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We Belong, Not to Ourselves, but to Christ:
A Theological Declaration in North America, 20251
Old Professors Association (OPA)
Section I: Our Challenging Situation
Christians in the United States today face a grave challenge to our differentiated common
biblical and theological heritage. Christian Nationalism and its alliance with the MAGA
movement are particularly disconcerting. While Christian Nationalists have apparently
convinced themselves and their supporters that their perspectives and priorities are shaped by
their Christian identity and by an avid patriotic fervor, their overall political project
is inconsistent with Scripture and the constitutional heritage of this country. Of course, Christian
Nationalists and their allies simply deny or ignore the clear direction of both Holy Scripture and
the US Constitution. It is imperative, therefore, that we collectively and individually respond
faithfully, truthfully, empathically, and effectively.
Of course, the surfeit of destructive actions—the “flooding the zone,” so to speak— taken by the
Trump administration that are fully and unreflectively supported by his Christian Nationalist
base, makes it difficult to respond quickly, effectively, and comprehensively. In general terms,
President Trump and his supporters have emphatically expressed the following and they keep
pouring it on.
- autocratic inclinations and admiration for dictatorial political leaders throughout
the world; - attack on the integrity of elections in this country and so also an attack against the
democratic ideal in general; - plutocratic and patrimonial domination of United States political life;
- disregard of the constitutionally prescribed checks, balances, and powers specific to the
legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the federal government; - abandonment of constitutional principles of religious freedom and the separation of
church and state; - the intent to fuse church and state, the consequences of which can only be the submission
of the church to the state or the submission of the state to the church.
Any one of these general dispositions of the Trump administration are sufficient cause for grave
concern. Our Christian conviction compels us first to address the wrongs of the final two bulleted
items. But because we give them priority under the confession that we belong to Christ, we then
understand that we must also do all we can as Christians serving the neighbor and as thoughtful
citizens to redress governmental wrongdoing. With this mind, which we humbly pray is with the
mind of Christ, we offer this statement simply as a group of retired professors of theology,
missiology, political science, and more.
1 The title is inspired by the Heidelberg Catechism 1563, Q. 1, A. 1.
2- We do not pretend to be thorough or expert in all respects. Nor are our comments polished and
“final.” This statement is a compendium of many voices and hands. It surely could yet be
smoothed more by one stylistic voice and hand. It could be simpler and shorter, too. But the
events of the day are so compounding that we can wait no longer to communicate our sense of
urgency to the church, country, and world. It does not have and cannot have the clear finality of,
say, a Barmen Declaration. Necessarily, we must speak to the moment, trusting that the Holy
Spirit will communicate truth beneath and between our halting, if ample words. And so, we
present this document to you—our former students, constituents, friends, siblings in Christ—as
an invitation for reflection, dialogue, collaboration, teaching, and proclamation in your own
contexts. We also welcome your constructive criticism of this statement. Perhaps it eventually
will find completion as a more refined and final publication form for a yet broader audience. We
welcome your partnership in advancing our common and deep concern.
As scholars of religion who for decades have been dedicated to the formation and education of
religious leaders, the times compel us to provide a word of guidance and encouragement for our
cherished former students, colleagues, and constituents. Given our and your religiously plural
character, we do not offer this word as a prescriptive confession of faith, though surely our
ecumenical and interreligious consensus spur our attempt at a common word for the public.
Indeed, we individually commit further to confessing and professing the faith in the terms of
our particular religious communities for the upbuilding of our common witness to God’s highest
desire: that all human siblings would “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God”
(Micah 6:8). This is at least our common Abrahamic understanding of our moral vocation. Much
more, we pray that people of all faiths or no faith can find in this statement seeds for their own
expressions of moral conviction. Should our readers choose to use any of our counsel as a
resource for articulating your own response to the current dire situation of our nation’s
political order, we will be grateful and heartened. We so need mutual consolation and
encouragement for the doing of faith’s proper consequences of love, justice, and mercy.
Because they defaulted to diplomatic, nuanced, and subjunctively-laden statements, the churches
of the Nazi era largely failed to be heard or understood. It was mostly after Naziism’s loss that
statements of protest such as the Barmen Declaration, Pius XII’s Christmas Sermons, and the
German Bishops’ Fulda Declaration became known and regularly referenced. The language of
church leadership this time must be clear, pointed, and powerful.
Section 3: Biblical Bases to En-Courage our Vocations
Of course, every reader can readily and appropriately turn to many biblical passages that do not
merely support “after the fact” our present concern and proposed action. The whole biblical arc
with the climax of the gospel message of God’s free and gracious gift of justification not only
supports but calls forth our service of love in the personal and public-political spheres. Here we
suggest particular biblical bases of deep meaning for us from an Abrahamic religious
perspective.
Israel’s traditions, many of which are preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures, portray the character
of God that is the heart of Christian belief and life. That heart is paradigmatically preserved in
the Shema Israel (Exodus 34:6–7). “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow
to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the
thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the
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guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the
third and the fourth generation.” God’s grace and mercy, steadfast love, faithfulness, and
forgiveness predominate.
This characterization of God is like a creed so that passages in Psalms and Jonah presuppose it:
“I knew that you (God) are gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast
love, and ready to relent from punishing” (Jonah 4:2). To be sure the Shema also indicts
inequity, and with this shifts to a significant part of anthropology. Conventionally this has been
associated with divine vengeance “visiting the iniquity of parents upon the children and the
children’s children,” but it is also a part of reality that human behavior has consequences. We
know of such consequences in our American experiences of treating the indigenous peoples and
of slavery. Religious faith in its use and abuse has affected deeply our own “American”
anthropology and winds yet now through the present crisis.
Our political ethics or lack thereof impinge on and reveal the correctness of Christology, too,
which, of course, since Jesus expresses the will of God, reflects on our understanding of God. At
the heart of Christology (and recalling again the implications of a Christology of the Cross stated
above) is that Jesus turns in caring love to the poor and downtrodden, is a friend of tax collectors
and sinners, and gives himself in love for the sake of others. Jesus’s remarks in Matthew 25:35–
36 set a standard for the behavior of his followers: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was
thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked
and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited
me.” Paul paid this gift forward in his Letter to the Philippians, “. . . in humility regard others as
better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interest of
others” (Phillipians 2:3-4). Repeatedly scriptural texts urge hospitality to strangers/foreigners
(Romans 12:13; Hebrews 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9). It is patently obvious that this disturbingly shocks
those whose faith is in “America first” and who thus so blithely withhold care from the needy
neighbor far off or near.
To profess and confess Christ as King, however, raises the ante of love’s risks. In Israel the king
was to be the shepherd of the people who saw to the administration of justice, God’s mercy to
widows, orphans, the poor and needy, repeatedly characterized in Royal Psalms. Jesus built upon
that premise and set up the following contrast with secular rule: “You know that the rulers of the
Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among
you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be
first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,
and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)
Spes Viatorum – Hope Along the Way
The time is foreboding. But it is not hopeless. Our words of resistance and correction may feel
like so much spitting against the wind. The simple fact is that our vocations (particularly as
professional leaders of faith communities) may be relationally and financially imperiled by our
words of faithfulness to the Word. Our very citizenship may be tested. But no provocations of
worry are final. Malfeasant political and religious authorities will strive to steal the joy from our
service. They only verify what Isaiah said “here I am” (Isaiah 6:8) to before he even heard the
job description. He would go tell of God’s glorious justice and mercy to people who would hear
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but never understand. He would have to proclaim the word until no audience was left, until it
was wasted, until the hardest of trees were burnt and cut down. Even so—even so! — the word
and will of God will stand forever, “the holy seed is its stump” (Isaiah 6:13) and the green sprout
of justice will spring forth again. So, we praise and obey God, not Caesar, and we run with
renewed vigor in the race before us.
Why This Statement?
An existential threat to our religious freedom and democracy has now formally installed itself in
all three federal sectors of the United States government. The threat is religious and political.
The threat comes in the collective voice of authorities who advocate an exclusivistic religiouslycolored ideology allied with a fascist agenda. An exclusivistic distortion of Christian faith is a
harm enough to require an ecumenical theologically orthodox counter-challenge to the heresy of
Christian Nationalism, aka Christian Fascism. About this we have yet to see any denominational
corrective answer. That Christan Fascism is intentionally political and partisan requires a
response broader than strictly ecumenical theology. A sufficient corrective also must be
historically, philosophically, legally, and constitutionally informed. Of course, we here are
unable to speak so broadly and deeply. But we can voice major objections and ask necessary
questions prompted by our professions and faith traditions while we invite further alliance of
persons with such expertise.
