The Sands of the Culture Wars

In your pew row this morning, almost every hand went up for Donald Trump in November. And that is not a surprise to anyone who has looked at the numbers. Your denomination stands as the single faith community in America that has cast the largest voting bloc for the Republican Party in the modern era. That is a heavy fact to sit with, especially when the One you are gathered to worship spoke words that do not bend easily to the right.

I am not here to talk about candidates. I am not here to talk about parties. I am here to talk about Jesus. And what I want to ask you to wrestle with this morning is this: when we read the words of Jesus, how much of what the Republican platform and the Trump agenda actually reflect is the voice of Christ?

The Stranger at the Gate

The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the most quoted passages in American Christianity. It is on welcome signs in church offices from coast to coast. But let us be honest about where that parable actually points.

Jesus told the story because a religious leader asked him a question that sounds pious but is really about self-preservation. “Who is my neighbor?” The lawyer wanted a boundary. He wanted to know who was in, who was out, where his responsibility ended.

Jesus gave him the opposite of a boundary.

The priest walked past the wounded man on the other side of the road. The Levite did the same. Both had reasons. Both had schedules. Both had good excuses. But the Samaritan — the one from the group your audience would have despised — saw the man, stopped, and did what was needed. He did not ask what passport he held. He did not ask whether he had crossed the border legally. He did not ask whether he contributed to the local economy. He bound his wounds, brought him to an inn, and paid for his care.

Now let us be precise. In the Republican platform of a man who was elected last year, the first major act of the administration was to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The administration has conducted raids on immigrant communities. The platform speaks of walls, of criminalization, of a policy that tells children who were brought here as infants that they no longer belong.

Where is the Good Samaritan in that policy?

I am not asking you to support open borders. I am asking you to tell me where the Good Samaritan lives in a platform that criminalizes the stranger. Jesus did not give the lawyer a policy proposal. He gave him a mirror. The priest and the Levite had the luxury of walking past. The Samaritan did not let anyone tell him that his neighbor was someone else.

And now, as someone who gathers with a congregation that voted overwhelmingly for the administration, I am asking you to look in that mirror. Who is the stranger your new administration has turned away? And can you hear Jesus asking you, as he asked the lawyer, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man?” (Luke 10:36).

The Beatitudes and the House on Rock

In your congregation, the “house on the rock” is a popular sermon. You hear about building your life on solid ground, about having strong foundations. But what is that “rock” that Jesus pointed to?

It is not wealth. It is not military power. It is not a strongman who can promise to “take care of” things that ordinary people cannot.

The beatitudes are Jesus’s description of the architecture of God’s kingdom. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Let me read you the Republican platform on these beatitudes:

• “Blessed are the poor in spirit” — the Republican platform has eliminated or attempted to eliminate programs that feed the hungry, that provide health care to the poor, that offer housing assistance to families living in poverty. The tax cuts went overwhelmingly to the wealthy and corporations.
• “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” — the platform has pursued deregulation that benefits the powerful and protected industries that harm the vulnerable.
• “Blessed are the meek” — the Republican platform has elevated aggression as a virtue. The rhetoric of the administration is one of dominance, of strength, of “winning,” of punishment. The meek, the gentle, the peaceful are not the heroes of that platform. They are the weak, and in a platform built on force, the weak are not blessed — they are left behind.

Now — I want to be fair. There are good Republicans. I know them. There are Republicans who believe in charity, who care about the poor, who vote their conscience on immigration and on justice. I am not talking about them. I am talking about a platform. I am talking about a government’s actual policies.

And the government’s policies, the platform’s language, the administration’s actions — they are the architecture of a different house entirely. One built on sand. One that promises stability but crumbles when the storm comes, because it is built on the shifting foundations of power and privilege rather than on the rock of Christ’s teaching.

When you vote, you are building. Every vote is a stone. Ask yourself: what house is my vote building?

More Words of Jesus That Do Not Fit on the Right

There are other places where the straight lines of Jesus’s teaching cut sharply across the Republican agenda.

On wealth. Jesus told his followers to sell their possessions and give to the poor. He said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. The Republican platform has pursued tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and deregulation for billionaires.

On the Sabbath. Jesus broke rules to feed the hungry and heal the sick. He declared that the Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath. The Republican approach to welfare and assistance tells the hungry that the rules matter more than their need.

On truth. Jesus said, “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.” The administration has been on record for making demonstrably false claims by the dozens. The Republican Party has protected those claims rather than demanding truthfulness.

On forgiveness. Jesus on the cross said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” The Republican rhetoric is built on retaliation, on vengeance, on the language of punishment and defeat of enemies.

On children. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them.” The Republican administration seized children from their parents at the border and placed them in conditions that human rights organizations described as inhumane.

In every one of these areas, the platform and the agenda contradict the direct words of Christ. And I am not being unfair to the Republican position. I am simply reading Jesus out loud and asking you to hear what he actually said.

