Baptist News Global
Sections
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Curated
  • Storytelling
    • Faith & Justice >
      • Charleston: Metanoia with Bill Stanfield
      • Charlotte: QC Family Tree with Greg and Helms Jarrell
      • Little Rock: Judge Wendell Griffen
      • North Carolina: Conetoe
    • Welcoming the Stranger >
      • Lost Boys of Sudan: St. John’s Baptist Charlotte
      • Awakening to Immigrant Justice: Myers Park Baptist Church
      • Hospitality on the corner: Gaston Christian Center
    • Signature Ministries >
      • Jake Hall: Gospel Gothic, Music and Radio
    • Singing Our Faith >
      • Hymns for a Lifetime: Ken Wilson and Knollwood Baptist Church
      • Norfolk Street Choir
    • Resilient Rural America >
      • Alabama: Perry County
      • Texas: Hidalgo County
      • Arkansas Delta
      • Southeast Kentucky
  • More
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donate
      • #GivingNewsDay
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Advertising
    • Ministry Jobs and More
    • Transitions
    • Subscribe to BNG
Support independent, faith-based journalism. Donate
Search Search this site

Church in the Age of Trump

OpinionWesley Spears-Newsome  |  November 15, 2016

Wesley Spears-NewsomeDepending on who you talk to, last Wednesday morning we either woke up to a different world or we woke up to a depressingly predictable one. While none of the pollsters or aggregators really saw the results of this election coming, for too many people mocked or derided by the Donald Trump campaign in the past year and a half, this is the America they know. Nevertheless, a Trump administration promises drastic and all too real changes to our country. Churches and ministers should prepare for these changes, because they will have profound material and spiritual consequences for ministry.

Youth and children’s ministry in the Age of Trump

 The president of the United States has often been presented as a role model for the nation’s children. Barack Obama in particular has lived into this role. He showed young children of color, especially black children, that they too could be president. He demonstrated clearly what a steady hand and measured temperament look like in leadership. Despite the racism and prejudice thrown at him and his family on a daily basis, President Obama rarely lost his composure — even when he had every right to do so. Regardless of how you feel about his policies, in his posture President Obama consistently sought inspiration over division even when such optimism seemed unfounded. In the highs and lows of his presidency and campaigns, many people (especial younger Americans and people of color) found renewed hope in our country. To be clear, President Obama has faults like any president or human being, but he was consistently a public figure who our children, and the rest of us, could look up to in many ways.

Barack Obama with Diego Diaz, who wrote the president a letter. (Photo/Flickr)

Barack Obama with Diego Diaz, who wrote the president a letter. (Photo/Flickr)

Donald Trump could not be more different than Barack Obama in almost every way. Regardless of your political preferences, Trump is not just rough around the edges. While ultimately the glaringly obvious flaws in his character and detestable behavior did not dissuade voters, we cannot hold him up as a role model. By electing Trump, we elected a man who has called Mexicans rapists and criminals, subsequently suggested that Mexican heritage disqualifies anyone from judging him fairly, disparaged a Muslim Gold Star family and proposed banning every one of their faith from entering the United States, called women “dogs” and “pigs” and bragged about sexually assaulting women. Those are just some of the things Donald Trump has said, to say nothing of what he has done and been accused of doing — from racist housing discrimination to rape and sexual assault. Regardless of your political positions, we do not need to raise a cohort of little Donalds.

Donald Trump addressing a crowd of supporters. (Photo/Gage Skidmore)

Donald Trump addressing a crowd of supporters. (Photo/Gage Skidmore)

Instead, we need to be more intentional than ever when it comes to teaching our children and youth about prejudice and abuse. Trump’s election requires of us a renewed and reinvigorated effort to teach our youth and children (and our adults for that matter) about consent and sexual assault, racial inequality and white supremacy, sexuality and homophobia, immigration and xenophobia and the whole range of human dignities and vile prejudices. We have not done a good job of this teaching or Trump would not have been so successful in the first place. But there is now a special urgency to address these concerns from as early an age as possible when the leader of the United States can get away with such speech and behavior with impunity. We failed to repudiate these behaviors and beliefs with our votes; now we must work daily to condemn them with our lives.

