NOTE: This piece was originally published at our Substack newsletter A Public Witness.
Over the past few weeks, President Donald Trump laid out a vision for imperialistic conquest. He wants to seize the Panama Canal, annex Greenland, and take over the Gaza Strip. He also wants to swallow up Canada and make it a state.
“I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen,” Trump insisted on Super Bowl Sunday with a claim that doesn’t actually explain how Canada would be better off.
Sounding more like a mob boss than an ally, Trump added that Canada is only safe from Russia and China because the U.S. protects them — and he then questioned why we would do that. Nice country you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.
While the idea of seizing Canada might seem like just a joke from a John Candy movie, Trump insists he’s serious. And Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught on a hot mic saying that this idea is “a real thing” for Trump. Trudeau also noted the colonial mindset driving Trump: “They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have and they very much want to be able to benefit from those.”
As Trump has repeatedly raised the issue in remarks and on social media, he disparagingly refers to Trudeau not as prime minister but as “governor.” Canadian politicians have criticized Trump’s offensive rhetoric about becoming a state. Trump launched a brief tariff war against Canada earlier this month and is still threatening to levy massive taxes on Canadian imports again soon — even though the move would hurt the U.S. economy as Canada responds in kind.
In light of the insulting rhetoric from Trump and the potential for negative consequences for both nations, a Canadian Christian leader released an open letter on Thursday (Feb. 13) “to our American siblings in the family of God.” Rev. Jean-Daniel Ó Donncada, a minister in Montréal, is the national pastor for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Canada, which is both a national church and a region within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada. In the U.S., the Disciples of Christ is one of “seven sisters” of the mainline Protestant world that have historically had a lot of political and cultural influence. But as the official denominational name highlights, it is a binational body with more than 3,000 congregations in the two nations.
Members of the Canadian Olympic Team wave flags during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, on July 26, 2024. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press)
Ó Donncada wrote to push back against the “false statements” by Trump about Canada and to urge Christians in the U.S. to “rebuke this loudly and frequently.” Emphasizing the binational nature of the Disciples, Ó Donncada called the denomination “an exceptional body.”
“For decades we have resisted allowing human borders to divide our church, choosing to be one institution,” he explained. “We navigate different languages, different currencies, different tax codes, different employment rules, and different pension plans in order to do so. Our binational church is a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world, where we confront the real and pragmatic consequences of difference.”
In addition to necessitating work with translators, lawyers, customs experts, and more, Ó Donncada wrote that a binational body “also requires mutual respect.”
“We as Canadian Disciples respect our neighbors’ freedom to vote for or support who they wish. We ask that right in return, though,” he wrote. “One of the founding leaders of our movement, Alexander Campbell, said, ‘’We do not ask [anyone] to give up their opinions — we ask them only not to impose them upon others.’ As the president of the United States makes patently false statements about Canada repeatedly, openly says he wishes to use economic pressure to destroy our country, and relentlessly speaks of annexation, I call upon you, as a pastor to Canadians, and as your brother, to rebuke this loudly and frequently. You may retain your political opinions, and they need not be mine. But to be a faithful member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada is to call us your siblings and to believe the only appropriate American view on Canada’s future is that it is Canadians who decide it.”
Ó Donncada emphasized his own appreciation for the U.S. as one who has lived and studied there (he has degrees from Harvard University and Yale Divinity School). He similarly noted that “Canada has welcomed Americans” for “education, work, or love.” He also mentioned some shared histories between the two nations, like “the same troubled foundations of settler colonialism and slavery” and “positive histories of being a refuge and a land of opportunities.” Thus, he wrote that he hoped American Disciples would respect the work and diversity of Canadian Disciples.
“Canadian Disciples speak many first languages and include those whose ancestors have always been here, those whose ancestors settled centuries ago, those who nervously await their permanent visas today,” Ó Donncada added. “Canadian Disciples include the full spectrum of Canadian political opinions. We live in our country’s smallest towns and largest cities. … Jesus calls us all to love our neighbors. We are your neighbors. We love and pray for you too.”
Trump seems unlikely to change his rhetoric. He’ll continue demeaning Canada and the nation’s leaders. And he might take serious actions to harm those north of the 49th parallel. The question for U.S. Christians — those part of the Disciples of Christ or otherwise — is whether the plea of Ó Donncada will be heard. Will U.S. Christians love their neighbor by rebuking a bully? Or will national identity trump citizenship in God’s global Church?
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
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