Anti-Christian Bias
On Friday February 7th President Trump issued an executive order focusing on the creation of an Anti-Christian Bias task force. As your pastor, I invite you to think about what is happening theologically rather than from a partisan perspective. If you’d like to read the whole executive order from the White House website you can by clicking here. I’m curious to hear how you feel and what you think about this executive order? How do we as followers of Christ make sense of this?
To wrestle with these questions, we turn to examples in scripture of believers who experienced hardship on account of their faith. We can point to Paul and Silas being arrested (Acts 16), Daniel in the lion’s den (Daniel 6), or even the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7). Each of these faithful disciples experienced great hardship, even death for their faith. We acknowledge and lament that Christians around the world continue to experience persecution and martyrdom. In our country there is not widespread persecution of Christians.
This executive order seeks to prevent bias not persecution. Bias is “prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.” Some would say there is pro Christian bias while others would contend the opposite is true. I don’t claim to be a referee, but I think we all see how different Christian communities are responding to this political moment. Some churches are strongly opposing what is happening, some churches are neutral, and some churches are holding a Christian nationalist viewpoint seeking to impose Christian belief in secular spaces.
We can’t explore every aspect of what the executive order mentions but I want to hold up three points for our consideration. First the order recounts an incident in which catholic protesters were arrested for blocking access to a clinic which offered abortion services. This raises questions about whether or not it is within the rights of protestors to prevent others from making their choices on religious grounds. If you are Christian who is against abortion is it within your rights to prevent someone else from accessing a clinic that offers abortions? If the answer is no, does that constitute bias against Christians? Furthermore, would we answer this question in the same way if a Muslim person prevented a Christian from doing something?
The second aspect of the executive order focuses attention on acts of hostility against Christian houses of worship. After sorting through various news articles, they claim there were roughly 450 incidents in 2024 throughout the nation and about two thirds were acts of vandalism. This is still concerning but the executive order does not contextualize this information within a framework of how this compares to Jewish or Islamic houses of worship. Do a quick google search and you will find there are thousands of complaints filed about anti-Muslim bias and antisemitic bias in 2024 as well. I think we all share the value that no one should feel unsafe for practicing their faith or praising God in their house of worship. Any form of violence, harassment, or intimidation is sin.
Third, this order focuses on how the Biden administration balanced the rights of LGBTQ people with the rights of religious liberty differently than the Trump administration is proposing. When applied to employment practices and foster care where do the rights of equal access and protection for any person (Christian, Muslim, LGBTQ, married, single, black or white) intersect with the rights of religious liberty? I wonder how we as Christians can affirm the image of God in all people and pay attention to those who are vulnerable, especially young people. These are complex questions that can’t be answered through one executive order, blog post, or Bible study.
So what do we do with this information? I hope we can think through the complex challenges we face with the heart and mind of Christ. I confess, that I don’t have answers to these questions, and I pray to God for discernment. I can only think of how Christ responded to the complex challenges of his day. I think he would be healing those wounded by hate, dining with people deemed unworthy to be part of the church, and flipping the tables of the powerful who take advantage of the marginalized. Jesus would be challenging us to stand up to hate in every form and embody the message of love with our words and actions.
Should we as Christians be supporting, protesting, or ambivalent to this executive order? I want to hear your perspective. I recognize there are people in our church that may agree or disagree. Once again, my goal as your pastor is to challenge all of us to think theologically about the complex issues we face and pull us away from partisan thinking. If you are interested in opening up a conversation about how we can apply our faith to the different events unfolding in our nation please email me at PastorMike@SpringChurch.org. I’d welcome a conversation and I appreciate your feedback.
