JD Vance, This Pastor Knows You're Full of it. (And, I'm Not Talking About The Holy Spirit.)

Hi JD,

I know you claim to be a follower of Jesus.

I’ve heard you invoke your Catholic faith often on the campaign trail.

You wear your religion openly.

Now, let’s set aside the fact that you’re serving underneath a man you yourself not long ago compared to Hitler: a court-adjudicated rapist and 34-count felon indicted several times for high crimes; a man whose racism, misogyny, and immorality are at stratospheric levels.

The theological gymnastics you have to do to reconcile that with the teachings of Jesus aren’t something I think we have time to unpack right now.

However, I heard you recently give an interview on Fox News talking about immigration, and supposedly justifying prioritizing the American people, saying:

"… you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world…"

The idea that there is anything anywhere in the teachings of Jesus to support this, means you’re either willfully ignorant, purposefully misleading, or you’ve never actually read the Bible. (You can let me know which, if you’d like.)

And when rightly called out on such nonsense by podcaster Rory Stewart, you took to social media to invoke some “ladder of compassion,” concept, writing:

"The idea that there isn't a hierarchy of obligations violates basic common sense. Does Rory really think his moral duties to his own children are the same as his duties to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away? Does anyone?"

Yeah, JD, someone does—Jesus.

That’s essentially the heart of the whole thing: loving our neighbors, our enemies, and the least of these: the marginalized, the left out, the foreigner, the people we’ve previously seen as not being our own.

You see, I know you’ve been bending the knee to your vile, belligerent, spray-tanned savior for so long, that the actual teachings of Jesus aren’t really a concern at this point—so you can be excused for the lazy attempt to connect un-connectable dots between mass deportations and a poor, dark-skinned, itinerant refugee preacher commanding his people to love everyone.

(For God so Loved the World ain’t America First, no matter how stridently you believe or declare it is.)

I realize this reminder will likely all be white noise, much like the Gospel teachings have clearly become to you.

If not, instead of trying to justify abject cruelty in the name of Jesus, you’d be severing ties with Donald Trump, repenting of the craven power-lust that led you to fall prostrate before him to begin with—and you’d work the rest of your life to undo the grievous damage you and he have done in such a short time to so many beautiful human beings created in the image of God who do not share your pigmentation, native language, or nation of origin.

JD, Jesus taught that love for neighbor was the highest calling and greatest priority we have here. And when asked by a man in the crowd (likely after your own heart), who he actually had to consider his neighbor, Jesus tells the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Even you are likely familiar with the story about a man beaten and robbed by the side of the road who is ignored by several religious passersby, finally being cared for by a Samaritan man who stops to tend to his wounds and get him to a place of safety and rest.

The story is striking and scandalous, in that Jesus makes a Samaritan the hero, as people from Samaria were thought to be morally-impure half-breeds, likely reviled by Jesus’ hearers.

By doing this, he is reminding them (and us) that our love and concern for humanity is not organized and prioritized by nation, ethnicity, place of birth, or geography. We are to show equally lavish mercy on the hurting, terrified, assailed humanity in our path—period.

Jesus didn’t just love his own: didn’t choose his family his family, friends, students, over strangers. He healed people he’d never met. He fed a vast multitude who showed up to hear his speak, not because they were the right people, but because they were hungry.

In fact, Jesus said that in showing obedience to his call for expansive, border-less compassion, we may even experience turbulence within our own family.

Look, I know you probably don’t care about any of this, because once someone sells their soul, I imagine it’s tough to get a return processed.

I just want to say that people like me, tens of millions of people of faith in this country know that what you are doing to immigrants and refugees and people of color and gay couples and Mexican families and trans teenagers is a vile, predatory rejection of everything Jesus stood for.

And we’re not going to let you get away with it, at least not in his name.

You may be able to B.S. your boss’ sycophantic disciples with ridiculous stuff like this—but the rest of us know you’re full of it.