Much disturbs me about the Trump administration, but as a minister, nothing more than the support from so many who espouse the Christian faith. Frank Bruni of The New York Times sums the problem up well in a July 26 opinion piece: “Mouth enough dogma, sprinkle your conversation with enough references to Christ, maybe drape a cross around your neck and all manner of cruelty and corruption is forgiven.”
On cruelty: When Markwayne Mullin, the newly installed head of the Department of Human Services, rightly put a pause on ICE-initiated traffic stops after the killing by ICE of another brown-skinned motorist, Trump let his displeasure be known and the policy was quickly reversed. The message is clear — the lives of immigrants, whether legal residents or not, have no value in the eyes of this administration.
That is not only contrary to Christian faith, it is contrary to the inalienable rights given by God to all people with which the Declaration of Independence begins: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Every day Trump is in office belies that fundamental basis to the creation of our nation.
On corruption: the blatant manner in which the president uses his office to enrich himself, family and friends, surpasses all others in American history. Pardons and favors given to those who have made sizable political donations, unreal profiteering from cryptocurrency, the “gift” of a $400 million airplane (plus taxpayer paid upgrades) only to be transferred to the Trump presidential library after just two and a half years in service, and so on.
And now we learn that our government has signed a deal to provide Saudi Arabia with U.S. technology to build nuclear power plants. Can anyone with a straight face say the “investment” by Saudi Arabia of $2 billion into Jared Kushner’s equity firm had no influence on that deal?
To this list add any number of public and private sins — conviction for sexual assault, hush money paid to an adult film star and subsequent conviction for fraud, bragging about using his celebrity status to “grab women by the pussy,” his birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein framed by the outline of a naked girl, his constant lying about everything from crowd sizes to winning the 2020 election, the over-the-top narcissism (Mount Rushmore, seriously?), and to top it all off, initiating a war that violates every principle of Just War doctrine as outlined by St. Anselm and may also include war crimes.
In light of all this, it is incomprehensible to me that any Christian, or people of any faith tradition, can continue to support this administration. To make matters even worse, there are those who dare to assert that we are entering a new era of “Christian nationalism” to “restore” our roots as a Christian nation.
If this is what a Christian nation looks like, count me out. As one dedicated both to my faith and the principles of my nation, I will not leave, however. Count me instead as part of the loyal opposition.
Even as I despair over what is being done in the name of Christianity in this country today, I also have great hope that someone like James Talarico, a seminarian who has set aside his study to become a minister in order to run for the Senate, has a good chance of succeeding — in Texas of all places!
And Justin Pearson, the son of a Black preacher of my denomination and an extremely gifted orator himself, who is making a gallant effort to challenge the racist gerrymandering in Memphis that split a majority Black district into three majority white districts.
And then there is Sen. Raphael Warnock, attesting to his faith both in the halls of Congress and from the pulpit of the Ebenezer Baptist Church from whence Martin Luther King, Jr. led the Civil Rights movement.
These are but a few of my heroes, people who genuinely reflect the values of the faith I treasure and who also hold true to the principles on which our country was founded. They give me hope that the cruelty and corruption of the current administration will be short-lived and the day will soon come that, to quote the vision of a just society from the Psalmist will “give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.”
Ideals of God and country are worthless when they are nothing more than jewelry we wear around our necks, but priceless when we actually put them into practice. May it be so.
Dan Bryant is a retired minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and a 35-year resident of Eugene.