Photo Courtesy of Bishop Karen Oliveto/Facebook
United Methodist Insight | April 9, 2026
United Methodists this week joined a growing chorus of faith and civic leaders denouncing President Donald J. Trump’s threats against Iran posted on social media.
On Easter Sunday, reported Politico, President Trump posted on his social media platform: “ ‘Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.’”
On Tuesday, the deadline the president set for Iran’s capitulation, Politco reported he posted again: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”
Along with other remarks by the president, the two posts ignited online outrage among United Methodists.
Methodist Federation for Social Action published a prayer in response to the Tuesday post:
A Prayer for Peace and Justicein response to words spoken today...
God of peace and justice, we are shaken by words that should never be spoken by any leader—
“A whole civilization will die tonight.”
We come with urgency and grief as violent rhetoric escalates and the lives of innocent people hang in the balance. We reject language and threats that dehumanize entire populations and put countless lives at risk.
We hold in prayer the people of Iran tonight—families, children, elders—who deserve to live free from fear, not under the shadow of annihilation.
No nation, no leader, and no policy has the right to erase the dignity and sacred worth of a people.
We call on those entrusted with power—elected officials, advisors, and military leaders—to act now, with courage, restraint, and moral clarity. When the possibility of mass harm is spoken aloud, silence is not neutrality; it is complicity. No office grants the authority to erase a people. No order that targets a population can be justified. We pray that those with authority intervene where needed, uphold human decency and the law, and refuse any order that targets civilian life or violates our shared humanity.
Spirit of truth, keep us grounded and clear-eyed. Do not let us grow numb to words that normalize destruction. Give us the resolve to speak, to organize, and to stand with those whose lives are treated as expendable. We choose a different way—the way of peace that protects life, resists violence, seeks justice, and insists that every person, everywhere, is worthy of care. Amen.
On Facebook, retired Bishop Karen Oliveto: “I don’t think I’ve ever felt the depth of anxiety and despair about the state of the world as I did last night. Would we wake up in the morning? This poem captures it to perfectly.” She included a picture of a poem, “A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight” by Michael F. Dubois (see photo) that has be shared by several Facebook users.
Photo Courtesy of UMEA/Facebook
United Methodist Endorsing Agency, a unit of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry that certifies military chaplains, posted on Facebook:
"’The United Methodist Church deplores war and all other forms of violent conflict and urges the peaceful settlement of all disputes. We yearn for the day when there will be no war and people will live together in peace and justice.’ 2025-2028 UMC Social Principles.
“Some UMEA clergy have taken to posting the Social Creed from pages 56-57 in appropriate places in their work centers.”
UMEA’s response came a week after U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired Army Chief of Chaplains Maj. Gen. William Green Jr. Baptist News Global noted: “The removal occurred during Holy Week without an official reason, amid a broader reshuffling of military leadership.”
The Rev. Mary John Dye, a retired clergy member of the Western North Carolina Annual Conference, wrote a lengthy commentary after reading the president’s Easter Sunday post. She wrote:
I do not know how to process the President of my country publicly announcing his intention to commit war crimes.
On a Sunday morning.
On EASTER Sunday morning.
In a vulgar, profanity laced post.
On a Sunday. On EASTER Sunday.
Read her full commentary here.
Among United Methodist posts rebuking the president, one drawing the most affirmative comments came from the Rev. Dr. Gregory S. Neal, Des Moines, Iowa, senior pastor of Grace UMC in Des Moines, Iowa. Dr. Neal wrote:
I do not usually make direct comments about a President of the United States. But today, I can’t stay silent.
The social media posts from Easter morning and again this morning are so far beyond the bounds of acceptable presidential conduct that I honestly don’t know how they’ve been allowed to remain online without provoking serious questions about fitness for office.
This is not normal. It’s not responsible. It’s not moral. And it’s not remotely worthy of the presidency.
Whatever one’s politics, no President should be speaking in this way: threatening, vulgar, reckless, and utterly lacking the sound judgment the moment requires. The stakes are far too high, and the office far too important, for this kind of behavior to be dismissed as just another outburst. Taken together with so many of the other alarming and deranged things he has said lately, including his comments at the White House Easter Egg Roll, I fear we are witnessing not merely presidential incompetence, but a grave failure on the part of Congress to act in defense of our country and, indeed, the world.
And as a Christian, I need to say this plainly: I do not understand how anyone who claims the name of Christ can continue to give this kind of erratic, dangerous, and morally indefensible behavior a pass. At some point, moral clarity requires people to stop making excuses. How can evangelical conservatives accept this? How can they continue to enable a spiral that grows more erratic by the day?
We are beyond partisan disagreement. This is a matter of character, judgment, and the most basic standards of sanity, civility, and responsibility that we should expect from anyone entrusted with such power. For all that is holy, those in positions to act must do so before it is too late.
In contrast to individual responses, a survey of official United Methodist boards and agencies found no immediate reaction to the president’s most recent threats. However, Pope Leo XIV denounced the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Vatican News reported:
Pope Leo XIV (Wikimedia Photo)
“Against the backdrop of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the U.S. President's threat to destroy ‘the whole Iranian civilization’ on Tuesday night if Tehran does not comply with a deadline set by the White House to reach a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the Pope said he wished simply to say, once again, what he had said in his Urbi et Orbi message on Sunday, ‘asking all people of goodwill to always search for peace and not violence, to reject war—especially a war which many people have said is unjust, which is continuing to escalate and which is not resolving anything.’"
Relations between the United States and the Vatican have been rocky since January, when Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby and colleagues reportedly confronted Vatican envoy Cardinal Christophe Pierre over the pope’s criticism of U.S. foreign policy, according to multiple news sources. "Officials allegedly declared that 'America has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world' and warned that 'The Catholic Church had better take its side,' according to MSN.com
Since then, the American-born pope has cancelled a planned visit to the United States on July 4 when the nation will mark its 250th anniversary. Instead, in an apparent rebuke of U.S. immigration policies, Pope Leo will visit the island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea south of Italy. Lampedusa is symbolic as an arrival destination for migrants from Africa.
Cynthia B. Astle is Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011 as a media channel to amplify news and views by, about and for marginalized and under-served United Methodists.