President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video of himself dumping feces from a fighter jet onto protestors, following US-wide demonstrations against his administration. (Social media image courtesy of Euro News)
Special to United Methodist Insight | Oct. 20, 2025
This week we witnessed things that should never be associated with leadership, let alone Christian leadership.
The sitting president shared a grotesque AI video of himself in a jet, wearing a crown, and dropping fecal matter on people he’s been elected to serve. Simply because they were raising their voices in peaceful protest.
His press secretary responded to a journalist’s question with the juvenile insult, “your mom.”
His vice president dismissed jokes made by grown adults and the future political “leaders” about r*pe, racism, gas chambers, and Hitler as though such things could ever be trivial.
All of this took place within a matter of days. What should be even more unsettling is that this isn’t new behavior. It’s just a continuation of what has been normalized by this political movement.
And yet, many continue to call this the “Christian party.” Many still defend this administration as though cruelty, mockery, bigotry, prejudice, sexism, and moral decay were virtues. I cannot understand how anyone who claims to follow Jesus can look at this behavior and see anything resembling Him.
I remember how loudly so many cried that “character matters” during the Clinton years. How moral integrity was once held up as the defining measure of leadership. What happened to that conviction? How did we move from insisting on character to excusing corruption, deceit, and open degradation of others? Are we left to simply conclude that character and moral integrity never really mattered at all and they were just virtues held up out of self righteous convenience – only to be abandoned for the sake of political power? Is this really the legacy we want future generations of Christians to carry forward?
If you’re still wondering why people are leaving the church, this hypocrisy is a huge reason why.
For many of us, myself included, it is a daily source of heartbreak and lament.
Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:16)
The fruit of this movement is not righteousness or compassion, it is rot. It is cruelty parading as strength, arrogance dressed as conviction, and indecency mistaken for boldness. The fruit reveals the heart, and what we are seeing laid bare in the lives of these so-called leaders is a sickness of the soul.
What’s worse is not only that such behavior exists but that many no longer find it appalling. Even among those who claim Jesus as their savior. That hearts once sensitive to sin have grown calloused and consciences once that should be led by Jesus have are being led by power.
If we are to call ourselves followers of Jesus, then our allegiance must be to His way, to truth, humility, mercy, and love, not to those who wield power without integrity or decency. The world is watching what kind of fruit we bear. What is more, God is watching. And right now, the tree of much of the political witness masquerading as “Christian values” is diseased.
The revival we actually need is Christians repenting from this decay and turning back to Jesus.
The Rev. Benjamin Cremer
The Rev. Benjamin Cremer is a Church of the Nazarene pastor who writes about the intersection of religion and politics. This post is republished with permission from his Facebook page. Follow him on Facebook and on his Substack blog, "Into the Gray."