“But when you give a party, ask the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. That is the way to find happiness, because they have no means of repaying you.” — Luke 14:14
In February 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order creating Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, with Attorney General Pam Bondi as chair. He told the group, composed primarily of cabinet members, to investigate “anti-Christian conduct” and “anti-Christian hostility” he perceived to be present throughout the government.
That same month Baptist Joint Committee chief executive Amanda Tyler noted she and her staff were “concerned about what this new task force might find and label as anti-Christian bias that could be used to enforce a kind of theological uniformity that could harm everyone, including other Christians who are viewed to not be part of what is considered to be orthodox or considered to be favored and protected by this administration.”
Bill Leonard
In other words, would “anti-Christian bias” be used to silence or otherwise undermine certain divisive religio-political differences inside and outside American churches?
Similarly concerned, on Oct. 22 two religious liberty organizations, Interfaith Alliance and Democracy Forward, brought a lawsuit asking Veterans Affairs, Justice and State Departments and the Small Business Administration to provide evidence of such bias and details as to their cooperation with the Task Force. Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed two similar lawsuits, as reported by Baptist News Global.
Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, commented: “There is no basis for the administration’s assertions of ‘anti-Christian bias’ in the federal government and it appears this task force is an attempt to target free speech and those the administration disagrees with.”
But what if a task force on anti-Christian bias actually misses a deeper faith-based point? What if the real question is the presence of anti-gospel bias, not only in the government but in the larger culture, especially among those who define America as a “Christian nation?” Shouldn’t a truly “Christian” nation unashamedly develop policies that reflect care for “the least of these” as evident in the life and teaching of Jesus himself? Not to do so is to foster an anti-gospel bias.
Consider these national necessities and neglected gospel responses:
“What if the real question is the presence of anti-gospel bias, not only in the government but in the larger culture.”
Health care and healing for those with medical and physical needs. Matthew’s Gospel (15:30) says of Jesus, “News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.”
In Luke’s Gospel (14:14), Jesus himself says: “But when you give a party, ask the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. That is the way to find happiness, because they have no means of repaying you.” Yet this very year, Congress passed a “spending bill” that cuts health care for millions of Americans in order to give huge tax breaks to Americans already considered among the country’s most wealthy.
Is that evidence of an “anti-gospel bias?”
Providing food for the hungry. “For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger …. . Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,” Jesus says in Matthew 25:35-36. Yet that very same “spending bill” cut funds to SNAP (food stamp) programs for millions of Americans and, to make matters worse, the administration recently announced SNAP funding will end on Nov. 1 in response to the government shutdown. That means the loss of funds for school lunch programs across the country.
Parenthetically, we might wonder if Christians in Congress, especially the “Bible believing” Christian speaker of the House, might have misread Jesus’ words as translated in the King James Version (Matthew 19:14): “Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Did they think Jesus actually meant for children to “suffer” when they came to him? Let’s SNAP back for Jesus’ sake!
And is that the reason the Department of Education recently cut the special education staff to the bone? NEA Today reports: “By firing nearly every employee who supports special education, advocates say the administration is turning its back on 7.5 million children who have disabilities. Parents of children with disabilities, already facing higher costs with SNAP and Medicaid cuts, feel the administration targeting the public schools and the services their kids need.
Is that another sign of anti-gospel bias in this supposedly “Christian nation?”
“The truth is, empathy, diversity, equity and inclusion explode from the Gospels.”
Perhaps Senate and House chaplains should circulate this translation from the New Revised Standard text (Matthew 19:14): “But Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’”
Responding with compassion. And speaking of gospel, right now segments of our culture are telling us to abandon words and actions involving empathy, diversity, equity and inclusion while still claiming the U.S. is a “Christian nation.”
Consider this Gospel text (Matthew 9:36; Mark 6:34): “But when he saw the crowds he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” By the way, “empathy” is a synonym of compassion; check your thesaurus!
The truth is, empathy, diversity, equity and inclusion explode from the Gospels:
- “But while he was still a long way off his father saw him, and his heart went out to him; he ran to meet him, flung his arms round him, and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)
- “At that moment his disciples returned and were astonished to find him talking with a woman.” (John 4:27)
- “If one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, do you not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one that is missing until you find it? And when you do, you lift it joyfully on your shoulders and go home to call your friends and neighbors together. “Rejoice with me!” you cry. “For my sheep that was lost is now found.” (Luke 15:4-7)
- “This fellow, some of them said, “welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:2)
- “If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another’s feet.” (John 13:14)
Those gospel signs reflect Christ’s gospel of compassion without which the Jesus story is exceedingly incomplete. It is compassion for all the sinners lost and found who hurt and bleed and party in our world. It is the passion that must claim us if we are to hear the high-pitched cries for help and the low decibels too deep for normal ears — passion that will not let us go until the hungry have been fed, the naked clothed, the disabled enabled, the oppressed set free.
Disabling government programs that nurture such care while proclaiming a “Christian America” is anti-gospel bias pure and simple.
“By their fruits you will know them,” says Jesus of Nazareth.
Bill Leonard is founding dean and the James and Marilyn Dunn professor of Baptist studies and church history emeritus at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, N.C. He is the author or editor of 25 books. A native Texan, he lives in Winston-Salem with his wife, Candyce, and their daughter, Stephanie.
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