We believe that our allegiance to Christ demands that we stand with and for all people, no matter
their religious or non-religious identities, who suffer persecution, disrespect, and devaluation
simply because they are of a color, gender orientation, economic class, or partisan political
persuasion other than the ruling regime. Christ was and is on the side of those who do not get to
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choose sides. Christ’s answer to a mere politician’s question was that Christ’s kingdom was not
of this world, meaning Pilate’s world of truthlessness, venality, self-preservation and selfinflation, a world in which the value of other persons is only that which serves the powerful.
Christ’s kingdom is greater in every way than the worlds of narcissists, power-lusters, and
would-be totalitarians. Christ’s kingdom of love is where the only totality is the love that raises
the suffering and the dead to real lives of mercy, justice, and joy. Our own Christian
empowerment from this cruciform kingdom of love impels us then here to write and act on
behalf of all. Christian faith is no faith if it does not serve people of all and no faith.
Having stated our impassioned theological and moral convictions, we now turn to some
necessary abstractions that have codified and guided Christian life and witness for two millennia.
We remind our readers of two Christian premises and one grand ethical premise that reverberates
throughout humankind as a kind of “common law.” The grand premise echoes through political
theology and political philosophy in the Western tradition at least since Cicero and reverberates
in almost all religions on the global scale. In Christian theology we point to the so-called
doctrine of Two-Kingdoms/Two Governances, the shaping of which has evolved since its
origination by Augustine. Related to Two Governances, we point to that doctrine’s implication
that Christians must object in any situation wherein an authority, political or religious, claims
superiority over Christian faith’s essential convictions. Lutheranism and Calvinism, for example,
are explicit on this criteriological point of when a declaration of in statu confessionis must be
made, even to the point of not obeying political authorities in a seeming suspension of Romans
13:1. In The Epistle to the Romans (2nd edition, 1921), Karl Barth called attention to how
Romans 12:21, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” qualifies all that
follows in Romans 13. As for a particularly “common law,” we have in mind the trans-religious
commonality of the so-called “Golden Rule,” itself a universal affirmation of innate human
dignity that begat the political democratic concept of individual human sovereignty. Below
(section 3) we comment further on these three items, followed in section 4 by other general
observations that can be helpful for moral discernment and action.
Two Governances and Criteria for Resistance
Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other leaders of the Reformation articulated differently nuanced
understandings of what came to be known as the doctrine of Two Kingdoms. The helpful
functional title of “Two Governances” underscores the conviction, inherited from St. Augustine,
that God governs in two ways over the spiritual and political orders. For the former God appoints
pastoral authorities whose primary duties are to proclaim the Gospel and administer the
sacraments, i.e., attend to the spiritual instruction and care of God’s people, equipping them (us)
for faith active in love toward the neighbor. For the political order, whose inhabitants are not
necessarily Christian or religious, authorities are appointed to care for the common good by
protecting society with law and law enforcement, as well as to promote all possibilities for the
advancement of individual human dignity and societal justice. Again, the mandate to love the
neighbor is central in the duty of political governance. Political governance is to be guided not
by the spiritual realm’s priority of religious faith active in love, but by love’s requirement of
reason.
The concern properly to distinguish between Gospel and Law informed Luther’s iteration of Two
Governances; the spiritual domain is to be ruled by the Gospel and the political domain by the
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Law. But that was not and is not the all of it, and to state it only in this way understates and
undercuts the doctrine. That the authorities of the medieval church had so lusted for and usurped
political power led to neglecting the spiritual needs of the faithful. Reciprocally, political
authorities not only sought authorization for their positions from the mouths and hands of church
officials. The civil authorities also favored bringing their own agendas into the policies and
practices of the church. This too led to neglect of the social needs required for peaceable life
together. The Hippocratic principle of “do no harm” has its correlate in political governance.
When priests and politicians danced together without agreement about who led, they stepped on
more than each other’s feet. Thus, the Reformers saw it necessary to delimit the role of bishops
so that the spiritual lives of the faithful were again served above all else.
One might infer, then, that Luther and other reformers advocated something akin to our notion of
the separation of church and state in the United States, but Two Governances is not simply to be
equated with it. First, Two Governances does not mean two different ways of administering two
different but equal domains. The spiritual domain transcends the material and the political. It is
eschatological. The spiritual domain suffuses consciences and hearts. It evokes from them the
tenderness of holiness that comes from God the holy and wholly other by God’s own choice.
Further, the being of God as communal graces human beings with the reciprocal desire of
communion with God and with each other. Intimate and transcendent communion with God,
with each other, and with all the creation are the gifts and goals of the speech and governance of
the spiritual domain. We know these as “gifts of the Spirit,” including faith, hope, love, humility,
forgiveness, mercy, justice, and more.
But we also know that such graces (such fruits) do not wholly characterize the demography of
material political reality. In the worst cases, overt ego seeks domination. Natural communality is
fractured by individualism and its obeisance to the totalitarian impulse. By history’s long list of
bad fruits we know this. And the consumerist impulse to feed on bad fruit leads directly to
oligarchic economies and their necessarily fascistic forms of self-protection over and against the
concern for all people. Clearly they have no concern for “the least of these.” The Golden Rule
had been regarded as a common law. Luther understood it to be the direct secular correlate to
Christ’s command to love the neighbor as one loves one’s self. He regarded this “moral law” as
“lodged in the conscience.” It is also important to note that Christ radicalizes the command by
urging the disciples to love each other as Christ loves them. The language of neighbor love, like
the descriptive language of human dignity and the inter-religious language of “image of God,”
works in the secular domain in a way that a prescriptive language of a Christian Nationalist or
any religious language stipulation cannot and must not.
Indeed, the imposition of any specifically denominational religious language in the secular order
attacks the dignity and autonomy of human individuals whatever their religious or non-religious
identity. Reformation era Christians understood this aspect of sociology, notwithstanding the
basic homogeneity of their culture, intuiting but not naming what was emerging as democratic
pluralism. Roman Catholicism affirms this, not least as a warrant for and implication of the
Vatican II Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions (Nostra
Aetate). Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitates Humanae) and its Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) are deeply relevant to this
discussion, too. In sum, one does not well serve the grace of one’s spiritual conviction by
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reducing it to an imposing political fiat. One does not even evince a truly spiritual inspiration by
reducing and equating the language of the spirit to the letter of law. The political sphere requires
more wisdom than can be had in a religious claim of domination. Imposing religion on others
undercuts the very etymological point of religion—which is to re-ligament, to reconnect all the
ligaments, for the sake of the health of the whole common body.
Yet we remember, too, that religious faith and the political common good are not and cannot be
wholly separate. Two Governances recognizes that they do have common values that all people
can appreciate. It is not “anti-Christian” or anti-religion to rule by the common and secular
terms. All can “see” this. Also, eyes of faith see that the traces of God pervade all the
universe. Those differently sighted appreciate the traces and can be inspired by them while
naming them differently. Augustine’s City of God, which he wrote as a scathing critique of the
maladministration of the Roman political order, still affirmed the secular as the “staging ground”
for the spiritual. There were, he argued, secular ways to anticipate the final, endless, joyful and
beautiful reign of God. They still are. By affirming the integrity of secularity (not secularism),
we affirm a consonant political ordering that attends to that integrity, as we affirm a cordial
relationship between the material and the transcendent and, analogously, a cordial and mutually
respective relationship between the language of the political to the eschatological language of the
spiritual. The spiritual realm is not equal to the political realm, but does and must respect it.
We alluded above to the misuse of Romans 13 as an argument for obeying always the governing
authorities. It is the common recourse of Christian literalists when defending certain political
authorities. However, it is important that the use of Romans 13 to legitimate political powers is
balanced by the Book of Revelation, particularly Revelation 13. There Christians who wish to
participate in God’s kingdom are thoroughly admonished to resist to the end Roman culture and
politics legitimated by the imperial cult complete with a priesthood and temples. Tragically, the
use of Paul’s words here were most flattened with a non-contextual literalistic interpretation
when used as a cudgel to bring the German church to heel under the Third Reich. In a non- (or
even anti) eschatological horizon of understanding one cannot avoid the painful opposition
between Jesus’ command to do no harm to “these little ones” and Paul’s words as seeming to
defend all of history’s Neros. This is where justifications of literalism and Christian Nationalism
could be no more unfaithful to Christ. Christ reigns in and over the larger-dimensioned spirited
kingdom, wherein his and Paul’s words and horizon of understanding cannot be collapsed with
the political realm’s lesser language of law. A further description of the relation and difference
between the eschatological and the historical-political is a complicated one to which we can only
point, but yet for our purposes here emphatically assert. We must put this matter simply and
encourage readers to study and pray further. It must suffice now to argue that the counsel to obey
Caesar in “all” things means to obey only when Caesar’s will accords with God’s will. When
Caesar counters God, there is no other faithful choice than to object, denounce, and disobey
Caesar. This is another way of stating what it means to be in statu confessionis in even an interreligious manner.
