Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Matthew 25: 34-40, New International Version

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza, along with the suffering of international immigrants, are reflecting a deadly clash of values within Christianity in the United States. A great many conservative Christians have joined forces with MAGA Trumpians who support the murderous and inhumane strategies of Russia and Israel at any cost. On the other hand, there are Christians who believe in humanity as one family in which all members should be treated with dignity and equality in an updated version of the Kingdom of God which Martin Luther King, Jr., called the Beloved Community.

When the cruelties of the aggressors and the suffering of the victims are considered, how is it possible for conservative Christians to side overwhelmingly with state-sanctioned acts of cruelty? What would Jesus have said about the Russian strategy in Ukraine that is energetically supported by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church? How would he have responded to the barbarity of Hamas and the over-the-top Israeli response? Would he have approved of the conservative Christian responses to international asylum-seekers in Hungary, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona? The shame of it is that several parables and the Sermon on the Mount clearly show a Jesus point of view that responds directly to those questions—and it is being openly rejected by so-called conservative Christians who embrace authoritarian states that impose religiously based laws and deny equal value to all members of the human family.

How do conservative Christians justify their positions? They emphasize faith, which in practice means purity of belief, and support a political agenda to impose their beliefs on others. Christ-centered doctrines are used for theological and political justification. In the process, they reject the priority that Jesus placed on actions and motives. By emphasizing conversion as simply “accepting Jesus as your personal Savior,” they devalue the primarily social emphasis of the parables, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Sermon on the Mount.

The opposing view point, which I call the Jesus point of view, is adequately represented by a single parable—the description of a Last Judgment scene in Matthew 25. The story assembles people before a judge who represents an agent of God as the ultimate King. They are divided into two groups who may appear to resemble each other but turn out to be as different as sheep are from goats. The point of the story is not that they were born different, but that their treatment of one another was the cause of differentiation. The words of the King as judge to an audience of creatures who should belong to the same family represents the heart of the Jesus point of view.

The specific actions mentioned as the basis for judgment point to a set of values that are relevant to the crises in Ukraine, Gaza, and on the southern border of the United States. Hunger and thirst apply especially to the suffering in Gaza as the Israel Defense Forces destroy the national infrastructure and leave the population homeless and without adequate food or safe drinking water. The United States has joined many nations in sending aid to Gaza, but those efforts have been hindered by politics in Egypt and Israel. International organizations like World Central Kitchen are going all out to feed a starving population but find themselves the targets of Israeli army attacks.

Welcoming strangers, providing clothes, and caring for the sick applies especially to the treatment of international asylum-seekers. If these people were treated as brothers and sisters, Congress would fund the staff and other resources to process these new arrivals quickly and humanely. But MAGA politicians call them “vermin” and criminals who are “poisoning our blood,” echoing the Nazi justification for sending Jews and other target populations to concentration camps, some of which were equipped for mass murder and all of which used torture and starvation as standard operation procedures.

The last item the King mentioned is visiting those in prison. During Trump’s term as president, immigrant families were separated, and the children were placed in the equivalent of concentration camps. A great many of those children were not reunited with their families when the Biden administration tried to undo the harm of family separation. It seems that data was not gathered and kept to make reunification possible—because Trump and his Attorney General intended for this measure to be so drastic that it would stop other immigrants from seeking a better life in the United States. The Department of Justice, under the conservative Methodist Sunday School teacher Jeff Sessions, tried to keep the media and even congressional delegations from visiting the detention camps for children. These children experienced a government-sanctioned trauma made worse by isolation from all outside forces that would take pity on them. As he runs for president in 2024, Donald Trump, the champion of the conservative evangelical agenda, is letting everyone know that immigrants will be treated even worse if he wins a second term.

The point of the parable is that God values how people treat one another. That treatment involves actions taken or not taken—not a single requirement involves a theological belief. The Jesus point of view requires expressions of love for one’s neighbor through supportive actions.

An important caveat is that Jesus limited his mission to the poor and outcast in Jewish society. His audience was assumed to be Jewish and the family referred to in the parable meant the Jewish people as a whole. Did he intend for these values to apply to all humanity?

There is a story in Matthew 15: 21-28 showing that Jesus was not trying to appeal to non-Jews and initially refused to help a Syro-Phoenician woman. But the story also tells how she shamed him. Jesus relented when he saw her faith in the power God had given him. The fact that he was open to an appeal outside the people of Israel made possible the work of Paul and others who carried the gospel into the heart of the Roman world.

Just as important is the fact that the message in the parables and other teachings of Jesus is updatable. Unlike theological doctrines which seek eternal truth but only capture the views of cultures that become outdated, the value-centered message of Jesus travels across the ages. It has become increasingly relevant as societies endorse human equality and an increasing number of human rights.

The parable of the sheep and goats tells us that Jesus believed that God holds us accountable based on loving actions or inactions. Claiming membership in the Jewish family or any other ethnic, religious, or national identity, does not satisfy God’s expectations. Faith in Jesus as the agent of God does not involve a specific explanation of the nature of God’s power in Jesus. True faith is shown through actions of love and compassion, as illustrated in many parables.

The book of James is traditionally attributed to the brother of Jesus who became a leader of the disciples in Jerusalem along with Peter. Its place in the New Testament was questioned by Martin Luther and others because of the argument, in James 2:17 and 26, that “faith without works is dead.” Scholars have noticed that James often mirrors teachings of Jesus found in the synoptics. The leading example of “faith without works” in the passage in James is whether we should cloth and feed the needy. The point is that a faith that doesn’t provide food and clothing is useless.

We have seen that a parable by Jesus can be applied to current circumstances—that the message of Jesus is updatable because of the values he proclaimed. Likewise, the message of James is updatable. Faith without loving actions is dead.

The unfortunate truth of our current situation is that conservative Christians are following political champions who represent the opposite of the values of Jesus. According to the parable, their political agenda in action turns them from sheep in the flock of the Good Shepherd into the goats who will be removed by the shepherd.

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Edward G. Simmons is a Vanderbilt Ph.D. who teaches history at Georgia Gwinnett College. He is a Bible scholar, Unitarian Christian, and veteran Sunday School teacher in Presbyterian Churches. He is the author of Talking Back to the Bible and two chapters in The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump: 30 Christian Evangelicals on Justice, Truth, and Moral Integrity edited by Ronald J. Sider. His latest book is Values, Truth, and Spiritual Danger: Progressive Christianity in the Age of Trump. Dr. Simmons is an energetic speaker for education, religious, and civic groups of all ages. He may be contacted at the following email address: egsimmons6@gmail.com.