Would a Christian Nation Steal Greenland?
A brief essay in six parts
Part One
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met with VP J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio today to discuss Donald Trump’s desire to take over Greenland. According to media reports, the meeting lasted less than an hour.
Donald Trump has been quite clear about his lust for Greenland. He wants it and said “if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way” “whether they [meaning the citizens of Greenland] like it or not.” The “hard way” refers to the use of force to take land that doesn’t belong to the United States. His deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said Greenland should be a part of the US. Make no mistake, the President of the United States is openly and actively considering stealing Greenland from Denmark and more importantly from the people of Greenland.
Part Two
Greenland’s leaders and citizens have made it clear they don’t want to be a part of the United States. On Tuesday (1/13), Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said, "There is one thing everybody must understand: Greenland does not want to be owned by the USA, Greenland does not want to be governed by the USA, Greenland does not want to be part of the USA." European leaders are considering the deployment of troops to defend Greenland from the US.
Danish parliamentarian Rasmus Jarlov asked a important question on x.com about a US invasion of Greenland.
After the invasion, what are you going to do with the Greenlanders?
Are you going to gun them down or put all of them in prison?
They will never recognise your right to own their country.
So what do we know? Donald Trump wants to take Greenland, but Greenland does not want to be taken.
Part Three
What would a Christian nation do? Jesus, the founder of Christianity, said to treat others the way you want to be treated. I don’t think anyone in the US government wants another nation to take over the US when we don’t want to be taken. Greenlanders have established that they don’t want to be taken. I think a Christian nation would not take Greenland.
Part Four
Is America a Christian nation? Many evangelicals think and say so. For instance, Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas TX claims America was founded as one and believes that it is in the present. No doubt you have heard this claim before. But looking at history, there is good reason to question America’s Christian nation status. If Trump takes Greenland, it won’t be the first time an American government violated the integrity of another nation or group of people.
For two broad reasons, in my opinion, the United States is not now, nor has it ever been a Christian nation. Many Christians live here and Christianity is the religion most people profess, but Christianity had very little to do with deliberations of our founders over our charter documents (Declaration of Independence and Constitution). In fact, the only mention of religion in the Constitution is the prohibition of a religious requirement for public service. You don’t have to profess any religion to serve in the government of the United States.
Although many public figures during the colonial and constitutional period professed to be Christians, they led the federal and various state governments to do some very unchristian things. They took land from Indigenous people and allowed the buying, selling, and enslaving of human beings like it was just the thing a Christian nation would do. All through the history of the United States, there have been noble and good actions, but there have been many immoral and subchristian actions as well justified by Christianity. What I am getting at is that previous US administrations have in the past lusted after other people’s things and then engaged in theft. I know other nations have done this too so no need to engage in whataboutism. It isn’t easy to face this, but it is true.
Part Five
If Donald Trump gives orders to take Greenland by force, it will be theft. Stealing Greenland will be just one more unchristian deed and more evidence that America is not a Christian nation. An ongoing open question is how much unchristianness will it take to make evangelicals find a Christian voice?
Part Six
I am pessimistic.
See also Christian Nationalist History Day
The Christian Past That Wasn’t: Debunking the Christian Nationalist Myths That Hijack History (May 2026) is published by Broadleaf Books and available to pre-order for Kindle and hardcover at Amazon or wherever books are sold (e.g. Christianbook.com or Walmart).
On Goodreads and plan to read The Christian Past That Wasn’t? Click the “want to read” tab on the Goodreads website.
My first of history with co-author Michael Coulter, Getting Jefferson Right: Fact-Checking Claims About Thomas Jefferson, is only $4.99 (digital version) at Amazon.com; also available in paperback. Get it at Barnes and Noble as well.
Well said. Unfortunately.
Unfortunately, this is how Christians acquired much, if not most, of this country. You would think we would have learned by now. What was not taken by force was purchased under duress. Christians did make up the majority of the population then, as they likely still do now, in one form or another. But the nation itself was not shaped primarily by Christian doctrine. It was shaped by deists and by those deeply influenced by the Enlightenment. Their restraint, skepticism, and moral humility are what have held this country together for nearly 250 years.
They set us on the right path and, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. observed, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” We have taken detours, sometimes long and destructive ones, but we have managed to correct our course.
This may ruffle feathers, and it is not meant to indict decent people who identify as Christian, but many of those detours were fueled by the Church itself. While individual Christians were often involved in the corrections, the institutional Church frequently was not. More often than not, it was society that had to temper Church dogma in order to restore justice and human dignity.
The catastrophe we are living through was not caused by Donald Trump. He is the result. He is a mirror, reflecting back to us what we have become. If we refuse to look, if we refuse to stand up and shake off what the evangelical Church has turned into, then the Church will not merely lose influence. It will forfeit its moral right to exist.
Forget the dogma you were taught. Much of it is false, propagated by figures like Jeffress and many others who have twisted faith into power and grievance. A Church that follows someone like Trump, that sees him as virtuous, divinely chosen, or as an instrument of God’s will, is already lost.
There is still a choice. Change course. Make a clean break, a decisive one. Or accept that this path ends with ruin, not just for the Church, but for all of us.