An anti-Trump Easter awakening: Christians must wake up and see the threat the President poses to their values

BY
Jim Wallis
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, April 16, 2017, 5:00 AM

Three days ago, on the day we Christians call Good Friday, the church marked and commemorated the death of Jesus of Nazareth, killed by the Roman governor in collusion with the local religious authorities.

He was killed because he was perceived to be a threat to their power, a fact we too often seem to forget. The brutal execution method of crucifixion was regularly used for political criminals.

On this Easter Sunday, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which signifies the ultimate victory and vindication of the way of Jesus — justice, love and peace — over the ways of wealth, violence and power preferred by the rulers who had him killed.

But we easily forget that too in America in the young but pernicious political era of Donald Trump.

Instead, many Christians merely personalize the meaning and message of Jesus — coming to believe that to save us from our individual sins, and his resurrection assures our going to Heaven after him.

In the meantime, they believe, we can feel free to ignore or even collaborate with the wealth, power and violence of the state (and, yes, even the church). We can make our private religious well-being a substitute for what Jesus called the Kingdom of God that is intended to change the world and us with it.

This radical contrast between private religion and a world-changing new order that Jesus brought to the world is glaringly evident on this first Easter with Trump in the White House.

No shortage of stories this week focused on whether the administration was doing a good job organizing the annual Easter Egg Roll, which has become a hallowed American tradition.

Given the larger and massively important religious story to tell, that was a dangerous distraction. The deeply disturbing fact is that a majority of white Christians in America supported Trump for President. A majority of white Christians voted in favor of his professed support of their "issues" and "values" despite Trump's lifelong desecration of all the values Jesus stood for.

They voted for him despite his use of bigotry, his appeals to racism, and his blatant misogyny. And now, they continue to lend Trump vital support as he leads a government that contravenes so many Christian values.

Just before the events of Jesus' Holy Week entrance into the political and religious power center of Jerusalem, He preached a sermon that was absolutely core to his message. In the 25th chapter of Matthew, He says "as you have done to the least of these, you have done to me."

Jesus said "I was hungry…I was thirsty…I was naked…I was a stranger…I was sick…I was in prison…" That as we have done or not done to the poorest, most vulnerable, and marginal people among us, we have done to him — to Jesus himself — is one of the most radical teachings in the Bible.

The Matthew 25 text dramatically reverses the values and priorities of political and often religious power; it certainly would turn the policies and practices of Washington D.C. upside down.

How can Christian supporters of Trump claim to adhere to Jesus' clear call when the President's proposed budget would slash vital programs that make food, housing, heat, health and education available for the poorest and most vulnerable, all while his administration is poised to cut taxes for the richest Americans?

How can they support an administration that would slash critical humanitarian aid to the hungry in countries on the edge of starvation to help pay for massive increases in military spending? How can they justify cutting the health care of millions of people, or threatening to deport and destroy the families of millions of immigrants, or denying welcome to refugees being slaughtered in their home countries, or deepening the unjust and racialized mass incarceration of prisoners?

These are all people specifically named in Matthew 25. How can these Christians not see that these are Easter issues, and that their political savior is acting in direct contradiction to the values of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

Through his entire life, Donald Trump has been a literal worshipper of money, sex and power — a worship directly contrary to the Christian values of simplicity and generosity, commitment and integrity, service and sacrifice. How can Christians reconcile their support for him with the Christian virtues of humility, mercy, grace and love, which are seemingly absent from the life of an arrogant and consummate marketer and dealmaker whose only consistency is relentlessly prioritizing his brand and ego above everything else?

They can't, and it's time to stop pretending otherwise.

I remember speaking at an evangelical Christian college during one Holy Week. I asked the students, "Why was Jesus killed?" A long pause followed, indicating that the question was one that had not been thought about much before. Finally, an answer came: "To save us from our sins."

True enough, as to the result of Jesus' death and resurrection. But I was asking about the historic and immediate cause of Jesus death. Why was Jesus killed?

It is indeed quite doubtful that the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, and the local religious leaders who offered him calculated encouragement, were conscious of their part in salvation history. What they were conscious of was that Jesus was a real and potential threat to their power and authority.

