“How can people who claim to be Christians do these things?”
That’s among a set of recurring questions people the world over keep asking about the Trump administration and its MAGA mafia in America.
While too many have danced around these questions for too long, it’s now time to say with clarity: These actions are not Christian. And the people advocating these cruel policies and implementing them show no evidence of bearing the true fruit of the Christian faith. Indeed, quite the opposite.
Mark Wingfield
When has Donald Trump ever shown evidence of a Christ-centered way of thinking or governing? Just because he says he’s going to “protect” Christians doesn’t mean a thing. The political supporters he’s pledging to protect are the very people who have lost the plot on our faith and worship his greed and corruption.
And when has Elon Musk ever shown evidence of a Christ-centered way of thinking? The world’s richest man is stingy with his riches. He needs to climb up a tree so Jesus can call him down to a luncheon heart-to-heart. Yes, Musk has donated $7 billion to charity — a pittance of his wealth — but that money largely has gone to “charities” that benefit himself. Zacchaeus was a better follower of Jesus than Musk.
We could go on and on with the list of those closest to Trump and guiding his administration and find time and again people who claim to be Christian while taking anti-God actions that would make an Old Testament prophet blush in shock.
None of this is Christian.
“We’re literally causing kids to have an entire life of poor health because of the decisions we have to make.”
Among a constellation of examples, nothing shouts louder than the Trump/Musk coalition shutting down U.S. aid to foreign countries and people in dire need. TIME magazine quotes a representative from an aid organization that works on nutrition in the Horn of Africa: “As bad as all these are, the things that you’re not able to see right now are going to be the really devastating things. We’re prioritizing severe acute malnutrition instead of moderate acute malnutrition. But if a child moves from moderate to severe acute malnutrition, there are all these developmental problems it causes and stunts them for the rest of their life. So we’re literally causing kids to have an entire life of poor health because of the decisions we have to make.”
The article’s author explains: “As the Trump administration has pursued its goal of reducing government spending, it seems to be taking the same approach as big cats do when pursuing prey: move fast and take down the most vulnerable first. And the results are just as brutal. The U.S. was the biggest distributor of funds to countries in crisis, providing more than 40% of the world’s nonmilitary foreign aid. When that wallet is suddenly zipped, even for three months, it puts the aid network under so much pressure that small holes in the web of support grow into chasms.”
You do remember that passage of Scripture where Jesus taught us to “move fast and take down the most vulnerable first,” right? Maybe I missed that class in seminary.
Why are more Christians not objecting to this obvious cruelty that is motivated by the very opposite of what Jesus told us to do? Because this is what they’ve wanted to do all along. Political conservatives and evangelical conservatives have said for decades the United States should take care of its own and leave the rest of the world to fend for itself.
“Political conservatives and evangelical conservatives have said for decades the United States should take care of its own and leave the rest of the world to fend for itself.”
Common sense and good will — among presidents both Republican and Democratic — has kept these selfish motives from taking hold. But now the dam has broken and we find Vice President JD Vance justifying the administration’s cruelty by turning Christian theology upside down.
Vance has been hounded by real theologians and real Christians for making up a claim that it is biblical teaching to say we must care for our own families before caring for anyone else in the world. That’s simply not in the Bible anywhere.
Lately, I’ve been reminded of growing up in the 1960s on the edge of the Old South in small-town Oklahoma where I overheard adults casually passing off two related phrases: “That’s mighty white of you” and “That’s mighty Christian of you.”
These phrases were thrown about when some white person did something that appeared magnanimous despite being done by a person in the privileged white Christian majority. Taking food to the community pantry? “That’s mighty white of you.” Letting a Black person cross the street in front of you? “That’s mighty Christian of you.”
The rot that has led to todays’ fake Christianity is nothing new. It has been with us from the beginning but got tamped down by more reasonable people. But now it has come roaring back and is exacting a worldwide toll that is unfathomable.
Together, those who claim to follow Jesus must say this loud and clear: There is nothing “Christian” about any of this.
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He is the author of Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves and Why Churches Need to Talk About Sexuality.
Related articles:
Trump vows to ‘protect’ Christians in America
Theologians push back on JD Vance’s view of ‘ordered love’
‘The church of fear is still in effect,’ author says