By Angus Harley

The reader will be struck by the title and its question. President Trump draws out a range of emotions, usually of the stronger type. Jeffrey Frantz, a practitioner of what is called ‘Progressive Christianity’, tells us all about his personal wrestling match with his emotions concerning Trump.[1]

Franz ‘disappears’ God

Frantz, an elder statesman of Progressive Christianity, does not mince his words in destroying President Trump. He does so in the name of Christianity. Yet, Frantz has far, far bigger issues than Trump himself, for Frantz has ‘disappeared’ God. Like a Mafia hitman ‘disappears’ someone, so Frantz ‘disappears’ God. Read his article. There is zero of any Christian content in it. No bible references or quotes. No mention of ‘God’ or ‘Jesus’. ‘Salvation’ isn’t cited, nor ‘Christ’. ‘Christianity’ is referred to once. However, Frantz is a retired minister of the United Church of Christ, and holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from the Pacific School of Religion. He has even written books talking about bible content. Frantz is just a modern-day version of J. A. T. Robinson, the Liberal theologian who declared in the Sixties that ‘God was dead’. His book with the same title has sold over a million copies. There is nothing new under the sun. Frantz as a Woke ideologue has disappeared God. Progressive Christianity has ‘progressed’ to the point of abandoning the God of the bible. Let us not forget that the proud, self-declared confession of Progressives is that they have escaped the thraldom of the biblical God, and they present the true god of ‘Christianity’ as fitted for this modern age. Ultimately, there is no observable difference in ideology between Frantz and any Leftist, Woke, ideologue who is an atheist or agnostic. 

Frantz bears the ugliness of hate

Franz rejects Trump as a misogynist and nationalist, a warmonger and “malignant narcissist”. Trump is full of hate to those who oppose him and his agenda; he is an “ugly” man. Frantz, by radical contrast, is not an “ugly”, hateful man. He concludes:

“So, although I intensely dislike Donald Trump and think him to be an utterly despicable human being, I do not hate him.”

To Frantz, it is ugly to hate, but apparently not ugly to consider someone utterly despicable as a human being; this is not hateful, says Frantz. Perhaps there are a few human beings in this world who would agree with Frantz, but the vast majority, the overwhelming mass, would not. To utterly despise someone as a human being is a classic form of hatred.

I put it this way for the sake of those Christians who are impressed by what Frantz stands for. For not only is your man Franz to all intents and purposes hateful of the God of the bible, he is full of hate toward his fellow man. Is this ‘progression’, I wonder? 

The irony

Frantz spends so much time trying to distance himself from Trump that he actually ends up being consumed by Trump. I do believe this is commonly named, ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’. But what else is there to speak about for a Woke idealogue who has no time for Christianity? 

Hate him or not, at least Trump attempts to hold to a form of cultural Christianity in public. Frantz does not- at least not in his article. And loathe Trump or not, his form of cultural Christianity is seeking to bring forward Christianity considered broadly within the nation. I have yet to find Frantz and co. allow for any form of Christianity other than their godless Progressive Christianity. For ‘Frantz the ecumenical’ cannot, by the nature of the case, dare allow for the existence of those who hold to ‘Christ alone’, ‘Faith alone’, and ‘Scripture alone’. 


Frantz complains at Trump’s narcissism, and others refer to his vile form of speech. Yet, Trump is not afraid to speak words about Christianity in the open. He occasionally gives the glory to God. I’ve yet to read such things from the pen of a Progressive. What the Progressive endlessly harps on about is his journey and all the trials and evils he has to overcome. Frantz’s full article, all his words, his entire vocabulary, are spent on his own struggle. Isn’t narcissism by definition to be consumed with looking upon oneself? 

What to think of Trump?

Answering this question could take forever, so I will make only a few comments. 

