Elevation Church and pastor Steven Furtick are facing controversy after a recent interview with a senior staff member revealed the church doesn’t use words like “resurrection,” “Calvary” or the “blood of Jesus” in their Easter invitations.
Nicki Shearer, Elevation Church’s digital content director, recently spoke with Pro Church Tools about the way that the church uses social media to draw and engage with new and familiar audiences. During part of the interview, Shearer explained that the church avoids using language that “immediately makes someone feel like an outsider,” particularly for an event like Easter Sunday.
“When I think about how I’m going to talk about Easter, I’m thinking about how I’m going to talk to people far from God because that’s the thing that matters most to us,” Shearer said. “For us, the most important thing on Easter is inviting people to church. This means reaching people far from God. So we’re not going to use the words ‘calvary,’ ‘resurrection’ or the phrase ‘the blood of Jesus.’ We won’t use language that will immediately make someone feel like an outsider.”
Shearer’s comments went viral, with many users across X, Instagram and TikTok calling out the church for “watering down” Christianity.
“There ain’t no Jesus without the resurrection and his blood he shed on cavalry,” wrote one Instagram user. “Such blasphemy!!!! Watering down the Word for non-believers does nothing for anyone!!! Makes them lukewarm! Repent!!!!”
Another user wrote, “If it’s true that your church is taking away life-changing scriptures then who are you people? How is there a church without these important scriptures? This is a pretty Antichrist move, can’t wait to hear y’all explain!”
Elevation has not responded to the controversy, although Pro Church Tools has attempted to come to the church’s defense in a blog post, clarifying that Elevation doesn’t use this language in invitations only.
“Importantly, Elevation absolutely emphasizes the resurrection of Christ in an Easter service (and uses that word),” Pro Church Tools stated. “Yet, you won’t find it on an Easter invitation of theirs.”
However, users have pointed out that not wanting to use theological language for fear of ostracizing someone is still misleading, at best, and blasphemous, at worst.
“Some want God as the Father but they are not willing to accept Jesus as his savior,” one user commented. “Easter is all about Jesus, he came with a sword to make sin uncomfortable so the argument you use about ‘do not make anyone feel an outsider’ is totally invalid, please don’t pretend to follow Jesus if you can’t even stand with what he did on the cross.”
You can watch the full interview here:
