Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
A song I learned at Vacation Bible School in 1979
I am dismayed by the rise of Christian Nationalism in our country. Christian nationalism is a political ideology that seeks to merge Christian identity with national identity, advocating for laws and policies that reflect “Christian” values and beliefs.
MAGA has claimed the mantle of Christian values, grounding its agenda in language espousing faith, morality, and national purpose. Among them, Donald Trump’s administration most prominently wraps its policies in the language of Christian nationalism, suggesting that to support the nation is to support a certain version of Christianity, and to support that version of Christianity is to support America.
But when held up against the core teachings that Christianity has carried forward for two thousand years, these policies do not reflect the ethic of caring for all of humanity.
The heart of Christian teaching is a single, simple, unyielding directive: love your neighbor as yourself. Not love your preferred neighbor. Not love the neighbors who share your background, your beliefs, or your citizenship. The radical thrust of Jesus’s ministry was his insistence that love crosses boundaries. He touched the untouchable, welcomed the foreigner, lifted the poor, and honored the dignity of every human being. He loved all the people, regardless of gender or color or sexual orientation. Any policy claiming Christian roots must strive toward this inclusive compassion.
True Christian values prioritize the hungry, the stranger, the sick, the poor, and the imprisoned. They ask us to widen the circle of care, not shrink it. They demand that a nation measure its strength not by its wealth or its walls, but by how it treats those with the least amount of power.
But many of the Trump administration’s hallmark policies move us in the opposite direction. Current policies restrict immigration and asylum, cut social safety nets, limit access to food assistance and healthcare, and frame entire groups of people as threats rather than as human beings. These are not expressions of Christian love but of fear, division, and exclusion. They sort people into worthy and unworthy, wanted and unwanted, in or out. This is the exact moral architecture that the Gospels challenge again and again.
True Christian values prioritize the hungry, the stranger, the sick, the poor, and the imprisoned. They ask us to widen the circle of care, not shrink it. They demand that a nation measure its strength not by its wealth or its walls, but by how it treats those with the least amount of power.
Policies that harden our hearts toward the vulnerable may succeed politically, but they cannot claim to succeed spiritually.
Even the rhetoric of Christian nationalism misunderstands the faith it invokes. Christianity is not, and has never been, a tribal religion. Its entire message is that all human beings bear the image of God. To elevate one nation, one culture, or one group above all others is not Christian, but merely nationalist. It trades compassion for identity, humility for dominance, mercy for power. This is the exact opposite of what Jesus taught.
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A nation cannot claim Christian values while turning its back on the poor. A movement cannot proclaim the sanctity of life while disregarding the lives of refugees, migrants, and families in need. MAGA cannot wrap itself in scripture while promoting systems that harm the very people Jesus centered.
We must keep insisting that the measure of a society is how it treats its people. All its people. That caring for humanity is not a weakness but a sacred duty. That moral courage means refusing to confuse power with goodness.
In the end, the clearest way to expose the gap between Christian values and Christian-nationalist politics is simply to remember what those values are. Love your neighbor. Care for the vulnerable. Welcome the stranger. Seek peace. Do justice.
As we sit down this week to consider all the blessings of our lives, perhaps we can reflect on the gift of diversity and the responsibilities that come with being a good human.
