WASHINGTON (RNS) — A group of nearly 400 prominent Christian leaders called President Donald Trump’s administration “cruel and oppressive” and accused the government of being corrupted by an aberrant form of Christianity, in an Ash Wednesday (Feb. 18) statement. 

The statement, provided exclusively to Religion News Service in advance, has a list of signers that includes a mix of denominational leaders, seminary presidents, scholars and leaders of prominent congregations. In it, they urged fellow faithful to commit to “greater acts of courage to resist.”

“We are facing a cruel and oppressive government; citizens and immigrants being demonized, disappeared, and even killed; the erosion of hard-won rights and freedoms; and a calculated effort to reverse America’s growing racial and ethnic diversity — all of which are pushing us toward authoritarian and imperial rule,” reads the letter, which organizers said was spearheaded by a group of Christian leaders who have been meeting regularly to discuss how to respond to the administration.

The document raises concerns about “an endangered democracy and the rise of tyranny” and warns of a crisis born out of a “Christian faith corrupted by the heretical ideology of white Christian nationalism, and a church that has often failed to equip its members to model Jesus’s teachings and fulfill its prophetic calling as a humanitarian, compassionate, and moral compass for society.”

“We call on all Christians to join us in greater acts of courage to resist the injustices and anti-democratic danger sweeping across the nation,” the letter reads. “In moments like this, silence is not neutrality — it is an active choice to permit harm.”

The letter also appears to make a thinly veiled critique of House Speaker Speaker Mike Johnson, a Southern Baptist who published a theological defense of Trump’s mass deportation efforts earlier this month. Whereas Johnson argues that the biblical call to welcome the stranger is directed to individual Christians instead of governments, the signers of the letter say otherwise.

“Jesus gives His final test of discipleship in Matthew 25:31-46, making clear that the measure of our faith is revealed in how we treat those who are hungry, thirsty, sick, strangers, or imprisoned,” the letter reads. “To say, as some do, that this passage is only about taking care of fellow Christians is an incorrect theological interpretation. It is for the nations, ethnoi, for all peoples.”

Signers include Bishop Vashti McKenzie, president of the National Council of Churches; Bishop Hope Morgan Ward of the United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops; the Rev. Jihyun Oh, stated clerk of General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA); Bishop Darin Moore, presiding prelate for the Mid-Atlantic Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; David Emmanuel Goatley, president of Fuller Seminary; Jennifer Herdt, senior associate dean for academic affairs at Yale University Divinity School; the Rev. Corey D. B. Walker, dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity; UMC Bishop Minerva Carcaño; the Rev. Otis Moss III of Trinity United Church of Christ; David Cortright, professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies; and the Rev. Randall Balmer, who holds the John Phillips Chair in Religion at Dartmouth College.

The signers also include several longtime faith-based activists, such as Bishop Dwayne Royster of Faith in Action, Pastor Shane Claiborne of Red Letter Christians, the Rev. Adam Russell Taylor of Sojourners and the Rev. Jim Wallis of Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice.

The statement adds to growing faith-led resistance to the president’s agenda that has erupted over the past year, particularly in opposition to his immigration policies. In addition to statements and sermons issued by religious leaders — including Pope Leo XIV — condemning various policies, more than 100 clergy and faith leaders have been arrested while protesting Department of Homeland Security actions over the past year, and others have been pepper sprayed or shot with pepper balls and pepper rounds.

In addition, dozens of denominations, religious groups and individual houses of worship — as well as several individual faith leaders — have sued the administration over the last year claiming violations to their religious freedom.

The letter outlines a series of theological principles, such as standing with vulnerable people, saying Christians must “defend immigrants, refugees, people of color, and all who are in harm’s way.” Citing various Scripture passages, signers also called on believers to love their neighbors, “speak truth to power,” seek peace, “do justice,” strengthen democracy, “practice hope” and be “rooted and grounded in prayer and love.”

The statement closes with a call to action and a spiritual warning.

“If we as Christians fail to speak and act now — clearly, courageously, and prophetically — we will be remembered not only for the injustices committed in our time, but for the righteous possibilities we allowed to die in our hands,” the letter reads. “History and future generations will record our choices, but the God of Heaven and Earth will judge our faithfulness.”

Some of the letter’s signers — leaders from Sojourners, Faith in Action and Georgetown University — also plan to hold an Ash Wednesday vigil outside the White House on Wednesday, where organizers say they will “issue a moral call to repentance, love, and courageous action in a time of deep crisis for both faith and democracy.”