As I've argued throughout this series, what has changed in the conservative evangelicalism of my youth is not the orthodoxy. It's the orthopraxy. The orthodoxy has remained largely intact - which I applaud. The orthopraxy - the lifestyle conservative evangelicals support with their lives and their voices - has not. Increasingly, the evangelical votes, voices, support of policies, and causes for celebration reveal a very different understanding of what a faithful expression of right beliefs about God and the world look like.
So far we've looked at the shift in my lifetime in regards to the poor and the vulnerable, racism and discrimination, environmental stewardship, violence and war, and immigrants and refugees. Today I want to consider another area where that shift has become painfully visible: whether Christians should care about suffering beyond our own borders
“We must attack the materialism of our culture and the maldistribution of the nation's wealth and services. We recognize that as a nation we play a crucial role in the imbalance and injustice of international trade and development. Before God and a billion hungry neighbors, we must rethink our values regarding our present standard of living and promote more just acquisition and distribution of the world's resources.”
“We affirm that we must demonstrate God’s love visibly by caring for those who are deprived of justice, dignity, food, and shelter. We affirm that the proclamation of God’s kingdom of justice and peace demands the denunciation of all injustice and oppression, both personal and structural; we will not shrink from this prophetic witness.”
“Among the evils we deplore are destructive violence, including institutionalized violence, political corruption, all forms of exploitation of people and of the earth, the undermining of the family, abortion on demand, the drug traffic, and the abuse of human rights. In our concern for the poor, we are distressed by the burden of debt in the two-thirds world. We are also outraged by the inhuman conditions in which millions live, who bear God’s image as we do.”
“True mission should always be incarnational. It necessitates entering humbly into other people’s worlds, identifying with their social reality, their sorrow and suffering, and their struggles for justice against oppressive powers”.
“We further believe that care for the vulnerable should extend beyond our national borders. American foreign policy and trade policies often have an impact on the poor. We should try to persuade our leaders to change patterns of trade that harm the poor and to make the reduction of global poverty a central concern of American foreign policy. We must support policies that encourage honesty in government, correct unfair socioeconomic structures, generously support effective programs that empower the poor, and foster economic development and prosperity. Christians should also encourage continued government support of international aid agencies, including those that are faith based.”
“Especially in the developing world, extreme poverty, lack of health care, the spread of HIV/AIDS, inadequate nutrition, unjust and unstable economies, slavery and sexual trafficking, the use of rape as a tool of terror and oppression, civil war, and government cronyism and graft create the conditions in which large populations become vulnerable. We support Christian agencies and American foreign policy that effectively correct these political problems and promote just, democratic structures.”
“We must follow the model of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, engaging the global giants of conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness, by promoting reconciliation, encouraging ethical servant leadership, assisting the poor, caring for the sick, and educating the next generation…”
“We urge those who share our dedication to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed to join with us in working to bring care, peace, justice, and freedom to those millions of our fellow-humans who are now ignored, oppressed, enslaved, or treated as human waste and wasted humans by the established orders in the global world.”
“We love the world’s poor and suffering. The Bible tells us that the Lord is loving toward all he has made, upholds the cause of the oppressed, loves the foreigner, feeds the hungry, sustains the fatherless and widow… God holds responsible especially those who are appointed to political or judicial leadership in society, but all God’s people are commanded…to reflect the love and justice of God in practical love and justice for the needy.”
“Such love for the poor demands that we not only love mercy and deeds of compassion, but also that we do justice through exposing and opposing all that oppresses and exploits the poor….We give ourselves afresh to the promotion of justice, including solidarity and advocacy on behalf of the marginalized and oppressed.”
“We affirm that every modern state is accountable to the divine demand for the just and merciful treatment of both the individuals and peoples over whom it exercises sovereignty as well as those of its neighbours.”
Historically, there was a sense that the U.S. had a global responsibility for justice and poverty alleviation. Christians supported this and worked toward its implementation. Today, in practice, it has retreated into “America First” priorities with diminished concern for global suffering, with deadly consequences.
I have three example that illustrate the shift clearly. [1]
First, Elon Musk's - the world's richest man - used DOGE to cancel all of USAID, which had been in place for 64 years and had saved millions of lives, as well as building bridges with nations all around the world. [2] It was a "cost-cutting" measure. It comprised just 0.3% of the US's Federal budget. He posted on X: "We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone [sic] to some great parties. Did that instead."
Here's what happened.
