United Methodists this week joined a growing chorus of faith and civic leaders denouncing President Donald Trump’s threats against Iran posted on social media.
On Easter Sunday, Trump posted on his social media platform: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
On Tuesday, the deadline the president set for Iran’s capitulation, he posted again: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”
Along with other remarks by the president, the two posts ignited outrage among United Methodists.
Methodist Federation for Social Action published “A prayer for peace and justice in response to words spoken today.” The social justice caucus stated: “God of peace and justice, we are shaken by words that should never be spoken by any leader — ‘A whole civilization will die tonight.’”
The prayer continued: “We call on those entrusted with power — elected officials, advisors, and military leaders — to act now, with courage, restraint and moral clarity. When the possibility of mass harm is spoken aloud, silence is not neutrality; it is complicity. No office grants the authority to erase a people. No order that targets a population can be justified. We pray that those with authority intervene where needed, uphold human decency and the law, and refuse any order that targets civilian life or violates our shared humanity.”
Retired Bishop Karen Oliveto posted: “I don’t think I’ve ever felt the depth of anxiety and despair about the state of the world as I did last night. Would we wake up in the morning? This poem captures it so perfectly.” She included a poem, “A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight” by Michael F. Dubois.
United Methodist Endorsing Agency, a unit of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry that certifies military chaplains, posted on Facebook: “The United Methodist Church deplores war and all other forms of violent conflict and urges the peaceful settlement of all disputes. We yearn for the day when there will be no war and people will live together in peace and justice.”
UMEA’s response came a week after U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired Army Chief of Chaplains Maj. Gen. William Green Jr. Baptist News Global noted: “The removal occurred during Holy Week without an official reason, amid a broader reshuffling of military leadership.”
Mary John Dye, a retired clergy member of the Western North Carolina Annual Conference, wrote a lengthy commentary after reading the president’s Easter Sunday post that began: “I do not know how to process the president of my country publicly announcing his intention to commit war crimes. On a Sunday morning. On EASTER Sunday morning. In a vulgar, profanity-laced post. On a Sunday. On EASTER Sunday.”
Among United Methodist posts rebuking the president, one drawing the most affirmative comments came from Gregory S. Neal, senior pastor of Grace UMC in Des Moines, Iowa. He wrote in part: “Whatever one’s politics, no president should be speaking in this way: threatening, vulgar, reckless and utterly lacking the sound judgment the moment requires. The stakes are far too high, and the office far too important, for this kind of behavior to be dismissed as just another outburst.
Neal added: “And as a Christian, I need to say this plainly: I do not understand how anyone who claims the name of Christ can continue to give this kind of erratic, dangerous and morally indefensible behavior a pass. At some point, moral clarity requires people to stop making excuses. … We are beyond partisan disagreement. This is a matter of character, judgment and the most basic standards of sanity, civility and responsibility that we should expect from anyone entrusted with such power.”
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