“Pray as though everything depended on God," Saint Augustine wrote. "Work as though everything depended on you.”
Easter Monday is a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, and a call to action. Let me say that in the language of today’s social media clickbait: America’s Christians have to “Practice what we preach.”
This is a fearful time for our nation. Last week, Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, wrote that he has never feared for his nation as much as he fears for it today.
And in a time of fear, faith demands more than prayers. It demands action and strength. People of faith are called to do what the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights icon famously urged, guided by his Christian beliefs: We need to get into “good trouble.”
Lewis, a graduate of American Baptist College in Tennessee, told PBS in 2004. “In my estimation, the civil rights movement was a religious phenomenon. When we’d go out to sit in or go out to march, I felt — and I really believe — there was a force in front of us and a force behind us, ’cause sometimes you didn’t know what to do ... But somehow and some way, you believed — you had faith — that it all was going to be all right.”
As an Episcopalian who regularly attends church, I have learned from the Old and New Testament that Jesus commanded love and care for the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, and the refugee. So how can any Christian, especially Evangelicals, a key base for Trump, defend this president?
The old phrase “WWJD” — What Would Jesus Do? — applies.
Would Jesus snatch people off the street and throw them into distant prisons? Would Jesus separate families without due process, with no evidence?
Would Jesus smile as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, flashing an expensive Rolex watch, poses gleefully in front of cages jammed with desperate prisoners? Would Jesus applaud as she bragged about their inhumane conditions? How is that crass act acceptable to those who worship Jesus?
I have been taught that Jesus would protest Trump budget proposals that take a sledgehammer to financial lifelines for seniors, widows, the disabled, and the poor, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, while promising tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the late televangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson fueled the political rise of the “Moral Majority,” as a dominant force in Republican politics. They transformed abortion into a wedge issue, stirring churchgoers to vote for the Republican Party as an act of faith in Jesus to defend human life.
To this day, Christian conservatives continue to invoke scripture to defend unborn life and oppose homosexual marriage. But they somehow ignore that same scripture’s calls to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and uplift the downtrodden. Call me astounded by such hypocrisy.
Let’s not forget: Jesus brought a whip into the temple to drive out the money-changers. The Bible warns heavily against the rich exploiting the poor. Yet Trump accepts big campaign contributions from the richest and allows these unelected oligarchs to set policies that benefit the rich and harm the poor.
There’s a link between that hypocrisy and the spectacle of Pastor Paula White-Cain, Trump’s senior White House faith adviser and a government employee, asking Christians to send her $1,000 because “ministry costs money.” In return, sounding like a grifter in the temple, she promises “seven supernatural blessings”: angelic protection, prosperity, healing, long life — plus a free crystal cross, if you act now.
This unseemly behavior is a minor news item, overshadowed by Trump Administration lawyers’ failure to explain to judges their defiance of court orders and indifference to America’s promise of justice for all.
Trump similarly failed to find an answer when Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, speaking at an inaugural prayer service, asked him to “have mercy,” on people “who are scared now” — specifically people who are immigrants and people who are transgender.
His only response was to attack the bishop as a “radical left hard line Trump-hater,” and call her “nasty.”
Now, in this time of fear, it is up to true Christians to act. Former Congressman Lewis drew inspiration from a faith-driven leader: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“King was not concerned about the streets of heaven and the pearly gates and the streets paved with milk and honey,” Lewis said in the 1987 PBS documentary "Eyes on the Prize" (for which I wrote the companion book). “He was more concerned about the streets of Montgomery and the way that Black people and poor people were being treated in Montgomery.”
On this Easter Monday, the question is how will Trump’s Christian supporters answer when confronted with Jesus’ concern for others to the point of giving his life to save sinners? How will they answer for these actions when they’re one day called to account? Something tells me God will not be impressed with claims that hatred of Democrats or liberals was greater than concern over Trump’s wrongdoing.
Christianity and most other religions teach that there will be a reckoning for political harm being done in today’s Washington. So I pray for hearts to change, but also for true Christians to act urgently and get in “good trouble.”
Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book “New Prize for these Eyes: the Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement.”
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( This Easter season, make like Jesus and get into some 'good trouble' )
Also on site :
- Mediators work on plan for long-term truce as Israeli strikes on Gaza kill nine
- Omani Minister of Commerce: Omani-Russian relations witness qualitative leap
- China to launch Shenzhou-20 spaceflight on Thursday