“A study co-authored by a UCLA Fielding School of Public Health…The study, by researchers from the United States, Spain, Brazil, and Mozambique, estimates that 91 million deaths were prevented between 2001 and 2021 in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) thanks to programs supported by USAID, the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid worldwide. However, recent U.S. foreign aid cuts could reverse this progress and lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including more than 4.5 million children under five…. "From our experience on the ground, we have witnessed how USAID support has strengthened local health systems’ ability to respond to diseases like HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis,” said Dr. Francisco Saúte, director at the Manhiça Health Research Centre in Mozambique and a study co-author. “Cutting this funding now not only puts lives at risk - it also undermines critical infrastructure that has taken decades to build." (“Research finds more than 14 million preventable deaths by 2030 if USAID defunding continues, including more than 4 million children under five.”)
“Organizations like World Vision and Catholic Relief Services faced major disruptions because of those cuts. At least 23 million children stand to lose access to education, and as many as 95 million people would lose access to basic healthcare, potentially leading to more than 3 million preventable deaths per year.” ("Making Foreign Aid Work: What Do Trump's Proposed Foreign Aid Cuts Mean?")
"Evangelical and other Christian charities have not been spared these cuts. Among the organizations that lost funding are such Christian behemoths as World Vision, International Justice Mission, Samaritan's Purse, and Catholic Relief Services, which at $476 million, was the largest USAID recipient in 2024. Because of the vagueness of the language around which programs would still be funded, some groups pulled back their spending, just in case." ("How Christian Groups Are Responding to Trump’s Foreign-Aid Freeze.")
"About 30,000 tons of food is stuck at a port in Houston after Trump halted foreign aid for 90 days. The food, intended to feed people overseas, is stalled at a warehouse, the Houston Chronicle reported Thursday. The food was being distributed by the Food for Peace program, which is a part of the U.S. Agency for International Development, a part of the government overseeing aid to more than 100 countries that the Trump administration is looking to shut down. “The food stuck in Houston totaled more than 31,000 tons and was part of more than 500,000 tons of food valued at $450 million now at risk of going to waste,” writes the Chronicle’s James Osborne. USAID food shipments are also being held up in Boston, New York, and Miami, as well as four other ports." ("30,000 tons of food 'going to waste' in Houston after Trump halted aid.")
The Washington Post reports that shuttering the agency entirely "threatens billions of dollars the agency spends on American businesses and organizations." In particular, the Post report notes that American farms are responsible for roughly 41 percent of all food aid provided by the agency and it adds that the U.S. government bought $2.1 billion in food aid from American farmers in the year 2020 alone. "Purchases and shipments of U.S. food aid worth over $340 million — including rice, wheat and soybeans — have been paused during Trump’s foreign-aid freeze, according to officials and an email obtained by The Post," the paper reports. "That has left hundreds of tons of American-grown wheat stranded in Houston alone." ("Trump's USAID gambit backfires as American farms now threatened: report.")
"The details of the canceled Mana contracts illustrate the point. RUTF, the sweet nutritional peanut paste that Mana manufactures, is safe for ingestion by children who are suffering acute nutritional deprivation or are on the verge of starving to death. It comes in foil packets that don’t need refrigeration, making it easy to distribute in regions suffering extreme deprivation. RUTF is widely hailed as an extraordinary innovation in feeding children facing starvation and death.According to Moore, the cancellation of Mana’s latest contracts will mean that around 300,000 kids, mostly in Africa, don’t get aid packets that Congress intended for them. But we, too, are the losers: This paste is manufactured by American workers, and made of peanuts and dairy grown by American farmers, in a spreading of American bounty and goodwill that has long had bipartisan support. Now it’s piled up in a warehouse in Savannah, unshipped and uneaten." ("Musk’s Purges Suddenly Take a Horrific Turn—and Wreck an Ugly MAGA Lie.")
Elon Musk challenged anyone to give names of people who died because of Doge's cut of USAID. Award-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof brought the receipts.
Musk’s response to Kristof? Posting on X: ““Kristof is utterly evil.” “Kristof is lying through his teeth.” “Nothing that Kristoff [sic] has said is true. He is an utter piece of shit and liar.”
Second, this administration is negotiating for minerals by threatening lives.
Reasonable people can debate how foreign aid should be administered, what programs are effective, and how taxpayer dollars should be spent. My concern is not whether USAID was perfect. My concern is that large portions of American evangelicalism celebrated the abandonment of vulnerable people as though compassion itself had become suspect. Millions of lives have been saved every year through the generous care of the United States. Now it’s gone, and evangelicals applauded it as a smart budget-cutting measure.
If Christians are going to put anyone first, it should be those Jesus consistently placed before us: the hungry, the sick, the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the poor. National prosperity is a blessing. It is not the boundary of Christian compassion. Twenty-two years ago, USAID would never have been defunded. It would have been un-Christlike.
Here's what happened.
