Jamin Bradley

I was scrolling through TikTok yesterday when I bumped into a livestream of one of Trump’s rallies. After severely addressing migrant criminal networks, he declared, “I’m here calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.” My heart sunk in horror as the crowd erupted in cheers and began to chant “U.S.A.” It was the loudest they had been so far, and their cheers were for death. Death. Trump demonized such migrants as “bloodthirsty,” but there was a thirst for blood right there in the room with him.

The energy of a crowd is a dangerous thing. I felt this energy at a very liberal conference in Detroit a few years back, and I watched the same energy manifest from conservatives at the January 6th insurrection. It’s the same energy that the chief priests swept a crowd into to get Jesus crucified and the same energy that created a riot against Paul. As Luke documents Paul’s moment, he notes the vibe of the room. “Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.” Such crowds fall under a spell of sorts. It’s often after the horrors have been committed and our actions have become a part of the infamous side of history that we become aware of what we’ve done.

“We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God. And we’re going to remember God,” Trump footnoted in the last two minutes of his speech as the crowd erupted with cheers again. But nothing he had said before that moment remembered God (or cultivated Americans into one family for that matter). None of his politics were based around Jesus. None of his rhetoric sounded like the fruit of the Spirit. Indeed, he had violated several commands from the Sermon on the Mount. He didn’t love his enemies, he advocated for an eye-for-an-eye politic, and he called his opponents “stupid fools.”

When the hearts of Christians erupt in cheers for conservative or liberal ideals that don’t match King Jesus and his reverse politics found in the Sermon on the Mount, we need to check ourselves. We must recognize that our hearts are not aligned with Christ and we have not remembered God when we cheer for the death of another—even if they’re our enemy. For when we oppressed God on a cross and he had every right to hate us and consider us enemies, he still chose to love us and called us into friendship. Don’t get swept up in the wrong energy.