Finally, Two Governances prescribes mutual respect. The respect is mutual and because of the
mutuality both governances must correct the other when that other fails in its duties. The Two
Governances doctrine means that religion pastorally instructs political authority when it does not
attend to or goes beyond its particular duties, and vice-versa. Both governances are committed in
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their respective ways to the care of all people and creation. This means that both governances
have the responsibility to bless the life and service of each other and to instruct insofar as
instruction does not commandeer the domain of the other. Recent examples of instruction of
government by religious leaders like Pope Francis, the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, lawsuits brought by the Mennonite Church and many ecclesial co-signers show how
this can be done.
The Profane and Sacred Use of Scripture
Much of the theological and political crisis today has been influenced by the long practiced malinterpretation and misuse of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. It has become readily
apparent that numerous Christians in the Unites States treat Scripture as if it were a wax nose
that can be twisted and shaped to one’s liking. As a result, abuse of Scripture, rather than careful
and faithful interpretation, is prevalent within the diverse Christian community. Instead
of interpreting Scripture as led by the Gospel, Christian Nationalist leaders and followers impose
their own ideology on Scripture. They skew the scriptural, ignoring historical and sociological
contextuality and ascribing post-19th century biases of class, gender, literalism (which is never
actually literal), and legal positivism upon the scriptural message. Thereby Christian
Nationalists transform Christ into their own patrimonial image rather than seeking personal
transformation into Christ’s image through the work of the Holy Spirit.
The living way of Christ with the dispossessed, Christ’s preaching and teaching, and the message
of the rest of Scripture therefore are often contradicted by realities in our contemporary culture
and by the actions and programmatic priorities of Mr. Trump and his supporters, including those
who claim a Christian identity. Biblical ethical ideals, a basic sense of social solidarity, a concern
to foster the common good, and empathy for people in need have been abandoned or certainly
ignored. The personal moral behavior of political candidates is no longer a criterion for electing
or rejecting those candidates. Honesty, consensual sexual relations, respect for fellow human
beings, humility, compassion, and a willingness to negotiate are viewed as weaknesses rather
than as biblically warranted ideals and admirable and necessary human traits. Instead,
sexism, white supremacy, homophobia, xenophobia, the quest for power, and ecological
indifference are promoted or readily acceptable to many politicians and a significant percentage
of the voting public. The brutal and dangerous nature and consequences of some of the
politicians’ policies and actions are intentionally ignored. The glorification of violence and its
alliance with the Christian faith manifest in such slogans as “God, guns, and guts” obviously
contradict Christ’s servant ministry and the consistent biblical emphasis on neighbor love.
Despite their claims, Christian Nationalists and the MAGA movement are neither faithfully
Christian nor loyally patriotic. Their proof-texted claim of the president as a messianic figure as
justification for their agenda of forcefully Christianizing the nation is ironically anti-Christian
precisely because it materially denies the lordship of the crucified and risen Christ over all the
creation. Further, insofar as forceful Christianization (as is the agenda of Project 2025) per their
skewed articulation of Christianity intends and imposes further suffering on already suffering
people—the poor, people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ persons, refugees, those who until
recently had received help from USAID, the newly and forcefully unemployed, those whose
economic privacy has been raided, students whose access to education has been stripped from
them, the tens of millions who will suffer the long-reverberating secondary effects of the
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aforementioned and more— the intention places the intenders clearly against the crucified Christ
who always is on the side of those who do not get to choose sides. That God raised from the dead
the crucified Christ who stood with all people abused by injustice means that God judges as
guilty those who do not so stand. In so practically denying the image of God within every
person, the Christian Nationalist agenda therefore is anti-Christ. In so substituting its fascist
favor for Christian faith, Christian Nationalism is atheistic. In so commanding public space with
its message of militaristic and now evidently imperialistic MAGAism, opting for “great” over
Christ’s humility of love, Christian Nationalism is arrogant heresy.
Yet, it is readily apparent that individual Christians and Christian communities who oppose the
MAGA movement and disagree in significant ways with MAGA-supporting Christians have
failed to propose persuasive alternatives to the message and the religious, social, and
political influence of Christian Nationalism. Although public statements of specific Christian
denominations and of individual Christians have challenged the theological perspectives,
political ideologies, and social agendas of the dominant Christian voices, those statements and
the convictions that inform them have been successfully dismissed as “woke,” too far to the
“left,” and contrary to Scripture. As Christians address contemporary realities in the church and
society and strive to foster wholesome changes, Christian siblings who have too often been
silenced, ignored, disrespected, and marginalized must be encouraged and welcomed to
share their experiences; their perspectives; and their vision of justice, equity, and neighbor
love. That means that Christians who are members of hegemonic ethnic and social communities
will have to listen before they speak, observe before they act, and inquire before they assume that
their own experiences, convictions, and priorities are normative and constructive for all,
including subaltern communities. Christ’s words and actions should, of course, be normative for
all Christians.
Christian Vocation Includes Work of Justice and Mercy
Disciples of Christ must not despair, remain silent, retreat into like-minded communities, or
simply bide their time with the hope that national priorities in the US will somehow be
transformed because of regular election cycles, because voters change their party loyalties, or
because more enlightened and responsible voices will prevail and dominate the media. Rather,
Christians have been freed to pursue their primary vocation as Christ’s followers faithfully and
diligently in order to effect necessary changes in societal priorities, programs, and actions. Jesus
clarified that vocation for the first disciples when Jesus commanded them to be
Christ’s witnesses throughout the world by proclaiming the radical good news of God’s
redemption. This apostolic vocation has always been and continues to be the chief calling of
Christians. Christians personally covenanted to follow this vocation in their baptisms and
subsequent baptismal affirmations. The gospel remains the Holy Spirit’s means of creating and
nurturing faith, and faith is the divine gift that reconciles human beings with God; makes
them members of Christ’s body, the church; and frees, inspires, and empowers them to love their
neighbors as Christ loves them. Because the gospel is God’s effective, transformative Word, its
proclamation and embodiment in the lives of Christians is essential for human beings to
be changed and freed to be altruistic, caring, and loving people who are eager to imitate Christ
and to foster the wellbeing of the whole creation.
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God’s people also have a prophetic calling. God chooses prophets to be God’s spokespeople
within their own communities and beyond. As God’s voices, they share words of judgment and
punishment and words of promise and grace. The prophetic vocation has been and continues to
be a challenging and dangerous one. It is essential, however, because the human condition and
the systems that humans create have been consistently infected by sin. God’s will for and God’s
promise to God’s people have also remained the same. Current ideologies, priorities, and actions
in our country and in our world often contradict God’s will revealed in Scripture and particularly
in the Christ. Change is necessary. Only God can birth such change, and, in God’s wisdom, God
chooses to accomplish God’s work in and through God’s people. Christians who are convinced
that the words and actions of many of this country’s current citizens and political leaders
contradict God’s Word and God’s will have been called by God to the prophetic task of
confronting evil wherever they see and experience it; of naming it; of opposing it; of speaking
truth to power. Confronting evil and naming it is never sufficient, however. Christians are
primarily called to proclaim the gospel and be “good news” for others. The gospel is God’s
means of transforming human beings into the image of Christ and freeing them to emulate Christ
in their lives. Proclaiming God’s good news is every Christian’s primary prophetic task.
Speaking faithfully and courageously is an essential work. However, as people of faith,
Christians are also enabled to accompany their words with loving and just actions, for faith
inevitably and necessarily manifests itself in the loving service of the neighbor. Thus, their faith
frees and inspires Christ’s disciples to stand with and support all whose humanity; civil
rights; physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing; economic resources; health care options;
educational opportunities; and vocational possibilities are compromised or curtailed by
the political leaders, policies, and systems that the majority of voters support. Engaging in the
quest for justice and in the pursuit of genuine neighbor love are essential aspects of the
Christians’ vocation as Christ’s disciples and imitators of Christ, and they exercise that vocation
through such activities as voting; participating in local political activities; providing monetary
support to social action, reform, and welfare agencies; joining letter-writing campaigns;
encouraging congregations and church bodies to support and participate in justice work;
advocating for and welcoming immigrants and refugees; fostering the care of the earth; and
accompanying and defending neighbors who face discrimination and exclusion
in their communities.
