In the first post of this series, I noted that my struggle with modern conservative evangelicalism is not with its theological orthodoxy. I still affirm doctrines that historically defined evangelical Christianity. The deeper question is whether our orthopraxy—the way we live out those beliefs—still resembles the commitments our mainstream leadership once publicly embraced.
I reviewed a number of evangelical statements, declarations, and manifestos spanning more than fifty years in order to look at the orthopraxy to which we were called: Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern (1973); Lausanne Covenant (1974); The Manila Manifesto (1989); The Amsterdam Declaration (2000); The Health Of Our Nation (2004); An Evangelical Manifesto (2008); The Capetown Commitment (2010); For the Health Of The Nation 2014; and the Seoul Statement (2024).
In the previous post, I addressed the public shift in leadership - revealed through votes, endorsements, and voices (or lack of them) - in the evangelical stance toward the poor and underprivileged.
Next is one of the other consistently important commitments: addressing racial justice and seeking reconciliation. [1]
The declarations and statements I posted spoke clearly about racism as a sin, acknowledged the lingering effects of our nation's history, and called Christians to stand with those who suffered under discrimination and injustice as it shows up in personal relationships and societal structures.
- "We deplore the historic involvement of the church in America with racism and the conspicuous responsibility of the evangelical community for perpetuating the personal attitudes and institutional structures that have divided the body of Christ along color lines. Further, we have failed to condemn the exploitation of racism at home and abroad by our economic system."
- "The message of salvation implies also a message of judgment upon every form of alienation, oppression and discrimination..."
- "The gospel does not presuppose the superiority of any culture to another...
- "We deplore the failures in Christian consistency...[concerning] racial, social, and sexual discrimination."
- "While the United States has achieved legal and social equality in principle, the legacy of racism still makes many African Americans, Hispanics, and other ethnic minorities particularly vulnerable to a variety of social ills. Our churches have a special responsibility to model good race relations (Rom. 10:12). To correct the lingering effects of our racist history, Christians should support well-conceived efforts that foster dignity and responsibility."
- "Such love for all peoples demands that we reject the evils of racism and ethnocentrism, and treat every ethnic and cultural group with dignity and respect, on the grounds of their value to God in creation and redemption."
- "In the name of the God of truth, we...denounce and resist the racist prejudice, hatred and fear incited in popular media and political rhetoric.
- "When accompanied and sustained by imbalances of power, prejudice moves beyond individual relationships to institutional practices. Such racial injustice is the systemic perpetuation of racism."
These statements do not speak reluctantly or quietly about racism. They speak with clarity, confession, and urgency at both an individual and systemic level.
That is why the shift that is happening has been so disorienting. When advocacy for racial justice is offered today, it is too often dismissed ("This is a woke DEI agenda!") or turned back on the speaker: “Actually, it’s an anti-white agenda that is the problem.”
Evangelicals can and do disagree about what the best public policy is for addressing racism, of course. But do we still recognize that racial injustice on both a personal and systemic level is something the church should grieve, actively oppose, and seek to heal? It appears not, considering the unwavering support for an administration that has been characterized by the following personal attacks and policy implementation.
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THE POLICY PART
The administration targeted the "disparate impact" standard, a key tool used to challenge practices that appear neutral but discriminate against marginalized groups in housing, lending, and employment.
The Education Department has effectively stopped investigating Title VI disparate impact cases by closing most civil rights offices. Since Trump returned to office, the Education Deptartment's civil rights office has not resolved a single racial harassment investigation. Over 10,000 complaints, including racial harassment, sexual assault, and disability access, were placed on hold or dismissed as the diminished staff was directed to focus primarily on investigating transgender-inclusive school policies and claims of reverse discrimination.
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Labor. It is responsible for ensuring that employers doing business with the federal government—both prime contractors and subcontractors—adhere to laws prohibiting employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or veteran status. The Department of Labor plans to eliminate this in 2026.
Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) programs were a set of guidelines for producing home appraisals that are free of racial, ethnic, or any other form of bias.Trump disbanded the PAVE task force and terminated PAVE policies.
Trump has repealed the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), which requires HUD to actively address historical patterns of segregation.