“A study co-authored by a UCLA Fielding School of Public Health…The study, by researchers from the United States, Spain, Brazil, and Mozambique, estimates that 91 million deaths were prevented between 2001 and 2021 in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) thanks to programs supported by USAID, the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid worldwide. However, recent U.S. foreign aid cuts could reverse this progress and lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including more than 4.5 million children under five…. "From our experience on the ground, we have witnessed how USAID support has strengthened local health systems’ ability to respond to diseases like HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis,” said Dr. Francisco Saúte, director at the Manhiça Health Research Centre in Mozambique and a study co-author. “Cutting this funding now not only puts lives at risk - it also undermines critical infrastructure that has taken decades to build." (“Research finds more than 14 million preventable deaths by 2030 if USAID defunding continues, including more than 4 million children under five.”)
“Organizations like World Vision and Catholic Relief Services faced major disruptions because of those cuts. At least 23 million children stand to lose access to education, and as many as 95 million people would lose access to basic healthcare, potentially leading to more than 3 million preventable deaths per year.” ("Making Foreign Aid Work: What Do Trump's Proposed Foreign Aid Cuts Mean?")
"Evangelical and other Christian charities have not been spared these cuts. Among the organizations that lost funding are such Christian behemoths as World Vision, International Justice Mission, Samaritan's Purse, and Catholic Relief Services, which at $476 million, was the largest USAID recipient in 2024. Because of the vagueness of the language around which programs would still be funded, some groups pulled back their spending, just in case." ("How Christian Groups Are Responding to Trump’s Foreign-Aid Freeze.")
"About 30,000 tons of food is stuck at a port in Houston after Trump halted foreign aid for 90 days. The food, intended to feed people overseas, is stalled at a warehouse, the Houston Chronicle reported Thursday. The food was being distributed by the Food for Peace program, which is a part of the U.S. Agency for International Development, a part of the government overseeing aid to more than 100 countries that the Trump administration is looking to shut down. “The food stuck in Houston totaled more than 31,000 tons and was part of more than 500,000 tons of food valued at $450 million now at risk of going to waste,” writes the Chronicle’s James Osborne. USAID food shipments are also being held up in Boston, New York, and Miami, as well as four other ports." ("30,000 tons of food 'going to waste' in Houston after Trump halted aid.")
The Washington Post reports that shuttering the agency entirely "threatens billions of dollars the agency spends on American businesses and organizations." In particular, the Post report notes that American farms are responsible for roughly 41 percent of all food aid provided by the agency and it adds that the U.S. government bought $2.1 billion in food aid from American farmers in the year 2020 alone. "Purchases and shipments of U.S. food aid worth over $340 million — including rice, wheat and soybeans — have been paused during Trump’s foreign-aid freeze, according to officials and an email obtained by The Post," the paper reports. "That has left hundreds of tons of American-grown wheat stranded in Houston alone." ("Trump's USAID gambit backfires as American farms now threatened: report.")
"The details of the canceled Mana contracts illustrate the point. RUTF, the sweet nutritional peanut paste that Mana manufactures, is safe for ingestion by children who are suffering acute nutritional deprivation or are on the verge of starving to death. It comes in foil packets that don’t need refrigeration, making it easy to distribute in regions suffering extreme deprivation. RUTF is widely hailed as an extraordinary innovation in feeding children facing starvation and death.According to Moore, the cancellation of Mana’s latest contracts will mean that around 300,000 kids, mostly in Africa, don’t get aid packets that Congress intended for them. But we, too, are the losers: This paste is manufactured by American workers, and made of peanuts and dairy grown by American farmers, in a spreading of American bounty and goodwill that has long had bipartisan support. Now it’s piled up in a warehouse in Savannah, unshipped and uneaten." ("Musk’s Purges Suddenly Take a Horrific Turn—and Wreck an Ugly MAGA Lie.")
Elon Musk challenged anyone to give names of people who died because of Doge's cut of USAID. Award-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof brought the receipts.
“Over the weekend, Elon Musk publicly challenged anybody to “cite a single name of someone who died” as a result of him gutting USAID last year during the early weeks of the second Trump administration — a “death sentence for an estimated 4.5 million children around the world,” according to representative Ro Khanna (D-CA). Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof valiantly took him up on the offer, painstakingly listing the identities of specific children and even an infant who had died in Liberia and South Sudan. “I could go on and on,” Kristof wrote. “In almost every village you go to in South Sudan, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone or other countries I reported in, you find people dying because of aid cuts.” [3]
Musk’s response to Kristof? Posting on X: ““Kristof is utterly evil.” “Kristof is lying through his teeth.” “Nothing that Kristoff [sic] has said is true. He is an utter piece of shit and liar.”