As they witness the gospel and point people to Christ with their words and actions, Christians are
also able to provide fellow Christians, as well as the society in general, with a model of
faithful, strategic, and empathic leadership. Such leadership is always beneficial, and it is surely
warranted in our time and place. The model is Christ. Jesus exemplified how power and
authority can be used for the benefit of the whole creation. The incarnate Christ turned hierarchy
upside down, exercised power with humility and love, and modeled faithful servant
leadership. Christ also frees and empowers people of faith to emulate His example. No human
ruler will be able to duplicate the ministry of the Son of God. However, Christ remains the ideal
model for all who claim to be Christ’s disciples, also for those who aspire to political office or,
for that matter, any other leadership position. This does not mean that
governmental authorities must or should be Christians or Christian nationalists.
Indeed, the panChristian praxis of justice and mercy best aligns with the Roman Catholic favor of the separation
of church and state as stated in Nostra Aetate and Dignitatis Humanae, both referenced above. It
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does mean, however, that all who have been entrusted with authority and power must strive to
love, serve, and honor the people whom they are privileged to serve rather than employing
their positions to dominate and to discriminate against them, to seek revenge against perceived
enemies, and to benefit themselves rather than their fellow human beings. Christian citizens of
this country would do well to expect and to urge their political leaders to manifest the leadership
ideals exemplified by Christ.
Christians should also support candidates and officials whose personal traits, stated and
demonstrated convictions, and policy commitments show promise of benefitting all segments of
our society. To promote such ideals, Christians in the United States need not become Christian
nationalists and abandon the constitutional ideals of the separation of church and state and of
religious freedom. It is important to recognize and affirm, however, that Christ’s example,
biblical and theological traditions, and the divine gift of faith are not only relevant for the divinehuman relationship.
They are, in fact, relevant for all aspects of life and should, therefore, inform
the civic and political commitments of Christians, including which political parties and platforms
and which political leaders they support. Those leaders may not be Christians, but they
should manifest the ideals of servant leadership that Jesus embodied.
It is essential that Christians explore and ground themselves in their biblical and theological
heritages and examine whether their beliefs, priorities, and actions are consistent with God’s will
as it is revealed in Scripture, particularly in Jesus the Christ. It is also advisable that Christians
and all other citizens of the United States develop or recover a greater understanding of world
history and of this country’s history. It is apparent that the joyous democratic triumphs of the last
half century, the successful development of cooperative international relationships and economic
alliances, the commitment to controlling nuclear proliferation, and the desire to respond
creatively and persistently to the global ecological crisis have been quickly forgotten,
intentionally ignored, or consciously reversed. As a result, the pollution of our planet continues,
renewed nationalistic fervor has emerged, economic alliances are strained, international
cooperation is on the wane, nuclear proliferation has resumed and the nuclear threat has
increased, and military aggression rather than diplomacy is preferred. The rejoicing that the fall
of the Soviet Empire and of the Berlin Wall inspired has been forgotten. Autocrats are admired,
and defenders of democracy are persecuted and incarcerated in some countries and disregarded
in others. The notion of patriotism has become skewed, and constitutional ideals are
misrepresented or functionally ignored. A keener understanding of and appreciation for history
challenges these developments, and it may inspire careful reflection on constructive and
destructive human behavior and a renewed commitment to ideals that have been abandoned,
even though they are consistent with the biblical heritage and clearly beneficial to human beings
and the rest of God’s wondrous creation.
In spite of the diverse challenges that are apparent in the United States and other parts of the
world, Christians need not despair since they are people of faith. The God who is the Creator,
Redeemer, and Sanctifier; who enlivens God’s people and nourishes them with the divine gifts of
word and sacrament; who has made promises to them throughout the ages and has fulfilled those
promises in the Christ; who hears and answers the prayers of God’s people; who inspires them to
be God’s means of hope, grace, and love in the world; and who walks with and before them and
prepares the future for them will never forsake God’s beloved creation. Christians always have
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good reasons to hope, to trust, and to expect renewal. After all, they place their trust in God, not
in themselves. However, they do not have the luxury of passively glorying in their hope. They
still have a divine vocation and, thus, the privilege and responsibility of being God’s voices,
hands, and feet in the world through whom and with whom God continues to accomplish God’s
transformative, life-giving, and life-enhancing work.
In sum, the election of Mr. Trump and J.D. Vance presents grave challenges to North American
ecumenical and progressive Christians. The challenges are not unlike those that faced the
Protestant and Roman Catholic communities with the rise of Nazism. The proudful “German
Christians” (Deutsche Christen) then had no sense of the anti-christic character of their agenda,
so skewed, indeed inverted, were they by their nationalistic and racist ideology. Todays’
Deutsche Christen, the even proud political leaders who proclaim their Christian Nationalism,
are in willful denial or have no clue as to their heretical claim. It will take real Christian acts of
love to heal them, our country, and the visible church.
Section 2: What then is to be done?
The churches must oppose verbally and through direct action the attempt to “normalize” the
current situation. 2024 was NOT a typical two-party national election. The MAGA movement
was not and is not the Republican Party that contested recent presidential elections. MAGA
wasn’t rooted in the usual hyperbole of previous national elections. Their campaign led by Mr.
Trump consistently lied throughout the election cycle. Recent post-election analysis
showed that the patten of constant lying convinced some people to cast their vote for the TrumpVance ticket.
Lying should rightfully be critiqued in light of the biblical commandment not to
bear “false witness against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:20)
Lying on the scale employed by the MAGA movement clearly contradicts the biblical emphasis on truthtelling, a commitment that many Christian churches reaffirmed in their signatures to the
international Global Ethic developed through various convenings of the Parliament of the
World’s Religions. The recent statement issued by the Conference of Bishops of the ELCA
denouncing lying can and should be used and amplified as one of many tactical pieces in
strategic response to the current situation. Lying does not refer only to speaking untruth. It
includes slander and pejorative rhetoric. The Churches must voice their objection to the
slandering of others by calling individuals derogatory names or characterizing groups (e.g.
immigrants or political opponents) with pejorative terms. One of the textbook characteristics of
fascism is appealing to prejudices. Scripture clearly forbids the slandering of fellow human
beings, and the Greek behind the English “slander” in Revelation 2:9 is “blasphemy.” Further,
slandering is directly reproached by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Insulting others is so
serious as to draw Jesus’s warning of the “hell of fire” (Matthew 5:22). Jesus denounces slander
in his Sermon on the Mount and announces that judgment against slander will include the “hell
of fire” (Matthew 5:22) and the Greek for “slander” in Revelation 2:9 is blasphemos. We
conclude that lying—the essential component of fascistic propaganda—is included in what
scripture calls the “unforgivable sin” (Mark 3:28-30). Given that if the Holy Spirit leads us into
all truth (John 16:13), and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgiveable, then surely
lying/slander against the very image of God in every human being must be opposed zealously by
justice-love.
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The Churches must educate their membership on how pronounced the difference is between
Christian social teaching and the Project 2025 document which clearly will provide the bedrock
of policy decisions for the Trump-Vance administration. Much, if not all, of what is projected as
new national policy by Project 2025 stands in direct contradiction to the social teachings of the
mainline churches. One clear example of this lies in Project 2025’s attitude towards ecological
responsibility that is urgently required by all societal institutions including the churches. What is
said in Project 2025 on climate change directly contradicts what is found in the writings of Pope
Francis in this area.
Churches must stand up against the marginalization of women and racial and religious minorities
in the present administration. The toleration of the abuse of women and the return to white
supremacy are intolerable realities in terms of the commitment to human rights by the churches.
Protestant churches must confront the growing religious nationalism within many of its
evangelical communities, and Roman Catholic leadership must challenge the majority vote for
the Trump—Vance administration. Church leadership chose to normalize the 2024 election
without making it clear that many of its policies and actions directly contradict Roman Catholic
social teaching.
The churches must stand up and confront the Trump-Vance proposal to clear the United States of
illegal immigration via mass deportation. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has pledged to
do this. Let us see if their words move on to action. The US needs a humane policy for
immigration, not the no-holds-barred plan of the MAGA movement. Pope Francis and other
religious leaders, as well as our numerous church-related service agencies now excoriated and
damaged by government officials, call for support of the migrants and refugees.
