I was taught to believe that Democrats are hateful and are ruining our country. Then, I started listening more to my neighbors, to new friends I’d made, to trafficking survivors who aligned themselves with issues that seemed far more Democrat than Republican. I looked around and realized that it was these people who had experienced some of life’s greatest wounds and had come out stronger and more aware for them. They were not speaking from platforms where their lives were easygoing with good parents, great schools, privileged and safe neighborhoods, plenty of job opportunities, and excellent education. No, it was these friends who had experienced the worst in life and understood that life isn’t black and white, that life is messy and complicated.
I also realized how much my former political party had changed…for the worse. Never before have I seen such politicizing of our churches or theology as has occurred for Christians.
For example, growing up, my family attended every single March for Life event every single year. We donned our coats, our mittens, brought hot chocolate, held signs, chanted along with everyone else. Not once can I remember one pro lifer wearing a hat that endorsed a President. There were no George W or Heart and Soul (his slogan) hats. This is ironic, considering he was the most pro life president since the passing of Roe V Wade and held that view for decades vs Trump, who was pro choice for years up until 2011 when he announced the opposite, though pro life with exceptions for rape and incest – a big no no for the majority of pro lifers. Lest we also forget he passed a 500 million dollar government funding bill to Planned Parenthood since he took office despite promising to defund them in his campaign.
If one cites the definition of pro life to include ALL life and not just life of the unborn, then no one can claim that Trump is “pro-life” considering his outright disdain and degradation for everyone from refugees to women and teenage girls to Muslims to the disabled including Paralympics competitors to deporting immigrants and even an unloving attitude to his own wife. Such statements have been condemned by political, Christian, diverse citizens and immigrants, and Human Rights leaders all over the world.
Such statements and mindsets can also not be backed up by the truth. For example, contrary to Trump’s negative stereotypes of refugees, a report using Census survey data conducted by the nonpartisan Urban Institute shows that refugees do integrate to all aspects of American life and over time, they embrace the American dream by buying houses and starting their own businesses.
Having a former undocumented immigrant in my family, who is my brother in law and a good man and father, Trump’s immoral attitude and inhumane statements and do not befit a president and certainly not a pro life one. Nor do his actions through his policies whether it be separating children from their parents at the border or environmental rollbacks which Harvard researchers have determined will lead to 80,000 extra deaths per decade an affecting more than one million people including minority children.
Though I cannot point back to any Christian students in my past painting their faces black in mockery of black people (the nineties were a nice era, weren’t they?), the widespread support of such prejudicial and stereotype sweeping statements is not new and has its roots embedded within our history. Ironically, those conservatives who fear the decline of Christian morality fail to learn from history that it has always been in decline and that the Church has experienced divisions ever since Christ ascended into heaven with his last plea for the unification of the Church. No period of Christian history has been marked by unification nor equality for all races.
During the 50s and 60s, it was Christian conservative groups who joined in segregation of the forbid blacks from worshiping in their churches. It was only in 1995 that Southern Baptist Church “repudiated ‘historic acts of evil, such as slavery’ and committed ‘to eradicate racism in all its forms from Southern Baptist life and ministry”.
Consider how In the volatile years following the 9/11 attack, racist mentalities towards Muslims grew and have continued within the Christian pro life party. I heard such mentalities in my own family and sadly believed them myself. When I fell in love with Rebecca McDonald and her organization Women At Risk, International, my heart softened toward this. I got a glimpse of the selfless love she displayed toward “women of the veil” as she calls them, women and girls she grew up with in Pakistan and has a beautiful heart toward. Women At Risk directly employs Muslim men and women through its partner programs. Last April, I had the privilege of visiting their US Training Center where I witnessed a WAR, Int worker teaching a Muslim woman how to read.
For me, all this sheds light on the dangerous mirror that now reflects the “Christian” republicans identifying as “pro life” of our modern era. And it sheds light on why such hats worn align themselves with a perspective that does not befit a true pro-life definition unless that definition is exclusive to some forms of life but not others such as migrant children or a women raped and impregnated while in vegetative state.
I could write another blog post solely on the negative statements from the politicized community regarding their shameful attitudes towards women, and perhaps that will come in the future. Though I still support those working in the trenches volunteering on behalf of women in crisis pregnancies, MAGA hats and praise for a president and his ideology of prejudice and stereotypes is not befitting of a “pro-life”.
Instead, I consider Christ and Bethlehem, what would have been known as a “sh**hole” city. How Jesus was born in a filthy stable, in the humblest of conditions, became a refuge as a baby along with his parents. I see the Jesus who commanded his followers to “let the little children come unto me for such belongs the kingdom of heaven” as the same Jesus who blessed the faith of a Palestinian woman, called believers to also live as refugees in this world, and to welcome the foreigner in our land.
Pro-life Christians, if we want to exemplify Jesus, I’d say we can do much better than MAGA hats and Build the Wall chants. In keeping to the true definition of “pro-ALL-life”, can one be pro life while wearing a MAGA Hat? No, one can’t.