The missing ministry of rebuke
Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Fountain Park in Fountain Hills, Arizona. Photograph by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons 2.0 Deed - Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Rev. Paul Justice Snyder
On Monday, October 5 at a campaign rally, President Donald Trump said of Iran, “Let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego.”
Behind him was a crowd proudly wearing their MAGA hats, laughing, and cheering. I don’t know if they actually want American cities attacked. Perhaps they will try to dismiss it as a joke, or as a way to dig at the political left. Let’s be very clear — even if so, that is unacceptable.
Steven Cheung, White House Communications Director, has already come out in defense of the president, saying that the “the media freakout over President Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality.”
I suspect that many of the people in that crowd were singing hymns in pews on Sunday. Just one day earlier, I imagine many of them had gathered with other Christians to read stories about Jesus, pray to become more like him, and with passion in their hearts declare him Lord of their lives.
It’s obviously a stunning statement from anyone, let alone the President of the United States, but it is not surprising. For the better part of the last decade, the president has led the charge in using violent political rhetoric to castigate and dehumanize his political enemies.
I want to be clear: I am against that kind of language when it is used by anyone, against any country or any people around the world. And yet, it feels particularly disturbing when the president uses it against the citizens of his own country. Yes, many people in those cities disagree with the president. But they are not enemies because they vote differently or live in places the president dislikes.
Calling for the destruction of thousands upon thousands of people is spiritually empty and morally reprehensible. But it’s also not the first time someone has called for the destruction of whole cities. A fascinating story in the Gospel of Luke came to my mind when I heard those words. As Jesus and his disciples were making their way toward Jerusalem, they came to a Samaritan village. The people there did not welcome Jesus, and James and John were furious about it.
Luke tells us: “When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’ But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village” (Luke 9:54-56 NIV).
It is a strange little moment in the story of Jesus. Of course, it is well known that the Samaritans were considered enemies of the Jewish people. There was a long history of religious, cultural, and political hostility between them. They did not like one another. They distrusted one another. They had plenty of reasons, some real and others imagined, to believe the other side was the problem.
As people of faith, we should always rebuke the desire to turn our political opponents into enemies. Jesus rebuked his own disciples because their response to people they considered enemies was incompatible with the kind of people Jesus called them to be.
Jesus doesn’t laugh it off, or act like the disciples didn’t say it. In response to the disciples’ desire for destruction, Jesus rebukes them. Jesus rebuked his own disciples because their response to people they considered enemies was incompatible with the kind of people Jesus was calling them to be. They wanted fire, death, humiliation, and domination. Jesus chastised them and told them to keep walking.
This story reminds us that rebuke is also a ministry of Jesus. We are often told that Christians should be kind, gracious, forgiving, welcoming, and loving. And we should be. I believe those are hallmark traits of a Christian life. But Christian love does not mean refusing to name what is wrong. Sometimes it requires us to tell our own people, “No. That is not who we are. You have crossed a line.”
As people of faith, we should always rebuke the desire to turn our political opponents into enemies, to celebrate violence against people we dislike, or to speak about whole cities and communities as though their destruction would somehow make the world better.
Following the remarks, there has been an outcry from various quarters. And this is where I think the religious right has a particular responsibility right now. President Trump does not need to be rebuked only by people who already disagree with him and those he considers his enemies. He needs to be rebuked by people who support him, the evangelical pastors who voted for him, and the Christians who have traded in their Sunday best for their MAGA hats.
He needs to be rebuked by people who believe his policies are good and his leadership is necessary. He needs to hear it from his own people — not because Democrats are always right or because Republicans are always wrong. And certainly not because one political party has a monopoly on Christian virtue. He needs to be rebuked by his own people because Christians should have a loyalty deeper than our politics.
James and John were not outsiders to Jesus when Jesus rebuked them. They were his disciples and undoubtedly some of his closest friends. Maybe that is the uncomfortable part of this story for us — it is much easier to condemn the Samaritans and those who are not like us, but it is a lot harder to rebuke your own people.
If we are ever going to climb out of this powder keg of political division we find ourselves in, Christians cannot only be comfortable defending our own, we also need to become comfortable challenging our own. Jesus didn’t tell James and John to call down fire; he rebuked them. And maybe they didn’t like it. Maybe it made them mad. Maybe they tried to come up with excuses, or act like it was just a joke. But he rebuked them, and they kept walking.
It’s time for all Christians, especially in this moment the religious right, to recover that ministry, too.
Rev. Paul Justice Snyder is senior minister of the Central Christian Church in New Albany, IN. He graduated from Wake Forest University School of Divinity in 2019, where he earned his Master of Divinity with a Concentration in Food, Health, and Ecological Well-Being.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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