Reverend Jim Wallis critiques the Trump administration for weaponizing faith, labeling depictions of the president as Jesus as blasphemy and threats against Iran as potential war crimes. He contrasts this with Pope Francis's anti-war stance and argues that diverting Medicaid funds violates biblical mandates to care for the vulnerable. While callers cite Leviticus regarding immigrant treatment and identify false prophets within the administration, Wallis emphasizes Matthew 25's call for radical empathy toward the marginalized, concluding that genuine prophetic voices must oppose framing conflicts as holy wars. [Automatically generated summary]
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Pope Leo's Moral Stance00:10:16
Thank you.
This weekend, the annual White House Correspondence Dinner is being held in Washington, D.C., a decades-long tradition that brings together journalists, politicians, and celebrities for one night to celebrate the First Amendment and recognize the work of the White House Press Corps.
This year's entertainer is mentalist Oz Perlman, and President Trump is also expected to attend for the first time as president.
Our live coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern with the red carpet arrivals.
You can watch on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org.
Reverend Jim Wallace joins us this morning.
He is the director of Georgetown University's Center on Faith and Justice.
He previously served as President Obama's White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and he's here to talk about the role of faith and religion in the Trump administration.
Reverend Jim Wallace, I want to begin with the president, a portion of the president's reading of the Bible recorded from the Oval Office.
It's part of a week-long Bible reading event led by a Christian nonprofit.
We'll talk on the other side.
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Reverend Wallace, how would you describe the Trump administration's effort or relationship with faith and religion?
How do they use it or not use it?
Thank you, Greta.
Nice to hear you this morning.
Well, I think it's Trump has brought religion and faith into this war, and that's very concerning to many people.
To depict himself as Jesus with light coming out of his head and hands with a robe was deeply concerning to many people, even people who voted for Donald Trump.
And to have Jesus embrace him, which another post did, and say that God is playing his trump card, these are deeply concerning things to say because this war doesn't meet criteria of traditional just war theory, Aquinas and Augustine, but it certainly isn't a holy war.
And we have many problems, legitimate issues with the theocratic regime in Iran, but we don't want to become ourselves a theocracy.
So when Pete Hegset says, when he boasts about all the destruction and then says, to God be the glory, the Secretary of Defense saying to God be the glory, these are religious offenses.
So I and others have named this blasphemy, which is a theological term.
So it isn't just differences in policy, but blasphemy shows an irreverence, a disrespect, and associating himself with Jesus is something we've never seen before in a president of the United States.
And blasphemy means what for those who are religious?
Well, it's irreverence.
It's not respecting or honoring the name of God.
It's using.
Billy Graham's granddaughter the other day said that Trump is using religion.
She said using the Lord.
She's an evangelical Christian too, but she said it's using the Lord for his own political purposes.
And I think that's well said.
So it's using the Lord, as she would say, or using religion for his own political purpose.
And she said, to avoid accountability, this president needs accountability, particularly in this war policy.
And so using the Lord, using religion, is something that's offensive to many of us who are people of faith, regardless of our political point of view.
There has also been the back and forth between the president and Pope Leo.
Here is the Washington Times this morning.
Pope urges the U.S., Iran, to restart peace talks to end this war.
Recently, the vice president, JD Vance, defended the president's disagreements with the Pope and said that the Vatican should stay in its lane and stick to matters of morality.
How would you respond?
The Vatican's lane has always been to speak out against war.
John Paul spoke out against the Iraq war.
Popes have always spoken on moral issues like the moral issues of war.
This is not new.
Pope Leo is not the first pope who's spoken like this or other faith leaders when wars are unjust or unfair, don't fit the criteria of a just war.
So this is not new.
It's very ironic that JD Vance, a new convert to Catholic faith, is attacking the Pope on his theology.
And I think when Pope Leo was on the plane, that was the moment that was most decisive for me.
So he's on a plane, his usual plane, talking to reporters, and they asked him how he felt about Trump attacking him, a president attacking a Pope.
And so what he was saying there wasn't prescripted, it wasn't official Vatican statements edited by bureaucracies.
He said just from his head and heart, he said, I have no fear of the Trump administration.
I have no fear of speaking loudly about the gospel.
And the gospel that he then referred to was Jesus calling us, saying, instructing us to be peacemakers.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
And he said that message is needed right now.
So Pope Leo becomes, for me, a model for church leaders, clergy around the country to speak out against this war and to say these are theological issues now and not just political issues.
So Pope Leo is showing his heart and he's very much in the long tradition of papal statements about the morality of war.
That's not new.
Reverend Wallace, it's not new that popes have spoken out about war, but how he is speaking out made the headlines this morning.
Here's the Wall Street Journal.
Pope speaks forcefully on global issues.
And another headline similar in the papers this morning from the world section of the Washington Post, on Africa trip, quiet Pope adopts a confident global voice.
