(RNS) — On Easter Sunday, when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Donald Trump posted the following message on his Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
On Christianity’s highest holy day, we saw a president who claims to be Christian sending a message full of profanity and describing an attack on civilian infrastructure that would bring massive suffering and even death to ordinary people, while mocking the religion of Islam.
The suggestion of such actions carries weight. To target infrastructure civilians depend on is widely understood by military leaders and legal experts as a war crime. Whether or not such threats are carried out, they have an impact on any future deal conversations.
Then, at a White House Easter lunch service, we witnessed profound blasphemy. Religious leaders gathered around Trump, and a sacred moment that could have brought peace and truth-telling was misused, and religion was abused.
Paula White, who heads the White House Faith Office, compared Donald Trump to Jesus Christ, calling him the “greatest champion of faith that we’ve ever seen in a president.” She made this parallel repeatedly in her remarks, comparing Trump’s alleged suffering to that of Jesus, saying that no one had paid a price like he had, that he had been falsely accused, and that, like Jesus, he had risen into victory. She even said that because of the resurrection, God’s victory was now being worked out through Trump in all he does. I guess that includes war crimes?
Evangelist Franklin Graham followed, framing the war against Iran as righteous and invoking Scripture to justify violence, asking for God’s protection over the military and for freedom for those he described as oppressed. After Graham, Ralph Reed, founder of the right-wing Faith and Freedom Coalition, prayed that God had spared Trump’s life for this presidential purpose, framing his leadership as divinely preserved and asking for wisdom, guidance and victory in his battles.
Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress then described the presidency as part of God’s plan, casting the ongoing conflict as a spiritual struggle between light and darkness and praying that Trump would be empowered to act decisively in the battles, especially at Easter, a day meant to honor resurrection, hope and the triumph of life over death.
The whole service transformed a sacred moment of reflection into a celebration of war, power and Trump. We heard once more the claim that Trump is bringing religion back to America, followed by Trump’s many grievances about immigrants, elections, cultural threats and war.
There was no talk about care for “the least of these,” whom Jesus asked his followers to defend and care for in Matthew 25. In fact, the poor and vulnerable, including “the stranger” have been deliberately targeted by Trump, with no concerns expressed by his handpicked religious leaders. And in the face of war and threats of war crimes, these court chaplains ignored the most fundamental teaching of Jesus: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”
Then this past Tuesday (April 7), we saw Trump escalate this rhetoric into a threat to wipe out a whole civilization. On Truth Social, he wrote:
A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!
Tuesday evening arrived along with Trump’s imposed deadline for destruction. The whole world was waiting, praying and holding our breaths. This was certainly true in my household and in many others. I wondered what would happen if such a threat were carried out? What would be the human consequences of an attack on Iran and the ancient civilization of Persia?
In the final hours before the deadline, a temporary ceasefire was reached between the United States and Iran. For now, the immediate danger has been paused. But the ceasefire is fragile and does not apply to the entire region. Just in recent days, over 300 people in Lebanon were killed in Israeli airstrikes. And Trump’s ultimate threat against Iran has not been withdrawn.
What are we to do when the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the world acts with such instability, inconsistency and incredibility? The danger is not only in what might happen, but in how close it came to happening at all. When the leader entrusted with extraordinary power wields it without restraint or reason, the consequences — moral, human and spiritual — are ours to reckon with.
We have a president who poses an unprecedented danger and religious leaders who, in their support of him, have crossed into blasphemy. All the perils of Christian nationalism came together and were shown to us with clarity this Easter. It is undeniable.
As followers of Christ, who called us to be peace makers, we cannot stand by silently in the face of such aggressive, dehumanizing and violent rhetoric and actions. Newly buoyed by the reminder of the promise of resurrection, we must speak and act with courage and truth to bring about peace for all of God’s children. I hear sermons being preached and local congregations speaking out against the Iran war. The Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV called the war “unjust” and declared Trump’s threat to destroy a whole civilization “unacceptable.”
The more churches, clergy and ordinary Christians who speak out and act against this disastrous war, the more of us will be true peacemakers, following the instructions of our resurrected Christ.
(The Rev. Jim Wallis is Archbishop Desmond Tutu Chair and director of Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice and is the author, most recently, of “The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy.” A version of this commentary appeared on the Substack God’s Politics with Jim Wallis. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
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