Donald Trump

Jim Wallis 2-06-2020

President Donald Trump delivers a speech as Vice President Mike Pence, his wife Karen Pence, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) look on at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., Feb. 6, 2020. REUTERS/Leah Millis

I did not attend the National Prayer Breakfast this morning, though I have done so in the past. The longtime Washington tradition brings together members of Congress from both political parties along with thousands of faith leaders, and every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has attended. But this is not a time in our nation for habitual or vague prayers for an audience, given the moral and political crisis we now find ourselves in — or one that starts with the president of the United States holding up a newspaper headline saying “Acquitted,” and quickly invoking an impeachment process corrupted by partisan politics.

the Web Editors 1-24-2020

Marchers rally at the Supreme Court during the 46th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. Jan. 18, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

On Friday, President Donald Trump prepared to be the first U.S. president to attend the March for Life, the annual gathering of anti-abortion activists and faith groups in Washington, D.C., just after Vice President Mike Pence met with Pope Francis during an unusually long audience at the Vatican.

Jim Wallis 1-16-2020

FILE PHOTO: The two articles of impeachment of President Donald Trump await the signature of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Jan. 15, 2020. REUTERS/Leah Millis

Two years ago, Sojourners magazine released our February 2018 cover story, asking the question, “Is This a Bonhoeffer Moment?” This week, the board of directors of the International Bonhoeffer Society — an organization dedicated to research and scholarship on the life and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer — issued an answer from their discernment.

Adam Russell Taylor 12-18-2019

Demonstrators gather to demand the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump during a rally at Times Square, New York City, Dec. 17, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

We can respect a diversity of Christian opinion around whether impeachment is the necessary and only remedy to the president’s actions and whether the president’s offenses rise to the constitutional level of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” But what I can’t understand or respect are direct efforts to subvert the truth, deflect attention, and defend the indefensible.

The scriptures assigned to the church during these days of hopeful waiting are filled with warnings against unjust rulers. This is repeated frequently in the Psalms, in the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and in the prayerful praise offered by Mary. The Magnificat, whose words are sung and prayed hundreds of thousands of times during these days, speak forcefully about the demise of the proud and conceited — and rulers who act like tyrants.

The articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump lie on the clerk's desk on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 13, 2019. REUTERS/Erin Scott

A Democratic-controlled House of Representatives committee approved charges of abuse of power and obstruction against Republican President Donald Trump on Friday, making it almost certain he will become the third American president in history to be impeached.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) speaks to reporters with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.); House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.); House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.); House Oversight and Reform Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.); and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) during a news conference to announce artiicles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill. Dec. 10, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Democrats announced formal charges against President Donald Trump on Tuesday that accuse him of abusing power and obstructing Congress, making him only the third U.S. president in history to face impeachment.

Jim Wallis 10-24-2019

And yet, despite these positive global examples, our situation in the United States is not unique. There are autocratic would-be strong men all over the world. They're rising, and none of them are known to practice servant leadership. They’re known as corrupt. They’re known as unprincipled. They’re known as perpetual liars. They’re known as people who are serving themselves, people who are serving their own wealth and power, but not serving those around them. And while we are in a time where this authoritarian style is on the rise, it’s as old as humanity itself.

Jim Wallis 10-10-2019

This challenge to dismantle white supremacy and build a beloved community is one that white Christians need to undertake for the sake of their own obedience to God. Those of us who are white need to realize that this challenge and calling isn't for other people. It isn't for people of color who white people need to help.

Sam Cabral 10-09-2019

During Obama’s second term, less than 50 percent of active federal judges were white men for the first time in American history, according to the Congressional Research Service. In under two years, President Donald Trump has reversed that trend. He has so far successfully appointed 152 individuals to judgeships in the federal circuit and district courts, of which 60 percent are white males. He has also filled two vacancies on the Supreme Court with conservative white males.

Jim Wallis 8-29-2019

Image via Shutterstock/ Kim Kelley-Wagner  

As a result of the political, religious, and moral crises we face today, both the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith are now at stake. This crisis is fundamentally about our chance and our choice of whether those who call themselves Christians are ready to go back to the teachings of Jesus, and whether such a call might be taken up by others beyond the churches. Many of us share a deep hunger for reclaiming Jesus instead of falling into more political polarization — we want theology to trump politics.

Jim Wallis 8-06-2019

Illustration by David Plunkert

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. —1 Timothy 2:1-4

This is a scripture passage that’s been on my heart quite a bit this summer, really since Donald Trump took office in January 2017. On the surface, it seems challenging to reconcile this instruction to offer thanksgiving to God for Trump, whose tenure in the highest elected position in the United States (and perhaps the world) has been filled with so much amorality and cruelty to so many groups of vulnerable people that, in Matthew 25, Jesus calls us to protect.