Section I: Our Challenging Situation
Christians in the United States today face a grave challenge to our differentiated common
biblical and theological heritage. Christian Nationalism and its alliance with the MAGA
movement are particularly disconcerting. While Christian Nationalists have apparently
convinced themselves and their supporters that their perspectives and priorities are shaped by
their Christian identity and by an avid patriotic fervor, their overall political project
is inconsistent with Scripture and the constitutional heritage of this country. Of course, Christian
Nationalists and their allies simply deny or ignore the clear direction of both Holy Scripture and
the US Constitution. It is imperative, therefore, that we collectively and individually respond
faithfully, truthfully, empathically, and effectively.
Of course, the surfeit of destructive actions—the “flooding the zone,” so to speak— taken by the
Trump administration that are fully and unreflectively supported by his Christian Nationalist
base, makes it difficult to respond quickly, effectively, and comprehensively. In general terms,
President Trump and his supporters have emphatically expressed the following and they keep
pouring it on.
- autocratic inclinations and admiration for dictatorial political leaders throughout
the world; - attack on the integrity of elections in this country and so also an attack against the
democratic ideal in general; - plutocratic and patrimonial domination of United States political life;
- disregard of the constitutionally prescribed checks, balances, and powers specific to the
legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the federal government; - abandonment of constitutional principles of religious freedom and the separation of
church and state; - the intent to fuse church and state, the consequences of which can only be the submission
of the church to the state or the submission of the state to the church.
Any one of these general dispositions of the Trump administration are sufficient cause for grave
concern. Our Christian conviction compels us first to address the wrongs of the final two bulleted
items. But because we give them priority under the confession that we belong to Christ, we then
understand that we must also do all we can as Christians serving the neighbor and as thoughtful
citizens to redress governmental wrongdoing. With this mind, which we humbly pray is with the
mind of Christ, we offer this statement simply as a group of retired professors of theology,
missiology, political science, and more.
1 The title is inspired by the Heidelberg Catechism 1563, Q. 1, A. 1.
2
We do not pretend to be thorough or expert in all respects. Nor are our comments polished and
“final.” This statement is a compendium of many voices and hands. It surely could yet be
smoothed more by one stylistic voice and hand. It could be simpler and shorter, too. But the
events of the day are so compounding that we can wait no longer to communicate our sense of
urgency to the church, country, and world. It does not have and cannot have the clear finality of,
say, a Barmen Declaration. Necessarily, we must speak to the moment, trusting that the Holy
Spirit will communicate truth beneath and between our halting, if ample words. And so, we
present this document to you—our former students, constituents, friends, siblings in Christ—as
an invitation for reflection, dialogue, collaboration, teaching, and proclamation in your own
contexts. We also welcome your constructive criticism of this statement. Perhaps it eventually
will find completion as a more refined and final publication form for a yet broader audience. We
welcome your partnership in advancing our common and deep concern.
As scholars of religion who for decades have been dedicated to the formation and education of
religious leaders, the times compel us to provide a word of guidance and encouragement for our
cherished former students, colleagues, and constituents. Given our and your religiously plural
character, we do not offer this word as a prescriptive confession of faith, though surely our
ecumenical and interreligious consensus spur our attempt at a common word for the public.
Indeed, we individually commit further to confessing and professing the faith in the terms of
our particular religious communities for the upbuilding of our common witness to God’s highest
desire: that all human siblings would “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God”
(Micah 6:8). This is at least our common Abrahamic understanding of our moral vocation. Much
more, we pray that people of all faiths or no faith can find in this statement seeds for their own
expressions of moral conviction. Should our readers choose to use any of our counsel as a
resource for articulating your own response to the current dire situation of our nation’s
political order, we will be grateful and heartened. We so need mutual consolation and
encouragement for the doing of faith’s proper consequences of love, justice, and mercy.
2. Why This Statement?
An existential threat to our religious freedom and democracy has now formally installed itself in
all three federal sectors of the United States government. The threat is religious and political.
The threat comes in the collective voice of authorities who advocate an exclusivistic religiouslycolored ideology allied with a fascist agenda. An exclusivistic distortion of Christian faith is a harm enough to require an ecumenical theologically orthodox counter-challenge to the heresy of
Christian Nationalism, aka Christian Fascism. About this we have yet to see any denominational
corrective answer. That Christan Fascism is intentionally political and partisan requires a
response broader than strictly ecumenical theology. A sufficient corrective also must be
historically, philosophically, legally, and constitutionally informed. Of course, we here are
unable to speak so broadly and deeply. But we can voice major objections and ask necessary
questions prompted by our professions and faith traditions while we invite further alliance of
persons with such expertise.
We believe that our allegiance to Christ demands that we stand with and for all people, no matter
their religious or non-religious identities, who suffer persecution, disrespect, and devaluation
simply because they are of a color, gender orientation, economic class, or partisan political
persuasion other than the ruling regime. Christ was and is on the side of those who do not get to
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choose sides. Christ’s answer to a mere politician’s question was that Christ’s kingdom was not
of this world, meaning Pilate’s world of truthlessness, venality, self-preservation and selfinflation, a world in which the value of other persons is only that which serves the powerful.
Christ’s kingdom is greater in every way than the worlds of narcissists, power-lusters, and
would-be totalitarians. Christ’s kingdom of love is where the only totality is the love that raises
the suffering and the dead to real lives of mercy, justice, and joy. Our own Christian
empowerment from this cruciform kingdom of love impels us then here to write and act on
behalf of all. Christian faith is no faith if it does not serve people of all and no faith.
Having stated our impassioned theological and moral convictions, we now turn to some
necessary abstractions that have codified and guided Christian life and witness for two millennia.
We remind our readers of two Christian premises and one grand ethical premise that reverberates
throughout humankind as a kind of “common law.” The grand premise echoes through political
theology and political philosophy in the Western tradition at least since Cicero and reverberates
in almost all religions on the global scale. In Christian theology we point to the so-called
doctrine of Two-Kingdoms/Two Governances, the shaping of which has evolved since its
origination by Augustine. Related to Two Governances, we point to that doctrine’s implication
that Christians must object in any situation wherein an authority, political or religious, claims
superiority over Christian faith’s essential convictions. Lutheranism and Calvinism, for example,
are explicit on this criteriological point of when a declaration of in statu confessionis must be
made, even to the point of not obeying political authorities in a seeming suspension of Romans
13:1. In The Epistle to the Romans (2nd edition, 1921), Karl Barth called attention to how
Romans 12:21, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” qualifies all that
follows in Romans 13. As for a particularly “common law,” we have in mind the trans-religious
commonality of the so-called “Golden Rule,” itself a universal affirmation of innate human
dignity that begat the political democratic concept of individual human sovereignty. Below
(section 3) we comment further on these three items, followed in section 4 by other general
observations that can be helpful for moral discernment and action.
3. Two Governances and Criteria for Resistance
Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other leaders of the Reformation articulated differently nuanced
understandings of what came to be known as the doctrine of Two Kingdoms. The helpful
functional title of “Two Governances” underscores the conviction, inherited from St. Augustine,
that God governs in two ways over the spiritual and political orders. For the former God appoints
pastoral authorities whose primary duties are to proclaim the Gospel and administer the
sacraments, i.e., attend to the spiritual instruction and care of God’s people, equipping them (us)
for faith active in love toward the neighbor. For the political order, whose inhabitants are not
necessarily Christian or religious, authorities are appointed to care for the common good by
protecting society with law and law enforcement, as well as to promote all possibilities for the
advancement of individual human dignity and societal justice. Again, the mandate to love the
neighbor is central in the duty of political governance. Political governance is to be guided not
by the spiritual realm’s priority of religious faith active in love, but by love’s requirement of
reason.
The concern properly to distinguish between Gospel and Law informed Luther’s iteration of Two
Governances; the spiritual domain is to be ruled by the Gospel and the political domain by the
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Law. But that was not and is not the all of it, and to state it only in this way understates and
undercuts the doctrine. That the authorities of the medieval church had so lusted for and usurped
political power led to neglecting the spiritual needs of the faithful. Reciprocally, political
authorities not only sought authorization for their positions from the mouths and hands of church
officials. The civil authorities also favored bringing their own agendas into the policies and
practices of the church. This too led to neglect of the social needs required for peaceable life
together. The Hippocratic principle of “do no harm” has its correlate in political governance.
When priests and politicians danced together without agreement about who led, they stepped on
more than each other’s feet. Thus, the Reformers saw it necessary to delimit the role of bishops
so that the spiritual lives of the faithful were again served above all else.
