“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”—Thomas Jefferson
For a man supposedly intent on winning a Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump spends an extraordinary amount of time waging war, threatening to wage war, and fantasizing about waging war.
Notwithstanding his dubious claims about having ended “seven un-endable wars,” Trump has continued to squander the American people’s resources and moral standing by feeding the military-industrial complex’s insatiable appetite for war—preemptively bombing nuclear facilities in Iran, blowing up fishing boats in the Caribbean, and flexing military muscle at every opportunity.
Even the Trump administration’s version of “peace through strength” is filtered through a prism of violence, intimidation and strongman tactics.
It is the gospel of power, not peace—a perversion of both Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the U.S. Constitution.
Thus we find ourselves at this peculiar crossroads: a president hailed by his followers as an “imperfect vessel” chosen by God to save the church and restore Christianity—while they turn a blind eye to his record of adultery, deceit, greed, cruelty, and an almost religious devotion to vengeance and violence.
If anything captures Trump’s worldview, it is the AI-generated video he shared on social media: a grotesque fantasy of himself wearing a golden crown, flying a military fighter jet, and bombing a crowd of protesters with brown liquid feces.
This is the man who claims to be “saving God”?
Dismissed by his devoted base as harmless humor—a cheeky response to the millions nationwide who took part in the “No Kings” protests on Oct. 18—Trump’s crude fantasy of assaulting critics with fecal bombs nevertheless begs the question: Who would Jesus bomb?
That question, of course, is meant less literally than morally.
To answer it, we must first understand who Jesus Christ was—the revered preacher, teacher, radical, prophet and son of God—born into a police state not unlike the growing menace of America’s own police state.
When he came of age, Jesus had powerful, profound things to say, about justice, power and how we are to relate to one another. “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” “Love your enemies.”
A revolutionary in both spirit and action, Jesus not only died challenging the police state of his day—the Roman Empire—but left behind a blueprint for resisting tyranny that has guided countless reformers and freedom fighters ever since.
Far from the sanitized, domesticated figure presented in modern churches, Jesus was a radical nonconformist who challenged authority at every turn. He spoke truth to power, defied political and religious hierarchies, and exposed the hypocrisy of empire.
Hellbound and Down 