I quit my church because of Donald Trump and stepped down from the pulpit. After four years of being the pastor of a loving and supportive church, I dropped a bombshell. On the last Sunday of 2024, I ended my sermon by saying it was my last, and that I had a replacement lined up for the following week.
I told my congregation that I no longer felt called there. Which is true. What I didn’t share was that in the wake of the presidential election, given the new political climate, I could no longer walk beside them spiritually – we are simply too far apart politically.
I sought advice from many people.
I traveled to Duke Divinity School and met with Bishop Will Wilimon, one of the most prophetic Protestant preachers of the last century.
I spoke with Adam Russell Taylor, president of Sojourners and author of A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community. Adam and I were seminary classmates.
My best friend from seminary felt God put me in that place for a reason. But by the end of our conversation, he agreed it was time for me to leave.
I’m not leaving to pastor another church, I told them, and I’m not moving away for another job (not yet, anyway.)
If I had given the congregation more notice, it would have only drawn out the inevitable – I was leaving. I didn’t want a going away party, and so I quickly ripped off the bandage and departed.
I don’t feel called to be their pastor, and since I don’t desperately need the money, I was able to step down. Many pastors don’t have this luxury – mortgages and car payments trap them in unhealthy situations.
Pastors and congregations suffer when the pastor stays in the building long after the Holy Spirit has left.
I shared these thoughts with them:
Politicians tell us that Spanish speaking people from Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, or Mexico are streaming into the United States – massive migrations, especially around election time – streaming into the United States, to take our tax dollars and get stuff for free. That’s what the politicians say, that’s what people say online. Donald Trump said that immigrants were eating people’s pets. Immigrants eating people’s cats and dogs. Donald Trump was lying, of course. Immigrants don’t eat people’s dogs and cats. Repeat the lie often enough, and the truth will get drowned out.
Politicians and cable news lie about immigrants, and they want us to believe the lies. Believe the lies, not what we see with our own eyes.
And what do we see with our own eyes? Spanish speaking men climbing all over this roof, working hard and fast and doing a good job, for an employer who trusts them and whom we trust to do the work well and at the quoted price.
What do we see with our own eyes? Spanish speaking neighbors and their kids passing us in the aisle at Walmart – mothers and children. Families. Just like ours.
What do we see with our own eyes? Families sitting quietly, eating at another table across the restaurant. Families, just like ours. Our neighbors.
Politicians and cable news tell us to fear these people, our neighbors. And I just can’t do that, because the Bible says to love them. Jesus says to love them.
In the coming months and throughout 2025, Present Trump intends to spend billions of our tax dollars to arrest and deport our neighbors who don’t have the proper paperwork. Six months from now, the men who installed our new roof could all be deported to other countries, along with their wives and children. Their children, born here in Virginia, in the United States, may be deported to foreign countries they’ve never been to. Never even heard of.
Some of our neighbors are not looking forward to 2025.
I left my church just before Trump took office because I realized that if law enforcement came to arrest our neighbors who replaced our roof, rather than offer sanctuary, my congregation would hold the door open.
Half of the nation’s Christians agree with them.
American Christianity is badly broken and in desperate need of Jesus.
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For more from Jim, follow these links:
The Clark Doll Study Documenting the Damage of Segregation
Do Christians Need to be Reminded that Racism is Immoral?
Notes from a Sermon: Mark 7: 24-37
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Pastor Jim Meisner, Jr. is the author of the novel Faith, Hope, and Baseball, available on Amazon, or follow this link to order an autographed copy. He created and manages the Facebook page Faith on the Fringe.
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