One might infer, then, that Luther and other reformers advocated something akin to our notion of
the separation of church and state in the United States, but Two Governances is not simply to be
equated with it. First, Two Governances does not mean two different ways of administering two
different but equal domains. The spiritual domain transcends the material and the political. It is
eschatological. The spiritual domain suffuses consciences and hearts. It evokes from them the
tenderness of holiness that comes from God the holy and wholly other by God’s own choice.
Further, the being of God as communal graces human beings with the reciprocal desire of
communion with God and with each other. Intimate and transcendent communion with God,
with each other, and with all the creation are the gifts and goals of the speech and governance of
the spiritual domain. We know these as “gifts of the Spirit,” including faith, hope, love, humility,
forgiveness, mercy, justice, and more.
But we also know that such graces (such fruits) do not wholly characterize the demography of
material political reality. In the worst cases, overt ego seeks domination. Natural communality is
fractured by individualism and its obeisance to the totalitarian impulse. By history’s long list of
bad fruits we know this. And the consumerist impulse to feed on bad fruit leads directly to
oligarchic economies and their necessarily fascistic forms of self-protection over and against the
concern for all people. Clearly they have no concern for “the least of these.” The Golden Rule
had been regarded as a common law. Luther understood it to be the direct secular correlate to
Christ’s command to love the neighbor as one loves one’s self. He regarded this “moral law” as
“lodged in the conscience.” It is also important to note that Christ radicalizes the command by
urging the disciples to love each other as Christ loves them. The language of neighbor love, like
the descriptive language of human dignity and the inter-religious language of “image of God,”
works in the secular domain in a way that a prescriptive language of a Christian Nationalist or
any religious language stipulation cannot and must not.
Indeed, the imposition of any specifically denominational religious language in the secular order
attacks the dignity and autonomy of human individuals whatever their religious or non-religious
identity. Reformation era Christians understood this aspect of sociology, notwithstanding the
basic homogeneity of their culture, intuiting but not naming what was emerging as democratic
pluralism. Roman Catholicism affirms this, not least as a warrant for and implication of the
Vatican II Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions (Nostra
Aetate). Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitates Humanae) and its Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) are deeply relevant to this
discussion, too. In sum, one does not well serve the grace of one’s spiritual conviction by
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reducing it to an imposing political fiat. One does not even evince a truly spiritual inspiration by
reducing and equating the language of the spirit to the letter of law. The political sphere requires
more wisdom than can be had in a religious claim of domination. Imposing religion on others
undercuts the very etymological point of religion—which is to re-ligament, to reconnect all the
ligaments, for the sake of the health of the whole common body.
Yet we remember, too, that religious faith and the political common good are not and cannot be
wholly separate. Two Governances recognizes that they do have common values that all people
can appreciate. It is not “anti-Christian” or anti-religion to rule by the common and secular
terms. All can “see” this. Also, eyes of faith see that the traces of God pervade all the
universe. Those differently sighted appreciate the traces and can be inspired by them while
naming them differently. Augustine’s City of God, which he wrote as a scathing critique of the
maladministration of the Roman political order, still affirmed the secular as the “staging ground”
for the spiritual. There were, he argued, secular ways to anticipate the final, endless, joyful and
beautiful reign of God. They still are. By affirming the integrity of secularity (not secularism),
we affirm a consonant political ordering that attends to that integrity, as we affirm a cordial
relationship between the material and the transcendent and, analogously, a cordial and mutually
respective relationship between the language of the political to the eschatological language of the
spiritual. The spiritual realm is not equal to the political realm, but does and must respect it.
We alluded above to the misuse of Romans 13 as an argument for obeying always the governing
authorities. It is the common recourse of Christian literalists when defending certain political
authorities. However, it is important that the use of Romans 13 to legitimate political powers is
balanced by the Book of Revelation, particularly Revelation 13. There Christians who wish to
participate in God’s kingdom are thoroughly admonished to resist to the end Roman culture and
politics legitimated by the imperial cult complete with a priesthood and temples. Tragically, the
use of Paul’s words here were most flattened with a non-contextual literalistic interpretation
when used as a cudgel to bring the German church to heel under the Third Reich. In a non- (or
even anti) eschatological horizon of understanding one cannot avoid the painful opposition
between Jesus’ command to do no harm to “these little ones” and Paul’s words as seeming to
defend all of history’s Neros. This is where justifications of literalism and Christian Nationalism
could be no more unfaithful to Christ. Christ reigns in and over the larger-dimensioned spirited
kingdom, wherein his and Paul’s words and horizon of understanding cannot be collapsed with
the political realm’s lesser language of law. A further description of the relation and difference
between the eschatological and the historical-political is a complicated one to which we can only
point, but yet for our purposes here emphatically assert. We must put this matter simply and
encourage readers to study and pray further. It must suffice now to argue that the counsel to obey
Caesar in “all” things means to obey only when Caesar’s will accords with God’s will. When
Caesar counters God, there is no other faithful choice than to object, denounce, and disobey
Caesar. This is another way of stating what it means to be in statu confessionis in even an interreligious manner.
Finally, Two Governances prescribes mutual respect. The respect is mutual and because of the
mutuality both governances must correct the other when that other fails in its duties. The Two
Governances doctrine means that religion pastorally instructs political authority when it does not
attend to or goes beyond its particular duties, and vice-versa. Both governances are committed in
6
their respective ways to the care of all people and creation. This means that both governances
have the responsibility to bless the life and service of each other and to instruct insofar as
instruction does not commandeer the domain of the other. Recent examples of instruction of
government by religious leaders like Pope Francis, the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, lawsuits brought by the Mennonite Church and many ecclesial co-signers show how
this can be done.
4. The Profane and Sacred Use of Scripture
Much of the theological and political crisis today has been influenced by the long practiced malinterpretation and misuse of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. It has become readily
apparent that numerous Christians in the Unites States treat Scripture as if it were a wax nose
that can be twisted and shaped to one’s liking. As a result, abuse of Scripture, rather than careful
and faithful interpretation, is prevalent within the diverse Christian community. Instead
of interpreting Scripture as led by the Gospel, Christian Nationalist leaders and followers impose
their own ideology on Scripture. They skew the scriptural, ignoring historical and sociological
contextuality and ascribing post-19th century biases of class, gender, literalism (which is never
actually literal), and legal positivism upon the scriptural message. Thereby Christian
Nationalists transform Christ into their own patrimonial image rather than seeking personal
transformation into Christ’s image through the work of the Holy Spirit.
The living way of Christ with the dispossessed, Christ’s preaching and teaching, and the message
of the rest of Scripture therefore are often contradicted by realities in our contemporary culture
and by the actions and programmatic priorities of Mr. Trump and his supporters, including those
who claim a Christian identity. Biblical ethical ideals, a basic sense of social solidarity, a concern
to foster the common good, and empathy for people in need have been abandoned or certainly
ignored. The personal moral behavior of political candidates is no longer a criterion for electing
or rejecting those candidates. Honesty, consensual sexual relations, respect for fellow human
beings, humility, compassion, and a willingness to negotiate are viewed as weaknesses rather
than as biblically warranted ideals and admirable and necessary human traits. Instead,
sexism, white supremacy, homophobia, xenophobia, the quest for power, and ecological
indifference are promoted or readily acceptable to many politicians and a significant percentage
of the voting public. The brutal and dangerous nature and consequences of some of the
politicians’ policies and actions are intentionally ignored. The glorification of violence and its
alliance with the Christian faith manifest in such slogans as “God, guns, and guts” obviously
contradict Christ’s servant ministry and the consistent biblical emphasis on neighbor love.
Despite their claims, Christian Nationalists and the MAGA movement are neither faithfully
Christian nor loyally patriotic. Their proof-texted claim of the president as a messianic figure as
justification for their agenda of forcefully Christianizing the nation is ironically anti-Christian
precisely because it materially denies the lordship of the crucified and risen Christ over all the
creation. Further, insofar as forceful Christianization (as is the agenda of Project 2025) per their
skewed articulation of Christianity intends and imposes further suffering on already suffering
people—the poor, people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ persons, refugees, those who until
recently had received help from USAID, the newly and forcefully unemployed, those whose
economic privacy has been raided, students whose access to education has been stripped from
them, the tens of millions who will suffer the long-reverberating secondary effects of the
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aforementioned and more— the intention places the intenders clearly against the crucified Christ
who always is on the side of those who do not get to choose sides. That God raised from the dead
the crucified Christ who stood with all people abused by injustice means that God judges as
guilty those who do not so stand. In so practically denying the image of God within every
person, the Christian Nationalist agenda therefore is anti-Christ. In so substituting its fascist
favor for Christian faith, Christian Nationalism is atheistic. In so commanding public space with
its message of militaristic and now evidently imperialistic MAGAism, opting for “great” over
Christ’s humility of love, Christian Nationalism is arrogant heresy.
