For the Christian disciple, the rise of authoritarianism is a challenge unlike any in our lifetime. Our vocations up until now have not fully equipped us. Relatively civil arguments about politics, making our church more just and inclusive, our outreach and advocacy — this has often been difficult for our most prophetic risk takers. And yet it has by and large occurred under a bubble of privilege held up by civic and democratic norms that we have long taken for granted.
Trump and Project 2025 are bursting our bubble. Fearing that pluralistic democracy was leading inexorably toward fulfillment of what they take to be the progressive project, they are targeting every institution they believe is complicit. Stopping what they fear comes ahead of preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution and our inalienable human rights.
As skies darken, the church is experiencing three emergencies. First, the turn to authoritarianism fractures our communities. Except for those who remember Jim Crow times in the south, Trump’s abuses of power and cruelty toward immigrant workers, our trans siblings, and other scapegoated neighbors do not fit into any accustomed political categories. Like a domestic abuser hitting those whom he takes to be too weak to defend themselves, Trump has created a crisis of chaos in our national household. His misconduct tempts us all to be our worse selves. Some of his defenders grasp for nonexistent precedents and complain about how bad Presidents Biden and Obama made them feel. His critics give in to the unhelpful temptation to blame his voters, even when they are nearby in our neighborhood, pew, or family. Sometimes we stop talking about what is going on because it risks ruining relationships. And yet relationships can’t thrive if we can’t talk about what’s most important.
Second, the turn to authoritarianism can overwhelm our pieties. The gospel commands us to speak the truth in love, forgive our enemy, turn the other cheek, and remember that love never insist on its own way, nor does our anger produce God’s righteousness. These daily resolves may not withstand ten minutes reading the paper, watching the news, or seeing someone we love being put at risk. Conservative pastors have been quoted as saying that while they know all about the gentle Jesus, it’s just not the Jesus they need right now. Progressive Christians are prone to the same impulse. But Jesus is not going to save either side with sword drawn. Jesus died instead of committing violence in the name of his father. So the disciple also strains to eschew violence of word or deed.
Third, the turn to authoritarianism will almost certainly demand a measure of Christlike sacrifice. Progressive theologians speak about our Bonhoeffer moment, meaning peaceful resistance to injustice. We can only guess the cost. Trump’s Department of Justice now operates according to the principle that you look first for your enemy and then find the crime. He and his cabal have already gone after free speech they hate.
A regime that has nudged the IRS toward permitting conservative endorsements and expressions from the pulpit could just as easily sanction liberal ones. Religious people who criticize or resist Trump may find their taxes audited or their mortgage documents investigated. Fearing this and worse, the church will be tempted to censor itself, as others have. Newspapers and networks are making hiring decisions based on the authoritarians’ whim. Universities are paying bribes demanded in part on the basis of the falsehood that criticism of Israel amounts to antisemitism. DEI is on the verge of being criminalized. Law firms have sold their souls. We must build a wall of protection around ours, relying on our inner lives and communities of prayer.
Deepening the sense of menace is the stench of incipient violence clinging to everything. On Jan. 6, Trump encouraged the mob that sacked the United States Capitol and attacked 140 police officers using potentially deadly violence. His goal was to complete his putsch and keep power illegally. He got away with it and then pardoned the criminals in the mob.
These actions make Trump permanently suspect. Three times out of four, those who engage in violent crime do it again, more so if they aren’t held accountable. With every violent act or threat, Trump tears at the wound he opened. He disinters Jan. 6 when he kills Venezuelans on the high seas whom he claims are drug traffickers, bombs Iran to look tough, threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act, flaunts a court ruling or attacks a judge, or sends the National Guard and soldiers to blue cities as agents provocateurs. Inciting violence that could be used as a justification for interfering with the 2026 midterm elections is within the wheelhouse of someone who tried to overturn an election. Our only protections are people’s unwillingness to follow illegal orders and Trump’s fear that he would trigger judicial or political opposition beyond his control.
For Trump, the desire to do what is right is evidently not a factor. It is the only factor for the Christian disciple. This has always been true. The Christ event began at the end of the reign of a Palestinian Trump. Both Herod and Trump are narcissistic builders, the Second Temple expansion in Jesus’s time and in ours, the border wall, a hundred Trump whatevers, and the abominable White House ballroom. Trump lacks Herod’s homicidal tendencies, unless you want to talk to the families of the slaughtered Venezuelans, but not his grandiosity or vengefulness.
Herod controlled the temple priests as Trump does the heretical nationalists. The smart money is always on the state religion. Meanwhile, in both eras, the Prince of Peace stands alone in the breach. The God of love is our only sword and shield. The Christian disciple and our siblings in other traditions, devoted to love as best we can, may be the only ones left in the public square trying to resist without rancor, love the authoritarian while hating the authoritarianism, and mean the same thing God does when we say the dignity of every human being. These times will ask much of us. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Let us nevertheless go forth in joy, rejoicing in the saving power of the Holy Spirit and trusting that doing what’s right in the name of our risen Lord will make us mighty.
(Photo by Patrick Briggs: A pro-America demonstrator at a pro-Prop. 50 rally in Pasadena’s Old Town)