Missions and community outreach in the Age of Trump

Our election of Trump does not just enable his domestic agenda, but that of his allies who would unravel major aspects of America’s social safety net. That should give missions ministers chills. Whether it is privatizing Social Security, gutting Medicare and Medicaid, repealing the Affordable Care Act, cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other welfare resources, scaling back public education or shifting tax burdens on the lower classes, the agenda of those who now hold sway in all three branches of the federal government could dramatically change the lives and fortunes of many Americans. Regardless of your political beliefs and positions, these changes will impact many of your neighbors, your fellow church-goers and your family and friends. These Americans will need help and our government will no longer be willing or able to provide it. Party affiliation aside, it is fundamentally unjust and un-Christian to stand by and let legions of people suffer this way. Again, this is not just a question of your political position, it is about the well-being of your neighbors.

Memorial commemorating the New Deal and the Great Depression on the National Mall in Washington. (Photo/Wesley Spears-Newsome)

Memorial commemorating the New Deal and the Great Depression on the National Mall in Washington. (Photo/Wesley Spears-Newsome)

Our missions and community outreach ministries under the Trump administration will have to do more than disaster relief and literacy programs. These are important efforts that should not be maligned, but our missions ministries should have always done more — now, they must. Churches should consider what it would look like to feed their communities with dignity and respect through programs like community meals and accessible and non-judgmental communal food pantries. If kids lose free and reduced breakfasts, lunches and other meals due to cuts in welfare and education funding, churches should be there when the government will not be. Churches filled with health-care professionals should look at how to offer free or reduced-cost care for the millions of Americans who could lose health insurance over the next four years — or those who will be pushed even further away from obtaining such care. Churches filled with legal professionals should look to provide defense for those facing the harsh deportation force Trump has promised to bring — or from the current strict measures already in place.

Churches should be safe sanctuaries for those the Trump administration could target, such as our Muslim brothers and sisters or immigrants and their families. Congregations should partner with the non-governmental and nonprofit organizations that seek to repair and advocate for our safety net in what promises to be a tumultuous presidency.

None of these are perfect solutions and they do little to address the systemic facets and nature of prejudice and injustice. Churches, nonprofits and other non-governmental agencies should not have to bear the brunt of the “general welfare” the Constitution promises to promote. The lives of our neighbors should not be contingent upon our changeable sense of generosity or our own fickle fortunes. But depending on the efficiency and speed of our new government, stopping the bleeding may be first priority.

Spiritual formation in the Age of Trump

Here may be where our churches need to do the most work, because we failed to recognize a heretical distortion of the gospel in our midst — and, instead, we embraced it. The Gospel According to Donald Trump relies on two primary things: selfish, violent power and fear of the stranger. When it comes to those who disagree with him or reject his advances, we have every shred of evidence we need to know that Trump relies on selfish, violent power in response. Whether it is barring reporters from his campaign, pursuing harsher libel laws to punish his critics, encouraging violence at his rallies, demeaning and belittling those who reject him, or berating and assaulting those over whom he has power, Trump has consistently chosen selfish, violent power in word and deed to get what he desires.

His rhetoric, too, has been characterized by exploiting and advocating for a fear of the stranger. Whether the stranger is Muslim, Mexican, immigrant, or fellow citizen, Trump consistently and ruthlessly characterized whole groups of people (especially non-white or non-male groups) as strangers to be feared and even hated. Such a message could hardly be further from the truth of the gospel.

As I said before Trump was elected, the Christian story is fundamentally rooted in the kindness of a stranger and the welcoming of us as strangers. Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan: we are not just called to the stranger we may despise, but our Stranger God is kind to us. Remember the parable of the Final Judgment: the judge is a stranger not just to the goats who ignore him but also to the sheep who help him. And, lest we forget, are we not Gentiles to whom the God of Israel, incarnate in Jesus Christ, was a stranger to us? When preaching to the Gentiles in Athens, Paul pointed to an altar dedicated “to an unknown god,” the stranger. Good news came to our Gentile forebears in the person of a stranger to us, a God we did not know. This stranger extended grace to us, yet so many of us endorsed and embraced a story that demonized the stranger and therefore rejected any accompanying grace. We must reject that false gospel in favor of the one Paul passes on to us: “Remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Ephesians 2:12-14, NRSV).

Depiction of the Good Samaritan Parable by Gunnar Bach Pederson.

