Jack Hibbs is a holy hypocrite.

The Calvary Chapel head man talks God, approves hate and convinces his (almost exclusively) wealthy, white, OC-based lemmings that cruelty is love.

Whenever I speak about religion with folks (of my faith or others), I almost always offer up what I consider to be one of society’s most important considerations: You just might be incorrect.

What I mean is … well, eh, you (and I) just might be incorrect. Despite the Bible, despite the Old and New Testaments, despite the Qur'an, despite millions of believers, despite pilgrimages to Israel, to Egypt, to Mecca, to Carvel … it’s still entirely possible (and, to be honest, probable) that your religion isn’t 100-percent correct. Or that your religion isn’t correct at all.

What makes me say this? Well, multiple things. First, there are an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide, ranging from Christianity and Judaism to Raëlism and Zoroastrianism. All of those faiths feature congregants who are 100-percent certain their way is not merely the righteous way, but the only way. And they can’t all be correct.

I’ll let “South Park” explain …

Second, even the most pious religious scholars acknowledge that, while the Bible represents God’s words and desires, it was interpreted and printed by man. And man—as anyone who has ever watched the TV show “Dawson’s Creek” or dined at Tony Pepperoni knows—is painfully imperfect. Hell, turn to Galatians 6:1. Or Genesis 2:1-25. Or Matthew 7:3-5. It’s literally spelled out in the texts. We get stuff wrong. We bungle intentions. We trip. We fall. We plunder. We do all sorts of crappy shit, because it’s who we are. So maybe, just maybe, the dudes first translating God to paper committed some blunders. Maybe Isaiah was feeling guilty over his affair with Josiah and slipped in a passage about men lying with men. Maybe some of the listed sins were typos. “Lord's name in vain” penned instead of “Eat a weather vane.” That type of thing.

Seriously, because of the looooooong-ago time period and the rudimentary forms of documentation, who among us can speak with 100-percent certainty?

My point: I have no problem with religion.

I have a problem with people knowing with unbridled confidence their religion is right.

So let’s talk Jack Hibbs.

Should one do a quick Google search, he’ll find that Jack Hibbs is, “the Founder and Senior Pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in Southern California, and also serves as the Founder and President of Real Life Network, a ministry that reaches millions worldwide through various media outlets. He is known for his passionate, verse-by-verse expositional Bible teaching and his frequent appearances as a conference speaker and nationally syndicated radio and TV host.”

One can visit his website, and not only read up on Jack, but see him in this kick-ass, look-I’m-not-one-of-those-stuffy-religious-guys jean jacket …

One can visit his store and buy Jack Hibbs stuff. One can go to his Instagram feed and learn why a man of the cloth would use the pulpit to endorse and support a jarringly immoral lifelong conman like Donald Trump. [Jack Hibbs’ explanation: “With President Trump, we knew in advance that if successful, he would assemble literally the greatest cabinet that the United States has ever had … The only people who would be upset with that would be atheists, communists, or non-Americans”].

And what bothers me about Jack Hibbs isn’t that he somehow preaches one thing while kneeling before a hate-monger, or that he probably dropped $1,000 on that wanna-be Usher jacket, or that to hear him speak is to understand why DeVry isn’t a legitimate educational option. No, what bothers me is that, in his absolutism, Jack Hibbs lets his followers run amok sans thought or deliberation or consequence. If that’s a bit confusing, here’s what I mean: Jack Hibbs preaches about love. Repeatedly. You can google his sermons, and it’s a ton of love thy neighbor, love your family, treat people with dignity, find goodness in all. Those are his keystone messages—and messages I (an agnostic Jew who had his Bar Mitzvah at the Mt. Kisco Holiday Inn) 100-percent agree with. Like, Jack Hibbs is dead-on. We need more love and compassion in this world. Desperately.

But why should I follow Hibbs, or join Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, if he ignores what he preaches and—even worse—his followers ignore what he preaches?

