This letter is for you if you consider yourself a Christian and you voted for Donald J. Trump in 2024. If this does not describe you, then please personally share this letter with someone you know who needs this message.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Who Voted for Trump,
The majority of white Christians in the U.S. voted for Trump in the last election, including Evangelical, Catholic, and Mainline Christians. Reasons for these votes were plethora, but one thing is clear: none of those reasons involved your desire for our fellow countrymen and women to be shot dead in their cars or in the street, or to be ripped from their families, or the desire to watch masked agents use 5-year-olds as bait to lure parents out of their homes to risk imprisonment in concentration camps where 32 people died in custody in 2025 and an estimated six more have died in the first 25 days of 2026. And you didn’t vote to cover up the largest child-sex trafficking ring in U.S. history. I don’t believe you wanted this. And I don’t believe you imagined your vote would (or could) unleash this level of violence on the world.
I think we are all learning now, our votes (and non-votes) are more powerful than we thought.
What matters now is that you are beginning to see Trump’s fruit. The words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount are beginning to echo in your ears and pound on your hearts:
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits… In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit… Thus, you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7: 15-20, NRSV)
As you watch the news and lose friends and neighbors to ICE, you are beginning to ask: “What can I do now?”
Here is what you can do. Embrace Micah 6:8.
Study it. Memorize it. Live it.
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? ~ (Micah 6:8, NRSV)
Do Justice.
Justice is simply when things are as they should be. You have seen the mayhem in Minneapolis, and you know Renee Nicole Good should not have been shot dead in her car. You’ve seen the video, and you know Alex Jeffrey Pretti should be alive today. You know accountability matters. Our whole faith rests on this premise. You know if things were as they should be, an independent investigation would identify the wrong done by those agents and would hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Likewise, if things were as they should be, we would not tolerate a society where “law enforcement” goes around breaking laws and endangering human life with impunity. Likewise, we would not reward that behavior with a budget larger than every police department in the U.S. combined. We just wouldn’t—not if things were as they should be.
Now, here’s the thing: justice isn’t only about politics, but it does include it. Politics is simply the decisions we make about how people will live together. Those decisions can make things as they should be, or they can throw things out of whack.
So, here’s what you can do right now to do justice in our world.
1. Call your Senators. Let them know you are a white Christian who voted for Donald Trump in 2024. I know the “white” part shouldn’t matter, but believe me. It does.
2. Tell them you want accountability for the officers who shot and killed Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti.
3. Tell them you want ICE out of all American cities and towns.
4. Tell them your faith holds leaders to a higher standard, not a lower one. When leaders break the trust of those they have been charged to protect, through exploitation, neglect, or abuse, they lose the authority to lead. For this reason, you want Congress to revoke funding for ICE and find another way to enforce better immigration policy.
5. And tell them to speak out against Trump’s use of ICE violence to extort Minnesota, saying ICE will leave if they turn over voter information.
Love Kindness.
Another way to read the Hebrew word for “kindness” here is “mercy” or “merciful kindness.” I think of the childhood game I played with my friends on the schoolyard: Mercy. We would lock hands and try to bend back the hands of the other, dominating them as long as they could take it—until they cried, “Mercy!”
Minneapolis is crying “Mercy!” for its immigrant population right now.
America is crying, “Mercy!” for the economic life of its cities right now.
The church is crying “Mercy” for our neighbors—all of them—who Jesus commanded us to love, not dominate, not evict, not erase.
We cry “Mercy!”
So, when you are on the line with your Senator, here’s how you can Love Kindness:
Tell your Senator you want Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
a. Tell them you want a secure border.
b. Tell them you want immigrants in the U.S. to be given a clear and reasonable path to full citizenship and/or legal status and protection of the law.
c. Tell them you want them to redirect ICE funds to pay for Immigration infrastructure, including more judges to hear immigration cases.
Walk Humbly.
This one is simple and the most difficult of the actions God requires of us. Humility requires us to admit that we don’t know all we need to know. It requires us to acknowledge the image of God in the ones Jesus called “The least of these” in Matthew 25:40 and 45. It requires that we go to them—the hungry, the thirsty, the immigrant, the impoverished, the sick, and the imprisoned—and listen to their stories. It requires that we listen to the stories of children, mothers, and fathers ripped from their lives and everyone they love without warning. Humility requires that we sit at the feet of the family and community members left behind when people die in ICE custody.
Humility requires us to ask: “What if this is true? What would Jesus really do?”
Beloved, thank you for reading my words. If you found this letter helpful, please share it with others. If you found it unhelpful, please carry on. Know that I care for you. I am praying for you. And I am praying for the body of Christ in our nation.
With Love,
No comments:
Post a Comment