“The State Department is considering withholding lifesaving assistance to people with HIV in Zambia as a negotiating tactic to force the government of the southern African country to sign a deal giving the United States more access to its critical minerals. ‘We will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale,’ a draft of a memo prepared for Secretary of State Marco Rubio by the department’s Africa Bureau staff says. A copy of the memo was obtained by The New York Times. Some 1.3 million people in Zambia rely on daily HIV treatment that is provided through the decades-old US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (known as PEPFAR) and on tuberculosis and malaria medications that save tens of thousands of Zambian lives each year. The Trump administration is considering whether to ‘significantly cut assistance…’” (“The New York Time: US considers withholding HIV aid unless Zambia expands minerals access.”)
Third, this administration has withdrawn more crucial food from emergency programs.
Third, this administration has withdrawn more crucial food from emergency programs.
“The United States over the weekend sent notices terminating funding for U.N. World Food Program emergency programs in more than a dozen countries. Aid officials warned that the cuts could threaten the lives of millions of refugees and other vulnerable people, stressing the risks of further destabilizing regions ridden by conflicts. The State Department confirmed Wednesday that it had reversed those cuts in Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Ecuador. It said it would keep the cancellations for Afghanistan and Yemen but left the fate of food aid in six other unidentified nations unclear.” ("US restores urgent food aid, except in Afghanistan and Yemen, two of the world’s poorest countries.")
* * * * *
Reasonable people can debate how foreign aid should be administered, what programs are effective, and how taxpayer dollars should be spent. My concern is not whether USAID was perfect. My concern is that large portions of American evangelicalism celebrated the abandonment of vulnerable people as though compassion itself had become suspect. Millions of lives have been saved every year through the generous care of the United States. Now it’s gone, and evangelicals applauded it as a smart budget-cutting measure.
If Christians are going to put anyone first, it should be those Jesus consistently placed before us: the hungry, the sick, the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the poor. National prosperity is a blessing. It is not the boundary of Christian compassion. Twenty-two years ago, USAID would never have been defunded. It would have been un-Christlike.
Evangelicals were meant to have a heart of compassion and care that translated into action on behalf of poverty and injustice wherever we saw it on the globe. We were told to act individually and to work for public policy that put the United States in alignment with our Christ-centered compassion and generosity.
This is what grieves me.
I was raised by evangelical leaders who taught me that loving my neighbor did not stop at the edge of my property, my city, or my nation. They taught me that every child bears God's image, whether that child is born in Michigan or Mozambique.
I still believe they were right.
I cannot celebrate policies that knowingly leave the hungry unfed, the sick untreated, and children to die when we possess the ability to help. Christians can disagree about governments, budgets, and the best methods of delivering aid. But indifference toward suffering has never been part of the way of Jesus.
That is why I no longer recognize the evangelical movement that now applauds these things. I cannot support this nor be party to it. The evangelicalism that does has lost its way, and I will not be lost with it.
The evangelicalism that formed me called me to love beyond my borders. I intend to keep doing so.
________________________________________________
[1] Trump removed the US from 66 international organizations shortly after regaining the office of President in 2025. Some of them have been recurring lightning rods, so it was probably a good idea. Others offered cooperation globally on initiatives that have merit. You can check out the list for yourself at this link.
This is what grieves me.
I was raised by evangelical leaders who taught me that loving my neighbor did not stop at the edge of my property, my city, or my nation. They taught me that every child bears God's image, whether that child is born in Michigan or Mozambique.
I still believe they were right.
I cannot celebrate policies that knowingly leave the hungry unfed, the sick untreated, and children to die when we possess the ability to help. Christians can disagree about governments, budgets, and the best methods of delivering aid. But indifference toward suffering has never been part of the way of Jesus.
That is why I no longer recognize the evangelical movement that now applauds these things. I cannot support this nor be party to it. The evangelicalism that does has lost its way, and I will not be lost with it.
The evangelicalism that formed me called me to love beyond my borders. I intend to keep doing so.
________________________________________________
[1] Trump removed the US from 66 international organizations shortly after regaining the office of President in 2025. Some of them have been recurring lightning rods, so it was probably a good idea. Others offered cooperation globally on initiatives that have merit. You can check out the list for yourself at this link.
[2] China - communist China - has seized the opportunity to exert its influence in the gap left by the absent USAID. I must say, if the United States is Christian nation that Christian nationalists claim, one would think we would want to continue to build goodwill with other nations instead of letting an atheist nation step in to that space.
[3] Harvard School of Public Health has calculated the death toll of the cut is in the hundreds of thousands, 2/3rd of them children. Former USAID global health chief Atul Gawande says that dismantling USAID killed more than 700,000 people in its first year alone, most of them children. His team has already identified 1,200 victims by name.
[3] Harvard School of Public Health has calculated the death toll of the cut is in the hundreds of thousands, 2/3rd of them children. Former USAID global health chief Atul Gawande says that dismantling USAID killed more than 700,000 people in its first year alone, most of them children. His team has already identified 1,200 victims by name.
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