by Victoria Linner
A core tenet of my Christian faith is that God cares about how people experience their everyday lives. God’s care for our daily living is demonstrated in the Incarnation, God’s entering into human life.
Jesus’ life on Earth has taught us that life on Earth matters. Christians who are solely interested in personal salvation in the afterlife have missed this vital and foundational point of Jesus’ ministry. Historically, some of the greatest harm done on Earth has been by Christians who have prioritized conversion over taking care of people and meeting their physical needs.
In Matthew 25: 31-46, Jesus describes a scenario where He judges the nations and separates everyone into two groups. One group cared for the most vulnerable people by providing sustenance to the hungry and thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, taking care of the sick, and visiting the imprisoned. The other group did not care for the physical needs of the poorest around them. This group asks, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?” And the Lord answers, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”1
This passage of scripture teaches us that Jesus is the most vulnerable among us. Jesus is the foreigner. Jesus is the sick. Jesus is the prisoner.
It is painfully clear to me that the members of the current administration who claim to be Christians have a very different view of Jesus than I do. This administration is following a god of violence, greed, patriarchy, white supremacy, and pedophilia.
“America First” is not a message that is compatible with the teachings of Jesus, who says that those who are first now will be last in the Kingdom of Heaven.
The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” “expands, or implements more than $4.5 trillion in tax breaks — mostly for billionaires — while making more than $1 trillion in cuts to programs that many rely on for health care, adequate nutrition, and student loans.”2 These cuts to social programs such as SNAP and Medicaid works against feeding the hungry and healing the sick.
The current administration still has not released the entirety of the Epstein files. They are protecting rapists instead of working towards justice for survivors.
This administration has weaponized ICE to target minorities and anyone standing up for them. They are kidnapping people, assaulting people, and even killing people all under the guise of creating a safer America. Jesus taught an ethic of nonviolence and was a victim of state violence himself.
The entirety of the current administration’s agenda is protecting the power and wealth of the powerful and wealthy at the expense of everyone else. This is the opposite of Jesus’ teaching.
Christian politics should be about creating governmental policies and systems that prioritize the people who have the least, not the people who have the most. Christian politics should be about making food, water, and healthcare accessible to as many people as possible, especially those who cannot provide for themselves.
I’ve heard Christians say that they don’t support government welfare programs because welfare is the responsibility of individuals and the church. Is the goal feeling good about our own personal piety or meeting people’s needs? Just like a church can do more than individuals through the pooling of resources, I believe that the government can do more than churches. So, in an ideal world our government would utilize our pooled resources to the betterment of all.
How exactly to create and implement these kinds of policies is not necessarily easy or straightforward, but the principle is clear. Following Jesus is about furthering the Kingdom of God here on Earth. It’s about building communities and societies embedded with justice, mutual support, and care for the most vulnerable.
The United States of America collectively has never come close to realizing Jesus’ vision of righteousness. It is wrong on so many levels to claim that we are a Christian nation. And I, as a Christian, do not want to live in a “Christian nation” because I, as an American, believe in Freedom of Religion and the separation of Church and State. I do think a secular government can be more Christ-like through the prioritization of protecting the poor and taking care of people’s physical needs.
[1] Matthew 25:44-45 NRSVUE
[2] https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/trumps-one-big-beautiful-bill-act-explained/