A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to preach on the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. I won’t revisit the sermon itself, but one observation continues to play over and over in my head.
In Jesus’ telling, the priest and the Levite possess correct theology. They know the law. They understand doctrine. The Samaritan, by contrast, does not. Jesus himself tells the Samaritan woman in John 4, “You worship what you do not know.”
Phillip Thomas
And yet, in this parable, Jesus holds up the Samaritan as the moral exemplar.
Why?
Because the Samaritan saw what Jesus saw: a man beaten, bleeding and dying by the side of the road. The others saw something else — risk, inconvenience, impurity, perhaps even political danger. Their theology was intact. Their humanity was not.
That distinction, I believe, exposes the core crisis of contemporary evangelical theology — especially as it intersects with American politics.
“Their theology was intact. Their humanity was not.”
We are living in a moment marked by cruelty masquerading as policy. A scheming president, surrounded by loyalists and enablers, has normalized rhetoric and actions that inflict suffering — particularly on those who are not white, not wealthy and not protected by power.
There is no ethical, moral or biblical justification for the killing of two American citizens in Minnesota. None for the public defense of caged immigrants. None for grotesque spectacles like “Alligator Alcatraz,” designed not to govern but to humiliate.
And yet, professing Christians continue to offer explanations — sometimes sophisticated, sometimes smug — as though these outcomes are regrettable but necessary side effects of “law and order.”
In a private group chat I belong to, one person responded to the Minnesota killings with this comment: “Ideas have consequences. And bad ideas have victims. When a government allows millions of illegal aliens in against its laws, and the next government enforces those laws, even good people may get afraid and occasionally be targeted.”
Up to a point, he is right. Ideas do have consequences.
But then comes the turn: The “bad idea,” in his telling, is not the weaponization of fear or the targeting of communities. It is the immigration policy of the previous administration. The violence, therefore, becomes tragic but unavoidable — collateral damage in the service of order.
That is not moral reasoning. It is theological evasion.
This argument collapses under even minimal scrutiny. Minnesota has fewer undocumented immigrants than several red states, including Florida and Texas. The targeting is not about numbers; it is about symbolism.
Add to this the president’s repeated hostility toward Somalis — many of whom live in Minnesota and are represented by Somali American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — and the pattern becomes unmistakable. And, as so often happens, the manufactured outrage conveniently distracts from more dangerous truths — yes, including the Epstein Files.
Still, many evangelicals remain unbothered. In fact, they remain loyal.
Having known many of these people personally, I can say this plainly: They are far removed from poverty, from injustice, from the daily precarity faced by the vulnerable. Unless the issue can be reduced to abortion or same-sex marriage, suffering remains abstract — someone else’s problem.
Their faith allows them to do what the priest and the Levite did: Cross to the other side of the road. It was not their hatred that caused them to cross over. It was their indifference. To be clear, any theology that accommodates indifference is not of Jesus.
“Any theology that accommodates indifference is not of Jesus.”
This is what I call Priest Theology — a faith rooted in correctness rather than compassion, purity rather than proximity. Jesus warned about it when he spoke of the “yeast of the Pharisees.” It spreads quietly, puffs up certainty and hollows out mercy.
I have watched this theology harden in people I’ve known for decades. The same individual who made the comments above is a person I’ve known for nearly 30 years. He believes British colonialism ultimately was a win for India. He defends the Three-fifths Compromise. He draws intellectual cover from PragerU. He accused me of prejudice for admiring Bryan Stevenson. He praises John MacArthur — the same John MacArthur who defended spousal abusers and promoted “curse of Ham” theology to demean Africans and African Americans. He publicly agreed with the “shithole countries” remark when it was first uttered.
And yet — he claims Christ.
This is not an anomaly. It is a pattern.
How does any of this align with the words of Jesus?
It doesn’t.
What grieves me is not simply the existence of such views, but the church’s willingness to make room for them. To baptize them. To call them “differences of opinion.”
This is not theological diversity. It is a moral failure.
As I grow older, my patience for this accommodation has thinned. These views are not harmless. They kill. They maim. They justify cruelty while quoting Scripture. They rationalize the genocide in Gaza because of self-serving yet ignorant eschatological theology.
Yes, those who hold them need love. Yes, they need forgiveness. But they do not need accommodation.
And this brings me to you — pastors, elders, bishops, denominational leaders.
“Neutrality is no longer an option.”
Neutrality is no longer an option.
Silence is not wisdom. Balance is not courage. You cannot continue to preach about the Good Samaritan while discipling your congregations into Priest Theology. You cannot invoke Jesus while excusing policies and rhetoric that do the very thing he condemned: Pass by suffering in the name of righteousness.
The American church has been here before. Manifest Destiny. The Doctrine of Discovery. Slavery. Segregation. Anti-Asian exclusion. Each time, the church found theological language to justify violence — and later, apologies to soothe its conscience.
Accommodation is what brought us here. Accommodation is what allows racist, exclusionary Christianity to survive.
The Samaritan did not stop because his theology was flawless. He stopped because his neighbor’s life mattered more than his safety, his reputation or his certainty.
That is the theology the church must recover.
Not Priest Theology. Not Empire Theology. But Samaritan Theology — one that sees, stops and acts.
Anything less is not the gospel.
Phillip Thomas, originally from India, now makes America his home, along with his wife of 29 years and his three children, in the Philadelphia area. He works for a global bank and continues to wrestle with his faith and Christianity.