American Christians for Truth and Justice

Tag: trump

  • Truth, Justice and Peace?

    This blog site (americanchristiansfortruthandjustice) is so named because I am concerned about truth and justice.  I also wish for peace.  President Trump claims to be concerned about these three things as well, but is he really?

    Mr. Trump is so concerned about truth that he started his own media platform called Truth Social. But given his propensity for spreading misinformation and pushing lies (such as that the 2020 election was stolen) it seems clear that what Mr. Trump is concerned about is propagating his own version of the truth over against that version of the truth that seeks to verify what actually happened. He seems to believe that if he states something confidently and repeats it often enough, then it becomes truth, never mind the facts.  A recent example is his version (and that of his officials) about what happened in the shootings of Alex Pretti and Rene Good. In both cases, especially in the case of Alex Pretti, it was clear that the video evidence contradicted the official government narrative.  His people seemingly believed that they could persuade others to accept their official narrative as true even though those who looked at the videos could see with their own eyes what really happened.  Only after a huge popular backlash and the fear of the political damage it could bring did President Trump backtrack a bit and say that there would be a fair investigation into what happened.  We will see if that actually happens.

    Regarding justice, under President Trump’s influence the Department of Justice is about anything but justice.  Mr. Trump always accused President Biden of weaponizing the Department of Justice, although, compared to President Trump. Biden made at least a reasonable effort to keep his distance from their proceedings.  Mr. Trump makes no such pretense.  He boldly and blatantly weaponizes the Department of Justice to go after his political enemies.  Under President Trump, justice has nothing to do with punishing the guilty and acquitting the innocent. Rather, it has everything to do with punishing his political enemies, even if under flimsy or false charges, and rewarding those loyal to him, even if they are clearly guilty of crimes.  We see this in his excessive use of the presidential pardon as well, which is often used to pardon those loyal to him or of some benefit to him.  Especially shocking was his pardon of the ex-president of Honduras, who had been convicted of drug trafficking, and his pardon of Changpeng Zhao, a corrupt Chinse cryptocurrency billionaire.

    Since, under Mr. Trump’s influence, Truth Social is about anything but the truth and the Department of Justice is about anything but justice, what should we think about his new International Board of Peace, of which he has appointed himself the chairman? His interest in peace is evident and as president Mr. Trump has put forth considerable effort to promote peace in Gaza, Ukraine, and other places.  He claims to have ended eight wars.  However, given his track record on truth and justice, I hope I can be excused for having some skepticism about his Board of Peace.  Here are two reasons to be skeptical.

    First, President Trump’s concern for peace seems to be contradicted by his bullying, aggressive, and intimidating behavior towards other nations.  He authorized attacks against boats off Venezuela, killing many on board, which many believed violated international law. He forcefully removed the president of Venezuela.  He tried to bully his way into getting Greenland.  He has threatened to take over Canada.  He has insulted and mocked our European allies.  He has renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War. At the same time, he has engaged actively in peacemaking efforts around the world.  We cannot be blamed for being confused—is he for war and aggression or is he for peace?

    Second, President Trump’s motives regarding his concern for peace seem to be suspect.  He openly declared his desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize, which is out of character for the type of person that normally wins such a prize.  This suggests a prideful motive to gain honor and recognition for himself.  Even after the prize was awarded to Marina Corina Muchado, he not so subtly pressured her into giving the medal to him.  Who does such a thing?  His thirst for power and wealth has been evident to many and these also make his motives suspect.  By being chairman of the Board of Peace, does President Trump hope to exert and gain greater power globally?  By requiring a head-turning one billion dollars for permanent membership, does he hope to benefit himself financially?  A person of good character might get the benefit of the doubt, but when Mr. Trump has blatantly profited financially since being the president (his net worth has increased from 4 billion to 7 billion in just one year since beginning his second term), one has to wonder.

    What will be the results of Mr. Trump’s International Board of Peace?  Time will tell, but as for me my hope lies in the return of Christ to establish peace, truth and justice in this world. 

  • Are they ashamed of their conduct?

