The World We Live In

The Anti-Christian Values Guiding the Trump Administration

What a month, right? So much has happened in so short a time. Two dead in Minnesota at the hands of federal officers. The president of Venezuela kidnapped. Talk of a trans-Atlantic war over Greenland.

From what I’m hearing in my limited scope of podcasts and radio shows, there seems to be a growing consensus that the world I grew up in, a world in which America stood for classically Liberal, democratic, rules-based values, both at home and abroad, is gone. The Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said as much in a recent speech at the World Economic Forum. This is a saddening and deadly turn of events.

How can we summarize this change that is occurring right before our eyes in the United States? What kind of country are these Sates becoming now? It’s always hard to clearly see one’s own time period, but these questions are worth asking ourselves as American citizens and voters.

I don’t pretend to know where the country is heading. But this I do know: Christian values are not—repeat, NOT—guiding this current administration.

This is evident in the many heinous acts carried out by the administration, and also the words of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. In an interview with CNN conducted after the capture of Maduro, Miller said: “we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power… These are the iron laws of the world.”

As a Christian, I have to tell you, Miller is simply wrong. We don’t live in a world governed by physical power. I know it seems like that a lot of the time, but as crazy as it sounds, I actually do believe that we live in world governed by Christ. He says so in Matthew 28:18, a passage in which he is speaking with his disciples after his resurrection: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Human power is not in charge. Jesus is in charge.

Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. He told us to stop judging each other. He even said we’re to love our enemies. And then he was killed by the Roman Empire.

If Jesus had stayed dead, then yes, perhaps Stephen Miller would have a point. Perhaps one could argue that there are “iron laws of the world,” namely, that the power to physically coerce and even kill other human bodies is the ultimate force.

But as a Christian, I believe—and I know that this might sound bizarre to some of you—that Jesus didn’t stay dead. The Empire killed him, but he returned in a physical, supernaturally-powered body.

What this means is that his way of love wins. It wins now, in our world. If we want to be saved from this death-bound, hell-bent disaster show that’s all around us, then let’s live in light of the reality that love wins. It’s not a pie-in-the sky sentimental belief, like believing in Santa Claus or something. It’s the belief in a spiritual reality grounded in a historical event. It’s the kind of belief that rearranges how we think about the world and how we live. It’s the kind of belief that saves.

If this administration truly wants to be Christian, then at a minimum, its spokespeople should stop talking like coercive power is the end-all-be-all of human affairs. It should start treating human beings like people Jesus died for instead of killing them in the street. It should act honorably and lawfully in the community of nations, knowing that there is a King of Kings who will come to judge us all. It should concern itself with the needs of the poor, as Jesus himself did.

Perhaps acting in this manner seems weak to Miller and his fans. So be it. As the Apostle Paul wrote concerning Jesus, “he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God.”

Until next time—

Sources:

Mark Carney’s speech

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada/

Stephen Miller’s comments:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/06/politics/trump-greenland-venezuela-colombia-miller-analysis

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version. That last one is Second Corinthians 13:4