The Market That Has No Room for Jesus

And then there is the underlying economics that the Republican platform rests on: free market capitalism. But let us call it what it actually is — libertarian market capitalism. The belief that the market, left entirely to its own devices, is the best and most natural ordering of human life. That believers should trust in competition, in the invisible hand, in the idea that people buying and selling freely will produce justice on their own.

There is no such thing in Jesus’s teaching. None of it.

Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Mammon is not a polite word for “resources.” It is a word for wealth as a rival god — a master that commands devotion above obedience to God himself. Libertarian capitalism is, at its root, the worship of mammon dressed as economic theory. It says the market should be free of moral constraints. Jesus says the market should be the slave of moral obligation.

Jesus told a rich young man to sell his possessions and give to the poor. Not to diversify. Not to invest. Not to optimize his portfolio for ethical impact. Sell everything. Give it away. And only then, and only after, could Jesus tell him: “Follow me.” The market’s logic is accumulation and growth. Jesus’s logic is redistribution and discipleship.

Jesus overturned the tables of the merchants in the temple. He did not say the market was inefficient. He did not say the interest rates were wrong. He said the temple had become a marketplace. And God’s judgment fell on the intersection of commerce and sacred life.

Jesus told the parable of the rich man and Lazarus — a man in luxury living next to a starving man at his gate. They shared a wall, they lived inches apart. And the rich man did nothing. The parable ends not with the rich man reforming, not with the rich man tweaking his investment strategy to be more “ethical,” not with the rich man starting a charitable foundation while still hoarding his wealth. The rich man is condemned. The market could justify what he did. Jesus could not.

The early church did not practice capitalism. Acts 2 and 4 describe a community where “no one claimed private ownership of their possessions, but they had everything in common.” This was not a policy suggestion. It was the model of Christian community.

Libertarian capitalism says the individual is the primary unit of moral concern. Jesus says the neighbor is. Libertarian capitalism says competition produces the best outcome. Jesus says competition is how the strong devour the weak. Libertarian capitalism says hoarding is rational. Jesus says hoarding is the rich man’s sin.

The platform you support — the one your congregation elected — is built on the premise that the market should be as free as possible and moral constraints should be minimal. Jesus’s entire teaching is that wealth is a spiritual danger, that the market must be subordinate to love, and that the neighbor at the gate has a claim on your surplus that the market cannot negotiate away.

You cannot serve both.

The Weight of Your Vote

Now here is where it gets hard. And I want to be honest about this because I know your congregation deeply. People vote for candidates for many reasons. They vote for the economy. They vote for religious liberty. They vote for judges. They vote because of family, because of community, because of fear. These are human reasons. I understand them. I have felt them myself.

But if you claim to follow Christ, then his words must have weight. The beatitudes are not a preference. The Good Samaritan is not a parable for Sunday school only. The words about the poor and the stranger and the child are not optional extras. They are the core. They are the gospel.

And when I say “no true Christian can support a platform that contradicts every clear teaching of Christ,” I am not saying that any of you are bad people. I am saying that the policies of this platform and this administration are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.

You can separate the person from the policy. You can love the person who voted Trump while also saying that the policy is wrong. But do not pretend that voting for someone who pursues a platform that contradicts every clear teaching of Christ is a faithful Christian act.

Gospel Before Judgment

Before I leave you with these words, I need to say something that the cross demands.

Because we have all stood where the priest and the Levite stood. We have all had reasons. We have all calculated when it was safer to walk on the other side of the road, when it was easier to look away, when it was more convenient to turn our neighbor into a problem to be managed rather than a person to love. That is not just a thing the platform does. That is a thing we do. That is the human heart, and the cross speaks to us first — to our idolatry, to our self-preservation, to the moments we worshipped mammon and called it rational. God’s judgment falls on the system and on us equally. The cross is where that judgment was absorbed. And the resurrection is where God says the stranger, the poor, the meek, and the child are the center of his kingdom. That is the good news.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I do not want to leave you with no way forward.

The first step is honesty. The second step is prayer. The third step is action.

Pray that God would give your congregation the courage to follow Christ’s words even when they cost us. Even when it is unpopular. Even when it means standing against your own political party.

And then act. Look at your voting. Look at your giving. Look at who you lend your voice to. Ask yourself, with each decision: am I building on the rock, or am I building on sand?

The culture wars are not won by the side with the most votes. They are won by the side that is the most faithful to the teachings of the One who died on the cross — not for the powerful, but for the stranger, the poor, the meek, the child.

Jesus did not call us to be winners. He called us to be neighbors.

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, you told us that the greatest commandment is to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Give us the courage to love our neighbors as you did — even when our neighbors are different from us, even when our neighbors are strangers at the gate, even when loving them costs us. Help us to build our lives on the rock of your teachings, not on the shifting sands of power and politics. Forgive us when we have confused our allegiance with loyalty to a party or a candidate. And give us the grace to follow you, wherever that leads, with open hearts and unflinching faith. Amen.