Recently there has been another wave of what I can only call “irrational thinking” about politics by, in my view, otherwise very good Evangelical theologians. To take one example of such theological irrationality, or perhaps theological extremism, I quote fellow Patheos contributor and respected theologian, Roger Olson.
Olson’s Radical Theological Claim: Non Salus extra USAID?
Writing about the shut down of USAID, Olson makes the following radical claim:
I believe that IF a person claims to be a Christ-follower but supports this shut-down of USAID, he or she needs to examine himself or herself and needs to be challenged by fellow Christians. I question the authenticity of such a person’s Christian identity.
Roger Olson, “Can A Real Christian Support the Shut Down of USAID?”
Now, one would not expect someone as mature, as well read, and as careful as Olson to make such a fanatic claim about the status of people’s salvation. After all, what Olson seems to be doing here, given the hypothetical formulation of the statement, is calling into question people’s actual salvation, or election in Christ. And this is apparently based solely on their attitude or posture toward a governmental agency (a fairly new one at that) and its global operations. For the life of me, I cannot see how this hypothetical statement could mean anything else. It seems to say that IF one supports shutting down USAID, THEN one may not be an authentic Christian.
Given what I know about the Bible, and Christian “soteriological” parlance, I have to assume what Olson means here by “authentic Christian” or “authentic Christian identity” is equivalent to the concept of a saved Christian, i.e., to one of God’s elect (Rom 9:1-33) who will enjoy eternity with God and the fellowship of the saints in heaven. If I am wrong about that, I hope Olson will see this and correct me. Perhaps he will even issue a clarification to his original post.
However, if I am not wrong in my interpretation of Olson, and Olson really is calling into question the salvific status of other Christians based on their view of USAID, as both the title of the article and the quote suggest, then Olson seems to be implying that even if one were to have a strong sense of personal assurance regarding their salvation in Christ, as well as being orthodox in their intellectual assent to all the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and Christlike in their own personal lives, morally and devotionally, that still, in spite of all this, because they question the efficacy or necessity of USAID, they may be in danger of not being a “real Christian.” And, as such, they may be bound for the eternal damnation of hell.
Now this is quite a theological claim!
Spiritual Tribalism vs. Spiritual Knowledge
Not only does Olson’s claim assume much about a person’s spiritual life, but it makes the hinge of a genuine Christianity relevant to one’s orientation toward a particular political agency (not even toward a political ideology, which might make more sense). But this seems obviously wrong. Especially in light of Christ’s own words, as when, for example, in Matthew 13:24-30, Christ warns his Apostles (the “slaves” in the story) about being too quick to judge who is “in” and “out” of the Kingdom of God. In this parable of the wheat and the weeds, Jesus sets the zeal of the Apostles straight, when He corrects not necessarily their desire to root out false believers from the true believers, but their capacity to do so:
24 He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27 And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” 28 He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” 29 But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30 Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’
I am not one who is generally against the idea of tribalism, which often gets a bad rap in contemporary theological discourse. That there are tribes is, in my view, both a natural and a biblical concept. For example, it is an obvious implication of Jesus’ parable that there are two types of individuals or societies. There is the one represented by the wheat, and the one by the weeds. In the present, in the time of Jesus’ telling, and in the future, the eternal future, these two groups are clearly distinct and clearly at odds with one another (in that both have antithetical orientations toward God). What is not clear, however, is how to recognize which is which. But that is an epistemic and not an ontological ambiguity.
Further, that there are better and worse “tribes” is, in my view, something that the Bible also asserts quite clearly. It is also obvious from any common sense historical observation. For example, the Israelites were, for a time at least, a better tribe than the Canaanites. Of course we know that that didn’t last. Or, more recently, we might say that the Hopi tribe was better than the Iroquois or Comanche tribes. That doesn’t seem terribly controversial given the historical records of each.
Finally, orthodoxy would affirm that at the end of days there will clearly be two tribes: one tribe that is united in eternity with Christ, and another that is not. In fact, this latter sense may be the only tribalism that really matters, i.e., spiritual tribalism. Personally, I think it is the only one that matters, meaning, I believe that the only real division that matters among human beings is the division that relates to individuals’ and communities’, or cultures’, relation to Jesus Christ. So I am not against the idea of there being tribes, or of one tribe being better, morally speaking, than another. In fact, these seem to be obvious truths.
What I don’t understand though is how eager, and how confident, some Christians have become in their pronouncement over who is in and who is out of the Kingdom of God; i.e. who is in the Jesus camp, for real, and who is only pretending to be in that camp. The salvafic status of others given their political leanings or differing opinions on public policy seems to me an inadequate criteria by which to evaluate one’s eternal state. As such, there seems to be an epistemic overconfidence by people like Olson in their evaluation of who is among the wheat and who is among the weeds. In sum, Olson is right to think there are two tribes: those who are spiritually in and those who are spiritually out of the Kingdom of God. But to think he has knowledge of who is in each group, that is a theological bridge too far!
Some Exceptions to the Political Rule?
