Dear Carrie Underwood, (From a Former Pastor and Father, Regarding The Inauguration of Donald Trump)

Dear Carrie Underwood,

I hope this finds you well.

I’m writing because I’ve heard you speak eloquently about your Christian faith in the past, watched you perform a song about the beautiful mystery of baptism, often listened to your now-ubiquitous invocation for Jesus to take the wheel: to guide the life you live and to let his will direct your path.

I also know that you’ve been a role model for girls and young women all over this nation, obviously well-aware of your influence on them.

Given these things, as a former pastor and the father of a girl myself, I wonder how you reconcile your personal faith with a performance at the Inauguration of Donald Trump.

As a woman and professed follower of Jesus, exactly how do you make sense of using your tremendous gifts to celebrate an adjudicated rapist;
a man accused by dozens of women of assault, harassment, and misconduct;
a man who has boasted about taking elemental body autonomy from the girls and women of this nation;
a man who once said that if his daughter were not blood relation, that he might be dating her?

I’m curious to hear you explain what message you think it sends to millions of survivors of sexual assault, who will watch you contribute to the coronation of a human being whose entire life, business history, and political career have been marked by the most vile, dehumanizing, and misogynistic language about and behavior toward women?

This is to say nothing of his 34 felony counts, his many indictments for high crimes, his near superhuman inability to speak truthfully, or his continual verbal attacks on immigrants, LGBTQ human beings, people of color, and all Americans who did not vote for him.

And as a declared Christian, how can you share the announcement of your participation in this event, while in real-time, California burns and millions of its people are in the most dire need—and he is spewing a steady stream of social media insults, disinformation, and abject hatred?

Where is the Jesus in any of this, Carrie?

And perhaps above all of that, just precisely what in the teachings of Jesus make it acceptable to partner with Donald Trump on any level?

Where have you seen him love his neighbor, help heal the sick, feed the poor, welcome the stranger, care for the least of these?
When exactly have you witnessed him embodying the peacemaking, humble, kindhearted directives of the Beatitudes?
How precisely have you seen Donald Trump live a love and compassion that bear any resemblance to Jesus?
I’m not being rhetorical here or trying to insult you, I’d really like to know.

I understand you have boys of your own. I’m wondering when they grow up, if you’d like them to emulate Donald Trump, if you’ll approve of them treating women the way he has, if you’d be proud to have them speak about people the way he does.

Carrie, I don’t know you and so I can’t judge your heart or declare your motives or evaluate your faith and wouldn’t attempt to. I can only tell you what I see from where I stand (Jesus called it, describing the tangible fruit of someone’s outward actions.)

And what I see from here, is an incredibly influential, talented woman who has chosen to wear her faith proudly on her sleeve—also choosing to use her gifts for an event devoted to perhaps the most predatory, most divisive, and least Christlike human being on the planet. As someone who spent decades learning and sharing the teachings of Jesus, none of it makes any sense.

So, if you’re able, with some specificity, please share with me,
with the tens of millions of Christians in this country,
with the women who are being legislatively silenced by him,
with the immigrants and refugees and foreigners he is persecuting,
with the poor and elderly and vulnerable he is preying upon,
and with the people of California and North Carolina whose unfathomable suffering he is exploiting and exacerbating right now—exactly how you feel Jesus is steering this decision.

Because from the outside, it feels like a horrible disconnect.