by John Ellis
President Donald Trump is petulantly (and wickedly) threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran doesn’t capitulate to his demands.[1] Openly declaring war crimes as part of his strategy reeks of Trump’s narcissism and childish incompetence. To be fair, if “fair” is the right word here, Donald Trump isn’t (won’t be) the only U.S. president to resort to actions that run rough shod over things like the U.S. Constitution, international law, human rights, and basic decency and ethics. FDR’s Attorney General Francis Biddle summed it up well when he said, “[T]he Constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime President.”[2] But whataboutism is a fool’s game. Whether you look up to past presidents like FDR, JFK, Clinton, or Obama, or whether you slam those names onto the dialectical whataboutism table to prove that your guy ain’t that bad, now is not the time for partisan bickering and/or historical mythmaking. As citizens of the United States of America we are at a specific moment in history in which we can – should – communicate moral clarity in the face of an obviously immoral president who is threatening unspeakable crimes against humanity. We are at a time – the actual day, in fact – when Americans should raise our collective voice in denunciation of what our President is threatening to do.
You see, it’s not a president staring at us from the pages of our long-forgotten college history textbook signing Executive Order 9066. It’s our sitting President threatening to murder Iranian civilians if the Iranian government doesn’t bow to his wishes. Adding insult to actual threatened injury, Donald Trump has the audacity to speak for the Iranian people by declaring that they will gladly suffer more pain and loss if it leads to their freedom. I could write an entire series of articles about how that’s imperialistic and paternalistic/racist bullshit (see footnote 1 for a taste of what that series would be about). For now, though, my heart is in knots thinking about the violence and pain that will likely be rained down on God’s image bearers tonight. I can’t imagine the fear and dread crushing Iranian parents today. I clearly remember the stress and worry that comes with strapping a newborn into her car seat for the first time. Watching my children play while knowing the terrible violence that hangs over my country’s head is unfathomable for me. So, while the military tasked with delivering the murderous carnage bears the flag of the country in which I am a citizen, I unequivocally denounce and condemn Donald Trump and his threatened war crimes.
Downstream of that is my growing disgust with those who voted for Donald Trump and sit in silence, or worse, defend him. If Trump’s threats to murder civilians, including children and babies, do not move his supporters, especially those who profess to be a Christian, to speak up, nothing will. In their silence, they reveal that their ethics are derived from the one they look to for salvation. If that’s you, I urge to repent.
Today, and the coming days, may very well go down as one of the most shameful episodes in American history. When you stand before Jesus one day, what will you say to him about your response, or lack thereof, to today? Will you have to explain how your allegiance to Donald Trump caused you to sit in complicit silence while image bearers suffered? If you claim the name of Christ, you answer to Jesus and not to Trump, not to MAGA, and not to the GOP. Now is the time to make known where you allegiance lies: denounce and condemn Donald Trump in the name of Jesus. I do.
P.S. to MAGA readers: Even if you insist that the worst-case scenario is “just” the bombing of bridges and Iran’s civilian infrastructure, what do you think will be the result of that? Not to mention that bombing bridges and civilian infrastructure would lead to the direct murders of at least some civilians. Some of y’all left your critical thinking skills (and ethics) at the top of that golden escalator Trump smugly descended in 2015.
[1] At least since William Knox D’Arcy conned the Persian government into basically giving away its most precious national resource in 1901, the West has viewed and treated Iran and the rest of the Middle and Near East (and the rest of the developing world) through an imperialistic and paternalistic lens, at best. Much of the awful shit that goes on in the world today can be directly blamed on the West’s imperialism.
[2] Quoted by Jean Edward Smith, FDR (New York: Random House Trade Paperback, 2008), 553.
Practically Known Theology 