    Last time we looked at Jeremiah 5:28, which says, “[They] have grown fat and sleek. Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not seek justice.”  While written about the leaders and people of Jeremiah’s time, these words seem strikingly applicable to our current administration. I listed what I considered some of those evil deeds to be: pardoning criminals right and left, openly pursuing vindication against his political enemies without just cause, clearly having something to hide with the Epstein files, rounding up immigrants without due process and vilifying those who dare to oppose it, blatantly enriching himself through business ventures while president without any regard for conflict of interest; attacking boats and killing people as adversaries of war without any clear justification that we were at war; kidnapping and charging President Maduro of Venezuela in a way that even many of our allies regard as a violation of international law; making further threats of aggression against Canada, Greenland, and Cuba. With this backdrop, our text for today asks, “Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush” (Jer. 8:12). One of the most remarkable things about President Trump is that he feels no shame for his detestable conduct.  Instead of expressing regret or apologizing, he denies the accusations, downplays his actions, doubles down on his lies, and / or deflects blame to others.  As an example of denying his actions, when the New York Times published the lewd drawing that Mr. Trump sent to Jerry Epstein, he denied having drawn it. As an example of downplaying his actions, he excused his groping comments caught on tape as locker room talk.  He should have been ashamed of such talk, but he downplayed it and tried to make it sound normal. An example of doubling down on his lies is his repeated insistence that the 2020 election was stolen from him.  He should have been ashamed of his actions on January 6th and should have apologized to Vice-President Pence and the members of Congress for what they went through.  Instead, he doubled down on criticizing Mr. Pence and exonerated the perpetrators of the violence.  Regarding deflecting blame, there are many examples, as Mr. Trump does it repeatedly. To deflect suspicion away from him regarding the Epstein affair, he has tried to shift the focus to Bill Clinton. To deflect blame away from his guilt in falsifying records in the Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen case, he repeatedly attacked his accusers. To deflect blame away from the shooting of Rene Good in Minneapolis and to deflect anger against his administration for their aggressive use of ICE to round up immigrants, he accused the victim, initiating a smear campaign against her.  He does such things continually.  Instead of being ashamed of his actions or those of his administration, he accuses the victims or accusers, usually under false pretenses, and does so relentlessly.  Is he ashamed of his detestable conduct?  No, he has no shame at all; he does not even know how to blush.

    Unfortunately, Mr. Trump has found these tactics to work with his support base, including evangelical Christians, who ought to be ashamed of putting a man in office who does such things, but instead uncritically accept his denials and deflections and double down on affirming and repeating the Trump-approved narrative.  As Christians we must be more discerning than this lest we share culpability with him for his blatant misdeeds.

    As in Jeremiah 5:28, the indictment in Jeremiah 8:12 (“they have no shame at all”) is accompanied by a warning: “So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when they are punished, says the Lord.”  Unless there is repentance, the judgment is sure to come.  It is just a matter of when. 

  • Do Not Call Conspiracy …

    I am beginning a series of blogs drawing on words from the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah which seem strikingly relevant in America today. First, from Isaiah 8:12: “Do not call conspiracy everything this people calls a conspiracy …” We live in an age of conspiracy theories, and they are especially prevalent on the far right.  White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, even though she supports the agenda of the Trump administration, recently pegged Vice President J. D. Vance as a conspiracy theorist in her interview for Vanity Magazine.  But he is only following the lead of President Trump, who has consistently and repeatedly insisted that there was a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from him.  Yesterday, January 6th, was the 5th anniversary of the January 6th riots that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election.  The White House has posted on its website a revisionist history of the event in which the rioters are heroes, the capitol police are blamed and their injuries and deaths disregarded, and former VP Pence is the cowardly villain. There is only one problem, and that is the facts of the case.  Judge after judge, both those appointed by Democrats and those appointed by Republicans, rejected the claims of the Trump White House that the election was fraudulent. Fox News lost a case in which they were forced to pay a large settlement for erroneously pushing the conspiracy theory that Dominion election machines were defective, contributing to miscounts. The Constitution required Mr. Pence to do what he did. We saw with our own eyes what President Trump said to the rioters on January 6th, we heard them chanting “Hang Pence” with the President’s approval, and we saw the rioters violently break into the capitol in an effort to overturn the results of a free election. Those who watched the congressional hearing about January 6th saw compelling evidence, not of a conspiracy to steal the election from President Trump, but of a concerted effort by Mr. Trump to steal the election for himself.  This is an example of how he blames others for what he is guilty of. Now, five years later, Trump continues to relentlessly push his false narrative.  The problem is that most of his supporters, including evangelical Christians, believe him.  If you are one of these, I urge you to heed the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Do not call conspiracy everything this people calls conspiracy.” Look at the evidence yourself and don’t let Mr. Trump deceive you with his confident but demonstrably false claims.

