We’re pastors. The fight against Maga Christianity starts locally; The Guardian, December 21, 2025

Doug Pagitt and Lori Walke, The Guardian ; We’re pastors. The fight against Maga Christianity starts locally

"Donald Trump wants us to believe that the “war on Christianity” is spreading across the globe. The US president recently sounded the alarm on the “mass slaughter” of Christians in Nigeria while threatening a US invasion of the African nation. We shouldn’t be surprised. This falls right in line with Trump’s ongoing attempts to project Maga Christianity on to the global stage and crack down on religious freedom.

Maga Christianity represents a self-serving, commercialized version of the Christian faith – putting power over service and empathy – and it is everywhere in our federal government. In February, Trump announced a taskforce led by Pam Bondi with the goal of rooting out “anti-Christian” bias. In September, Trump announced his plans to protect prayer in schools. Later that month, he issued a memorandum identifying anti-Christianity as a potential driver of terrorism. These are not just one-off incidents. This is a national effort to push the Maga Christianity agenda on Americans, and we’re already seeing the consequences.

Despite the Bible’s clear call to “love thy neighbor”, the Maga movement has used its version of the Christian faith to oppress immigrants, oppose the rights of women and condemn the LGBTQ+ community. At the same time, we’ve seen shootings at places of worship and arrests of faith leaders at peaceful protests.

As faith leaders, our greatest strength during Trump 2.0 and the rise of Christian nationalism is our local congregations. It’s our ability to physically come together in our communities, communicate with one another, support our neighbors in need and elevate our own Christian values that set us apart.

Faith leaders have a powerful role to play, especially as the Trump administration continues to use religion to divide us."

Trump declines to call for unity after Charlie Kirk killing in stunning move; The Guardian, September 12, 2025

Ed Pilkington , The Guardian; Trump declines to call for unity after Charlie Kirk killing in stunning move

"In an interview on Fox & Friends on Friday morning, the US president was asked what he intended to do to heal the wounds of Kirk’s shooting in Utah. “How do we fix this country? How do we come back together?” he was asked by the show’s co-host Ainsley Earhardt, who commented that there were radicals operating on the left and right of US politics.

Less than 48 hours after Kirk was shot in broad daylight on the campus of Utah Valley University, Trump replied: “I tell you something that is going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less.”...

Trump’s refusal to seek a common bipartisan way forward at a time of profound national anger, fear and mourning was a stunning move for a sitting US president, even by his standards.

The US has a long history of presidents using their rhetorical powers to try to overcome political fissures. The pinnacle perhaps was Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address towards the end of the civil war, in which he sought to “bind up the nation’s wounds” and made a point of striving for unity “with malice toward none, with charity for all”."