Yet, it is readily apparent that individual Christians and Christian communities who oppose the
MAGA movement and disagree in significant ways with MAGA-supporting Christians have
failed to propose persuasive alternatives to the message and the religious, social, and
political influence of Christian Nationalism. Although public statements of specific Christian
denominations and of individual Christians have challenged the theological perspectives,
political ideologies, and social agendas of the dominant Christian voices, those statements and
the convictions that inform them have been successfully dismissed as “woke,” too far to the
“left,” and contrary to Scripture. As Christians address contemporary realities in the church and
society and strive to foster wholesome changes, Christian siblings who have too often been
silenced, ignored, disrespected, and marginalized must be encouraged and welcomed to
share their experiences; their perspectives; and their vision of justice, equity, and neighbor
love. That means that Christians who are members of hegemonic ethnic and social communities
will have to listen before they speak, observe before they act, and inquire before they assume that
their own experiences, convictions, and priorities are normative and constructive for all,
including subaltern communities. Christ’s words and actions should, of course, be normative for
all Christians.
5. Christian Vocation Includes Work of Justice and Mercy
Disciples of Christ must not despair, remain silent, retreat into like-minded communities, or
simply bide their time with the hope that national priorities in the US will somehow be
transformed because of regular election cycles, because voters change their party loyalties, or
because more enlightened and responsible voices will prevail and dominate the media. Rather,
Christians have been freed to pursue their primary vocation as Christ’s followers faithfully and
diligently in order to effect necessary changes in societal priorities, programs, and actions. Jesus
clarified that vocation for the first disciples when Jesus commanded them to be
Christ’s witnesses throughout the world by proclaiming the radical good news of God’s
redemption. This apostolic vocation has always been and continues to be the chief calling of
Christians. Christians personally covenanted to follow this vocation in their baptisms and
subsequent baptismal affirmations. The gospel remains the Holy Spirit’s means of creating and
nurturing faith, and faith is the divine gift that reconciles human beings with God; makes
them members of Christ’s body, the church; and frees, inspires, and empowers them to love their
neighbors as Christ loves them. Because the gospel is God’s effective, transformative Word, its
proclamation and embodiment in the lives of Christians is essential for human beings to
be changed and freed to be altruistic, caring, and loving people who are eager to imitate Christ
and to foster the wellbeing of the whole creation.
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God’s people also have a prophetic calling. God chooses prophets to be God’s spokespeople
within their own communities and beyond. As God’s voices, they share words of judgment and
punishment and words of promise and grace. The prophetic vocation has been and continues to
be a challenging and dangerous one. It is essential, however, because the human condition and
the systems that humans create have been consistently infected by sin. God’s will for and God’s
promise to God’s people have also remained the same. Current ideologies, priorities, and actions
in our country and in our world often contradict God’s will revealed in Scripture and particularly
in the Christ. Change is necessary. Only God can birth such change, and, in God’s wisdom, God
chooses to accomplish God’s work in and through God’s people. Christians who are convinced
that the words and actions of many of this country’s current citizens and political leaders
contradict God’s Word and God’s will have been called by God to the prophetic task of
confronting evil wherever they see and experience it; of naming it; of opposing it; of speaking
truth to power. Confronting evil and naming it is never sufficient, however. Christians are
primarily called to proclaim the gospel and be “good news” for others. The gospel is God’s
means of transforming human beings into the image of Christ and freeing them to emulate Christ
in their lives. Proclaiming God’s good news is every Christian’s primary prophetic task.
Speaking faithfully and courageously is an essential work. However, as people of faith,
Christians are also enabled to accompany their words with loving and just actions, for faith
inevitably and necessarily manifests itself in the loving service of the neighbor. Thus, their faith
frees and inspires Christ’s disciples to stand with and support all whose humanity; civil
rights; physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing; economic resources; health care options;
educational opportunities; and vocational possibilities are compromised or curtailed by
the political leaders, policies, and systems that the majority of voters support. Engaging in the
quest for justice and in the pursuit of genuine neighbor love are essential aspects of the
Christians’ vocation as Christ’s disciples and imitators of Christ, and they exercise that vocation
through such activities as voting; participating in local political activities; providing monetary
support to social action, reform, and welfare agencies; joining letter-writing campaigns;
encouraging congregations and church bodies to support and participate in justice work;
advocating for and welcoming immigrants and refugees; fostering the care of the earth; and
accompanying and defending neighbors who face discrimination and exclusion
in their communities.
As they witness the gospel and point people to Christ with their words and actions, Christians are
also able to provide fellow Christians, as well as the society in general, with a model of
faithful, strategic, and empathic leadership. Such leadership is always beneficial, and it is surely
warranted in our time and place. The model is Christ. Jesus exemplified how power and
authority can be used for the benefit of the whole creation. The incarnate Christ turned hierarchy
upside down, exercised power with humility and love, and modeled faithful servant
leadership. Christ also frees and empowers people of faith to emulate His example. No human
ruler will be able to duplicate the ministry of the Son of God. However, Christ remains the ideal
model for all who claim to be Christ’s disciples, also for those who aspire to political office or,
for that matter, any other leadership position. This does not mean that
governmental authorities must or should be Christians or Christian nationalists. Indeed, the panChristian praxis of justice and mercy best aligns with the Roman Catholic favor of the separation
of church and state as stated in Nostra Aetate and Dignitatis Humanae, both referenced above. It
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does mean, however, that all who have been entrusted with authority and power must strive to
love, serve, and honor the people whom they are privileged to serve rather than employing
their positions to dominate and to discriminate against them, to seek revenge against perceived
enemies, and to benefit themselves rather than their fellow human beings. Christian citizens of
this country would do well to expect and to urge their political leaders to manifest the leadership
ideals exemplified by Christ.
Christians should also support candidates and officials whose personal traits, stated and
demonstrated convictions, and policy commitments show promise of benefitting all segments of
our society. To promote such ideals, Christians in the United States need not become Christian
nationalists and abandon the constitutional ideals of the separation of church and state and of
religious freedom. It is important to recognize and affirm, however, that Christ’s example,
biblical and theological traditions, and the divine gift of faith are not only relevant for the divinehuman relationship.
They are, in fact, relevant for all aspects of life and should, therefore, inform
the civic and political commitments of Christians, including which political parties and platforms
and which political leaders they support. Those leaders may not be Christians, but they
should manifest the ideals of servant leadership that Jesus embodied.
It is essential that Christians explore and ground themselves in their biblical and theological
heritages and examine whether their beliefs, priorities, and actions are consistent with God’s will
as it is revealed in Scripture, particularly in Jesus the Christ. It is also advisable that Christians
and all other citizens of the United States develop or recover a greater understanding of world
history and of this country’s history. It is apparent that the joyous democratic triumphs of the last
half century, the successful development of cooperative international relationships and economic
alliances, the commitment to controlling nuclear proliferation, and the desire to respond
creatively and persistently to the global ecological crisis have been quickly forgotten,
intentionally ignored, or consciously reversed. As a result, the pollution of our planet continues,
renewed nationalistic fervor has emerged, economic alliances are strained, international
cooperation is on the wane, nuclear proliferation has resumed and the nuclear threat has
increased, and military aggression rather than diplomacy is preferred. The rejoicing that the fall
of the Soviet Empire and of the Berlin Wall inspired has been forgotten. Autocrats are admired,
and defenders of democracy are persecuted and incarcerated in some countries and disregarded
in others. The notion of patriotism has become skewed, and constitutional ideals are
misrepresented or functionally ignored. A keener understanding of and appreciation for history
challenges these developments, and it may inspire careful reflection on constructive and
destructive human behavior and a renewed commitment to ideals that have been abandoned,
even though they are consistent with the biblical heritage and clearly beneficial to human beings
and the rest of God’s wondrous creation.