    The passage in Isaiah continues: “do not fear what they fear; and do not dread it.”  President Trump has used his lies and conspiracy theories to raise the fear level regarding the liberal elites ruining our country. He wants you to fear them, and he also wants people to fear him.  Conservative Christians have some legitimate concerns about the liberal agenda, but it is not the liberal elites we should fear nor President Trump.  Isaiah tells us who it is we should fear: “The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy; he is the one you are to fear; he is the one you are to dread” (Isa 8:12b). Next time we will explore this further with some words from the prophet Jeremiah.

  • How did we get here?

    How did we get here?

    Note: this was written in March 2025 and so much more has happened since then, but it is still relevant.

    How did we get here, that is, to this point where we have a man like Mr. Trump elected president for the second time, with the support of most evangelicals, despite myriads of incidents and scandals that would have derailed any other candidate?  Four things come to mind, the first is that evangelicals decided on a transactional approach in which character doesn’t matter, if the candidate supports our core causes. But should evangelicals, of all people, be saying that character doesn’t matter?  Do we realize what a big shift this represents?  During the sex scandal of the Clinton years, evangelicals were insistent that character mattered.  Trump is at least as sexually immoral as Clinton ever was, yet now suddenly it doesn’t matter! With Trump’s turn towards authoritarianism, consider what it means that a person of his character has almost absolute power.  That is a very dangerous situation and we deceive ourselves if we think character doesn’t matter.

                The second explanation as to how we got here is that we believed Trump’s lies.  Or, to put it the other way around, Mr. Trump succeeded in deceiving a large portion of the American public into believing his lies.  If we look back, we can observe how he has done this.  I don’t think it is difficult to see what his tactics were (and are). He is so prolific in doing this (unfortunately) that it will take a separate blog article will expose 9 ways in which he succeeds in getting millions of Americans to believe his lies.

    Third, we got here as evangelicals because we failed to think theologically about a host of other issues besides the core issues that drove initial conservative support for Trump.  Those core issues were abortion / right to life, religious liberties, and opposition to the LGBT agenda.  But many other issues are part of the conservative agenda as well, such as opposition to any form of gun control, cutting government social programs that help the poor, taking a hard stance on immigration, and opposing climate change initiatives. And now Trump has added his own priorities, such as cutting off all federal aid that helps the poor worldwide, being anti-diversity of all kinds, being against medical and scientific research, and hiring and firing in the government based on loyalty to him rather than competency. Have we taken the time to reflect theologically on these issues to determine whether the conservative stance, especially Trump’s form of it, is truly a Biblical or Christian stance?  Or have we simply taken it as a package deal and assumed that the conservative stance is the Christian stance?  It is beyond the scope of this essay to evaluate theologically each of these issues, but if we were to do so we might find that many of these are simply American conservative values, not Christian values, and in some cases these political stances go square against Christian teaching.

    Besides all this, perhaps the most significant issue that needs to be thought through theologically is Christian Nationalism, which seeks to politically establish Christianity as the dominant moral and cultural order.  The strategy was well thought out by the crafters of Project 2025, which Trump denied knowing anything about, yet it has provided the blueprint for his barrage of executive orders.  According to CNN’s analysis, 36 of 53 first week executive orders evoked proposals outlined in project 2025’s blueprint for the next Republican president. Is the strategy of Christian Nationalism the strategy that evangelical Christians should be supporting?  Have we thought about this theologically?  It seeks to establish a kind of theocracy like that in the Old Testament, but is there anything in the New Testament that suggests this should be our goal in the present era?  Have we considered the outcomes historically when Christianity has allied itself with political power?  Has not Christianity thrived and been at its purest and best when it was not allied with political power, but was a persecuted minority? What is the eschatology behind Christian Nationalism?  Are we looking for Christ to come and establish a political kingdom of justice and righteousness (the pre-millennial view) or do we think it is our job to usher in a Christian political kingdom (the post-millennial view)?  American evangelicals have been predominately pre-millennial (remember the Left Behind series?) but now are throwing their support behind a Christian Nationalism approach that is essentially post-millennial.  Has anyone noticed that this is happening or asked whether we in fact agree with the theology behind it?  Or have we just been carried along by the conservative political winds, assuming that all this is what God wants?  

