Writer’s Note: These next seven posts started as a simple cultural commentary and ended up being a one-to-two-month-long project of biblical and theological research, as well as a philosophical and cultural commentary. It is my hope you enjoy reading this as I enjoyed writing it.
Introduction to The Next Seven Posts
It is no secret that I have left the institution of the church as well as question my faith on a daily basis. I discuss it in every single blog post. Today, and the next seven posts, are going to be slightly different. I wanted to extend an olive branch of sorts to those I may alienate with my continuous critiques. These next posts are, in large part, an attempt by me to invite introspection and reflection on behalf of those I may find myself at odds with.
These reflections will be about the culture and theology that has arisen in American churches today. I will be talking about how I can tell whether or not they accurately reflect how Jesus is represented in the gospels based on the “fruit” these evangelical and nationalist Christians create.
As always, it comes from a place of deep love, frustration, and a knowledge that change is possible. This essay (and my blog at large) has become something of a passion project, and it has forced me to engage with the issues of theology and current events as honestly as I can.
If you have the patience to read through all of my points, it is my hope that you may at least consider what I’ve said.
What is Moral Truth?
I grew up hearing from the church that “You will know what is true based on the fruit it creates.” I had forgotten this phrase, but was reminded of it from a random comment I read referencing Matthew 7:15-19. While the scripture itself is about false prophets, I think we can make the jump to use this method to investigate someone’s morality or even their relation to truth as described by Jesus. If examining the fruit of a thing illuminates its relationship to moral truth and theological accuracy, then it should be a fairly simple exercise.
First, we must define what moral truth is, which is way more complicated than one might initially think. Defining it in abstract terms is difficult, but I believe that we can know it based on the behaviors that it promotes. For instance, moral truth may be revealed by the respectful treatment of your neighbors, engaging your fellow human with empathy, and helping others when you see they need assistance. These actions may not be moral truth as such, but they may be the signs of its existence. Whether or not this kind of truth is relative is a discussion for another day.
Second, for my non-Christian readers, we have to define what fruit means in the context of scripture. Fruit often refers to something’s outward evidence for an inward reality. For example, someone claims to be a devout Christian, and yet gets belligerently drunk on a regular basis. The fruit is his belligerence, and shows the roots or tree of his inward lack of purity or holiness.
With these definitions, let’s begin.
The First Reflection: The Fruit of Presidential Exaltation
It is no secret that the president is a deeply flawed individual, even among his followers. How do I know that people who voted for him think this way? Because in many conversations I have had and have seen online, it’s always “Yeah, but…” and then a string of confusing excuses follows.
The President’s Own Fruit
First, Let us examine the fruit of his own life. He has been accused and found liable of sexual assault.1 (See also fn. 2) He has bankrupted numerous businesses.3 He has been shown to be closely associated with one of the most notorious child sex traffickers.4 As I was writing this, the president fired the jobs commissioner for releasing negative economic data, a move that is widely criticized to be an attempt to politicize or censor it.5
Is this the example that evangelicals have chosen to be their Christian representative?
The Evangelical Embrace
You can imagine my deep indignation and disappointment that the majority of evangelical Christians supported him yet again in 2024. It is good practice not to judge a culture based on a small vocal group, yet this is no marginal victory; it was over 80% of evangelicals according to NPR’s polls.6
As you can imagine, It was difficult for me to swallow. It revealed to me an inconsistency, if not duplicity, that ate away at my soul and my faith. I could not simply ignore this, and I was forced to contend with it. It was the single biggest factor that pushed me from the church and Evangelical Christianity.
These are the same moral majority and religious right Christians who ran Bill Clinton out of office for a single public affair. Do not mistake me, we should hold our officials to the highest standard of moral integrity. After all, as the saying goes, “If he can cheat on his wife, he can cheat on our nation.”
Equally, I say that if a president can befriend child sex traffickers, cheat on his wife, and sexually assault women, he too can befriend tyrants, cheat on our country, and bankrupt our nation. As is already happening across the country, with mass deportations and the erosion of our constitutional rights.7
What does it say about evangelical Christianity that their standards and beliefs are elastic to the point that they can back a politician so anti-thetically opposed to Jesus?
The Evangelical Rationalization
So why do they follow such a leader?
I have heard one major argument of why the evangelicals of today seem unbothered by the immorality of the president. They argue that God always uses imperfect people to achieve his goals. Moses and King David are some of their chief examples.
While I was never swayed by this explanation, it did quiet me for some time as it seemed a plausible argument.
Until I read those stories.
While yes, both of these examples are imperfect men who were used by God to achieve his goals, they were both severely punished by God even after their own repentance.
Moses was not allowed to step foot in the promised land (Deuteronomy 32:51-52), and King David and his entire dynasty were punished and cursed to be beset by his enemies (2 Samuel 12, 2 Samuel 24, 1 Kings 1). Both are individuals who started out as faithful followers, committed sins and repented of them, and God still punished and cursed them for their actions.
I have yet to see even a glimmer of earnest repentance from the president. He is too consumed by the demon of ego to be able to repent in the first place. If I may speculate, might God be hardening his heart like the Pharaoh in Exodus, perhaps to teach some kind of lesson? There have been attempts on his life after all.
What might that lesson be about?
To answer my own rhetorical question: This administration has certainly revealed to me that Christians, more specifically evangelicals, are concerned more about their political power than the message and ethics of Jesus. No matter how many warning bells may sound. It revealed to me also that one need not be loyal to an institution, to be loyal to an ideal.
