Notes on faith in the face of Trump.

The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde at the national prayer service on Tuesday (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

It’s sad we live in a country so full of bibles but so empty of love.

In the grandfather clock at my grandparent’s house, an American flag rests beneath two broken hands. The day grandaddy died, just before I said some words in his honor, two black soldiers walked the aisle, signaling his departure in honor. Every time I return to their home I am reminded of this flag — its meaning, its failure, its power, and its history — and I wonder why we love this country.

There has been betrayal: At every moment of building and pleading, the country turned its back on us. At every step of progress, we were met with backlash. Every gain we made was not seen as an affirmation of our determination and dignity but twisted to justify our erasure and their inhumanity; and still we loved this country.

We died for freedom and lived for peace.

We suffered and believed the best, remaining open and reaching out to our fellow humans only to be left behind and punished simply for being black and American and alive.

At this present hour, I do not understand our black American love of this country, the honor we bear in our eyes when we see the flag, but I know when I see that flag beneath the passing of time, it bears witness to all the ways we’ve been let down and all the ways we’ve courageously never given up and so we speak: this, too, is our country.

James Baldwin once said, “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”

Today, when I listened to Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, I saw that courage in her eyes. She conjured the spirit of Baldwin, the best of Christianity — an undying love for America, an unwavering faith, and the kind of courage that becomes our salvation. “In the name of God,” she said, “I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”

This is what Christianity is meant to do: to liberate the oppressed, to confront the powerful, to make visible those we want to erase.

She pleads for mercy: there are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives, she says. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals — they are not criminals, they are humans worthy of love and protection.

She pleads for mercy: They pay taxes and are good neighbors, she says. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples. There are people who are afraid, she says. “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”

And the man can hardly bear it. Angry, guilty, evil, and seething, the man refuses to face who he is and what he is doing; and millions of Christians say this is God’s man.

It is not just that Christians in this country are abusing the faith. It is that Christians in this country, and I say this as a minister, are cruel. We Christians can’t keep expecting people to invest in our faith and communities when we constantly uphold environments and theologies that treat them like they don’t matter.

Let’s be clear: The last few years did not ruin Christianity. It just exposed a long history that many Christian traditions are more committed to power than they are to people. It showed that at the heart of their faith was not love and liberation but insecurity and fear.

Let’s be clear: Christians should be involved in helping shape the country. Christians should not be trying to create a “Christian” nation. To be people of faith means we join God and our neighbors in creating a more loving and liberating country for everyone, not a “Christian” one.

James Baldwin is right when he says, “If one believes in the Prince of Peace one must stop committing crimes in the name of the Prince of Peace.”

And this is the crime: far too many Christians in America love power more than people; we have forgotten that Jesus loves everybody, no matter who or where or what they are — he refuses to use his power to make faith about control.

If Jesus stood with the marginalized and oppressed, then why do so many Christians stand with the powerful?

I take solace in the fact that millions of Americans are still bothered. I take solace in the fact that we have not given up; that we are displaying courage; that when the worst Americans scream “mass deportation” and “abolish DEI” and “your body, my choice”, so many of us say no!

I take solace in the fact that when many of us say we love Jesus, we mean. When we say we love others, we mean it. When we say we want this country to be inclusive and better and equal, we mean it. I take solace in the fact that our faces and hearts, unlike Trump and his people in the crowd, are moved when we hear of another person’s humanity and suffering.

I take solace in the fact that we courageously speak truth to power. That we refuse to sacrifice faith on the altar of control. That when the Bible says love your neighbor, we do it. That we don’t think that another person's freedom means our oppression.

We may not agree on everything. And we may have differing goals. We may argue fiercely about what matters and what’s right but what we haven’t become is callous. I have seen us grieve and move, move and grieve. These evil Americans think they have won.

They have not. They hit us a bit but we will adjust and find a way.

We love this country and we refuse to give up on it. And so we must continue to have mercy. Have mercy on our nation. Have mercy on our children. Have mercy on those seeking help and asylum. Have mercy on the left out, the marginalized, the oppressed.

This is what it’s about as Christians. Be courageous. Clear. Resolute in our protection of the most vulnerable and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If Christ isn’t about freedom, love, truth, goodness, equality, justice and inclusion, then what was Christ life all about?

The want us to give up,

We refuse.