Why we can’t convince some Christians to love their neighbor

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on March 14, 2025.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to convince conservative Christians to love their neighbor. But in seemingly every example of someone in power mistreating the marginalized these days, the Religious Right sides with the person in power.

The presence those on the right have in the United States today is one of authority that demands submission and threatens retributive punishment on all who won’t submit.

Rick Pidcock

On the domestic front, if you protest in favor of Palestinians, you’ll get arrested and threatened with deportation. If you boycott Tesla, you’ll be told what you’re doing is illegal. If you don’t put up the Ten Commandments in your classroom or teach “biblical character education,” your school might lose funds. If you identify as transgender, you’ll be fired from the military, erased from culture and, if some Texas Republicans have their way, you could be prosecuted with a felony for lying.

In foreign policy, conservatives are now sympathetic to Russia, while being antagonistic toward Ukraine. They’re in favor of shutting down USAID support for starving children all over the world. And they’re in favor of moving Palestinians away from their homes so the United States can own their land and build Trump Tower Gaza.

In every one of these cases, and many more like them, the Religious Right stands on the side of those in power threatening to punish, not with the powerless who are being oppressed. They demonstrate their siding with the powerful through their silence or celebration. And for those of us who have empathy for the oppressed, the political right says we’re being weak and the Religious Right says we’re being sinful and toxic.

“Today’s religious conservatism is by definition incompatible with loving your neighbor as self.”

Until religious conservatives are willing to disentangle themselves from the “America First” movement and deconstruct their hierarchies, we need to acknowledge that today’s religious conservatism is by definition incompatible with loving your neighbor as self.

Continue reading at Baptist News Global.