    Fourth, we got here by overlooking warning signs along the way. Before the 2016 election, the Access Hollywood tapes came out in which we heard Trump talk boastfully about groping women because someone famous like him can do whatever he wants.  This was disgusting, yet most evangelicals easily gave him a pass after he walked back the comments by saying that was just “locker room talk.”  Is this the kind of locker room talk that you would find acceptable for your son to say, or for you yourself to say as an evangelical Christian, or even for any decent person to say?  No—of course not!  That was an early warning sign, but evangelicals ignored it.  We should have taken warning when Trump went against precedence by refusing to turn over his tax returns when he was running for president in 2016.  This clearly looked like the behavior of someone who had something to hide.  Even when his tax returns were leaked and it was revealed that he, a billionaire, paid only $750 in federal taxes the year he entered the White House, much less than the average American, his supporters were unconcerned.  They easily accepted his explanation that he was just smart in how he did his taxes. But something is wrong when a billionaire is paying far less in taxes than the average American. This was a warning sign, but his supporters ignored it.

    Consider the firing of FBI director James Comey during Trump’s first term.  The FBI was investigating Trump for his attempt to interfere with the election by colluding with Russians.   Trump didn’t like it, so he fired Comey.  Firing the person who is investigating you is not proper protocol for someone who is transparent and above board.  It is what you expect from a president who has something to hide.  That should have been a warning sign.  The Democrats in the House impeached him for it, but Republicans overlooked it. Consider also the former cabinet members, who were appointed by Trump himself, but after working with him for some time and seeing what he was like, now speak harshly against him.  John Kelley was his former chief of staff for two years, and during this last election cycle came out calling Trump a fascist because of his dictatorial tendencies and for saying that he wished his military leaders would show the same deference to him that Hitler’s military showed to him.  Of course, Trump denied it, but John Kelley is known as an honorable military leader.  Is he not a credible source?  Other respected military leaders have also spoken against Trump, such as General McCrystal, retired four-star general who said that he would not be willing to work for Trump because it is important to work for people that he thinks are basically honest. Republicans have traditionally had high regard for the military, so comments like these coming from these men should have been a warning.  Yet evangelical voters ignored it.

    Bill Barr, Trump’s Attorney General in his first term, and Mike Pence, his Vice President, had been loyal to a fault in serving Trump.  Yet Barr knew there was no credible evidence to support Trump’s claim that the election was stolen, and he resigned rather than being forced to promote Trump’s narrative.  Pence refused to abdicate his duty to certify the election because he knew it was his constitutional duty, even though Trump pressured him to do it. As a result, the rioters, with Trump’s approval, shouted “Hang Pence.”  Evangelicals knew Pence to be a fellow evangelical and person of integrity and for Trump to pressure him to violate the constitution was a serious line to cross.  That was a huge warning sign.  Yet Republicans, including evangelicals, still chose Trump over Pence and others as the Republican candidate for 2024. Regarding the January 6th insurrection, we saw the footage for ourselves of what Trump said on the White House lawn and how he incited the rioters to go the capitol.  What he did was so obvious and inexcusable that 10 House Republicans joined the Democrats in impeaching him and 7 Senate Republicans voted to convict him.  In this polarized era, that is almost unheard of.  If there was any doubt as to his culpability, the January 6th hearings led by Liz Cheney, a conservative Republican, and others, provided strong evidence of his guilt.  Yet many Trump supporters wouldn’t watch or even consider the evidence, because Trump convinced them it was a witch hunt.  As Christians, aren’t we supposed to care about truth enough to look at the evidence?  When encouraging people to consider Christ, don’t we tell them to examine the evidence and see for themselves?  Is Trump above Christ that one can give support to him without even considering the evidence?  When Republicans, including most evangelicals, decided to stay with Trump after all this, a line was crossed.  It became clear that Trump had such a hold on them that literally nothing he could do, even as unthinkable as inciting an insurrection before their very eyes, could dissuade them from supporting him.  Consider the parable of the frog in boiling water.  If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will instantly leap out. But if you put it in a pot filled with pleasantly tepid water and gradually heat it, the frog will remain in the water until it boils to death.   Evangelicals who are still “in the pot” with Trump must be more discerning than they have been in the past and have the wherewithal to jump out of the pot before it is too late.

