Candace Cameron Bure, and the difference between a Dolly Parton Christian and a MAGA Christian.
It starts with the debauchery-pretending-to-be-art of the 2024 Olympic Summer Games opening celebration, and leads to a July 28, 2024 Instagram post made by actress Candace Cameron Bure, who is not at all shy about her faith in Jesus Christ.
The comments section under that post is what you’d expect.1 Yet Bure never ceases to amaze me in showing grace even though she’s constantly targeted for her statements about her faith. There are some people—including former co-stars—who go out of their way to be nasty to her. Yet she stays kind.
I’d probably lose it and key someone’s car.
There really is only one type of Christian, but it was in that comments section that I read a strange statement. Someone lashed out at Bure and said “you’re not a Dolly Parton Christian, you’re one of those MAGA Christians.”
I can only guess at what they mean.
I assume that Parton is known for being very accepting of all people and lifestyles and passing no judgment. I have no idea about her faith, her heart, and what God is asking her to do so I’m a little more than wary making an assumption. Heck, I’ve been to Dollywood twice. I have nothing against Parton.
But it’s a false comparison, if I’m right about what the person was trying to say, because Bure has never (to my knowledge) rejected a person because of who they were, either. The main difference seems to be that Bure, unlike Parton, tends to call evil for what it is.
We don’t like that.
I’m not sure what a MAGA Christian is, frankly. There isn’t one in my realm of understanding since making America great again isn’t in the Bible nor a core feature of my faith in Christ. It’s a political movement, not a spiritual one.
But if I’ve got it right on what a Parton Christian is, I don’t want to be a Parton Christian, either. It’s easier, mind you, but not right.
We’re all trying to live in that stupid Coexist bumper sticker, as if the different religions of the world weren’t generally mutually exclusive and that staying out of people’s lives without the pesky sharing of the Gospel is how we show love.
Penn Jillette, an atheist, is famous for a quote that makes that lie quite clear for what it is:
“I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward—and atheists who think people shouldn’t proselytize and who say just leave me along and keep your religion to yourself—how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?
“I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.”
He’s right.
Parton Christianity, as I’ve described it and as people looking on have come to understand it, is not loving. It’s hateful.
Love doesn’t live and let live. It doesn’t encourage someone on a path to eternal damnation to keep the peace in this life and not get on anyone’s cancel-culture radar. We can’t be smiling and pleasant so we can coexist on our path to heaven or hell, an impossibility, anyway, since those two paths are different roads making me wonder if you’re able to do so which road you’re really on. Because one road is narrow, one is broad. One is rocky with pitfalls and steep climbs, the other smooth and flat. One has a narrow entrance, one has a broad entrance.
The path to destruction is smooth and wide and welcoming and tolerant of sin. It’s deceptively easy (though highly destructive), and loves to encourage others to come along. That is not true Christianity. Nowhere in God’s Word is following Christ described as such.
“You do you!”
(Then you are your own god, not really believing in God.)
“I just accept people as they are!”
(Yes. But why would you leave them there?)
“Jesus sat and ate with sinners!”
(It wasn’t proximity to Jesus that saved them, but faith.)
“God is love!”
(Your definition of love is wrong.)
“Jesus said we weren’t supposed to judge!”
(Not quite.)
These statements are the piecemeal theology that you get from Satan’s Seminary of Eternal Confusion And Eventual Roasting, a theology most of us have heard (or used ourselves).
And, if you haven’t studied the Bible in sincere, seeking faith, or haven’t been taught the Bible thoroughly beyond ritual readings once a week or in a way that was more than just a sermon on Three Ways To Have A Happier Life, you won’t be able to spot the problem.
As I tell people most awkwardly, I’m sure there are some good context-free one-liners in Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Doesn’t mean they actually represent the gist of the work. Cherry picking makes for interesting quotes but doesn’t convey meaning well.
Cherry picking content out of context works well if people aren’t reading the thing you’re pulling from. The enemy knows which snippets of the Bible to put into the hands of people who won’t look at context. The Bible tells us that the Bible itself is like a two-edged sword that cuts to the deepest marrow of a person, but when you cherry pick verses, you end up grabbing the sharp blade of the sword and cut yourself as you try to beat people down with the handle.
So what about all that pop theology we see on social media and in such comment sections, particularly that we shouldn’t judge?
People love to quote Matthew 7:1 about not judging, but they don’t read the rest of the passage in which Jesus is clearly asking us to make judgments on what is sin.
