Declare Yourself an Unbeliever

(Note: This may be hard to take, but I think it's necessary. - TM)

President Trump took his road show to Houston, Texas this week. He was there to support the Senate candidacy of Ted Cruz. However, he barely mentioned Cruz. Most of the speech was about, as usual, himself.

One of the most disturbing things he said was a threat to send the military to the border to stop what he calls “the caravan” of refugees from Honduras and Guatemala from entering the U.S. First of all, he cannot legally do that. There is an Act that prohibits the military from engaging in civilian law enforcement outside of military bases (The Posse Comitatus Act). And secondly, really? Just ignore these desperate people?

Without the slightest proof and with a desire to continue to scare his base, he claimed gangs, murderers, rapists, and terrorists are basically the people in the caravan. “We don’t want them,” he yelled to the crowd, who of course cheered and applauded.

I don’t care to go on about Trump’s erratic speech. Except to say, I implore Christian people who support him to honestly think about what his immigration policy is doing. It denigrates people —men, women, children, and the elderly. They are mostly frightened people who are desperate to escape the horrific life in countries that our foreign policies have helped turn into vicious and deadly violent places.

I don’t see how Christians can continue to support a president whose politics violate every value Jesus Christ taught, promoted, and lived.

His whole life and ministry were to rescue people from injustice, from cruel prejudices against them, from poverty and shame. His message was about salvation, delivering people from their fears, their guilt, their hurts, and failures. He offered people the opportunity for a new life, for better opportunities, for meaningful living safe from tyrants and torturers, from domination and abuse by the wealthy and the powerful and the cruel. He challenged his followers to a life that refuses selfishness, vanity, and uncontrolled appetites that use and dominate others.

Jesus called people to humility, to own their humanity, to be peacemakers, to love their enemies, to turn the other cheek, to feed the hungry, to visit those in prison, and to care for the sick and the lonely.

None of these values are promoted or practiced by our president. His campaign rallies are about power over others. He encourages people to be violent, to throw out the Democrats, to hate liberals, and fight for tax cuts, military spending, and private education, while he slanders generosity, tolerance, fairness, peace in the world, and the value of public education.

The life of Jesus was devoted to compassion. He saved the woman caught in adultery from a stone-throwing crowd of the religiously arrogant and the self-righteous. He invited a small disliked tax collector to a meal with him and showed him acceptance. He loved children and protected them from the abuses of manipulators and victimizers. He healed. He helped. He lifted people out of their misery and pain.

That is not something our president supports. His emphasis is on wealth, power, control. I never see him with children. He remains dismissive of women’s rights and has a history of patronizing them. He wants no part of allowing America to care for refugees, for the beaten and the raped, for people locked in the worst kinds of poverty and violence.

Perhaps you have seen pictures of “Christo Redentor,” Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. He stands tall and majestic over the city with his arms open to the world. He welcomes all people. It is one of the most iconic images of the life and mission of Jesus.

And yet today, crowds of Christians in this country, have no interest in that Christ. They follow a president who closes his arms to the world, who says No to people in despair, who incites violence against others, who insults and mocks and threatens.

Support president Trump if you choose. Vote for his Republican and Democratic accomplices who in their silence honor his disgraceful conduct and politics. But do not claim to follow the Jesus of history. Declare yourself an unbeliever. Because there is nothing of Jesus in this president, in his policies, in his thinking, or in his behavior.

© 2018 Timothy Moody