The absurdity of what is happening now is hard to reconcile with the reality of it. The history of how we got here seems to have been lost. Some Evangelical Christians are now cheering the process of undoing what Evangelical Christians fought hard to get not very long ago.
My thoughts today come from a man I have met, and I have heard speak at the Administer Justice Restore Conference in Elgin, IL in 2018. Soong-Chan Rah was professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological University just outside of Chicago at that time. Now he is professor of Evangelism and Church Renewal at Fuller Theological Seminary in California. He planted New Covenant Fellowship Church in Baltimore, MD, where he grew up, and he founded the Cambridge Community Fellowship Church in Massachusetts when he was at Harvard. He has multiple theology degrees. He has worked for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and he served on the boards of the Christian Community Development Association and World Vision, among other things.
Dr. Rah is not just a lifelong evangelical; he has undergraduate degrees in history and sociology. The combination of his personal history (born in Korea, grew up in the US from the age of about 5, raised by a single mother in the inner city), education, and experience give him an unique position from which to comment about the whirlwind of executive action Donald Trump has taken since the inauguration less than two months ago.
Dr. Rah sounded this alarm for the US Evangelical Church:
Wake up Evangelical Christians. The dismantling of USAID is not the confrontation of corruption and liberalism, it is a MIDDLE FINGER to Evangelical Christians who still adhere to the tenets of Scripture.
February 12, 2025
A short history lesson. Under the Bush administration, there was a move by evangelical Christians to access government funds to support the work of compassion and mercy. Government funding should not discriminate between a religious organization and a non-religious organization if the work is being done for the common good. This move was supported widely across the political spectrum as an action that prevented discrimination against Christian ministries. One of the key expressions of this policy change was access to USAID funds by Christian relief and development organizations. Christian organizations could now access USAID resources (e.g. – surplus US grain purchased by USAID in support of US farmers, in turn that grain became GIK donations to be distributed by US Christian organizations that often served international communities). In other words, one of the efforts by the US government to actually reflect the value of a Christian nation through the work of Christian organizations was completely wiped out while Evangelicals cheered two of the most non-Christian people in the world.
Wake up US Evangelicals. You are not just being played and used, the very people you cowtow to are actually mocking all the values you claim to espouse.
While I have no doubt that “corruption and liberalism” exists at USAID, many Christian organizations do their ministry with USAID support. Evangelicals fought for and earned a right at the table not that many years ago to receive federal funding to run the humanitarian programs supported by USAID. Organizations like Samaritan’s Purse, World Relief, and World Vision depend heavily on USAID and could not begin to do what they do without USAID support.
We need to be mindful that God calls His people throughout Scripture to do justice for widows, orphans, and strangers. Justice in the Bible includes caring for the weak and vulnerable in our society. Do you think that God does not bless a nation that taxes its citizens who have means to do justice for the poor and vulnerable who have no means?
USAID does just that domestically and around the world, and many Christian organizations like the ones I have mentioned do biblical justice with USAID funding. These organizations cannot do what they do on the scale they do it without this funding.
Many organizations would not fall into the category of doing biblical justice, of course. It should be no surprise to anyone that changes in the political powers every election cycle results in changes in how federal funding is used. That is the reality of a democracy. Do you really think that the current changes will not be changed again in four years?
The difference is that the infrastructure for this funding is now being completely dismantled. In just a few short weeks. Years of diligent and faithful effort by Evangelicals to fund ministries of justice are being undone in a virtual moment. The proverbial baby is being thrown out with the bathwater. Some might say that a wrecking ball is being taken to the hospital with the patients and hospital workers still inside!
The funding freeze, firings, and mandates to stop work have come with no attempt to sort the good from the bad. The axe has been laid to the trunk with no attempt to prune and preserve the tree.
As I have thought about these things, warnings of God’s judgment hang in the air. The warnings of God’s prophets are nearly always directed at God’s people because God expects His people to listen to and respond to what He says. Is not the Bible clear on what God desires from His people?
“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Micah 6:8
We can agree with the goal of identifying waste and corruption and weeding it out. I am in full agreement with that goal. Even the best institutions need constant management and care to weed out inefficiencies, wasteful spending, and bad apples.