Now, there may be exceptions to this rule, of course. It may be that on some political issues (likely very few) that we can get a gauge, albeit only a “gauge,” on the salvific status or Christian identity of a professed believer. For example, how one lands on the question of abortion or same-sex marriage as a matter of public policy or political orientation may be a better indicator of how seriously one takes their Christian faith. Or, it may indicate to what extent someone has a genuine knowledge about the faith they proclaim to hold. There could be uninformed believers who are simply confused about abortion or same-sex marriage, and there could be those who are biblically well informed but their wills are not aligned with the Word of God. Those are two very different things, spiritually speaking. But abortion and same-sex marriage are relatively clear moral issues, and they are issues that also have a clear, pre-political status.
For example, the killing of an unborn child in the womb or the question of whether two men or two women should marry can be adjudicated even under politically “thin” cultural conditions: i.e., in less developed, less structured, less formal societies. In fact, moral issues like these have usually been adjudicated in less formal, more tribal societies over the centuries and, almost always, they have been evaluated as morally negative. It is not just abortion that real Christians are against, it is murder more generally. It is not just the civic legality of same-sex unions Christians are against, it is the sinfulness of same-sex desire and action.
That said, in the case of USAID, when it comes to the question of dealing, primarily, with issues of global hunger, sickness, clean water, etc., Olson seems willing to evaluate people’s personal faith based on how hunger or sickness is treated globally, not whether it should be. There is a huge assumption here by the Evangelical theologian and, I would say, an irrational leap. To call into question programs like USAID and to wonder if they are the right means to combat global hunger or illness is apparently something that now, according to Olson, might put one’s relationship to Jesus at risk. Again, allow me to stress that this is a risk which would entail one’s eternal salvation.
Olson’s Other Errors
In addition to this extreme adjudication, Olson appears to make a simplistic error in moral reasoning when he references the prognostication of various publications like The Lancet and Time:
According to today’s edition of Time.com (July 1, 2025), the shuttering of USAID will lead to millions of deaths around the world. That claim is based on a new study published in the respected medical journal The Lancet (June 30) showing that the defunding of USAID (The United States Agency for International Development) by Trump (at the behest of Musk) will lead to the deaths of 14 million people by 2030 of whom 4.5 million will be children and babies under the age of 5.
First, Olson accepts such prognostications seemingly at face value. That itself may be a problem. Failure to consider the claims made by such outlets with a proper degree of skepticism could lead to an acceptance of falsehoods or exaggerations that, were they known, might modify our overall analysis of what is obviously a complex moral situation. While Olson goes on to say he has “heard and studied all the claims of USAID’s errors” (emphasis added), he conveniently leaves out any mention of or reference to those claims. But why? Might including the reports of corruption, error and negligence mitigate the competing claim of catastrophe made by The Lancet and Time? If they would, then why not cite them so the reader can get a better sense of both sides of the story and, perhaps, come to a more rational conclusion about the issue at hand?
Second, is the allusion to the false notion that a lack of aid kills people. Or, put here, that a removal of USAID “will lead to millions of deaths around the world.” It is not, after all, the lack of aid which kills anyone, just as it is not the intent of the DOGE or State Department to kill children. Is Olson unfamiliar with the law of double effect? It’s hard to believe he is not familiar with it. What kills people is the disease, the dangerous or violent behavior and the political violence in those regions. These proximate causes are what lead to the misery of so many, not a lack of aid. It is the actual conditions under which people live that shorten their lives, or the human agents operating malevolently in those conditions.
As a theologian, Olson should be in a better position to make such ethical distinctions. And here is also where we would expect better, more rational, thinking on the part of otherwise established scholars. Olson begs the question when he assumes that the solution to the problem of moral or natural evils in other countries is a US-sponsored aid program. And this is without even mentioning the morally questionable acts of agencies like USAID on issues like transgenderism or “family planning,” a euphemism for facilitating abortion around the world, as documented here and here.
If It’s About Saving Children, Then Why Not The World’s Police?
In addition, I find it curious that many of the Evangelicals who denounce the cutting of foreign aid that will “save children” are equally adamant about America not acting as the world’s police. As this ProPublic article points out, moral evil (sexual violence, criminality, tribal rivalries) is as much a cause of the global catastrophe as natural evils (HIV-AIDS, tsunamis, earthquakes). So why do USAID supporters not also get on board with the neocon program of America being the world police?
After all, another way to save the world’s children would be to have military and paramilitary units stationed abroad to stop the bad guys from raping, pillaging and murder. I am sure well-trained US military and police intervention can do a much better job than most local-national and state police forces at preventing crime against their populations. So, why not save the children through world policing and more military interdiction? Would Olson chastise fellow Christians or call into question their salvation for not supporting more military intervention around the world? I doubt it.
Finally, with regard to USAID as a humanitarian organization, the analogy one might press into service here is that of the life-support machine and the comatose patient. Is removing the patient from the artificially life-supporting apparatus killing the patient? Is it the cause of the patient’s death? Or, is it the other causes of the patient’s medical condition that kill him once the life-supporting apparatus is removed?
If the American tax-payer money that funds USAID is only a life-support machine for regions around the world, but is doing nothing productive to alter the actual causes in those regions that threaten or shorten the lives of their citizens, then you at least have a moral dilemma when it comes to keeping those populations on life support. Regardless, I conclude by simply restating that it is a theological bridge too far for Olson, and others like him, to claim that to even consider that moral dilemma is to put one’s salvation in Jesus Christ at risk.
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