You Can't Reform a Lie in the Church Either

“For the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears…” 2 Timothy 4:3

There is a scripture many Christians quote but rarely apply to themselves.

We tend to read it as a warning about other people.

Other churches.

Other believers.

Other traditions that “lost their way.”

But what if this passage was never meant to point outward?

What if it was meant to expose what happens when people want the comfort of faith without the cost of transformation?

“They will gather teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”

This is not a description of unbelievers.

It is a description of people who want reassurance instead of repentance.

The Comfort We Confuse for Faith

“Tickling ears” isn’t just about bad theology.

It’s about comfortable Christianity.

A faith that:

• Affirms without confronting

• Reassures without requiring change

• Personalizes salvation while ignoring collective harm

  
  

It allows people to profess Christ without ever examining how their beliefs shape their views of others, especially those continuously harmed by numerous systems.

People don’t reject truth because it’s unclear.

They reject truth because it would cost them certainty, belonging, or power.

Comfort has quietly become the substitute for conviction.

Tickling Ears in Child Welfare

In child welfare, ear-tickling doesn’t sound like false doctrine.

It sounds like praise.

It sounds like:

• “Look at all the good work we’re doing.”

• “We’re doing the best we can.”

  
  

This affirmation is not aimed at families.

It is aimed at professionals.

It rewards people for feeling righteous while discouraging them from confronting the harm their work produces.

In this system:

• Careers advance

• Awards are given

• Contracts are renewed

All while Black families are surveilled, separated, and permanently altered.

The ears being tickled are not the ears of parents.

They are the ears of the institution.

Entire professional identities have been built on the suffering and destruction of Black families.

Not because individuals are evil, but because the system rewards blindness.

Those who speak too honestly are labeled unprofessional.

Those who disrupt the narrative are treated as threats.

This is not accidental.

It is how institutions preserve themselves.

When Silence Disqualifies Faith Leadership

This is where the line must be drawn clearly.

Faith leaders who refuse to confront truth because they fear how their congregations will react are not exercising faith.

They are managing risk.

Scripture defines faith plainly. Hebrews 11:1 tells us faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

Faith has never required safety.

It has always required courage.

If you cannot speak God’s truth when it threatens attendance, donations, reputation, or comfort, you may be a leader of people, but you cannot claim to be a leader of faith.

Jesus did not soften His message to keep followers.

He told the truth and watched people walk away.

Comfort is not a fruit of the Spirit.

“Christian Before Anything Else” and the Lie of Colorblind Faith

Many white churches teach that Christianity comes before race.

Many modern pastors are no longer formed as truth-tellers.

They are formed as institutional stabilizers.

Colorblind Christianity allows white believers to feel morally pure while remaining structurally unchanged.

It says: “We’re all the same in Christ,” while ignoring who has historically been treated as disposable in His name.

Many white pastors teach a theology that:

• Individualizes sin

• Sanitizes history

• Treats racism as a personal attitude instead of a structuring force

• Personalizes salvation while avoiding collective responsibility

  
  

So they preach endlessly about:

• Sexual sin

• Pride

• Gossip

• Personal morality

  
  

But remain silent on:

• White supremacy

• Economic theft

• State violence

• Family destruction

  
  

Not because scripture is unclear, but because truth would require them to do their own personal work and challenge their congregations to do the same.

To confront the lies passed down generation after generation.

Colorblindness is not holiness.

It is avoidance.

White churches cling to colorblind theology because confronting race would require confronting power.

Who has been centered

Whose suffering has been spiritualized

And whose families were destroyed in God’s name.

Many pastors are not malicious.

They are conditioned to prioritize comfort, church growth, and institutional survival.

Christianity in America was never neutral.

It was used to justify slavery, sanctify segregation, and bless family separation.

Refusing to see race does not eliminate racism.

It preserves it.

What we refuse to name, we quietly preserve.

The Plantation Preacher Still Speaks

This truth must also be named honestly.

The plantation preacher did not disappear. That theology evolved.

It still teaches:

• Endure suffering quietly

• Respect authority without question

• Focus on heaven, not justice

• Don’t disrupt order

  
  

That version of Christianity kept enslaved people compliant while their children were sold away.

Today, it asks Black believers to carry racial trauma silently, forgive endlessly, and call it faith.

That is not reconciliation.

That is submission dressed up as spirituality.

The Parallel We Must Confront

Child welfare claims moral authority while refusing to confront the lies it was built on.

American Christianity does the same.

Both:

• Silence truth-tellers

• Punish disruption

• Protect the institution over the people harmed

  
  

What happens when an institution claims righteousness but refuses accountability?

And more dangerously, what happens when people prefer comforting lies over disruptive truth?

• Child welfare punishes families to preserve itself

• Christianity silences prophets to preserve church attendance

  
  

Different systems.

Same disease.

You cannot reform a system that refuses to tell the truth about itself.

Not in child welfare.

And not in the church.

A Question for Those Who Lead

This is for the pastors.

The ministry leaders.

The deeply faithful.

Leadership is not defined by a title.

It is defined by direction.

So the question is not whether you are leading.

The question is: Where are you leading people to?

Toward truth, even when it disrupts comfort? Or toward reassurance that requires no repentance?

Toward a faith that costs something? Or one that protects institutions?

And here is the question that cannot be avoided:

If you are afraid to speak the truth because of how your congregation might respond, are you actually leading, or are you being led?

Who is determining the boundaries of what you will say?

• The Gospel?

• Or the preferences of the crowd?

  
  

If fear of people shapes the message, leadership has already been reversed.

At that point, the congregation is not being shepherded.

It is deciding how much truth it is willing to tolerate.

Faith leadership, by definition, cannot exist there.

If a leader cannot proclaim truth without first calculating the cost to themselves, they are operating in self-preservation, not faith.

Faith leaders are called to stand in the absence of evidence, not in the presence of applause.

Anything less may still be leadership.

But it is not leadership rooted in faith.

The Question That Remains

Scripture does not only warn us about false prophets.

It warns us about willing audiences.

People who prefer teachers who tell them what they want to hear.

If you lead people in the name of Christ, ask yourself honestly:

• What truths have you avoided because they might upset your congregation?

• What injustices have you labeled “political” so you wouldn’t have to preach them?

• Are you preparing people for righteousness, or for reassurance?

  
  

If Jesus evaluated your leadership by the fruit it produces, what kind of disciples would He find?

The danger is not that leaders speak gently.

The danger is that they lead people away from truth while calling it love.

So ask yourself faithfully, not defensively:

• Where am I leading people?

• What truths have I avoided because they would cost me comfort or approval?

• If my faith, leadership, or allyship costs me nothing, who is paying the price instead?

  
  

Truth does not exist to make us comfortable.

Faith does not exist to preserve institutions.

And awakening that leads to no change is just another form of ear-tickling.