Matthew 22:37 “Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments.’”
Trumpism is using the church to gain power, is causing extreme harm to God’s name,
And causing extreme harm to human beings around the world.
Because of this, the church needs to oppose MAGA and stand for the love of humans created in the image of God.
Matthew 25:31-46
I was hungry and you gave me something to eat:
Bread for the World, a Christian lobbying group for the poorest of the poor, on Feb 28th, 2025, reported 28 million children were reached with nutrition programs in 2023 by USAID, which the Trump administration slashed by 90%, just recently announcing the total dismantling of all USAID overseas. (Saving the lives of people in over 100 countries has also helped protect the USA by creating friends instead of enemies).
The US did not contribute nearly as much money to USAID as it sucked out of poor countries either.
Global Wealth Inequality: What You Never Knew You Never Knew, by The Rules.org – is a short video that shows how rich countries have become 80% richer than poor countries by extracting their wealth. The money that rich countries give to poor countries, is just a drop in the bucket compared to the suctioning of their wealth. This video was created in 2013. The wealth disparity has become more extreme, surpassing the gilded age of the 1920’s for Americans and globally. And this was before Trump gave the richest Americans another $2.5 trillion tax cut while cutting USAID programs, cutting $625 billion in Medicare in the next 10 years, cutting $625 billion in Medicaid in the net 10 years, cutting $300 billion in SNAP, food programs for poor families in America.
1 Timothy 6:10 – “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows”.
Save the Children, May 12, 2025, addressing the supplies embargo in Gaza, reported: “Nearly Every Single Child Is at Risk of Famine.” 930,000 children, as Israel is holding back food trucks behind the boarders. The Human Rights Watch, The United Nations, and UNICEF, are among many organizations warning that these children are at risk of starvation. And now, Israel and the US kicked out and/or severely limit former humanitarian groups, replacing it mainly with their own organization: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The United Nations, on June 24th, 2025, announced at least 410 Palestinians have been killed at these sights trying to get food. They went on to say “The weaponization of food for civilians, in addition to restricting or preventing their access to life-sustaining services, constitutes a war crime”.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of State, on March 1st, 2025, states President Trump has signed over $4 billion in weapons and ammunition to Israel. He fully supports Israel while most of the rest of the world is calling it a genocide and ethnic cleansing. Most schools and hospitals have been bombed, doctors are being kidnapped and murdered, Rachel Fieldhouse, from Nature, June 27th, 2025, reported the first independent survey in January 2025 reported more than 80,000 fatalities in Gaza, with more than half being women, children or the elderly. The numbers have increased every day since then. Meanwhile, President Trump posts a video of the ethnically cleansed Gaza Strip becoming a luxury resort, with a large golden statue of Trump.
Habakkuk 2:8 “Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you. For you have shed man’s blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
The “One Big Beautiful Bill” that has been passed by the House of Representatives, but is waiting to be passed in the Senate, according to Tax Policy Center, June 12th, 2025, will deliver a tax cut to the top 1% of Americans 40 times that going to middle-income families. This same bill plans on cutting nearly $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through 2034, reports Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on May 28th, 2025. SNAP, also known as food stamps, they report, will then have the biggest cut in history, possibly effecting 2 million children who live in low-income families.
Trump’s birthday bash was estimated to be $45 million.
BBC News, May 13th, 2025, was one news source reporting Trump’s acceptance of the largest “Gift” to an American president in history: an estimated $400 million luxury plane from Qatar. Trump also made deals to build a luxury golf course and villas in Qatar at that same time. All this not only benefits Trump but is unconstitutional. Dan Alexander of Forbes, on June 5, 2025, reported on Trump’s cryptocurrency, which he started around the time of his inauguration, which people can buy in exchange for luxury dinners at his resorts among many other favors. Forbes reports he has made $1billion on this venture.
1 John 3:16-18 – “…If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with action and truth.”
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink:
Amnesty International, on May 2nd, 2025, reported “In addition to blocking entry of all aid, Israel’s decision to cut power to Gaza’s main desalination plant on March 9th has further crippled access to clean water.”
In 2024, USAID reported “helping 6.2 million people gain access to drinking water services and 3.9 million people gain access to sanitation services.” These services not only saved lives, but they also helped avoid conflict before it started by addressing needs that desperate countries go to war over. It also protects America through goodwill instead of through weapons and destruction.
