Column: Looking for Christ in Trump’s acts

President Trump is right to warn that Christianity has been under sustained attack from the actions of the federal government. Shakier, though, is his grasp of who is responsible for the blistering and unprecedented assault on Christian teaching.

Exhibit A, caring for the least of these. Defunding an institution that brings aid to the hungry, poor and needy: USAID. I cannot think of a better way of showing one’s contempt for 2,000 years of Christian ethics and moral teaching. By gutting USAID and stripping away programs to benefit the neediest of the global poor, the federal government has revealed itself as profoundly hostile to Jesus’s commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself.

Exhibit B, foreign policy. Jesus was something of a dove, advocating ‘blessed are the peacemakers for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.’ When faced with the occupying Roman power, Jesus continued to advocate for peace, notoriously reprimanding St Peter for resorting to violence. This seems a little at odds with threats to take over other countries or regions within them. Perhaps someone could direct me to the passage in the scriptures where it tells us to redevelop the homelands of others for commercial ends after forcibly deporting their inhabitants.

Exhibit C, education. Living in a college town I know a little about how seriously Christians take their education. Christians founded the first universities, 1,000 years ago, out of a desire to better understand their faith. (And they gave them a curriculum grounded in the culture of Ancient Greece and Rome, because they recognized wisdom comes in many forms and from many cultures. But that’s another story). Here in Hanover, Dartmouth College was founded by a Congregational Minister, the Rev Eleazor Wheelock.

Our current education system has massive economic inequities. Rich school districts and private institutions can easily outspend (and outperform) poorer school districts, public schools or universities. Defunding or reducing the Education Department would only further exacerbate and deepen inequities at all levels of our education system. Jesus said it is harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. We all know what Jesus would do. (Clue: he wouldn’t be cheerleading for billionaires to strip away services aimed at giving everyone a decent education).

There are so many other deeply important issues, from immigration, gender equality, anti-racism and the environment, where faithful Christians disagree with the White House. But you get the idea. For 2,000 years Christians have tried their best (and often failed) to imitate Christ’s command to love others and forgive people when they wrong us. (Scripture even tells us to do this not just once in an election cycle, but as many as 70 times seven.)

Forgiveness, in turn, requires empathy and imagining how our words and actions affect others. In White House rhetoric, I struggle to hear even the tiniest echo of the classic Christian experiences of introspection, humility, confession or forgiveness. If the president is serious about making it easier for Christians in public life, he could start by adopting a more recognizably Christian tone. This would require him to set aside his social media bully pulpit, his demeaning transgender slurs (see “A transgender terrorist at work”; Feb. 7), his dog whistle racism, and the constant naming and shaming of others.

The biblical phrase that speaks best to these first weeks of the new government is ‘Jesus wept.’ To dry those eyes, and give everyone hope for the future, we need to take courage from the scriptural command found in many religions against making or worshipping idols. Neither America nor its leaders should be objects of religious devotion. We are all sinners, all of us. And, yes, this includes those elements on the left whose ill-concealed hostility to religion is the gift to MAGA that just can’t stop giving.

White Christian Nationalism has nothing to do with Jesus. One of the few effective ways to counter it is through a rainbow Christian coalition built around those who spent a lifetime imitating Jesus: people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Verna Dozier, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King, Thérèse of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, Sojourner Truth and Desmond Tutu. It’s time for those who identify as Christians to stand up for the love of God and the freedom and dignity of all people, regardless of their religious beliefs. And may God have mercy on us all.

Guy Collins is the author of “Faithful Doubt: The Wisdom of Uncertainty” and “The Goldilocks God: Searching for the via media.” He is rector of St Thomas Episcopal Church in Hanover.