Executive orders restricted federal agencies, contractors, and grant recipients from conducting training on race and gender discrimination, classifying them as divisive. Sure, DEI programs had some over-the-top stuff, but a lot of it was really important, since racism and sexism still exist.
The administration worked to stop federal funding for diversity programs in universities, threatened to block media mergers over diversity efforts, and cut funding for initiatives aimed at reducing inequality.
“In the three-and-a-half weeks since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, investigations by the agency that handles allegations of civil rights violations in the nation’s schools and colleges have ground to a halt. About 12,000 complaints were under investigation when Trump took office. The largest share of pending complaints — about 6,000 — are related to students with disabilities who feel they’ve been mistreated or unfairly denied help at school, according to a ProPublica analysis of department data. Investigators were pursuing about 3,200 active complaints of racial discrimination, including unfair discipline and racial harassment. An additional roughly 1,000 complaints were specific to sexual harassment or sexual violence, the analysis found. The remainder concern a range of discrimination claims." (“We’ve Been Essentially Muzzled”: Department of Education Halts Thousands of Civil Rights Investigations Under Trump.")
DOGE completely eliminated the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) from the Department of Homeland Security.
The administration withdrew fair housing regulations and removed data used to identify racial disparities in environmental harms, such as pollution.
The Department of Education revoked Obama-era guidance designed to address racial disparities in school discipline practices.
The administration proposed the elimination of the Office of Environmental Justice, which is tasked with protecting communities of color from disproportionate environmental hazards.
On January 21, 2025, an executive order was issued that, while claiming to fight "race-based discrimination," was used to ban diversity and inclusion initiatives among federal contractors.
Trump pressured the Smithsonian to remove exhibits about racial injustice, restored Confederate monuments and military base names, and barred schools and teacher training programs from including material the administration labeled divisive, such as unconscious bias. They also removed more than 50 park exhibits because they "disparaged Americans" by talking about slavery, as well as signs recognizing Native American history and Blacks who served in the U.S. military during the Civil War. ("Trump officials removed more than 50 park exhibits because they ‘disparaged Americans’ by talking about slavery.")
In 2025, Trump removed Juneteenth, the official celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation, from the free admission days at the more than 100 national parks across America. He also removed Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a free admission day. Instead, he substituted his own birthday, June 14, as a free admission day.
One of the most egregious things is the subverting the 1964 Voting Rights Act, particularly the act's attempt to protect minority voters from being underrepresented. This has already unleashed blatant racial gerrymandering by Republicans in several states (which is being countered by Democrat states gerrymandering in the opposite direction to offset the vote loss).
In spite of the multitudes of global victims of terrorism, persecution and abuse (including many of my Christian brothers and sisters), the Trump administration has limited refugees to the United States in 2026 to mainly white South Africans. In fact, between October 1, 2025 and June 10 2026, the US has accepted 6,668 refugees. Of those, 6,665 were white South Africans. Three—admitted last November—were from Afghanistan. No other refugees were admitted.
The activities of ICE could probably have their own installment. Federal investigations and legal advocates have documented agents targeting Black, Latino, and immigrant neighborhoods for investigative stops, frequently detaining citizens and lawful permanent residents who simply "look Latino" or speak Spanish. In New York and New Jersey, watchdog groups and House oversight committees found that an overwhelming majority (up to 93%) of ICE arrests targeted Latinos, pointing to systemic targeting regardless of criminal history. Heightened enforcement sweeps and aggressive tactics—such as smashing car windows, using chemical agents, and knee-on-neck restraints—have been disproportionately utilized in communities of color.
In early June, 2026, Trump's former Border Patrol chief, Gregory Bovino, flew to Europe to headline a white nationalist "remigration" summit, where he praised Nazi General Erwin Rommel as his inspiration to stop the "creeping horror" of immigrants. This is called “remigration,” the mass deportation of immigrants and their descendants based on their ethnicity and religion. The U.S. State Department has pledged to create an actual government Office for Remigration. "If there is inspiration gained from the U.S. Border Patrol model and method, then fantastic,” added the former Border Patrol chief, who was dismissed from his position after agents under his command killed a 37-year-old nurse in Minneapolis. ("AFD, Vox mingle with ex-US Border Patrol chief, white nationalist leader at ‘remigration summit.’")
