It gives us language, community, and imagination to pursue justice. It reminds us that love is not weak, it is transformative.

The civil rights movement is a powerful example of this. It wasn’t just political, it was deeply spiritual. It was fueled by theological conviction, sacred story, and a belief in a God of liberation.

That same potential still exists today.

A Final Thought

So when Jesus warns about blaspheming the Spirit, I don’t hear a threat meant to scare us.

I hear a warning meant to guide us.

Don’t lose your ability to recognize goodness.
Don’t let your heart become so hardened that you call love evil.
Don’t abandon empathy.

Because the Spirit is still moving: in acts of compassion, in movements for justice, in every moment where love pushes back against fear.

And our calling is to recognize it, join it, and have the courage to follow where it leads.