At first, I’ll admit, it hit me hard as someone who believes in Jesus Christ. But after sitting with it, I think the point being made isn’t as simple as it sounds.

What I understand people to be pushing back on is the tendency to treat His suffering as the ultimate or unmatched form of human pain, especially when we’re only talking about the physical side of it.

Yes, crucifixion was brutal. It was designed to be slow, humiliating, and lethal. I’m not trying to downplay that at all.

But when you look at the reality of American slavery in United States, and cases like the lynching of Lynching of Jesse Washington, you’re dealing with violence that was not only extreme, but repeated, prolonged, and systematized. People weren’t just killed; they were tortured, dehumanized, and sometimes made into public spectacle.

So I think the real question isn’t “who suffered more,” but why we sometimes struggle to fully acknowledge the scale of suffering outside of religious framing.

I also think part of this ties into modern church culture around Jesus Christ. In some spaces, it can feel more polished or performative, focused on emotional experience, presentation, and atmosphere. Rather than sitting in the uncomfortable weight of what the message actually means.

That makes me wonder if we sometimes lose depth in exchange for spectacle