We are to judge, in a proper way without being superficial, hypocritical, unforgiving, or self-righteous. We are to show discernment, identify fruit, recognize what is evil, know what is sin, understand what is Truth—it’s a long list and all of this is a form of judging. Opposing sin and lifting up what is righteous is part of the Christian’s job description.
John the Baptist, cousin of Jesus Christ, laid into Herodias real good, calling her out for her adultery with Herod. I’m guessing John wasn’t even too gentle about how he went about confronting that sin, though we don’t know for sure. Herodias got his head lopped off eventually.
Was he wrong to speak out against sin and direct it to a specific person?
Apparently not. Jesus was sad about the death of his cousin, not about the fact he had judged a non-believer and called out their sin.
Bure, to her credit, has always been gracious when she talks about these things, even though the response back to her has been generally not.
We absolutely must be able to judge what is right and wrong, sinful or holy, good or evil. We’re to ask God for wisdom and discernment for that reason. Speaking out against sin is entirely correct. Expressing out loud in a gentle manner to sinners a proclamation of what is right and wrong is entirely appropriate and Christian. If sinners don’t know they are sinners, they don’t know why they need a Savior.
Jesus accepts everyone as they are but does not want to leave them as they are. This is why he died for our sins, not so we could wallow in them but be saved from them.
I don’t know Parton’s heart and I don’t know that it’s fair someone has used her name in this way, dividing up the Christian church. But if being a Parton Christian means “accepting” people as they are and leaving it at that, with no speaking up about the Gospel and sin and the hope we have in Christ to change how we think and live—and the desire to do so!—with his help…well, that is not being a Christian.
This is a culture where extremes reign, and so delicately balanced and nuanced understandings are quickly tossed aside for knee-jerk “I’m offended!” explosive reactions but hear this out:
Come to Jesus as you are, but if you have true faith in Him you cannot stay the same; you will be changed and you will want to be changed. But know that there is a time frame. Today is the day, not tomorrow or when it’s more convenient.
You may not be guaranteed another opportunity to come to Christ.
You’re not guaranteed tomorrow.
Repeated rejection and mockery may lead to a hard heart.
God may turn you over to your sin since you seem to want it so badly and you’ll never be drawn by the Spirit towards Christ again.
And as for believers, I am commanded by Christ, in the same passage about not judging, to not continually offer what is sacred to people who repeatedly mock and disregard it. Psalm 1 tells me I shouldn’t walk with the wicked, stand in the path sinners are taking, or sit with mockers. At some point, I have to walk away and leave you to it.
I can’t say sin is OK. I can’t pretend that God’s love means everyone gets to heaven, because God’s love means everyone has the opportunity but the choice is still yours.
Which leads us to the fun we’ve had with redefining what love is.
“Love is love” is the enemy’s favorite lie to carry people to hell. We love love.
I suppose the first thing you’d do to deceive people is take the true concept of God is Love and then redefine what love is. In one easy motion, by changing the variable at the other side of the equal sign, you’ve redefined God.
So we made love equal tolerance, sexual perversion, embracing of evil, choose an identity that God never created us to be, follow your heart, let feelings direct our lives, staying silent about sin and evil, letting people coast to hell—it’s all in there. And ultimately and ironically, this love must necessarily make a hateful mockery of the God who is the actual meaning of real and holy Love.
It is not love to let sinners happily go to hell without telling them about the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, a gospel that can be uncomfortable, can confront sin, and will ultimately bring about a change born from true faith in which repentance—a change in direction or thinking—happens.
The world apparently loves Parton Christians because they won’t make you uncomfortable in your sin. Yet in John 15:18-21, Jesus reassures his true followers that the world would not love Him nor anyone who followed Him.
In fact, his followers would be hated.
“Remember, they hated me first,” Jesus said. “If you belonged to the world, it would love you. But you don’t. I chose you out of the world, and that’s why it hates you. If they persecuted me, they’ll do it to you. If they obey my teaching, they’ll obey yours as well.”
Some Christians have taken this as a license to be an absolute jerk and using the returned hatred as proof of holiness (is that a MAGA Christian? I don’t know). But the extreme overcorrection, the Parton Christian, is just as far off the mark, too, only on the other side.
Candace Cameron Bure did not reflect anything but kindness and grace as she spoke the truth, yet she was responded to with hatred. She wasn’t speaking the world’s language, and they couldn’t accept what she said. For all the Bit-O-Bible theology experts out there trying to bludgeon her with the handle of the sword and justify their sin and self-righteousness, she didn’t waver.
I suspect that’s the Christian model we should all familiarize ourselves with even more in the coming days.