Well, Pope Francis certainly had a global voice.
We all remember that.
And Pope Leo, he was on the plane.
He was on this two-week African trip.
And so this voice, it will always be a voice for the ones Jesus called the least of these.
In Matthew 25, which was my conversion text, I call it the it was me text.
Jesus says, I was hungry.
It was me.
I was thirsty.
I was naked.
I was a stranger.
And the word stranger there literally in the text means immigrant, refugee.
I was sick.
I was in prison.
And as you've done to the least of these, these vulnerable people, you've done to me.
So Pope Leo always will say and rightly say, the first thing we see in a war situation as Christians is the faces of the victims.
Those who have suffered 2,000 people have already died.
And Donald Trump has now threatened to bomb all the bridges and all the power plants.
And even in military law, that's a war crime.
And his incredible statement about killing a whole civilization, when that happened, many people just were their jaws dropped.
Killing all civilization.
That's by definition genocide.
So I don't know what's going to happen next, but threats for a lot more bombs to fall and civilians to suffer further, that's a religious issue.
And Pope Leo and all of us need to speak to that question.
The victims, particularly innocent civilians, have to be our concern, those who are suffering and dying.
And now this war costing a billion dollars a day, it's hard to fathom that.
Now they're saying, Trump is saying this will be taken from funds for Medicaid.
So from those who are sick and low income.
So taking money away from the most vulnerable is a violation of Matthew 25 and putting it into war and protects potentially war crimes.
This is a serious moral religious issue.
And the Pope is right in his lane, as we all should be in the lane of evaluating wars by a moral theological stance and not just politics.
Religious Advisors Unite Against War00:09:43
All right.
Reverend Willis, let's get to calls.
Bob in Franklin, Indiana, Republican, you're up first.
Yes, good morning.
So glad that you're on this subject.
But what does the Bible instruct us on immigration?
In Leviticus 19 and 33, this is what the Bible says about immigration.
It says, And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, you shall not vex him.
But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you.
And thou shalt love him as thyself, or ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
I am the Lord your God.
Now, the portion of this last verse is actually the most important commandment in the Bible.
Jesus said that the whole Bible hangs on two commandments: one is to love God, and the other is to love the neighbor as yourself.
And this is the first instance where this scripture is used.
It's talking about the stranger or the immigrant.
It says, Thou shalt love him as thyself, and that you should not vex him, and that you should treat him as one born among you, as a native.
And today we're putting immigrants in cages.
We're taking little kids in bunny hats, detaining them.
We're keeping immigrants in concentration, in camps, depriving them of medication until they die.
We separate spouses, we separate parents, when in fact the Bible tells us how we should think about the immigrants.
So if you're going to use the Bible from the Oval Office, how about what the Bible says about how we treat the immigrants?
Bob, I'm going to have Reverend Wallace jump in.
Bob, you said it so well.
I use that Leviticus text in my class at Georgetown on ethics for public policy students, and they see it the same way you do, how we treat the stranger.
It is loving our neighbor as ourselves, loving God and loving our neighbor with no exceptions.
And that Leviticus text is one of the strongest in the whole Bible.
So if the president wants to use the Bible or read the Bible from the Oval Office, and he's often said he showing he doesn't know the Bible well, yet he's reading the Chronicles text, and yet that text talks about turning from our wicked ways.
So what President Trump is doing to the stranger, to the immigrant, is wicked.
It's contrary to what the Bible says.
So if we're going to talk about the Bible, let's do the whole Bible and talk about how we treat the poor and vulnerable, how we treat the immigrant, the stranger, and how we treat those civilians who are being threatened by war.
So if we're going to use the Bible, let's be fair and do the whole Bible.
I agree with you, Bob.
We'll go to Jack in Baltimore, Democratic caller.
Hey, good morning, guys.
That was a great call.
Good morning.
Great call, that previous caller.
Interesting that he caught on Republican line with that viewpoint on the Bible and how it plays into our politics.
In any case, Donald Trump is by far the most immoral president we've ever had.
But I contend that Donald Trump isn't the problem.
The problem is, I guess, the religious infrastructure that enables Donald Trump, that excuses Donald Trump, that supports Donald Trump.
And I'm wondering, I would like to ask your guest if he thinks that the religious community as a whole is doing enough to push back on that and call that out.
Okay, Jack, let's take that.
Reverend Wallace.
Thank you, Jack.
Great name, Jack.
My son's name is Jack.
I think you're right.
In fact, the biblical prophets, the Hebrew prophets, label the apologists for the king as court prophets, false prophets in the court of the king.
That's how I view the religious advisors to Donald Trump.
They don't speak the truth.
They don't speak the Bible.
They just speak what he wants to hear.
That's court prophets, false prophets.
And so I think genuine prophets have to speak from the Bible and across the spectrum to Republicans and Democrats.
And I think the Pope is, to me, a wonderful example.