Baltimore, Maryland. Image via REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

While we shouldn’t be sucked into Trump’s sinister game of getting distracted by and responding to every outrageous and egregious tweet or statement, there is also a corrosive and malignant danger of remaining silent. If we are silent, the cancer of racism will become more and more acceptable and normalized, emboldening white nationalists and supremacists and leaving already vulnerable communities even more vulnerable.

Jim Wallis 7-18-2019

 Image via REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

If we hear silence from white people of faith, we are in deep spiritual trouble. Christian moral objection to the president’s racist language must grow every day and from many quarters, but so farno word at all from the president’s most prominent evangelical supporters. Those Trump supporters have other issues and moral concerns, including differences with Democrats on abortion (as others of us do too); but will they call out the President on racism? That has now become an urgent moral and theological test.

Ed Spivey Jr. 7-03-2019

Illustration by Ken Davis

AS WE MOVE into the hottest part of the summer and the likelihood that only two-thirds of the planet’s species will survive until the next election (oddly, presidential candidates as a species seem to be increasing), two things occur to me:

• I forgot to work on my beach body over the winter. And now it’s too late. (Next year, baby!)

• This might be a good time to check in on that climate change panel the Trump administration formed a few months ago.

The panel still has no official name, although any reference to it is usually preceded by “ad hoc,” which is Latin for “spitting distance.” It’s not clear if that distance is from reality, but we have a guess.

Eerdmans

WHITE EURO-AMERICAN Christianity is dying, according to Miguel A. De La Torre, and from his point of view, its death is necessary. It has distorted the gospel with Euro-American nationalist ideals that benefit white communities at the expense of communities of color—heretical beliefs grounded in fear and exclusion, rather than love. In Burying White Privilege: Resurrecting a Badass Christianity, De La Torre deconstructs Donald Trump’s abundant evangelical support. In doing so, he offers guidance on how Christians can move forward.

Whiteness lies, he explains. It lies about the superiority of particular beliefs and nations. And this superiority complex has led to a lot of violence being done under the name of Christianity, including displacement, slavery, and genocide.

Peniel Ibe 7-01-2019

Illustration by Matt Chase

SINCE MY ARRIVAL in the U.S., I have looked forward to the day that I could enjoy the security of American citizenship. But as a green card holder of African origin, I now watch the Trump administration ramp up efforts to strip hundreds of naturalized Americans of their citizenship. With the establishment of a “denaturalization” task force, the supposed permanence of citizenship has become insecure.

In 2019, the Trump administration requested $207.6 million to review 700,000 immigrant files and develop elaborate efforts to punish people for past mistakes by denaturalizing them. As many keep their eyes on Trump’s pet project, the southern “border wall,” the administration continues to use taxpayers’ funds to construct harmful, longer-lasting obstacles to citizenship.

Jim Wallis 5-31-2019

Special Counsel Robert Mueller makes a statement on his investigation into Russian interference in Washington, May 29, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

The “I” word, which Donald Trump calls it, is, of course, “impeachment” — the constitutional process of charging and, then in the Senate, convicting, a president for abusing the public trust and committing wrongdoing. The Constitution says that a president “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” That is what is politically required — as the specifics for impeachment are ultimately politically decided. The other key word here is “crimes,” and who has the authority to conclude that they have been done by a president.

FILE PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks at the National Association of Realtors' Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo in Washington, May 17, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

The Mueller report is all but forgotten — its limited focused also not remembered. Mueller’s assignment was to look only at Russian interference in the election and the possibility of a criminal conspiracy with the Trump campaign to assist this. Opponents of Trump labeled this “collusion.” Weeks before the report’s release, I argued that no such conspiracy would be found because none was needed. Putin detested Hillary and his apparatus of political infiltration was smart enough to know how to undermine her campaign. It did.

David P. Gushee 4-25-2019

TO UNDERSTAND THE TRUMP PHENOMENON, which is at least in large part about race, I decided to read. Instead of reading more white people wrestling with what has gone wrong with white people, I, a white man, focused on African-American sources, mainly novels.

This move was first suggested to me by womanist ethicist Katie Cannon, who read the novelist Zora Neale Hurston as a primary source. I, too, began with Hurston, and then couldn’t stop. For two years, I have been reading classic novels by African-American authors, seeking an answer to these questions: How do black characters experience white people? How do they describe white Christian people’s morality and religion? The answers are clear—and devastating.