Oxfam’s article, What USAID does, and the impact of Trump’s Cuts on Foreign Aid, May 23, 2025, say the cuts endanger:
o The education of 23,000,000 children
o 95,000,000 people may lose access to basic healthcare
o Maternal and Child Health, since 1990, has helped the number of children under the age of 5 dying drop by half, 90 countries saw it drop by 2/3.
o AIDS relief has saved over 25,000,000 lives
o Clean water programs, to Goma for instance, which was housing hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo
o Responding to humanitarian crises is hard when the staff have been terminated.
I was a stranger, and you invited me in:
Friends Committee on National Legislation, lobbying with Quakers, in their article, Four Cruel Ways Trump is Attacking Immigrants – And Our Values, Feb 4, 2025, by Greg Williams, stated the Trump administration’s policies are cruel, opposed to the ideals of our nation, and opposed to values of people of faith. They state:
o Trump’s administration shut down the asylum system, and U.S. refugee program
o Deportation and Detention
o Using the Alien Enemies Act illegally, to involve the military and create a pipeline which will send millions through private detentions centers that will make millions.
o Our Faith Imperative to Welcome – They can now arrest people in places of worship. “This is a direct assault on faith institutions”.
Trump is coercing universities to get rid of foreign students. For example:
Harvard Magazine, June 6,2025, posts Trump Announces Travel Ban for Harvard International Students. They reported his attempt to halt their international students from entering the country.
Trump is sending university students that have been in peaceful demonstrations against the genocide in Gaza to prisons without due process.
The Trump administration has had a goal of arresting 1,000 immigrants a day. Trump used to say he was targeting the very dangerous criminals. This was not enough for Trump, his quota now is 3,000 arrests a day. Times Radio, June 11th, 2025, reported that deporting gang members and criminals takes time. Therefore, ICE is making large sweeps in work sites like Home Depot and restaurants, where you do no find criminals, you find working people. School graduations, hospitals, grade schools are being targeted. ICE cannot concentrate on horrible criminals now because of this quota.
Bill Frelick, from Human Rights Watch, on February 20, 2025, in his article Ten Harmful Trump Administration Immigration and Refugee Policies, reports on Trump’s “Indefinite Suspension of all refugee resettlement except Afrikaners” (White Africans, whom he inaccurately said were being suppressed in South Africa). The Refugee resettlement has served refugees fleeing for their lives, especially refugees who are in danger of their lives due to their assistance to the U.S.
International Rescue Committee, June 5th, 2025, reported on a complete travel ban of thirteen countries and partial travel ban of those from 6 other countries. IRC stated it was “deeply concerned about the humanitarian consequences of this discriminatory and harmful ban”.
Tim Sullivan from PBS News, June 25th, 2025, in his article 4 ways Trump’s “big beautiful bill” could change the U.S. immigration system, states asylum seekers will now have to pay $1,000, and another $550 for employment applications. These used to be free services to the most destitute.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” -add $1,550 for each application please.
In Luke 10:25-37, Jesus talks about a man who fell into the hands of robbers. The priest and teachers of the law ignored him. The Samaritan, a person hated in those days by much of his audience, had mercy on him and helped him. Jesus told the crowd to be like the Samaritan, and demonstrate mercy.
I needed clothes and you clothed me:
Exploitation from rich countries is not a new concept by any means. The roots of injustice are very deep. The Trump administration has just taken the exploitation and put it on steroids. It is like someone winning in a game of Monopoly who suddenly puts hotels on almost every property. Only, this world is not a game for one to win everything.
W. Stanley Mooneyham, in What Do You Say to a Hungry World? noted, in 1975, extreme exploitation of rich countries by “unceasing transfer or resources from the poor to the rich nations. And by exploitation of cheap labor which takes literally billions of dollars out of the pockets of nearly two-thirds of mankind, who toil from dawn to dusk.” The National Labor Committee has worked tirelessly for years trying to raise wages and working conditions of people in countries American companies contract with. For example, that great bargain on those shoes I bought maybe was made by someone in Burma making 9 cents an hour. NLC Wages of Workers Around the World
Honest Accounts 2017 – How the world profits from Africa’s Wealth, by Mark Curtis and Tim Jones, June 6,2017, shows the actual flow of wealth, due to rich countries’ trade policies, tax dodging, foreign companies taking most of the profits from their commodities, and high interest on loans to poor countries to name a few unethical practices.
Amos 8:4-8 “Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land…. cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals…Will not the land tremble for this and all who live in it mourn?”