Trump’s DOJ just argued in court that it can carve the names of George Washington’s enslaved people off an existing historic monument. At Independence Mall in Philadelphia, the President’s House memorial marks the spot where George and Martha Washington lived in the 1790s. It is also where nine enslaved people, including Oney Judge and Hercules, were forced to work in what was then the nation’s capital. After losing a lawsuit to the city of Philadelphia, a government attorney argued that the removal was a harmless curatorial choice, suggesting that the federal government could legally remove the carved names of the nine enslaved people from the stone monument itself if it wanted to. [3]
THE PERSONAL PART
When a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in August of 2018,
erupted in deadly violence, it took Trump two days to denounce the
KKK and neo-nazis. He added a caveat: there were some "very fine
people" on both sides. Former Klan chief David Duke praised Trump's
remarks, saying, "We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump.
Trump stole his ideas on immigration, and once referred to him as
Donald Trump has predominantly used the nickname "Pocahontas" (or "Fake Pocahontas") to mock U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. He began using this taunt during the 2016 campaign to mock her claims of Native American heritage. After Warren released a DNA test to address her heritage, Trump released a series of Twitter statements and scoffed to the press, stating: "What's her percentage? One one-thousandth?" Later, he referred to her as "Pocahontas (the bad version)".
In June of 2017, Trump said that people from Haiti “all have AIDS” and that Nigerian immigrants would never “go back to their huts” after experiencing America. Apparently, they are one of the "shithole" countries, as he describes them.
In July 2019, Trump targeted four Democratic congresswomen of color (Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib) tweeting that they should "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came." The comments led to a rare, formal rebuke by the U.S. House of Representatives condemning his words as racist. Only four Republicans voted for it. Trump later said "Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage," while attacking Somali immigrants, describing them as unwanted and unworthy of being in the United States.
At a rally in Alabama, Trump supporters attacked an African-American protester chanting, “Black lives matter,” kicking the man after he has fallen to the ground. The next day, Trump said, “Maybe [the protester] should have been roughed up. It was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”
"Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway. They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery. William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n--ga” and “n--guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat." ("‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat.") J. D. Vance's response was that anyone who cared about the texts was engaged in “pearl clutching.” “The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes.”
Trump nominated Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel. Then, Politico published texts from him saying Martin Luther King Jr. Day should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and that he has “a Nazi streak.” When Senators said his nomination wouldn’t pass, Trump pulled the nomination—and made him the deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration, a job that does not require Senate confirmation.
Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor to the President, is a proud white nationalist. As the Leadership Conference On Civil And Human Rights wrote in a letter to the White House (on behalf of themselves and 60 other civil rights groups): "Supporters of white supremacists and neo-Nazis should not be allowed to serve at any level of government, let alone in the White House. Stephen Miller has stoked bigotry, hate, and division with his extreme political rhetoric and policies throughout his career. The recent exposure of his deep-seated racism provides further proof that he is unfit to serve and should immediately leave his post."
Douglas Wilson is the lead pastor in Pete Hesgeth's denomination, the CREC. Hesgeth has invited him to teach in the Capital and has reposted some of his teaching. Why is this important? Wilson co-wrote (with one of the co-founders of the League of the South, which is a neo-Confederate group) a 1990s book called Southern Slavery As It Was. In this and other writing, Wilson contended that antebellum slavery was not "apocalyptic evil", but rather a system in which slaveholders operated on firm scriptural ground if they treated slaves kindly such that there was "mutual affection and confidence" and slave owners provided a life of "plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." This institution produced a "genuine affection between the races." It was the Northern abolitionists who were motivated by a"hatred of God's word."
When talking about the economy and jobs, Trump assured people that black people would be fine because more factory jobs were coming. (Meanwhile, federal data confirms the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost roughly 75,000 jobs since January 2025.)
The President posted a video depicting the Obamas as apes. When called on it, he claimed he was not responsible, but he refused to apologize for it being posted. In June of 2026 he posted an AI generated picture of their presidential library as a dumpster. In July, he posted Air Force One covered in fake graffiti, with Arabic scrawled across it and the Obamas waving from the door.
"They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump said on December 16, 2023, referring to immigrants during a New Hampshire rally. This phrase is a racist “dog whistle” with a long history. Following his comments, law enforcement documented increases in assaults and vandalism targeting Latino and immigrant communities in Texas and Arizona. In fact, anti-Latino hate crimes reached a record high in 2025.