When God speaks about either love or hate in the bible, he is not exhaustively speaking about how those terms are understood and used in normal living. Who doesn’t ‘hate’ getting up in the morning, or ‘hate’ the Yankees? Phppph! God and his bible have bigger fish to fry than the minutiae of mundane, day-to-day living considered in and of itself. As citizens of the US (whether Christian or non-Christian) within this ‘every day’, mundane way of life, it is perfectly reasonable to have a love-hate view of someone or something. We might ‘hate’ Trump for some things that he does and says, and yet ‘love’ him for other things he does and says. It is also perfectly within our rights as normal human beings to hate very evil things and people. Hitler was nasty, and so was Nazism. If you don’t hate those things, there’s something wrong with you!


What does the bible say?

Then there is the bible’s way of referring to love and hate, and God’s focus upon the spiritual nature of these things. Let’s look at two sides of this ‘coin’.

The first side is that of love toward our enemies. It is the Christian alone- not the non-Christian– who is taught by Christ to love his enemies and to bless them (Matt.5:43-48; Luke 6:27-28; Rom.12:20-21; 1 Pet.3:9). The Christian is not to get physical, antagonistic, or abusive, towards his persecutors, but must, instead, go in the opposite direction by loving those who hate them, who are their enemies. 

The other side of the coin is that the Christian- not the non-Christian– must manifest a holy hatred. They must hate evil (Rom.12:9), just as Christ hates wickedness (Heb.1:8-9). This type of holy hatred is not limited to attitudes. God hates Satan. God hates those persons whom he does not choose or elect, ” “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Rom.9:13). Let us not forget the same Christ who calls upon us to love our enemies upturned the tables of his enemies in the temple, whipping the Jews in the process (John 2:13-16). The Savior who calls upon us to bless our enemies called both the Jews and Pharisees sons of Satan (John 8:44; Matt.12:34; 23:15, 33). ‘The’ great theologian of the assembly, of the NT, the apostle Paul, wished of his enemies in the Gospel that they cut off their penises (Gal.5:12)! 


A key text in regard to the question of spiritual hatred is Matthew 10:34-36. It says:

“34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36 and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.””


Notice here how Jesus is the ‘firestarter’, the one causing the division, the trouble, with his sword of war. See, too, Jesus’ negative wording, “I did not come to bring peace”. To Jesus, in wielding the sword of war (+ve), he was not bringing peace (-ve).


The wisdom Jesus lays down here is as ‘Christological’ and relevant as that taught by him in Matthew 5:43-48. And so the same Christ declares in Luke 14:26:

“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”

Many Evangelicals have tried to explain away these forms of hatred, saying that they do not refer to actual hatred but to something else. No, they don’t! The word of God is plain. Let us leave it alone to speak to us! Do not make the mistake, Christian, of lumping all forms of ‘love’ or ‘hate’ into the same bowl and mixing them together to give a distorted view of them. There are nuances, differences. It is of critical importance that we recall that spiritual hatred and spiritual love are not the same as earthly love and earthly forms of hate.


How, then, are we as Christians to resolve the obvious tension that comes with this teaching by Christ? We are to hate yet not hate! 


I suggest that as to the Gospel and its preaching, we are spiritual warriors who bring its sword to bear, dividing between believers and non-believers, creating spiritual enemies in that sense, and who are to defend this Gospel with a holy zeal. Not with a physical sword, but by the sword of God’s truth, in the power of the Spirit. Those like the Judaizers who attacked Paul and the Galatians must be fought against; we must go to war with our enemies. We can, and must, be visceral toward such enemies who attack the Gospel. But, most of all, we must rely on God’s word to attack them.


Whereas, when the Christian is subjected to abuse and persecution, he must show love to them, his enemies. 

The one model advances spiritual warfare; the other is passive and advances spiritual suffering and peace. Both pathways need no reconciling. They just are, because Christ lived them both.

Look to God’s word

Reader, you may not agree with me, but one thing is clear: you must look to God’s word, not to man’s emotional ‘journey’. You will not derive anything from man. Go to God’s word. Search the Scriptures. Progressive Christianity openly rejects the words of life, yet, only Jesus’ words, the bible, are those words that give eternal life and true guidance for spiritual emotions, actions, and attitudes. Read it!

[1] Jeffrey Frantz, “Can I hate Donald Trump?” Progressive Christianity, May 18, 2026, https://progressivechristianity.org/resource/can-i-hate-donald-trump/.