Depiction of the Good Samaritan Parable by Gunnar Bach Pederson.

Further, God does not call us to this brutal and selfish violence that seems to characterize our new president. We follow a Jesus who said we should turn the other cheek, give to those who ask of us, and love our enemies. This same Jesus rejected temptations to power, control and coercion offered to him by Satan. Paul described this same God in this way: “Though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8). Paul told us to be of the same mind of this God, not of the same mind with a vengeful demagogue who threatens violence and abuse. God does not condone such behavior, and we should not either. But we did with our votes.

That is not to say that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats represent the true gospel — far from it. Nevertheless, when confronted with a message clearly antithetical to the gospel Christians believe, many of the people who fill our pews and pulpits embraced it not with reluctance but enthusiasm. That’s a huge problem. I do not say this will take the most work from us at the expense of the material mission of the church in the world. This will take more work than feeding all the hungry and thirsty, clothing all the naked, and healing all the sick because it requires repentance and conversion on our part. Too many of us made not what was a pragmatic choice last week, but a deeply enthusiastic and spiritual one. We embraced another gospel.

Church in the Age of Trump

Churches at their best are communities of subversion, pockets where the rules of a cruel and hostile world do not apply. Unfortunately, with the results of last week’s election, the ability of our churches to be those kind of places was gravely imperiled. Fifty-eight percent of Protestants supported Trump and so did 81 percent of evangelical Christians. White men and women, too, were the only race/gender groups who supported Trump in the majority. Most of the ministers and lay people who read Baptist News Global belong to these churches — white Christian churches. Whether or not we condoned Trump with our individual votes, it was our friends and family who did.

At Bible study, in worship, and even at Thanksgiving dinner, we need to talk about that choice. Our churches do not need simply to be places for healing after a divisive election season, they need to be places that proclaim and live out a gospel that looks radically different than the gospel according to Trump. We must teach our children, say to our neighbors, friends, and family, and protest to Trump himself that this cannot be our gospel.


OPINION: Views expressed in Baptist News Global columns and commentaries are solely those of the authors.
Tags:Affordable Care ActBarack Obamachildren's ministryDonald Trumpelection 2016Good SamaritanMedicaidmedicareSNAPSocial SecuritySupplemental Nutrition Assistance ProgramWesley Spears-NewsomeYouth Ministry
Wesley Spears-Newsome
More by
Wesley Spears-Newsome
  • Get BNG headlines in your inbox

  • Embracing the power of story



    We created Storytelling Projects because we believe stories, rooted in the Jesus Story, have the power not only to inform but to transform people and communities.

    We believe in-depth, compelling stories can be sources of spiritual insight, imagination, creativity and hope for all who seek justice and mercy. Read to discover more about our series on:

    Faith and Justice

    Welcoming The Stranger

    Signature Ministries

    Singing Our Faith

    Resilient Rural America

    These series of compelling stories can become vital threads that connect and energize Baptists and other Christians at a time when American culture – and American religion – are increasingly politicized and polarized.
  • Featured

    • Don’t succumb to criticism of ‘Happy Holidays’; it can be an expression of God’s inclusive embrace

      Opinion

    • Arkansas Supreme Court declines to prevent pastor/judge from hearing attorney general’s cases

      News

    • What our Wilshire congregation learned: Have ‘the conversation’ anyway

      Opinion

    • New Liberty University think tank aims to revive ‘Christian American culture’

      News

    Read Next:

    What if white Christians had a more realistic image of Jesus, a dark-skinned, religious-minority refugee?

    OpinionLaura Mayo

    More Articles

    • All
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Curated
    • Church’s food truck connects with neighbors ‘over a barbecue sandwich’

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Don’t succumb to criticism of ‘Happy Holidays’; it can be an expression of God’s inclusive embrace

      OpinionSusan M. Shaw

    • What our Wilshire congregation learned: Have ‘the conversation’ anyway

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • Arkansas Supreme Court declines to prevent pastor/judge from hearing attorney general’s cases

      NewsBob Allen

    • New Liberty University think tank aims to revive ‘Christian American culture’

      NewsBob Allen

    • House Speaker Pelosi rebukes reporter: ‘Don’t mess with me’

      CuratedAssociated Press

    • Holt Street Baptist commemorates bus boycott anniversary, converts former church to museum

      CuratedMontgomery Advertiser

    • Transitions for the week of 12-6-19

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • What if white Christians had a more realistic image of Jesus, a dark-skinned, religious-minority refugee?