Micah 6:10-13 “Am I still to forget, O wicked house, your ill-gotten treasures and the short epha, which is accursed? Shall I acquit a man with dishonest scales, with a bag of false weights? Her rich men are violent: her people are liars and their tongues speak deceitfully. Therefore, I have begun to destroy you, to ruin you because of your sins.”
I was sick and you looked after me:
The BBC News reported on May 30, 20`ê25, that the last hospital in North Gaza was evacuated after Israel told staff they would kill anyone who did not leave. “World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the closure of al-Awda meant there was no remaining functioning hospital in the North Gaza governorate, ‘severing a critical lifeline for the people there’”. Previously, the hospital had been struck 28 times. Mallory Moench, BBC News, 5/30/25. This comes after months of refusing to allow any food or medical supplies in. As of 6/4/25, trucks were trickling in, but barely enough for survival. Doctors Without Borders, stated, on May 20, 2025, “Israeli authorities must stop the deliberate asphyxiation of Palestinians in Gaza and the annihilation of their health care system, actions that are underpinning their campaign of ethnic cleansing.”
UNICEF reported, on May 27, 2025, that over 50,000 children have been reportedly killed or injured in Gaza. (The numbers go much higher when you include the unreported children, for example, those under rubble).
I was in prison, and you came to visit me:
Trump sent 238 people to El Salvador’s CECOT Prison, though judge ordered their return, most are from Venezuela, and data shows 75% had no criminal records, reports CBS News 60 Minutes April 6th, 2025.
CECOT is notorious for slave labor and torcher. Human Right’s Watch is unaware of any detainees who have been released from CECOT. (Note: there is now one exception: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which is a long story that is still unraveling).
They report that El Salvador denies human rights groups access to these prisons, only media in very limited amounts. There are cases of “torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, severe violations of due process and inhumane conditions, such as lack of access to adequate healthcare and food”. Juanita Goebertus, Director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch 3/20/25 (El Salvador has a history of extreme torture of people siding with the poor, including killing Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was shot in the back while serving communion, some of his colleagues were brutally tortured).
Noah Bullock of CBS News, April 8, 2025, reports that in El Salvador, neither families nor lawyers have any access to the prisoners.
The Center for Constitutional Rights calls the transferring of prisoners to El Salvador’s Notoriously abusive prison a “Blatant violation of International Human Rights Obligations.”. The Trump administration is paying El Salvador $6 million under a renewable one-year term. Trump was recorded telling Bukele that he would like to expand their contract to include “homegrowns”,(US Citizens!), to which Trump’s administration laughed.
Hebrews 13:3 “Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoner, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering”.
Many human rights organizations have come out against the prison and El Salvador’s security policy. Civil society organizations and advocates have reported over 6,000 human rights violations including arbitrary detentions, torture, due process violations, enforced disappearances, and 366 deaths within state custody. The government denies the allegations. via Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia. Reuters March 18, 2025
Meanwhile, Tom Dreisbach from NPR New, on Jan 30th, 2025, reported that President Trump granted clemency to everyone charged in the January 6th attack of the capital, “even those convicted of violently assaulting police officers.” Some of them also had extensive and serious criminal records prior to the January 6th attack.
Jeremiah 5:26,27 “Among my people are wicked men who lie in wait like men who snare birds and like those who set traps to catch men.”
The Christian church has compassion. For example, the church I go to works to support immigrants by housing them and walking along side of them until they obtain all they need to become independent.
The MAGA movement is sometimes seen as helping the Christian church, therefor, the completely inhumane actions are often being ignored. This is a blind spot for many Christians in The United States of America, especially to those who side with Christian Nationalism. Jesus stated the church is a global church. He talked about every tribe and nation being present in the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, the Christian church needs to stand up for the people around the world made in the image of God, even if it is their country that is causing the distress.
What can We do?
o Pray
o Tell our friends, neighbors and family what is going on.
o Write to our members of Congress.
o Join peaceful organizations that are standing up for the rights of others.
o Find reliable media sources, gather information and seek out truth.
o Bring our talents and insight to the table, even if it is just a very small step
Merriam-Webster.com/dictionary/compassion states compassion is a “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it” For compassion, first we need to gain a consciousness of the distress others are going through, then we need God’s help to gain a desire to alleviate their distress, then we need to act, even if in a very small way, to alleviate their distress. Complacencytocompassion.org assists with the first step of helping Christians in the United States of America to gain a consciousness of the distress of certain areas that are in dire need of attention, and then hopefully, we can together build ways to alleviate their distress. Please return to this website in the future for further posts. Thank you for your time, Julie Fergus