In June 2026, the Minnesota GOP, AT a state party gathering, gave a moment of silence not to George Floyd, but to the man who killed him. [2]
When talking about the economy and jobs, Trump assured people that black people would be fine because more factory jobs were coming. (Meanwhile, federal data confirms the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost roughly 75,000 jobs since January 2025.)
What has been the trickle-down effect? In 2020, after his first term, ABC News recorded 54 cases invoking 'Trump' in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults. To be clear, this was violence from supporters and non-supporters that were animated by a response to Trump. You can read the whole list at the link above. What strikes me is the amount of racial violence that the attackers justified by citing the President.
- In March 2019, the killer of 52 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, hailed Trump in his White Supremacist manifesto. That same year, the shooter in El Paso, Texas who killed 23 Latinos apparently believed he was fulfilling Trump's wishes.
- After a Latino gas station attendant in Gainesville, Florida, was suddenly punched in the head by a white man, the victim could be heard on surveillance camera recounting the attacker’s own words: “He said, ‘This is for Trump.'" Charges were filed but the victim stopped pursuing them.
- When police questioned a Washington state man about his threats to kill a local Syrian-born man, the suspect told police he wanted the victim to "get out of my country," adding, "That’s why I like Trump."
- When three Kansas men were on trial for plotting to bomb a largely-Muslim apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, one of their lawyers told the jury that the men "were concerned about what now-President Trump had to say about the concept of Islamic terrorism."
- Aug. 19, 2015: In Boston, after he and his brother beat a sleeping homeless man of Mexican descent with a metal pole, Steven Leader, 30, told police "Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported." The victim, however, was not in the United States illegally.
- Dec. 5, 2015: After Penn State University student Nicholas Tavella, 19, was charged with "ethnic intimidation" and other crimes for threatening to "put a bullet" in a young Indian man on campus, his attorney argued in court that Tavella was just motivated by "a love of country," not "hate." "Donald Trump is running for President of the United States saying that, 'We've got to check people out more closely,'" Tavella's attorney argued in his defense.
- Aug. 16, 2016: In Olympia, Washington, 32-year-old Daniel Rowe attacked a white woman and a black man with a knife after seeing them kiss on a popular street. When police arrived on the scene, Rowe professed to being "a white supremacist" and said "he planned on heading down to the next Donald Trump rally and stomping out more of the Black Lives Matter group," according to court documents filed in the case.
- Sept. 1, 2016: The then-chief of the Bordentown, New Jersey, police department, Frank Nucera, allegedly assaulted an African American teenager who was handcuffed. Federal prosecutors said the attack was part of Nucera's "intense racial animus," noting in federal court that "within hours" of the assault, Nucera was secretly recorded saying, "Donald Trump is the last hope for white people."
- Aug. 16, 2019: The FBI arrested Eric Lin, 35, of Clarksburg, Maryland, for sending threatening and hate-filled messages over Facebook vowing to kill a Miami-area woman and “all Hispanics in Miami and other places,” as the Justice Department described it... Over two months, the woman received 150 pages’ worth of messages from Lin, the FBI said. In June 2019, Lin allegedly wrote: “In 3 short years your entire Race your entire culture will perish only then after I kill your [epithet] family will I permit you to Die by Hanging on Metal Wire.” A month later, on July 19, 2019, he allegedly wrote: “I Thank God everday President Donald John Trump is President and that he will launch a Racial War and Crusade to keep the n----rs, S---s, and Muslims and any dangerous non-White or Ethnically or Culturally Foreign group ‘In Line.’” On his Facebook account, Lin says he "Studied at Trump University," and he repeatedly praises Trump for, among other things, “fomenting racial hatred” and “Making Racism Ok Again." [4]
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Every human being bears the image of God. Every act of racism is therefore an assault on someone God loves. Every system that diminishes human dignity deserves Christian scrutiny. Every lie told about a neighbor is a violation of the command to love that neighbor.