  • Have we Lost our Minds?

    Note: This was written in March 2025, just three months into Trump’s presidency. There is even more to be concerned about now than there was then.

    For several years now, I have been shaking my head almost daily upon reading the news, wondering how it is that most American evangelicals have supported and continue to support Donald Trump. Although about 80% of evangelicals voted for him in each of the last three elections, I am among a minority who did not vote for him during any of those elections. I was especially concerned this time around about the consequences for American democracy if Trump won, but I must admit that I was still not prepared for the dizzying flurry of presidential actions   from day one that have ramped up my level of concern severalfold. There are so many things to be upset about all at once, which is very disconcerting, to the point that if someone were to ask me what I am upset about I would hardly know where to begin. So, that is my starting point for writing—to sort out in my own mind what it is that I am so upset about. 

                What am I so upset about?  Let me count the ways.  First, I am upset because justice is being turned upside down.  No justice has been done in holding Trump accountable for all the crimes he has committed.  Special counsel Jack Smith dropped the federal election interference case after Trump was re-elected because of the Justice Department prohibition against prosecuting a sitting president.  But did we not hear with our own ears his provocative speech on the White House lawn and see with our own eyes the mob breaking into the Capitol building in an attempt to keep the election result from being finalized?  Did we not wonder why for hours he watched and did nothing to dial this back, even after the crowd was shouting “Hang Pence”?  The related Georgia election interference case is in limbo, initially sidetracked due to allegations against the prosecutor.  But did we not hear with our own ears how Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find a few votes so the Georgia result could be overturned?  Then there is the classified documents case, which a pro-Trump judge dismissed, not on the weakness of the evidence, but because she said that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional, even though the appointment of special counsels has been the norm for decades and provides a higher degree of accountability for government leaders.  The one case where Trump was finally convicted was the Hush money case. Finally, it seemed, he was being held accountable for something!  But sentencing was delayed and after he won the election, Judge Merchan gave him a no-penalty sentence.  Again, there was no punishment for the wrongs he did.  Since Trump’s goal has been to evade justice for himself, he is also disposed to pardon other powerful men who are guilty. Meanwhile, he has fired many government officials who were just doing their job and replaced them with Trump loyalists.  Anyone who has the integrity and courage to speak out against him, like Liz Cheney or Mike Pence, have been targeted and their political careers set back or ruined.  Those who do right are punished and those who do wrong, especially Trump himself, evade punishment.  And to make things worse, the Supreme Court ruled that the president has absolute immunity for any official actions done as president. Is it not the point of a democracy that no one is above the law?  The Trump appointed Supreme Court justices did not think so.  So much for “liberty and justice for all.” 

                Second, I am upset because truth has been eroded.  According to the Washington Post factchecker team, Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first term in office.  Now in his second term, to curry favor with the President, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has done away with factchecking altogether.  Why does this curry favor with Trump?  Obviously, Trump doesn’t like being fact-checked because the facts will show that he is lying.  Here is one recent and obvious example of a Trump lie. During his recent campaign, Trump said that he had nothing to do with Project 2025.  Yet after becoming president, he appointed Russell Vought, the co-author of Project 2025 to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Clearly, Trump was lying when he said he had “nothing to do” with the project.  Another recent lie is that Ukraine is responsible for starting the war with Russia.  We all followed the events for ourselves and know that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine.  Since the war started, the U.S. Congress, including Republicans who are now silent, regarded Russia as the aggressor and Ukraine as the target. 

