Congratulations! 2025 is almost over. Eleven months into the second Trump presidency, you’re still standing. If you’re reading this, then you’re not one of the people who has been hauled off to a prison camp by America’s masked government agents.
In three weeks it will be Christmas. So, if you’re one of the 60% of Americans who are Christian, you may take some time to stand back and reflect on what Jesus would say about the hateful fascism that has taken over the United States of America.
It’s useful to put difficult times into context. If putting a religious frame around American politics is your thing, have at it… but I make one request: Please think twice before saying that your political opponents are not “true Christians”, or that they are ignoring the teachings of Jesus.
For one thing, making religious arguments about which politicians should control the federal government implicitly lends support to the frame of Christian Nationalists, who believe that the religious beliefs of the Christian majority should direct the laws of our country.
More fundamentally, whether you’re liberal or fascist, if you believe that Jesus would support your political views, you’re wrong.
Well, to be fair, you’re right, but you’re also wrong.
Christianity has two Jesuses
If you’re a progressive Christian, when you think of Jesus, you think of the Sermon On The Mount. You think of Jesus saying that the poor and weak are blessed, and that rich people can’t get into heaven, and that we shouldn’t respond to violence with violence.
For you, Jesus is the ultimate nice guy. This Jesus is really awesome. He embraces outsiders and preaches love.
MAGA fascists have a different Jesus. I hate to break it to you, but their Jesus is in the Bible, too.
The fascist Jesus shows up when he goes all January 6 in The Temple, physically attacking moneychangers, whipping them and chasing them away because he doesn’t agree with the form of Judaism that they practice.
The fascist Jesus shows up when he threatens to re-enact the violent massacres of Tyre and Sidon when communities he visits decide they don’t want to worship him.
The fascist Jesus shows up when he says he hates churches that teach their followers that they have the right to choose who to have sex with.
The fascist Jesus shows up when he unleashes swarms of God’s angels in the form of monstrous locusts with human faces, iron armor, and the tails of scorpions. These torture locusts are instructed to torment anyone who does not have the approval of God – and only 144,000 people out of the 200 million people on Earth at the time have the approval of God.
The suffering of Jesus on the cross lasted six hours. Jesus directs his locusts army to inflict torture on his enemies that lasts for five months. The torture locusts of God are specifically instructed not to kill their victims, even though the agony inflicted by their stings will be so bad that people will plead for death.
You may be thinking to yourself that Jesus never said these things, and never did these things.
Of course, your religious belief is a matter of faith. Your faith won’t be changed through a logical debate. However, if you believe that the New Testament is a credible source of information about what Jesus said and did, I encourage you to go back and read the New Testament… the whole thing, not just the parts that you feel most comfortable with.
You’ll find that everything I’ve described is in the New Testament, and more. You’ll read about Jesus promising to come back with a sword, smashing his enemies with a rod of iron, and crushing the bodies of so many non-Christians that their blood creates a foul lake of blood six feet deep and the size of Lake Erie.
Brutal totalitarian Christian Nationalism, with Jesus as its absolute ruler, is a teaching of the New Testament, even though the same New Testament describes Jesus as preaching love and peace.
Both visions are true Christianity.
In the Sermon On The Mount, Jesus taught non-violence and generosity. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus preached to John of Patmos that non-Christians deserve to be brutally tortured and killed.
According to most Christian churches, both sets of the teachings of Jesus are canon. Different Christians choose which teachings of Jesus to emphasize, and which to ignore.
In the elections of 2016, 2020, and 2024, the majority of American Christian voters chose to vote for Donald Trump, who ran all three times as a strident advocate of Christian power. The MAGA movement is brutal because of its Christianity, not in spite of it.
The Book of Revelation version of Jesus has the loyalty of most American Christians. If you’re a Sermon On The Mount Christian, your version of Christianity is not in the mainstream.
Perhaps there is an ultimate reality in which a True Jesus and a True God exist, and they’re really taking sides in the struggle between fascism and democracy. Unfortunately, neither God nor Jesus have shown up in person to settle the debate.
Until they do, it makes more sense to advocate for the values of human rights on the basis of human experience in the here and now. If we’re ever going to rebuild American democracy, we’re going to have to re-establish the fundamental principle that freedom is for everybody, regardless of where they come from and what they believe.
Arguments about which side is the most Christian won’t get us there.