Kaitlyn Schiess, writing in The Liturgy Of Politics: Spiritual Formation For The Sake Of Our Neighbor, notes:
The prophets have a lot to say about social injustice [with a] glaring emphasis on injustice, exploitation, and corruption… This is what we learn about disobedience from the first six chapters of Jeremiah: it looks like worshiping empty sources of power (2:5), finding security and comfort in earthly nations and rulers (2:13), harming the ones who call out your sin (2:30), abusing the poor when they have done you no wrong (2:34), denying your own sin (2:35), relying upon political alliances for security (2:36), refusing to change (5:3), growing rich and powerful off the exploitation of the vulnerable and poor (5:27-28), and oppression (6:6)…
[God] cares a lot more about how a community treats their most vulnerable—including the flawed social structures that oppress them—than he cares about the religious activities we dutifully perform…
We’ve lost the ability to see the material and social commands that the New Testament gives the church - to fight prejudice and classism (1 Corinthians 11:18-22), rectify injustices (Acts 6:1-7), oppose racism (Ephesians 2:11-22), and prioritize the needs of the poor (James 2:1-12).
That is why these issues matter to me. It is also why they once mattered to the evangelical leaders and institutions that shaped my faith.
When President Trump or those in his administration made remarks that many Americans, including many Christians and civil-rights leaders, understood to demean racial or ethnic minorities, numerous influential evangelical leaders choose to defend him, minimize the significance of the comments, question whether they were racist, or remain publicly silent rather than offer the kind of clear moral rebuke they had often directed at leaders in earlier decades.
I am grieving because I remember the voices that taught me to listen to those who suffered, to seek to walk in their shoes, to repent where repentance was needed, and to seek reconciliation and offer healing wherever possible.
Those were not progressive instincts. They were Christian ones. They reflected the heart of Jesus. If those commitments are now dismissed as weakness, compromise, or "wokeness," then something precious has been lost.
My hope is that we recover the courage to mourn with those who mourn, to weep with those who weep, to tell the truth even when it is uncomfortable, and to love our neighbors without regard for race, tribe, nation, or political usefulness.
Until then, I cannot pretend this change has not happened, nor can I quietly follow where it leads.
UP NEXT: The Shift Involving Violence And War
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[1] The Fundamentalist branch of evangelicalism was not on the same page when it came to issues of racial reconciliation (see Bob Jones and Jerry Falwell). I'm talking about the National Association of Evangelicals/ Christianity Today/Billy Graham face of white evangelicalism. They weren't perfect, but they tried.
[2] The conservative, white evangelical response to George Floyd's murder - as well as Philando Castille, Sandra Bland, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor - left so many of our black evangelical brothers and sisters devastated.
[3] I believe it is so crucial that we know, acknowledge, repent of, and learn from our national history when it comes to issues of race. I have a four part blog post (that keeps expanding the more I learn) that takes an honest look at this. Here is the final installment, which has links to the first three.
[4] More examples from notesfromtheroad.com
"U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost was assaulted during a Sundance Film Festival event after a man forced his way into a private party and targeted the congressman with explicitly Trump-linked threats. According to police and Frost's own account, the attacker wrapped his arms around Frost, told him "Trump is going to deport you and your kind," shouted racist slurs, and then punched him in the face before fleeing and being apprehended.
Trump repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the "Chinese virus" and "Kung Flu," language that coincided with and fueled a nationwide surge in anti-Asian hate crimes. Federal, local, and academic data all show sharp increases in harassment and violence beginning immediately after his remarks. Studies from the University of California and the National Bureau of Economic Research found that anti-Asian hashtags and hate incidents spiked following Trump's statements.
Stop AAPI Hate recorded 10,905 incidents between March 19, 2020 and the end of 2021, including approximately 1,767 physical assaults that resulted in injuries. Attackers across the country echoed Trump's language: calling victims "Chinese virus" or "Kung Flu" as they punched, kicked, and stabbed them. In one DOJ case, a Texas man stabbed an Asian family, later admitting he believed they were responsible for spreading the virus.
The period also saw at least one legally recognized anti-Asian hate-crime homicide: New York City street vendor Yao Pan Ma, beaten in 2021 and later dying of his injuries—as well as eight widely linked deaths in the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, which targeted Asian women. In cities like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, hate-crime reports against Asians rose by more than 100 percent year-over-year, with victims often citing Trump's terminology during police interviews .
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