I have two ways to look at Donald Trump. I can look at him as a person and thus as a peer. And I can look at him as the President of the nation in which I live.
What I can't afford to do in looking at him as a peer is to judge and look down on him. I can't do that as a Christian because the Scriptures tell me when I judge a person, Donald Trump for example, I am calling on God to apply His standards and laws on me in the same way as I want Him to apply it on a given person, like Donald Trump. And that would be like being out in the middle of the ocean and sinking the boat I am in. That is because Trump and I are in the same boat. I have my own sins and faults with which I struggle and without the forgiveness that is provided for those who believe in Christ, I'm lost. It matters not that Trump and I do not share the same set of sins. We both deserve the same fate. And so when I look at Trump as a person, I pray that he repents.
But what I can't afford to do when looking at him in the latter way is to be silent about the injustices he's visiting on others and the extraordinary government authority he is seeking. And so I have to speak out against and protest what he is doing. But according to the Golden Rule, Christ requires that when I speak out against and protest him, I need to do so in ways in which I would want people to protest me if I was acting like Trump is. Spoiler alert, I very much struggle with applying the Golden Rule here.
And so I believe that my fellow Evangelicals need to oppose what Trump is doing. But we need to oppose Trump's actions in ways in which we would want people to oppose us if we were in Trump's position and they were protesting us. But let me restate part of what I just wrote. We Evangelicals MUST oppose what Trump is doing. And one reason why we must oppose him is because of our past.
What past am I talking about? The past of the last 3 Presidential elections. At least 80% of us Evangelicals voted for him in each of those elections. At least 80% did so. And many of us still support him despite the present suffering he has caused, the future suffering that will be caused by his policies, and the power grab he is making.
The Apostles wrote and told us to submit to the governing authorities. They told us to lead quiet lives and to not stir the pot because God has ordained our leaders and to protect the reputation of the Gospel. But times have changed since the days of the Apostles and so how we submit to the governing authorities becomes somewhat different and more complicated. One issue here is that we have to factor in how we submit to the governing authorities is that the Gospel is now well known and has been preached in almost all of the earth. In fact, because the Gospel has been strongly associated with different governments, the Gospel now has a track record when it comes to government. And that track record includes when the Church was silently complicit in the sins committed by governments as well as when the Church was actively promoting or involved in committing atrocities. When the Apostles started sharing the Gospel, the Gospel had no track record to either point to or be ashamed of.
In addition, unlike today, the citizens of a given nation conquered by Rome had no say in how their government acted and thus they bore far less responsibility than we do now. But when Trump was last campaigning to be President, our nation was a democracy to a significant enough extent in that we employed democratic procedures for determining who runs our government. And in such a system, the people bear much responsibility for what their government does. That is another difference between our situation and the times of the Apostles. But even when that is not the case, like the Old Testament prophets did before us, we have an obligation to call out social injustices and to appeal to oppressors to repent. James does that in his epistle, especially in chapter 5 where he starts to sound somewhat like Marx.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer felt the burden to speak out against Hitler. Though he personally was not responsible for Hitler's rise to power, he knew that he must speak out for the oppressed.
And so we Evangelicals need to create a Bonhoeffer Movement. It is a movement that opposes the autocratic desires and actions of President Trump. The goal is to stop his power grab in its tracks and to restore to our government's implementation of the 3 coequal branches of government as well as to restore those gutted agencies and former employees which was part of our government's programs of social uplift.
We need to create a Bonhoeffer movement but with one difference. While Bonhoeffer eventually worked to remove Hitler from power, we only need to stop Trump from doing what he is doing.
And so we need to limit the damage Trump does to our government. We need to do this to limit the number of victims of Trump's desired policies. And, we need to do this for the reputation of the Gospel. The last reason is because the percentage of us Evangelicals who voted for Trump has indisputably tied his Presidency with the reputation of the Gospel.
Because we have supported Trump with such overwhelming numbers, people will link our faith with his policies. In the past few centuries, there were too many times when we saw the dominant branch of the Church in a given country support those with wealth and oppressive power. That was true during the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain. And after those oppressive regimes were overthrown, the Church unnecessarily suffered various levels of significant persecution. And not only that, the reputation of the Gospel was harmed. And in addition to that, we might consider how Post Modernism, with its view of Christianity, was a reaction to all of the atrocities that occurred under Christendom.
One more point should be made here. We have sound examples of how we Christians can oppose Trump policies while honoring the position of those in government. Two prominent examples of how to oppose policies and laws while honoring the position of those in government are provided by Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC in the 1960s and by Otpor in Serbia from 1998 to 2000 (click here for a brief description of the latter).
The main lesson that we can learn from both groups is the nonviolent approach by which they accomplished their goals. We should stress the nonviolent approaches not just because they are morally right, but also there are groups in our nation that desire that we fall prey to a Civil War. And so if our resistance to Trump's policies involves violence, we could very well be playing into their hands as well as committing atrocities of our own. And though we might have to employ some different tactics than what both previously mentioned peace groups used, maintaining a strict nonviolent approach is an absolute necessity.
Why do we need a Bonhoeffer Movement? It is because, like Bonhoeffer, we are facing a very similar leader who is driven by hate, love of money, and the lust for power. And he is wantonly sacrificing programs of social uplift to accomplish his goals. How can we Christians support his actions?
But, again, there must be a difference between the goal of our Bonhoeffer Movement and what Bonhoeffer attempted to. While Bonhoeffer tried to remove Hitler, we must work to merely stop Trump from what he is doing.
And so it is up to us Evangelicals to do our part in stopping the direction that our nation is on which we have helped enable. We have legitimate reasons for opposing Trump's power grabs and we have a history of nonviolent approaches in opposing a government that visits injustices on people. It is now time to pray, study, speak, and act out. What would be optimal is if we could get Trump to repent and change. But if that doesn't happen, then we must move the other 2 branches of our government to stop the steal.
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