In spite of the diverse challenges that are apparent in the United States and other parts of the
world, Christians need not despair since they are people of faith. The God who is the Creator,
Redeemer, and Sanctifier; who enlivens God’s people and nourishes them with the divine gifts of
word and sacrament; who has made promises to them throughout the ages and has fulfilled those
promises in the Christ; who hears and answers the prayers of God’s people; who inspires them to
be God’s means of hope, grace, and love in the world; and who walks with and before them and
prepares the future for them will never forsake God’s beloved creation. Christians always have
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good reasons to hope, to trust, and to expect renewal. After all, they place their trust in God, not
in themselves. However, they do not have the luxury of passively glorying in their hope. They
still have a divine vocation and, thus, the privilege and responsibility of being God’s voices,
hands, and feet in the world through whom and with whom God continues to accomplish God’s
transformative, life-giving, and life-enhancing work.
In sum, the election of Mr. Trump and J.D. Vance presents grave challenges to North American
ecumenical and progressive Christians. The challenges are not unlike those that faced the
Protestant and Roman Catholic communities with the rise of Nazism. The proudful “German
Christians” (Deutsche Christen) then had no sense of the anti-christic character of their agenda,
so skewed, indeed inverted, were they by their nationalistic and racist ideology. Todays’
Deutsche Christen, the even proud political leaders who proclaim their Christian Nationalism,
are in willful denial or have no clue as to their heretical claim. It will take real Christian acts of
love to heal them, our country, and the visible church.
Section 2: What then is to be done?
- The churches must oppose verbally and through direct action the attempt to “normalize” the
current situation. 2024 was NOT a typical two-party national election. The MAGA movement
was not and is not the Republican Party that contested recent presidential elections. MAGA
wasn’t rooted in the usual hyperbole of previous national elections. Their campaign led by Mr.
Trump consistently lied throughout the election cycle. Recent post-election analysis
showed that the patten of constant lying convinced some people to cast their vote for the TrumpVance ticket. Lying should rightfully be critiqued in light of the biblical commandment not to
bear “false witness against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:20) Lying on the
scale employed by the MAGA movement clearly contradicts the biblical emphasis on truthtelling, a commitment that many Christian churches reaffirmed in their signatures to the
international Global Ethic developed through various convenings of the Parliament of the
World’s Religions. The recent statement issued by the Conference of Bishops of the ELCA
denouncing lying can and should be used and amplified as one of many tactical pieces in
strategic response to the current situation. Lying does not refer only to speaking untruth. It
includes slander and pejorative rhetoric. The Churches must voice their objection to the
slandering of others by calling individuals derogatory names or characterizing groups (e.g.
immigrants or political opponents) with pejorative terms. One of the textbook characteristics of
fascism is appealing to prejudices. Scripture clearly forbids the slandering of fellow human
beings, and the Greek behind the English “slander” in Revelation 2:9 is “blasphemy.” Further,
slandering is directly reproached by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Insulting others is so
serious as to draw Jesus’s warning of the “hell of fire” (Matthew 5:22). Jesus denounces slander
in his Sermon on the Mount and announces that judgment against slander will include the “hell
of fire” (Matthew 5:22) and the Greek for “slander” in Revelation 2:9 is blasphemos. We
conclude that lying—the essential component of fascistic propaganda—is included in what
scripture calls the “unforgivable sin” (Mark 3:28-30). Given that if the Holy Spirit leads us into
all truth (John 16:13), and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgiveable, then surely
lying/slander against the very image of God in every human being must be opposed zealously by
justice-love.
11 - The Churches must educate their membership on how pronounced the difference is between
Christian social teaching and the Project 2025 document which clearly will provide the bedrock
of policy decisions for the Trump-Vance administration. Much, if not all, of what is projected as
new national policy by Project 2025 stands in direct contradiction to the social teachings of the
mainline churches. One clear example of this lies in Project 2025’s attitude towards ecological
responsibility that is urgently required by all societal institutions including the churches. What is
said in Project 2025 on climate change directly contradicts what is found in the writings of Pope
Francis in this area. - Churches must stand up against the marginalization of women and racial and religious minorities
in the present administration. The toleration of the abuse of women and the return to white
supremacy are intolerable realities in terms of the commitment to human rights by the churches. - Protestant churches must confront the growing religious nationalism within many of its
evangelical communities, and Roman Catholic leadership must challenge the majority vote for
the Trump—Vance administration. Church leadership chose to normalize the 2024 election
without making it clear that many of its policies and actions directly contradict Roman Catholic
social teaching. - The churches must stand up and confront the Trump-Vance proposal to clear the United States of
illegal immigration via mass deportation. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has pledged to
do this. Let us see if their words move on to action. The US needs a humane policy for
immigration, not the no-holds-barred plan of the MAGA movement. Pope Francis and other
religious leaders, as well as our numerous church-related service agencies now excoriated and
damaged by government officials, call for support of the migrants and refugees. - Because they defaulted to diplomatic, nuanced, and subjunctively-laden statements, the churches
of the Nazi era largely failed to be heard or understood. It was mostly after Naziism’s loss that
statements of protest such as the Barmen Declaration, Pius XII’s Christmas Sermons, and the
German Bishops’ Fulda Declaration became known and regularly referenced. The language of
church leadership this time must be clear, pointed, and powerful.
Section 3: Biblical Bases to En-Courage our Vocations
Of course, every reader can readily and appropriately turn to many biblical passages that do not
merely support “after the fact” our present concern and proposed action. The whole biblical arc
with the climax of the gospel message of God’s free and gracious gift of justification not only
supports but calls forth our service of love in the personal and public-political spheres. Here we
suggest particular biblical bases of deep meaning for us from an Abrahamic religious
perspective.
Israel’s traditions, many of which are preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures, portray the character
of God that is the heart of Christian belief and life. That heart is paradigmatically preserved in
the Shema Israel (Exodus 34:6–7). “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow
to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the
thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the
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guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the
third and the fourth generation.” God’s grace and mercy, steadfast love, faithfulness, and
forgiveness predominate.
This characterization of God is like a creed so that passages in Psalms and Jonah presuppose it:
“I knew that you (God) are gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast
love, and ready to relent from punishing” (Jonah 4:2). To be sure the Shema also indicts
inequity, and with this shifts to a significant part of anthropology. Conventionally this has been
associated with divine vengeance “visiting the iniquity of parents upon the children and the
children’s children,” but it is also a part of reality that human behavior has consequences. We
know of such consequences in our American experiences of treating the indigenous peoples and
of slavery. Religious faith in its use and abuse has affected deeply our own “American”
anthropology and winds yet now through the present crisis.
Our political ethics or lack thereof impinge on and reveal the correctness of Christology, too,
which, of course, since Jesus expresses the will of God, reflects on our understanding of God. At
the heart of Christology (and recalling again the implications of a Christology of the Cross stated
above) is that Jesus turns in caring love to the poor and downtrodden, is a friend of tax collectors
and sinners, and gives himself in love for the sake of others. Jesus’s remarks in Matthew 25:35–
36 set a standard for the behavior of his followers: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was
thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked
and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited
me.” Paul paid this gift forward in his Letter to the Philippians, “. . . in humility regard others as
better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interest of
others” (Phillipians 2:3-4). Repeatedly scriptural texts urge hospitality to strangers/foreigners
(Romans 12:13; Hebrews 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9). It is patently obvious that this disturbingly shocks
those whose faith is in “America first” and who thus so blithely withhold care from the needy
neighbor far off or near.
To profess and confess Christ as King, however, raises the ante of love’s risks. In Israel the king
was to be the shepherd of the people who saw to the administration of justice, God’s mercy to
widows, orphans, the poor and needy, repeatedly characterized in Royal Psalms. Jesus built upon
that premise and set up the following contrast with secular rule: “You know that the rulers of the
Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among
you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be
first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,
and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)
Spes Viatorum – Hope Along the Way
The time is foreboding. But it is not hopeless. Our words of resistance and correction may feel
like so much spitting against the wind. The simple fact is that our vocations (particularly as
professional leaders of faith communities) may be relationally and financially imperiled by our
words of faithfulness to the Word. Our very citizenship may be tested. But no provocations of
worry are final. Malfeasant political and religious authorities will strive to steal the joy from our
service. They only verify what Isaiah said “here I am” (Isaiah 6:8) to before he even heard the
job description. He would go tell of God’s glorious justice and mercy to people who would hear
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but never understand. He would have to proclaim the word until no audience was left, until it
was wasted, until the hardest of trees were burnt and cut down. Even so—even so! — the word
and will of God will stand forever, “the holy seed is its stump” (Isaiah 6:13) and the green sprout
of justice will spring forth again. So, we praise and obey God, not Caesar, and we run with
renewed vigor in the race before us.