Character and values matter. This truth is worth repeating, since who we are shapes what we do, and what we do shapes who we become. As a pastor (now retired), I’ve attempted to avoid partisanship, but some issues and actions transcend politics. The crises our nation faces are fundamentally about character, values, and ethics.

It’s cruel to narrow the availability of healthcare. It’s uncompassionate to tear the social safety net by reducing food assistance to those who need it. It’s unjust to enact economic and tax policies which widen the gap between the very rich and everyone else. These policies are harsh and harmful.

This administration practices intimidation of educational institutions, the press, and immigrants. It has little regard for civil rights or the Bill of Rights. It prefers force to persuasion and coercion to freedom, as the conduct of ICE agents in Minneapolis and the rush by the administration to justify their unjustifiable violence make clear.

The President’s policies and tactics are a window into his character and values. He is driven by grievance, political retribution, greed, and self-aggrandizement. These are dangerous motives for a leader who has great power. 

The President is a racist, and racism is a sin. I make that claim as one who has struggled with it. I grew up in the South, and racism made its insidious way into my mind and heart. Because of its distortions, I continually need the love of God for each and all to root it out and experience the freedom and joy which come when “perfect love casts out fear.”

The President uses, as he did this past week on his Truth Social account, and as he has done repeatedly across his very public life, crude tropes to express his racism and to inflame the fears of his base. When he posted, or allowed someone else to post, a video portraying Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, he showed us, again, who he is.

Racism is a construct—a fiction—created and maintained by people who wanted to subordinate, control, exploit, profit from, and, in some cases, eliminate, human beings created in God’s image.

The President’s policies and tactics contradict the way of Jesus. Jesus’ character and values were shaped by the Hebrew prophets like Micah, who said, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:9). In his parable on “the judgment of the nations” (Matthew 25:31-46) Jesus said “inasmuch as you’ve done it to the least of one of these kindred of mine, you’ve done it to me.”

Leadership in any arena is a tremendous responsibility. All leaders make mistakes and commit sins. I have. The integrity which leadership requires is not perfection, but it does include humility to learn from errors and repent of sin. Leaders with integrity acknowledge when they are wrong and work to set things as right as they can. Integrity involves a commitment to leadership as a form of service, not domination, and as an exercise in stewardship, not exploitation. 

Followers also have a responsibility to hold their leaders accountable for actions which aren’t good and true. Leaders who can’t or won’t admit when they are wrong can’t be trusted. Followers of such leaders are putting their own hearts—their own character— at risk.