On the Christian Persecution of Other Christians
Or, how I think God might respond to the prayer of today's lawmakers
This morning, I read a press release from World Relief which said that 80% of those at risk of deportation are Christians—more than 10 million people. Meaning, 1 in every 12 Christians in America is vulnerable to deportation or could lose at least one family member if the government were to deport everyone vulnerable to deportation without any change in law. This includes Christian asylum seekers from Iran who, if they are deported, face torture and death.1 This includes beloved pastors of local congregations.2 This includes a homeschooling father of four with no criminal record who was detained because one form was missing in his paperwork from 2015, which slipped through the cracks after his wife suffered a stillbirth.3
After reading the press release, I was reminded of a childhood story my husband tells, when Paul Tibbets, the pilot who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima spoke at his Southern Baptist church one Sunday. He said that before his plane took off, a priest blessed their atomic mission.4 Until he died, he maintained that he had no regrets about dropping the world’s first atomic bomb.5
No one knows the exact number of people killed in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but estimates range between 150,000 and 250,000. Something I didn’t learn until graduate school was that in Nagasaki, 8,500 of the city’s 12,000 Christians were among the dead. Meaning, 70% of all Christians in Nagasaki were wiped out by a bomb blessed by a man who followed the same Christ. There’s no specific data on how many Christians died in Hiroshima, but any Christian who was incinerated there in 1945 died because of a bomb blessed by a Christian and dropped by another Christian.
Above is a picture that has been circulating of a dozen or so representatives praying for the Big Beautiful Bill to pass. A bill Matthew Yglesias describes as a “war on the poor”6 and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget says will disproportionately advantage the rich and disadvantage the poor.7 After it passed, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said, “Our rights do not derive from government, they come from God himself.”8 But it seems those rights do not extend, at least for Johnson, to the people detained by ICE, 50% of whom, by the most conservative estimates, have no criminal record and are being held without due process.9 It seems those rights do not extend to the millions of Americans who will lose their Medicaid coverage and access to necessary healthcare (which most affects the poor, the elderly, babies, and rural communities).10 It seems those rights do not extend to the million of children who rely on free meals at school to eat.11
It reminds me of a story in Acts, where a religious leader requested letters from the high priest, granting him authority to hunt down Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem as prisoners. This was presumably done out of zeal for God. Then suddenly, a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He responded and asked, “Who are you, Lord?”
The voice responded: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
What sobers me is this: Paul never saw Jesus face-to-face, but his mistreatment of Jesus’ followers was, according to Acts 9, an attack on Christ himself.12 This idea is echoed in Matthew 25: “Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’”13
Like Cain, we are always trying to excuse ourselves from the sacred responsibility of caring for our fellow humans. But the proof is in the pudding. God is not honored by our prayers if our decisions harm others. God is not clapping for our blessed bombs that kill hundreds of thousands of people. God isn’t moved by the sight of the Ten Commandments hanging in schools while children go hungry just below them.
Whatever we do to the least of these, we do to God. And to put it plainly, as a nation, we are treating God like absolute trash.
I do not know the God to whom those representatives prayed, but it seems a fitting response might be, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/06/ice-arrests-church-leaders-christians-fleeing-persecution/
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/19/nx-s1-5387457/florida-community-rallies-around-immigrant-pastor-swept-up-in-crackdown
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/ice-arrests-mississippi-father-at-his-citizenship-hearing-threatening-deportation/
It is worth noting this priest, George Zabelka, repented of this and spent the rest of his life speaking against the atrocities of war. This entire speech is compelling and I would encourage you to read it: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/nonviolence/blessing-the-bombs
https://sofrep.com/military-history/paul-tibbets-no-grave/#:~:text=No%20Regrets&text=His%20family%20was%20also%20proud,driven%20by%20a%20specific%20reason.
https://x.com/theMRC/status/1940835791615213812
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/07/03/ice-arrests-migrants-criminal-record-numbers/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-massive-medicaid-cuts-will-harm-peoples-health/
https://imprintnews.org/child-welfare-2/advocates-say-14-million-children-could-lose-food-stamps-and-health-benefits-under-proposed-federal-budget/261271
To be clear, any mistreatment of any human is never okay. Even if no Christians were involved, these policies are still inhumane and worthy of being criticized. But what I am trying to point out is how Christians are using Christian language to directly harm other Christians.
I won’t go into it here, but I’ve heard this passage narrowly interpreted—loopholed, really—by claiming that Jesus was only talking about caring for Christian strangers, prisoners, the sick, and the poor. I wholeheartedly disagree with that reading. But even if it were true, I’d point to the data from World Relief, which shows just how many Christians will be directly affected.
Christ have mercy.
Thank you for writing such a thoughtful and poignant piece. That photo is so upsetting.