Lifting Others is How We Build a Great Nation

by

Special to United Methodist Insight | July 2, 2025

Anyone who has perused anything I’ve ever written knows I’m not a Trump fan. He’s a cheat, a loser who rode most of his life on his daddy’s money and bailouts, a nasty bully, a graceless social climber, a serial sexual abuser, scarily ignorant of world affairs, likely close to being illiterate, and an utterly amoral human with not one shred of human decency residing in him.

And I’m betting he is not the first US president or head of any nation who could be described this way. For the most part, all are highly opportunistic men (the few women gaining anywhere near that level of power have other flaws, but not these as a rule), alert to any possibilities of gaining influence, protection, and money, unconstrained by conventional morality, extraordinarily vengeful, and if, perchance, something happens for the public good, it is likely a pure accident.

Yes, we’ve seen the occasional wise and moral national leader, thanks be to God. But even the good ones were terribly flawed, making huge mistakes with decades of unexpected consequences to follow, riddled with internal contradictions, and viciously opposed by those who were sure their ascendency to power meant the end of the Great American Experiment.

So far, we’ve held. Yes, to some of us, things seem unusually ominous. Our current POTUS evidences zero respect for, or likely knowledge of, the Constitution. He makes decisions while surrounded by, advised by and listening to overt white supremacists (let’s get rid of all pesky little brown people) and those who want their version of Christianity (muscular, xenocentric toward different cultures, male-power-only, female-submissive) to determine the culture/laws of the US.

The idea both makes me ill physically, but also spiritually. It is the antithesis of an arc toward a more just society that many of us long for.

And it’s life. Power always wants more power. Greed always wants more stuff. There is a reason the Scriptures state that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil. Not money itself, but the drive to get more and more and more, no matter the cost in lives and morals.

My biggest concern skews differently. As a scholar of religion, I am aware that there has never been a single historical situation where the marriage of sacred and secular power has worked out well for society. Each time these two forces join, their combined underbellies, no longer constrained by any external powers, emerge, magnified by the flaws of the other.

I’ve written about this extensively over the years. Here’s one example. All we have to do is suspend judgment, put our trust in the current “Only I can fix this” leader, and all will be well.

But all is not well and is not going to be well as long as the immensely rich continue to assume their great riches do not also include great responsibility to the larger world. Yes, to whom much is given, much is required.

Again, there is nothing wrong with being rich, successful, and influential. There is a great deal wrong with using those riches and that influence and those successes to rob the far less fortunate of even the basics of decent hopes and opportunities for the sole purpose of accumulating more riches. Lifting others is how we build a great nation, not stomping on their hands and sending them plunging even further downward.

For these things, societies will be judged. Currently, the US’s direction sits precariously on the wrong side of working toward the greater good. That’s what grieves me right now.

I cannot fix this. My voice is small, barely heard, rarely read. But, just as with recycling our plastic bags, I can do something, however tiny, seemingly inconsequential, that might, just might, help provide some light, health, and life for others. For these reasons, I continue to write, to serve, and to pray. That’s my job right now.

The Rev. Dr. Christy Thomas is an author, columnist, and a retired clergy member of the former North Texas Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church (now the Horizon Texas Conference). This essay is adapted from a post on her blog, “Pondering Life, Old Age and a Crazy World.”