The Washington Post: Judgment Days

She was 67, a Sunday school teacher who said this was the only way to understand how Christians like her supported Trump.

“Obama was acting at the behest of the Islāmic nation,” she began one afternoon when she was getting her nails done with her friend Linda. She was referring to allegations that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, not a Christian — allegations that are false. “He carried a Koran and it was not for literary purposes. If you look at it, the number of Christians is decreasing, the number of Muslims has grown. We allowed them to come in.”

“Obama woke a sleeping nation,” said Linda.

“He woke a sleeping Christian nation,” Sheila corrected.

Linda nodded. It wasn’t just Muslims that posed a threat, she said, but all kinds of immigrants coming into the country.

“Unpapered people,” Sheila said, adding that she had seen them in the county emergency room and they got treated before her. “And then the Americans are not served.”

Love thy neighbor, she said, meant “love thy American neighbor.”

Welcome the stranger, she said, meant the “legal immigrant stranger.”

“The Bible says, ‘If you do this to the least of these, you do it to me,’ ” Sheila said, quoting Jesus. “But the least of these are Americans, not the ones crossing the border.”

•••

[The preacher] was at the end of his sermon. If he was going to say anything about Trump, or presidents, or politicians, or how having a Christian character was important for the leader of the United States, now was the time. His Bible was open. He was preaching without notes.

He looked out at all the faces of people who felt threatened and despised in a changing America, who thought Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were sent by Satan to destroy them, and that Donald Trump was sent by God to protect them, and who could always count on Clay Crum to remind them of what they all believed to be the true meaning of Jesus Christ — that he died to forgive all of their sins, to save them from death and secure their salvation in a place that was 15,000 miles wide, full of gardens, appliances, and a floor of stars.

Not now, he decided. Not yet. He closed his Bible. He had one last thing to say to them before the sermon was over.

There are a number of problematic quotes and attitudes throughout this article. What really sticks out to me is how we can so easily let lies and fears direct our actions. Thinking that President Obama or Secretary Clinton have been sent to destroy Christianity is irrational — especially when one of them grew up in the Methodist church and the other was baptized at a congregation bearing the name Church of Christ. It’s irrational to think President Trump is any more pleasing to God just because he panders to Christian uncertainty while continuing to conduct himself in such an ungodly way.

But even if all these things were true — even if President Obama was a Muslim, even if Secretary Clinton wanted to destroy Christians, even if there were some vast conspiracy against us — the last thing we should do is compromise with sin for a sense of security and safety. The last thing we should do is retaliate. The last thing we should do is embrace hate and discrimination. Those are in direct opposition with the message and example of Christ and His apostles.

When fear, hatred, and self-preservation motivate our actions, we’re on the wrong side of the Bible.