There will be no lessening of people mocking the faith of true believers. It will be family, it will be friends, it will be from every direction and on every platform. They will call you stupid, uneducated, wrong side of history, the problem, and much worse. You will be forced to choose, at some point, if you will relent and embrace what God called sin, or if you will not.
Take courage from others who are standing strong, be gracious and kind, do not relent or be discouraged, try to encourage other believers, and remember that we already know how the story ends.
And if you wanted to know what the difference between a Dolly Parton Christian and a MAGA Christian was, I’ll tell you: nothing.
They may both be equally off track.
I left three comments on that post. I’ve cleaned up the typos here a bit because I am not good at typing on the phone and it gets messy.
“Thank you, Candace. I have an art history degree. I could see what that final tableau was intended to mimic, regardless of the presence of Dionysus. The opening ceremony was disgusting and had nothing to do with athletic games. It was not what kids should have seen. It was disgusting on every level. Thank you for being willing to take the heat and stand strong.”
“Additionally, the woman in the middle of the tableau indicated in her first Twitter post about the opening ceremony that indeed, this was intended to mock the Last Supper. It's only after there was heat that suddenly everyone came out saying it was the "feast of Dionysus." She quickly deleted her Twitter post and replaced it with the new talking point. You can look this up. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt, that they weren’t trying to mock God in general and just point out Greek Gods for the origin of the Olympics. They couldn't do this without drag queens and a guy dressed in women's underwear with one of his testicles hanging out? Because that was on the TV screen for billions of people around the world—children included—to see. And if you think it's just about Christians and being ignorant about art history and Greek mythology, and that everything was fine, then you've come to the point where gay bar culture and exposure of genitals on camera is just fine. That's a pretty awful place to be at, though not surprising in this culture. But that's where you are. I'm thankful that Candace stands firm in the face of mockers, people taking Bible verses out of context, and all that's been thrown at her. God sees and it matters.”
“Jesus did sit and eat with sinners; all people are sinners so any person he interacted with would qualify. But when he connected with Matthew the tax collector, did Matthew continue on in life the same after? Did the woman he saved from being stoned get told to go on her merry way and live and let live? We love to point out that Jesus came to save sinners (true) and therefore sat with and mingled and touched them (true), but we never like that little icky part that comes after: repentance and changing their ways. And those who refused to change their ways or give up the things of the world (think: the rich man interaction)? Jesus let them know they would not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. So if Jesus dropped down into that "feast of Dionysus" (a celebration of idolatry which, by it's very nature, mocks God) would those folks there have had a change of heart and left the way they were living and followed him no matter the cost? Because as we can see in the comments section here, there's cost. You'll be mocked, called stupid, called ignorant, called everything in the book. And that's just the start. You can pull bits out of the Bible and throw it at Candance all you want (the devil knows the Bible better than any of us, we learn...in the Bible), but we're told (um, in the Bible) that in these times people would call evil good and good evil and what Candace did here was good, not evil. The question isn't whether Jesus loved sinners; why else would he die for them? The question is what happens to a sinner when they come face to face with his Gospel? Judging from the comments here, some reject it heartily. The only love that saves a person isn't tolerance and live and let live, it's the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it must be spoken even in the face of ugliness and that is the love Candace has shown here.”
Wow. This might be my favorite blog post of yours so far. There is so much here - with depth of understanding of both culture and Scripture. You have articulated it all so well.
Ignoring sin is not loving the person who is headed to eternal destruction. Speaking truth as defined by God's word, motivated by love, will save lives for eternity and bring true peace to the individuals who respond to the message.
Thank you for taking the time to write and share this!!!
The tactic I increasingly see from “Christian” writers and pundits everywhere is pitting one aspect of Christian faith/practice against another, forcing either/or choices that were never supposed to be at odds with each other. You end up with these bizarre love versus truth, grace versus holiness, orthopraxy versus orthodoxy dichotomies that are inherently false.
The classic false dichotomy is that you can either love someone or you can call them to repent. One that is growing in prevalence is the anti-traditionalist blast: when someone says she misses the greater sense of community, citizenship, sexual discretion, and lower crime of “bygone days,” then she’s also dogwhistling acceptance of the racism of that era as well. You can have _Leave It to Beaver_ or you can have greater equality between the races, but you can’t have both.
Who says? Why not BOTH? Why is a greater emphasis on right living AND loving the person who doesn’t look like you being made into an impossible paradox? Why not have love AND truth? Grace AND holiness? Orthopraxy AND Orthodoxy? Who is creating this dichotomy?
I find this either/or thing everywhere in recent writings by people who call themselves Christians. But it’s a great evil that warps weak minds. It’s the kind of tactic being used against Bure. And people need to be on guard against its flawed reasoning.