Lately, I’ve been wrestling with a fear I can’t shake.

Not the kind of fear that hits all at once, like a car crash or a sudden diagnosis—but the slow, creeping kind. The kind that lingers in the background of conversations, media headlines, political rallies. The kind that gets louder when those in power speak with divine certainty about who “belongs” and who doesn’t.

I’ve been reading about Germany in the 1930s—not just Hitler, but the clergy who stood beside him. The pastors who believed they were doing what was best for their congregations and their country. The ones who wrapped their faith around a rising nationalist movement, thinking it would protect what they loved.

Most of them didn’t wake up one morning and decide to support fascism. They were misled by rhetoric that sounded familiar: restore the nation, protect the family, defend religion, punish the corrupt. And by the time they realized what they had enabled, it was too late to stop it.

That’s the part that haunts me.

But somewhere along the way, a different version of Christianity took root. A version that forgot about the loaves and fishes and instead became obsessed with who is worthy of food in the first place. A version that turned 'love thy neighbor' into 'love thy neighbor—but only if they look, speak, and believe like you.'