Perhaps, USAID is so corrupted and tainted, that it needs to be gutted. I have worked in governmental institutions, and I have seen how endemic waste, inefficiency, and negativity can affect everything. We may be too late to save it.
The problem is the speed with which the hatchet work is being done with no apparent plan to avoid damage to the good programs and the good things being done in our country and around the world through this federal funding vehicle. Things that God commanded His people to do are being rooted out with the weeds. The thoughtlessness, recklessness, and harshness of the way this is being done is the problem.
Behind all those programs are people whose lives are being uprooted, thrown into chaos, and endangered. Tens of thousands of workers (who don’t make much money to begin with) are now jobless. Programs have been halted in the middle of delivery of services. People living on the edge of starvation, bankruptcy, and hopelessness are falling through cracks that opened suddenly in the floor beneath their feet.
Followers of Christ should voice these concerns because the means to the ends do matter. I believe in that end also, but I follow a Messiah who was willing to leave the 99 to go find that one lost sheep. We can’t be willing to leave the one for the many. That isn’t the example Jesus gave us.
Perhaps, the parable Jesus used to describe corruption among the people of God is the best one to use for what is happening today:
"'The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
'The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
'The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
There WILL be weeds. I am certain that USAID has some weeds. Jesus warned us, though, that we cannot root out the weeds without pulling up the wheat.
The good that is funded by USAID is currently being ripped up indiscriminately with the bad. This is not the way to handle it according to the example Jesus gave us, and we should should not be silent about the way these things are being done.
Followers of Christ are nothing if not countercultural – always. We do not get in line and march to the military tune of any earthly kingdom. We serve the Lamb of God who has established a kingdom not of this world.
On the practical side, the precedent set by these sudden, sweeping, and unprecedented actions is very likely to haunt us. When the pendulum swings again to a Democratic president and Democratically controlled Congress (and it will), should we expect anything less than what has been done? If this political cycle is setting the bar for future political cycles, we need to brace ourselves!
The race does not go to the swift, as the adage goes. History is a marathon, and not a sprint. We need to be mindful that we are laying down new track, establishing new norms, and setting new expectations for future political movements. We might not like the direction of the next one.
Imagine the horrendous inefficiency of tearing down everything and building everything back up every four to eight years. What could be more costly or inefficient in the long run?
The chemotherapy and radiation used to treat the cancer can kill a person faster than the cancer. Care must be taken in the treatment of cancer to minimize the damage caused by the treatment. Sure, we can kill the cancer, but what good is that if we kill the patient along with it?
I have been concerned about the uncritical way many Christians have embraced Donald Trump since before the 2016 election, and I have written about my concerns since that time. (See, for example, Trump, Evangelicals, and the Road Ahead (2016); Donald Trump, the Zealot (2016); Donald Trump, Fruit and Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing (2018); God Will Not Be Mocked; His Purpose Will Be Accomplished Among Us (2020); and other articles.) At stake is God’s character, and how we portray Him to the world.
I am not going to criticize anyone who voted for Trump, but how far are we willing to go? How far will we wander away from the things God commands us to do in the name of politics, influence, expediency, and efficiency?
Are you willing to dig into your own pockets and have your own church fund the gap that is being ripped open with the dismantling of USAID? If you are and you do, then go ahead and cheer what is happening. That is probably the way it should be, right? The Church should be doing those things.
But, if we are not willing to do those things, and we do not do those things, and our churches do not do those things, than we have nothing to cheer about. We are watching the destruction of the funding that evangelicals before us worked hard to achieve for the advancement of God’s kingdom. All the efficiency, money saved, and treasures laid up on earth won’t help anyone who stands in front of an angry God who told us clearly what He requires of us:
“To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God”
Micah 6:8
Navigating by Faith 
My thoughts and prayers are with you all at this difficult time — truly so, though that’s also a phrase people use when someone has died or is dying. The church and state of your nation are indeed dying, at least in the sense of what is their decline of reasonableness and faithfulness, and loyalty to their friends (Canada in particular). We have seen this coming and several books have been warning of it for about a decade. What effect will all this have on the world’s view of evangelicals?
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