Jesus & Jelly Roll
Last Sunday night I watched the Grammys. Jelly Roll won a Grammy for Best Pop Country album. And when he got up to speak, he became kind of an evangelical preacher, like he often does. He talked about Jesus. About how Jesus is for everybody.
And let me be upfront… the question I have with this whole representation of Jesus isn’t really Jelly Roll. It’s the version of Jesus that keeps getting the microphone.
Because Jelly Roll is about to go out on tour with Kid Rock, on a tour that’s likely going to be pro–Christian nationalist, pro-Trump, and rooted in a belief system that, to me, feels deeply misaligned with the actual spirit of Jesus. And that’s what feels off.
I don’t doubt that Jelly Roll believes Jesus saved him. He’s talked openly about finding Jesus when he was in prison. I don’t question that. I understand how real that experience can feel, especially when you’re at the bottom and something gives you hope or meaning or a way forward.
What I struggle with is the bigger framework that often surrounds that version of Jesus—the one that’s tied to power, nationalism, and a theology that keeps pointing people outward instead of inward.
For me, that’s not the spirit of Jesus at all.
I’ve spent most of my life in a complicated relationship with evangelical Christianity. I was raised in a Southern Baptist church, and by the time I was a teenager, I had developed a love-hate relationship, not with Jesus, but with fundamentalist Christianity. I endured grooming as a kid. I endured silence. I endured being told to keep things quiet, not rock the boat, just give it to Jesus and he would take it away. So I swept it under the rug, and carried on as though nothing had ever happened. Nothing to see here. Move on.
That Jesus was used to cover up a lot of harm.
So when I see people invoke Jesus publicly, and especially when powerfully religious and political people with microphones talk about Jesus the way they talk about him, something gets triggered in me. I own that. I know that’s part of my story. I know my perspective is shaped by what I lived through.
What I’m responding to isn’t Jelly Roll, or any other individual. It’s the belief system.
It’s the version of Jesus that says salvation comes from outside of you. That responsibility can be erased through belief. That if you accept the right story, say the right prayer, you’re forgiven—no matter what you’ve done, and without any real responsibility or repair.
The Jesus I resonate with isn’t the one who erases responsibility by sacrificing his life so you don’t have to take any. He’s the one who says the kingdom is within you. The one who awakens us to be more fully human. More connected to love. More connected to empathy and compassion. Feed the hungry. Love your neighbor. See the Christ in everyone—whether it’s visible or not.
That Jesus doesn’t let us off the hook. He invites us to grow up.
What feels maddening to me is how often the other Jesus—the one who protects powerful people, the one who divides the world into us and them—keeps getting the microphone. And how much that version has convinced so much of evangelical Christianity that this is the real Jesus. That’s the part I react to.
Not Jesus. Not faith. But a belief system that lives on judgment and fear—where some people are saved and others are doomed, and where a loving God somehow created all of this as a kind of cosmic test or divine joke.
That doesn’t make sense to me anymore. So no, I’m not offended byJelly Roll talking about Jesus on the Grammy stage.
I’m unsettled by which Jesus keeps being represented—and what that version of Jesus allows people to avoid, and in a weird way, get away with.
This isn’t about condemnation. It’s about honesty. It’s about empathy. And it’s about naming the difference between a Jesus who saves people and a Jesus who awakens them.
Behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
