When Following Jesus Costs You

Choosing between support and the way of Jesus.

Public Theology is based on the work of Zach W. Lambert, Pastor of Restore, an inclusive church in Austin, Texas. Zach’s first book, Better Ways to Read the Bible, will release on August 12, 2025 and is available to preorder today. All of the content available at Public Theology is for those who identify as Christian, as well as those who might be interested in learning about a more inclusive, kind, thoughtful Christianity. We’re glad you’re here.

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This popped on my Facebook Memories recently and I was immediately triggered.

You may not remember, but there was a significant surge of refugees and migrants fleeing violence across the Middle East and Africa in November of 2015—most notably from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. A record 1.3 million people sought asylum in Europe that year with the numbers peaking in November.

Here in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott (R), US Representative Lloyd Doggett (D), and other elected officials attempted to block refugees fleeing Iraq and Syria from entering the United States. On the presidential campaign trail that November, Donald Trump railed against refugees, and even more broadly against Muslims, calling for US mosques to be surveilled by the government: “Well you’re going to have to watch and study the mosques, because a lot of talk is going on at the mosques.”¹

Instead of pushing back on this untrue and unChristlike rhetoric, many Christians joined in by spreading xenophobic conspiracies like the Great Replacement theory, which claims “there’s a plot to diminish the influence of white people… achieved both through the immigration of nonwhite people into societies that have largely been dominated by white people, as well as through simple demographics, with white people having lower birth rates than other populations”²

I was disturbed by what I saw. In my naive 26-year-old mind, I thought, “I bet these Christians just don’t know that Jesus calls us to care for people in need like immigrants and refugees.” So I made this Facebook post:

I vividly remember the day I posted it, so much so that I was triggered by the Facebook Memory popping up. It was about a week before our first Preview Gathering for the church we were starting (Restore). After I made the post, I got a call from one of our biggest donors in Dallas. He was livid.