      OpinionLaura Mayo

    • I decided to make a list: 20 actions to cultivate hope

      OpinionMary Hix

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Walker Knight, founding editor of Baptists Today newspaper and former editor of Home Missions magazine, dead at 95

      NewsBob Allen

    • Less TV, more faith needed to help refugees along U.S.-Mexican border

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Telling the truth or creating our own realities? (And the wisdom to know the difference)

      OpinionBill Leonard

    • Impeaching ‘the deeply held faith values’ that brought us a President Trump

      OpinionGreg Jarrell

    • People first: The Supreme Court – and all of us – should protect our 1.5 million known transgender Americans

      OpinionRuss Dean

    • Are congregations and seminaries in this work together?

      OpinionMolly T. Marshall

    • Déjà vu: Jewish settlements in Palestine, U.S. policy and support from conservative Christians

      OpinionWendell Griffen

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Rather than ‘surviving’ family conversations this Thanksgiving, here are 4 ways you can thrive

      OpinionAlan Rudnick

    • What testimony in the impeachment hearings said to me about the power of Christian witness

      OpinionRobert P. Sellers

    • Judge rules that historically black college and sponsoring denomination share power to name trustees

      NewsBob Allen

    • Three years after Standing Rock: another oil spill and reminders of indigenous peoples’ fight for justice

      OpinionKate Hanch

    • Franklin Graham terms opposition to Trump ‘almost’ demonic

      NewsBob Allen

    • How the expectation gap creates trauma for white evangelicals

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • Church’s food truck connects with neighbors ‘over a barbecue sandwich’

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Arkansas Supreme Court declines to prevent pastor/judge from hearing attorney general’s cases

      NewsBob Allen

    • New Liberty University think tank aims to revive ‘Christian American culture’

      NewsBob Allen

    • Transitions for the week of 12-6-19

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Walker Knight, founding editor of Baptists Today newspaper and former editor of Home Missions magazine, dead at 95

      NewsBob Allen

    • Less TV, more faith needed to help refugees along U.S.-Mexican border

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Judge rules that historically black college and sponsoring denomination share power to name trustees

      NewsBob Allen

    • Franklin Graham terms opposition to Trump ‘almost’ demonic

      NewsBob Allen

    • Trump’s West Bank shocker: are End Times ‘kooks’ running US foreign policy?

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Parting with national body, Tennessee Baptists repudiate Critical Race Theory

      NewsBob Allen

    • Some ministers thrive in the ‘unicorn of church jobs’

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Fallen Southern Baptist leader props up pro-Trump pastor

      NewsBob Allen

    • Transitions for the week of 11-22-19

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Half of Protestant pastors say opioid abuse affects a church member

      NewsBob Allen

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • BJC, others, urge Supreme Court to allow states to bolster religious-liberty protections

      NewsBob Allen

    • Trump rhetoric, ICE raids shake Miss. immigrants – but this pastor presses on

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Lottie Moon’s church added to list of protected cultural and historical sites in China

      NewsBob Allen

    • ‘A democracy can die of too many lies,’ warns broadcasting legend Bill Moyers

      NewsBob Allen

    • Transitions for the week of 11-15-19

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Can pastors (safely) be BFFs with church members?

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Anne Marie Miller’s ‘Healing Together’: Abuse disclosure reawakens ‘former’ author’s book-writing career

      NewsBob Allen

    • Show thee the money: churches can boost revenue through preaching and teaching

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Don’t succumb to criticism of ‘Happy Holidays’; it can be an expression of God’s inclusive embrace

      OpinionSusan M. Shaw

    • What our Wilshire congregation learned: Have ‘the conversation’ anyway

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • What if white Christians had a more realistic image of Jesus, a dark-skinned, religious-minority refugee?

      OpinionLaura Mayo

    • I decided to make a list: 20 actions to cultivate hope

      OpinionMary Hix

    • Telling the truth or creating our own realities? (And the wisdom to know the difference)

      OpinionBill Leonard

    • Impeaching ‘the deeply held faith values’ that brought us a President Trump

      OpinionGreg Jarrell

    • People first: The Supreme Court – and all of us – should protect our 1.5 million known transgender Americans

      OpinionRuss Dean

    • Are congregations and seminaries in this work together?