    Of course, Trump’s “Big Lie” was his repeated insistence that he had won the 2020 election, but it had been stolen from him.  In fact, it was he who was trying to steal a free and fair election. Trump’s many lawsuits challenging the election results were dismissed or defeated for lack of evidence.  Even two of the most loyal members of his administration, Bill Barr and Mike Pence, refused to support his claim to have won the election, and incurred Trump’s wrath as a result.  In the end, although Trump failed in overturning the 2020 election, he deceived enough of the American public and intimidated enough politicians to go along with his lie that he was able to be re-elected in 2024.  Now that Trump has succeeded with his “Big Lie,” he knows that his followers will believe anything he says.  For those who care about the truth, that is a disturbing and terrifying reality.

                Third, I am upset because democracy in our country is in danger.  People have been warning us about this for a while, and many thought them to be alarmists.  Now it is clear that the warnings were warranted.  Balance of power is central to democracy, but Trump is relentlessly trying to undermine it so that he can establish an authoritarian regime with himself as the dictator.  He claimed he was joking when he said that he would be a dictator on day 1, but it is now clear that he was not joking. Congress has become almost irrelevant due to his barrage of executive orders that bypass its authority, and members of Congress are intimidated into supporting even his most outrageous cabinet picks or policies because if they don’t, they know they will incur Trump’s wrath and the wrath of his supporters, who could vote them out of office next time. Regarding the Courts, Vice President Vance is already justifying in advance the idea that if Trump doesn’t agree with the courts’ rulings, they can be ignored.  The court has no ability to enforce its rulings, seeing that Trump also controls the military. Another pillar of democratic societies is a free press, but Trump has long considered the press to be the enemy of the people and has unleashed lawsuits against unfriendly media outlets to intimidate them into not speaking against him.  Trump and his supporters want to make America great again, but ironically, if he succeeds the America that results will be decidedly un-American, considering that America from its inception has been synonymous with democracy. Trump has long shown disdain for America’s democratic allies and admiration for dictators, such as Putin in Russia or Kim in North Korea, because he aspires to be like them.  He is aggressively pursuing authoritarianism and remarkably has convinced his supporters that this is a good thing, as though democracy itself was the enemy.  Democracy is not simply a tool of the liberal left—it is a system of government that has served our country well for many generations, a system of government that has been the envy of the world, a beacon for those oppressed by authoritarian governments, a place where those deprived of it elsewhere can find “liberty and justice for all.”  I am afraid that such an America is quickly disappearing, and that is a cause of great sadness and concern.

                Fourth, I am upset because of corruption and flagrant conflict of interest in government.  Trump has made a point of pardoning or dismissing the charges of corrupt politicians, such as Mayor Adams of New York City or Rod Blagojevich, former governor of Illinois, while at the same time seeking to dismantle anti-corruption safeguards in government that would hold people like him accountable.  He has also disregarded the norm of disengaging as much as possible from conflicts of interest before taking office.  Trump refused to do this in his first term and has been even bolder and more flagrant in his second, releasing a Trump cryptocurrency coin just three days before taking office. Already, it has made him hundreds of millions of dollars.  Trump also has a myriad of business interests around the world which could influence his foreign policy but has made no attempt to disentangle himself from these.  Moreover, he has appointed Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, with a wide variety of business interests, to oversee the slashing of government agencies.  Clearly, there are many potential conflicts of interest, but both Trump and Musk sweep this concern aside.  And seemingly no one can do anything about it. 

                Fifth, I am upset because the political climate engendered by Trump is giving rise to increased racism and discrimination.  He is aggressively promoting an anti-wokeness and anti-diversity campaign.  While Christians have been legitimately concerned about the excesses of the liberal left in promoting the LGBTQ+ agenda, including in the education of our young children, Trump’s campaign goes well beyond that to attack even the hint of diversity friendly policies of any kind.  By his orders, West Point Military Academy has cancelled any clubs suggestive of diversity, including the Society of Woman Engineers and the National Society of Black Engineers.  Although Trump did not cancel Black History month as rumored, the Department of Defense and Military departments are no longer promoting diversity emphasis months such as Black History Month or Women’s History Month.  After the recent plane crash in D.C., instead of bringing unity and comfort as presidents typically try to do after such disasters, Trump immediately blamed diversity hiring practices for the crash, insinuating that diversity hires (women, minorities, handicapped, etc.) were inherently less qualified or capable than white men. And recently both Elon Musk and JD Vance, without any disavowal from the president, shockingly spoke out in favor of AfD, the far-right Nazi-leaning political party in Germany. If we ignore these things, we do so to our own peril.       