A False Witness
Fact checkers have documented thousands of false or misleading claims that stir up his followers into a ravenous frenzy, as is what happened in the January 6 riots, based on vacuous assertions that “they” are lying to you, and that he is the one who bears the truth. This happens so often that there are individuals who track every single statement of falsehood that he claims.8 (also fn. 9) The book of Deuteronomy has quite a statement to say about liars:
“16 If a malicious witness comes forward to accuse someone of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days, 18 and the judges shall make a thorough inquiry. If the witness is a false witness, having testified falsely against another, 19 then you shall do to the false witness just as the false witness had meant to do to the other. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 20 The rest shall hear and be afraid, and a crime such as this shall never again be committed among you.”
Deuteronomy 19:16–20 NRSVUE
This law condemns false witness; there are many scriptures like it, but I chose Deuteronomy because of its stark imagery. In principle, if this law were extended to our elected leaders, it calls us to keep our communities accountable to those who represent truth, rather than being submissive to those who distort it.
If we interpret this passage through the lens of Jesus, we aught to show them respect and love, but we do not sacrifice our morality to liars, even if their lies are tempting.
Do they love their enemies?
Furthermore, he and his republican allies have continually threatened and retaliated against their democrat co-workers and fellow citizens 10, and do so against them in the name of a promised golden age.
I was told by a pastor how close his conservative senator friend was to God. I am curious where his godliness may be found. This pastor did not give me a name, yet I have struggled to find any republican politician show their opponents love and respect as Jesus demands.
I would praise God aloud in the streets to see republican senators act in regards to Jesus’ teaching:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven… For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?… Do not even the gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:43-48 NRSVUE
The Myth of a Christian Nation
The president and his republican allies like to paint themselves as returning Christianity and purity to the White House. I find such a claim somewhat amusing, if not dangerous and misleading. Point to me a time in which America was ever a Christian nation.
Was America a Christian nation when White Christians were lynching thousands of black men, women and children between 1880-1960?
Was America a Christian nation when it expunged and ethnically cleansed the native Americans from their own land to make room for Christians?
Was America a Christian nation when southern Christians upheld and rationalized the violent and brutal slave trade with the bible for centuries?
The hard reality is that America is not, and never will be, a Christian nation. Wherever power and greed are, Christ is not.
Christ is found tending to the poor, the huddled masses, those spurned by the powerful and the apathetic.
As I said before, the president is hardly a picture of Christian, or even more broadly, Western morality and ethics. How can we expect anyone to take him, and thus our religion as a whole, seriously if they do not follow these fundamental commands?
Standing against Idols
A bible story that comes to mind is of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel 3:16). It is a story of three men who refused to bend the knee to Nebuchadnezzar and his golden image. Their bravery to stand against an idolatrous leader was remembered by God and they were protected from the flames.
There seems to be a prophetic edge to this story. King’s and powerful men love gold, they are consumed with its beauty and tempting power. One might say that they worship it as it grants them power and authority.
Who else do we know that is consumed with the lust for gold?
Who has rooms gilded in gold?
Who else tells us to trust him, and him alone, to bring us into a golden age?
Who is the Lord of the Evangelicals?
It is now up to conservative evangelical Christians to demonstrate that they will not fall for imperial idols and empty promises. They either love the Christianity of Christ, or the Christianity of America. There is a chasm between the two that cannot be reconciled.
I believe that many evangelicals will wake up. The shift is already slowly happening, as the Pew Research Center polling shows a slow but steady shift away from Trump, and hopefully, the ideology as well. 11
How does this fruit taste?
If indeed nationalist and evangelical Christians claim to follow Jesus, they seem to be a little confused as to who their true master is. It seems to me that a mortal man, immoral in almost every way, rules their lives and their religion.
The fruit of their actions shows to me the support of an immoral ruler over that of their own Lord they claim to follow. Furthermore, the fruit of their support has caused strife not only to a nation, the world, and to the vulnerable, but to the very core of Christianity itself.
It is a bitter tasting fruit.
Footnotes/Citations
- AP News — “Trump caught on video making lewd, crude remarks about women.” AP News. ↩︎
- Larry Neumeister, Jennifer Peltz & Michael R. Sisak, “Jury Finds Trump Liable for Sexual Abuse, Awards Accuser $5M,” Associated Press, May 9, 2023. ↩︎
- The Washington Post — “Fact Check: Has Trump declared bankruptcy four or six times?” The Washington Post. ↩︎
- CNN (KFile) — “(KFILE) Trump — Epstein photos/footage.” CNN, July 22, 2025. ↩︎
- AP News — “‘Crazy!!’: How BLS staff reacted to Trump firing commissioner. ↩︎
- NPR — “White evangelical voters overwhelmingly support Trump. Meet Evangelicals for Harris.” NPR, Oct. 29, 2024. ↩︎
- American Immigration Council — “Mass Deportation: Analyzing the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Immigrants, Democracy, and America.” (Report) ↩︎
- The Washington Post — “How The Washington Post Fact Checker tracked Trump’s false and misleading claims during his presidency.” (Fact-check overview), Jan. 23, 2021. ↩︎
- WHYY (News) — “A look at false and misleading claims made by Trump.” WHYY. ↩︎
- Newsweek — (Article on Texas redistricting / Greg Abbott — headline varies by link). Newsweek. ↩︎
- Pew Research Center (Short Reads) — “White evangelicals continue to stand out in their support for Trump.” Apr. 28, 2025. ↩︎