Perfect example: Jack Hibbs literally posted this on his IG feed …

This, too …

And it’s like—bruh. How many times do you need to hear Trump bragging about grabbing women by the pussies? How many Stormy Daniels’ testimonies do I have to offer as sacrifices? Was cheating on wife 1 with wife 2 and wife 2 with wife 3 and wife 3 with a porn star (as wife 3 was five-months pregnant) not enough for you, big guy? Were the … eighteen sexual assault allegations not enough for you? Do you need 19? Twenty? I mean, flippity fuck fuck, does anything you preach matter, if nothing you preach actually matters? Does our behavior make a difference, if ill-advised behaviors are excused because they’re acted out in your favor?

Do your words, Jack Hibbs, hold weight if the actual sentiment attached to them flutters away like butterflies?

•••

I bring all this up because one of Hibbs’ star parishioners and BFFs is Sonja Shaw, the demented Chino Valley Unified School Board president who, when not terrifying neighborhood children, is running to serve as state superintendent.

Most Sundays, one can find Shaw and her family inside Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, listening to the words of Hibbs, likely weeping as the sentiments overtake her soul. She cites Hibbs often. Makes appearances with him. Even though it’s against the law (at least when we had laws), Hibbs uses his church and position within the church to boost Shaw and her political ambitions.¹

Yet Shaw may well be the most mean-spirited public figure I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen many mean-spirited public figures. Unlike the majority of people who have concerns about trans athletes competing in girls’ high school athletics, Shaw literally goes out of her way to attend prep sporting events to intentionally mock the kids and their parents to their faces. I wanna repeat that, because it’s so profoundly fucked up: Sonja Shaw goes out of her way to attend prep sporting events to mock the kids and their parents to their faces. Hell, not only does she do it—she’s proud of it. She posts the videos on her Instagram feed; views herself as this proud Christian warrior standing up for the downtrodden.

It is unspeakably cruel. Unspeakably mean. Unspeakably rabid and as Christ-like as Thee Doll House². She targets the vulnerable and then hones in on their vulnerabilities. Repeatedly. Publicly. With her supporters in tow, just to add a special Bull Connor-esque effect.

And here’s the thing: If the trans athlete-is-ruining-America issue is your cause … um, OK. Go for it. Fight it in court. Attend school board meetings. Make your points, make your arguments, do your dance. That’s how the system generally works—whatever the issue, we have a methodology to address it. But Sonja Shaw is now the white hick smashing bottles at the Woolworth sit-in. She has fully embraced bullying the little person. Worse than that, actually, she’s the HEY GUYS, LOOK AT ME! bully. The LET’S ALL SHAME THESE FOLKS TOGETHER! bully. The loud and proud and grotesque bully.

Which leads me to ask of Jack Hibbs: Where are you, Mr. Love Thy Neighbor? Where is your voice? Your principle? Instead of admonishing Shaw’s raw-level sinisterness, Hibbs endorses it. Instead of asking her to tone it down, he sits by silently as she tones it up. This is the new approach to modern white-anger, arch-conservative OC Christianity, where you preach stuff like this …

And do stuff like this …

Again—why would anyone listen to a charlatan like Jack Hibbs, when literally nothing he preaches is required to be practiced?

What’s the point?

•••

I want to add one last thought.

You’re Jack Hibbs. You’re Sonja Shaw. You say you obey and worship Jesus. So how do you look at the mother in the above video and not want to treat her as your lord and savior would have? How do you not want to hug her, embrace her, speak with her, love her?

For a moment, imagine this woman’s lot in life. You have a trans child who faces the daily struggles of living as a trans child. Your kid gets mocked, ridiculed, battered, beaten, ostracized. Outside of home they have nowhere to turn, no one who understands. As a parent, it consumes your life. Eats you up. All you want to do is protect this child you nurtured into the world. Whatever that calls for.

And now, along comes the Jack Hibbs-endorsed Sonja Shaw, a rabid-and-cruel pit bull citing Christianity as her calling card and knowing, with 100-percent certainty, her pastor has her back.

How is this anything but sinister?

How is this not the devil’s work?³

1. How this church hasn’t lost its 501c3 status yet is beyond me.

2. Not that, cough, I would know. Cough.

3. This guy is really, truly awful. Watch.