                Sixth, I am upset because Trump and his billionaire friend Elon Musk are enriching themselves while showing utter disregard for the poor.  I have already addressed the first part with respect to their conflicts of interest but coupled with that is a lack of compassion for the poor. One of the most upsetting things that Trump and Musk have done early in this second term is to do away with USAID and its billions of dollars of aid that helped the poor around the world.  Among other things, it has saved more than 3 million lives a year through immunization programs and expanded education for 15 million children in conflict environments.  It is true that some funding was used to support programs that evangelicals would not approve of, but those who highlight these things never mention the many lives saved by aid programs.  To gut the whole agency with no alternative plans to help those impacted shows a shocking lack of compassion and disregard for the poor around the world.

                Seventh, I am upset because Trump’s actions are impacting many people in significant ways—federal employees, scientists, immigrants, blacks, disabled, transgendered, Palestinians, Ukrainians, Canadians, etc.  As Christians who are called upon to love our neighbors as ourselves, we should care about these impacts, whether anxiety and fear, lost jobs, lost funding, marginalization, deportation, etc. Trump seems to take pleasure in disrupting peoples’ lives and causing fear and anxiety and has conditioned his supporters to take pleasure in it too. Many of those supporters are evangelical Christians.  But are we not called upon to love our neighbors and show compassion to those who are hurting?  For the most part, middle to upper class white evangelicals have not been directly impacted in a negative way by Trump’s actions, except those who are government employees or scientists, but we should be reaching out to those who are impacted to show them the care and love of Christ. But where are the evangelicals who are talking about this or doing it?

                Eighth, I am upset because Trump’s actions are endangering the whole planet by accelerating the already critical impacts of climate change. He immediately withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement.  Meanwhile, our country remains one of the greatest emitters of carbon dioxide, behind only China, and this situation will only worsen with Trump’s prioritizing of fossil fuels over alternative energy sources. Although Trump denies the impacts of climate change, can we not see it for ourselves in the increasing intensity of climate related disasters in our own country, whether the fires in California or the hurricanes in the southeast?  Of course, we have always had fires and hurricanes, but not to the extent that the very viability of the insurance industry is challenged as it is challenged now. If we ignore climate change, the situation both in our country and the world is only going to get worse.  Moreover, we will also endanger future generations by leaving them with a precarious ecological condition that cannot be reversed, all because we would not acknowledge the climate reality and respond appropriately.  The command to love our neighbor as ourselves, when applied to future generations, requires us to be good stewards of the world God has given us so that future generations can enjoy it as well.

                Ninth, I am upset because America’s reputation around the world is being damaged.  America’s use of power and influence in the world has not always been commendable, but at least the ideals it stood for, such as freedom and justice, were ones that people around the world wished to experience for themselves.  But now, what is America to be known for around the world?  It is to be known as the country that cares only about itself, as the country with no compassion, as the country that cannot be trusted to keep its alliances or commitments, as a country that refuses to do its part to address climate change, as a bully aggressor that threatens to make Canada our 51st state and to take over Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Gaza. As one who loves my country, this is all very disheartening.

                Tenth, and still more importantly, I am upset that the reputation of Christ and his church is at stake.  American evangelicals make up a key component of Trump’s support base, with about 80% having voted for him in each of the last three elections.  Since about one quarter of Americans identify as evangelical, the evangelical vote is significant.  Although the election was not as close as anticipated, Trump still won the popular vote by only about 2.3 million.  Even if only 70% of evangelicals had voted for Trump, he would have lost the popular vote by almost 2 million.  If 50% of evangelicals had not voted for Trump, he would have lost in a landslide, by about 10 million popular votes. So, it is fair to say that evangelicals put Trump in the White House and therefore what he does and what he stands for reflects on the evangelical church. How could evangelicals support such a man as Trump in such overwhelming fashion?  Have we lost our minds?