      OpinionMolly T. Marshall

    • Déjà vu: Jewish settlements in Palestine, U.S. policy and support from conservative Christians

      OpinionWendell Griffen

    • Rather than ‘surviving’ family conversations this Thanksgiving, here are 4 ways you can thrive

      OpinionAlan Rudnick

    • What testimony in the impeachment hearings said to me about the power of Christian witness

      OpinionRobert P. Sellers

    • Three years after Standing Rock: another oil spill and reminders of indigenous peoples’ fight for justice

      OpinionKate Hanch

    • How the expectation gap creates trauma for white evangelicals

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • This is how despotism works – enabled by conservative white evangelicals and Christian nationalism

      OpinionWendell Griffen

    • Baptists under Nazism and Baptists amid America’s current political crisis: a call to ‘disruption’

      OpinionKristopher Norris

    • Sitting in someone else’s chair

      OpinionBrett Younger

    • ‘Have you found Jesus yet?’ The peddling preacher and the pauper

      OpinionCorey Fields

    • Are we finally ready to learn from Glenn Hinson, one of our Baptist prophets?

      OpinionAlan Bean

    • The case of Rodney Reed: A call to abolish state-sanctioned lynching known as capital punishment

      OpinionWendell Griffen and Lauri Umansky

    • Sorry, Jeremiah, but our children’s (and grandchildren’s) teeth ARE set on edge

      OpinionBill Leonard

    • Community rice mixing and God’s mixing bowl: the beauty of diversity amid rampant Xenophobia

      OpinionMolly T. Marshall

    • Politics as an approximation of the Kingdom of God versus politics as Baal

      OpinionH. Stephen Shoemaker

    • Can the ‘slow practice’ of writing letters by hand help save the world?

      OpinionJohn Jay Alvaro

    • Improving our ‘backpack’ self-awareness – for our sake and the sake of others

      OpinionDoyle Sager

    • Believing in God as prophetic resistance: LGBTQ Christians and the salvation of everybody, anyway.

      OpinionEric Minton

    • House Speaker Pelosi rebukes reporter: ‘Don’t mess with me’

      CuratedAssociated Press

    • Holt Street Baptist commemorates bus boycott anniversary, converts former church to museum

      CuratedMontgomery Advertiser

    • What does a fair trade logo actually mean?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Resurgence of nationalism is a ‘setback for humanity’, says German theologian Jürgen Moltmann

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • How bad theology makes the opioid crisis worse

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Refugee ministries fight new resettlement requirement

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • At Bishop Barber’s NC church, Pete Buttigieg works to woo black voters

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Former U.S. President Carter hospitalized in Georgia with urinary tract infection

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Dallas pastor’s book sheds light on painful discussions that led Wilshire Baptist to embrace LGBT members

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Seven years after his story went viral, a former Baptist minister continues to advocate for the LGBTQ community

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • How many Americans believe Trump is anointed by God?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • The generous gospel of Mayor Pete

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Advent calendars have exploded with gift-worthy options

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Thanksgiving reveals more about us than about 17th century events

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Is the Bible right? Newly discovered fossils show snakes had legs

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Burnsville pastor resigns amid allegations of inappropriate sexual relationships in past

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Wayne Grudem changes mind about divorce in cases of abuse

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Sarah Sanders says she’s ‘been called’ to run for office, considering 2022 run for governor

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Rick Perry says Trump is the ‘chosen one’ sent ‘to do great things’

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Scott Warren acquitted on felony charges of harboring undocumented immigrants

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • In Japan, Pope Francis condemns nuclear weapons as immoral

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Its pastor accused of sex abuse, Sanger church leaves Southern Baptist Convention amid inquiry

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Beth Moore doesn’t ‘have an axe to grind’

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Across Mister Rogers’ actual neighborhoods, his faith echoes

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    • Paige Patterson’s career ended after she came forward. Her struggle continues.

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageCurated Content

    Conversations that Matter.

    © 2019 Baptist News Global. All rights reserved.

    Want to share a story? We hope you will! Read our republishing, terms of use and privacy policies here.

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS