Read Matthew 23:27-28
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless.” (Isaiah 58:6–7 NLT)
Back in May of 2025, my best friend and I went to see Marilyn Manson at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, New Jersey. It wasn’t my first Manson concert, though it still raises eyebrows when people hear a pastor was there. But what I experienced that night wasn’t shock—it was honesty. Manson stepped into the spotlight and did what few pulpits dare: he told the unvarnished truth about himself.
He came out to perform The Dope Show, but stopped a few lines in. He began speaking about his love of drugs, how the drugs really loved him, how they lifted him toward heaven only to deny him and send him crashing down. Then he said, without a hint of theatrics: “My name is Marilyn Manson, and I’m a drug addict.” From there, he launched back into The Dope Show, followed by I Don’t Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me).
But then came the turn. As that song ended, he said: “But that was then, and this is now.” With those words, he went into We’re Only as Sick as the Secrets Within. And suddenly the theater shifted. I watched people lifting their hands, raising their heads, tears streaming down their faces. It was a confessional moment—raw, unforced, real. The kind of moment the church fails to embody nine times out of ten. Because this wasn’t the church telling you you’re a sinner. This was the anti-church, through Manson, telling you that you are loved despite your sin. But that is not anti-church at all. This is exactly what the Church is supposed to be.
That night gave me the frame for Sacrilegious. On the track, Manson sings: “You can climb to the top of my horns, but make sure that you don’t look down. Don’t spit in the face of God when you’re trying to wear His crown.” It’s grotesque, jarring, and true. Religion often looks holy on the outside, but inside it reeks of death. We judgmentally climb high on others’ perceived horns of sin, polishing our whitewashed tombs, convincing ourselves that our rituals and reputations prove our holiness. But Jesus unmasks it: “Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Isaiah said the same: God isn’t impressed by fasting that only makes us look pious. God desires chains broken, burdens lifted, the oppressed set free, the hungry fed, the homeless sheltered. That’s the fast that matters. To ignore this while draping ourselves in religious pretense—that’s the real sacrilege.
Manson spits back the truth the prophets and Christ himself declared: what is truly sacrilegious is not breaking taboos, but dressing up injustice as holiness. To call yourself godly while crushing the poor, silencing truth-tellers, ignoring the suffering—that’s climbing high on horns, pretending at crowns, while spitting in God’s face.
If Kinderfeld dared us to face the mirror, Sacrilegious dares us to face the tombs we’ve built. And maybe the most faithful thing we can do is to tear down our whitewash, stop pretending, and live the kind of faith that frees the oppressed and loves people as Christ loves us.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The greatest sacrilege isn’t breaking religious rules—it’s wearing holiness like a mask while ignoring the people God loves.PRAYER
God of truth, strip away our whitewash. Expose the rot beneath our piety. Forgive us for the ways we’ve pretended to honor you while neglecting the poor, the oppressed, the suffering. Teach us that real holiness looks like mercy, justice, and love. Make us into a church that embodies the grace we proclaim. Amen.
Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).