Brookings pastor Kline: When Trump evokes God after a military mission, it’s enough to make your soul spin

President Trump, in his speech to the nation about bombing Iran, concluded his remarks in a most alarming way. It wasn’t the final “God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America.” Other presidents have concluded their remarks in a similar way.

It was what preceded that ending. “And I just want to thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them.” It left me stunned!

I was surprised that he would attribute responsibility for a positive military outcome anywhere else but to his own conduct. But I guess this was such a special and important operation, God had to be singled out, “in particular.” It’s not everyday God is called on to conduct bunker-busting bomber raids. And when they are successful, God deserves special recognition, our thanks and love; “I want to just say, we love you God.”

Oh my God! 

So now the God of all Creation, of a supposedly Christian nation (according to Trump and MAGA), joins with a God-selected Israeli nation, to once again banish the followers of Mohammed from the land of the living.

I guess I should be used to the president’s over-the-top rhetoric and religious blasphemy by this time. He told us he and Netanyahu worked as a team “like perhaps no team has ever worked before;” and the U.S. military carried out an operation “the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades.”

And again, “There is no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight. Not even close.” These self-congratulatory remarks and exaggerations were all in one short speech.

Here I thought it was praiseworthy that we were a nation welcoming all religious communities, and none. That there was freedom of religion along with our other freedoms; of thought, of speech, of political persuasion. That we didn’t single out friends and enemies based on their religious roots.

Of course I also thought we were a nation rooted in a Constitution that gives the power to make war specifically to the Congress, not the president, or a would-be dictator.

One wonders if leaders in Congress were even consulted before the bombing, or if it was only Cabinet and military commanders nodding their approval. I can’t even imagine any congressional Democrats were involved in decision-making at this White House. To bomb or not to bomb was still a question in the president’s mind when asked 24 hours earlier. 

Surprise!

We should have known it was coming. Trump left the G-7 meeting early; he disagreed with his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, when she said Iran wasn’t close to developing a nuclear weapon; he kept convening his National Security Team. Meanwhile, in Israel, it was reported there were billboards with an American flag and the words, “Finish the Job Mr. President.” Maybe we will be called to finish the job in Iran the way Israel is “finishing the job” in Gaza. With each passing day the genocide is more complete, the U.N. reporting 100 children dying a day from war or starvation.

Presidents, dictators and nation states make decisions to fight and go to war. It happens with regularity, seemingly part of the human condition. They give all kinds of reasons. Some are more rational and logical than others.

But none of them are “right” in the eyes of God. If anything, Christians should recognize the way of Jesus is not the way of wayward man. Christ calls us to be something more, to worship at the altar of power “with,” not power “over;” to love the “other” as “self.”

I expect Trump believed God was with him when he suggested next steps. “There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight’s was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes.”

I expect the worst is yet to come, with an absent Republican Congress and an absent crucified Christ. The “God Ares” is ascendent and alive in the psyche of our president. May the God of Jesus help us all, especially the innocents dying daily in the Middle East.

Carl Kline of Brookings is a United Church of Christ clergyman and adjunct faculty member at the Mt. Marty College campus in Watertown. He is a founder and on the planning committee of the Brookings Interfaith Council, co-founder of Nonviolent Alternatives, a small not-for-profit that, for 15 years, provided intercultural experiences with Lakota/Dakota people in the Northern Plains and brought conflict resolution and peer mediation programs to schools around the region. He was one of the early participants in the development of Peace Brigades International. Kline can be reached at carl@satyagrahainstitute.org. This column originally appeared in the Brookings Register.

Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons

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