No, we're not doing enough, but the Pope is showing how to lead.
And I see a number of church leaders, heads of denominations, heads of faith-based organizations speaking up for the immigrant, even acting, even going to the streets and even risking their own safety and security for their immigrant neighbors.
I see that happening.
I think that's going to grow and grow and grow.
And the more that Donald Trump or Pete Hagsteth make this into a holy war, a religious war, you're going to see more and more Christians, Jews, Muslims, people of many faith traditions say, no, that's wrong.
This is not right, and you must not use religion in this way.
So making the war a holy war, a religious war, a biblical war, is in fact blasphemy.
It's a religious offense that many people across the political spectrum are feeling now in relationship to this president.
Reverend Wallace, are there conservative and progressive theologians?
And if so, are you seeing the pushback from the conservative side?
Yes, I would say both conservatives, progressives.
I always say don't go left, don't go right, go deeper.
So religion shouldn't be binary, religious right, religious left.
I don't want to be part of a religious left, even when I challenge the religious right.
So let's go deeper.
Let's go to what the Bible says.
And yes, a number of people who have been conservative their whole lives, politically and theologically, I'm a theological conservative.
The authority of the Bible, the Lordship of Christ, I'm not a liberal theologically at all.
And yet a number of people who are conservative theologically don't support what Donald Trump is doing and don't even believe he's a conservative.
But he's someone who is all taken up with himself, his ego, his agenda, his narcissism, his instability.
People are seeing more and more and more.
So yes, many conservatives, religious and theological, are seeing, are having deep concerns about Donald Trump.
What does it mean to be conservative theologian?
Well, it means to take the Bible seriously, that the Bible is the Word of God.
I believe that.
And the Lordship of Jesus Christ, that means Jesus is my Lord and Savior.
And to me, what Jesus teaches is authoritative.
When he says, blessed are the peacemakers in his Beatitudes, in that wonderful sermon on the Mount, he says they will be called the peacemakers, the children of God.
So he's not saying, blessed are the peace lovers.
We all say we love peace, or peacekeepers, which often just preserves the status quo, but it's making peace, peacemakers, which means you enter a conflict, you embrace a conflict in order to resolve it.
So, for example, the negotiations we need that have stopped, the negotiating table is no longer operative, that's a function of peacemaking.
That's part of our vocation and calling as Christians to be the makers of peace.
So we must get to the table, U.S. and the Iranians, and find solutions to this conflict without this waging of total war, which is the most dangerous way to respond to inevitable human conflicts.
What do progressive theologians then believe?
Or how is it different?
Well, I find a lot of agreement between, again, I don't always use these terms, but agreement between those you might call progressive and those you might call conservative.
They might differ on many policy issues, many big issues, but on this issue, they're coming together to oppose this war and to say that Donald Trump's use of religion to justify this war is blasphemy, a term I hear many people using, both on the more liberal progressive side, but also on the conservative side.
Matthew 25 and Radical Empathy00:02:47
All right.
Stephen's next.
He's in Connecticut.
Independent caller.
Good morning, Lady Greta and Reverend.
I want to go back to Matthew 25.
I'm not really a Christian, but Matthew 25, I think, is one of the most profound parts of the Bible, you know, the God of a trillion galaxies, and he cares about, you know, people that can't function in life.
And, you know, you go back to the Pope.
I'd love to see the Pope come to the United States.
No matter what happens to him, he really has an obligation for people that need the Matthew 25 people, us.
Right.
Yeah.
You're right.
It's interesting this Pope on the plane spoke these words in English.
He's the first Pope that we had to ask, are you a White Sox fan or a Chicago Cubs fan?
The fact that he's an American and also a Peruvian gives him a very unique perspective.
That Matthew 25 text is the one that brought me to Christ.
Because you're right, it's more radical than Karl Marx and Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara, who I was reading in college.
This is the most radical thing.
Here is the Son of God saying, how you treat the most vulnerable, those who are in trouble, those who are marginal, on the edge, who need help.
That's how you treat me.
To me, that was the most radical thing I'd ever read.
And so it brought me to Christ.
And I think this president just violates that text again and again.
Yeah, I just really, when the president and Pete Hegseff show no grief or sorrow for those who have died, civilians who suffered and died or are disabled now because of this war, there's no grief.
There's no sorrow.
There's no empathy.
In fact, his followers, some of them call empathy toxic.
I don't know what that means.
Matthew 25 says empathy is real.
And this was Jesus' last teaching before going into Jerusalem to be crucified and resurrected.
This was his last teaching and maybe his most judgmental one because he talks about the sheep and the goats, those who say they belong to Jesus and those who welcome the stranger and those who don't, those who feed the hungry and those who don't.
So this is a text that we're going to...
We're going to leave this to take you live to Washington, D.C., where Mayor Muriel Bowser and U.S. Attorney for D.C. Janine Pirro are holding a news conference on protecting victims of domestic violence.