Jesus frequently had confrontations with these rulers of the people, treating them with disdain and scorn (Luke 13:31-33, and 20:9-19). He spared no words in his criticism of the rich and powerful (Luke 6:24-25, 16:14,15,19-31, 18:24-25, 20:46-47), and on one occasion he specifically condemned the kings of the Gentiles, who sought power and dominated their subjects while calling themselves "benefactors."

He contrasted his own approach to power with that of the secular rulers and called upon his disciples to imitate not them, but his own servant style of leadership (Luke 22:24-27, Mark 10:35-45). Jesus, in fact, told his disciples to expect persecution from political authorities on his account, and he instructed them in how to bear witness when they are "brought before kings and governors for my name's sake" (Luke 21:12-25).

Jesus' cleansing of the temple was a flagrant act of civil disobedience aimed at the religious, economic and political power center of the established order. The temple symbolized the power of the ruling authorities. Jesus acted directly against their authority by accusing them of corrupting the worship of the temple and by challenging their economic base: "My house shall be a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of robbers" (Luke 20:45-46).

Jesus' anger is clear in the scene's description. He took direct public action, and his behavior was bold and startling to all those around. His action was deeply political and a fundamental challenge to the economy of the temple.

The temple authorities recognized a frontal assault on the religious and political establishment and demanded that Jesus explain what his authority was for doing such a thing. Jesus, using the image of the temple itself, pointed to his own resurrection as his authority.

That temple action sparked a chain of events which led to his crucifixion.

At his trials before the Sanhedrin, Herod and Pilate, Jesus showed little respect and no deference toward the instituted authority. Rather, he risked antagonizing them in his answers to their questions and with his lack of cooperation.

But Jesus not only confronted the reigning authorities directly, he initiated a whole new way of living which undermined the entire system upon which their rule was based. This new order, which relied on the power of love, and hewed suffering and servanthood rather than violence and domination, represented a profound threat to leaders of the establishment. It was such a threat, in fact, that they marked him for death.

Easter is a season of hope. It is my hope that this Holy Week and Easter day become a wake-up call to Christians who support Trump in spite of the clear teachings of their Christian faith.

For example, might those Christians who supported Trump out of a political Supreme Court strategy to protect the unborn — and who have just notched what they consider a victory in the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to fill Antonin Scalia's open seat — start to call for some consistency from their President in protecting all of the vulnerable during all of their lives?

Jesus' clash with the ruling religious and political authorities of his day surely has a message for us this Easter season. Yet the idea that the gospel lives in conflict with the ruling axioms and authorities of the American nation still sends tremors through a church that has fought so hard to achieve majority status.

We still want to make the gospel compatible with our cultural desires and loyalties. But we can't.

Most of us have yet to fully realize the enormous distance between the culture to which we are so tied and the gospel we espouse. We have greatly underestimated the disruption and struggle that genuine conversion will occasion in our lives.

The message is the same in each case. Suffering is the natural consequence of living the gospel; joy and strength are the fruits of suffering for the sake of Christ.

Perhaps the most grievous thing about the white American church today is the absence of suffering and struggle. It is, in fact, our fear of suffering that has extinguished the possibility of real joy.

It is a great mystery, this relationship between suffering and joy, weakness and strength. But to those who have known it, it has been the deepest of all human experiences.

Such is the rhythm of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. We are invited to follow Jesus as he heads toward Jerusalem where power resides, to enter into his sufferings and to feel the power of his resurrection.

It has never made sense. But the truth of it has been confirmed in the experience of Christians who, since the beginning, have been willing to take the risk. A faith refined by fire is the testimony of all Christians who now suffer for the sake of the gospel. And that is what has always changed the world, often sparking the greatest social movements, instead of merely accommodating to it.

Entering the sufferings of Christ in our own situation offers the American church its only real future. The time is rapidly approaching when we will no longer be able to avoid this reality. To avoid the path of suffering is to remain ignorant of Jesus; to embrace it is to learn intimacy with Christ.

Our hunger for security and success has taken away our appetite for the gospel. May we seek the grace to enter into an authentic and biblical faith, to stand with the poor and vulnerable, and to become faithful again.

Wallis is president and founder of Sojourners and author of "America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to a New America."

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/a...icle-1.3056807