Trump’s Easter lunch, the Iran War, and why we must respect belief

0:00Welcome to Hub Headlines. Today's program features the best commentary and analysis published in the Hub for April 6th. Up first is Ray Pennings, writing on Trump's Easter lunch, the Iran War, and why we must respect belief. Last Wednesday's White House Easter lunch drew awkward headlines for both Christian believers and non-believers alike. It was an Easter gathering, and appropriate words about the significance of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection two thousand years ago were spoken. For many Christians, however, there was some discomfort, too. Prayers that described Donald Trump in quasi-messionic terms, drawing comparisons between Trump's political trials and Christ's passion felt more like blasphemy. Within broader small-sea conservative audiences, discussing either President Trump or public life is fraught. As last Wednesday's lunch shows,

1:01these conversations often leave all sides dissatisfied. The common fallbacks, at least he's better than the alternative, or traditional Christianity, is preferable to progressive wokism. Have some validity. Public life always involves choosing between imperfect options. But such responses also sidestepped difficult questions. As I skimmed the Easter lunch stories of President's address on the conflict with Iran, I was struck by a common thread. The tendency to treat public life as if questions of belief might be bracketed off as a matter of strategy or outcomes. Might those reductionist assumptions be part of our challenge? Consider Iran briefly. The conflict has not progressed as smoothly as many expected, despite confident claims of military breakthroughs. While there are many tactical reasons, one broader issue is that policymakers often assume actors mainly act in transactional ways. Yet the Iranian state embodies a mix of political power

2:01and a Shiite religious vision that cannot be reduced to economic incentives or strategic motives alone. Our beliefs, true or false, shape our behaviors. Too many people, whether it's US envoy Steve Whitkopf, acknowledging the American administration's confusion about why Iran has not yet capitulated or vice president Vance musing out loud just stopping the killing and focusing on trade and economics as the path to peace. Betray their failure to account for the motivating power of belief. This brings us back to the Easter lunch. There is a long history of Easter being publicly recognized in American political life. From the Easter egg roll started by President Hayes in 1878 to presidential Easter messages, such as President Wilson's in 1918, which notably referenced Christ's resurrection as the reason for hope in this hour of crisis. Nothing is novel about a White House Easter lunch, but something felt different last week.

3:01The lunch included extended remarks from Trump, followed by prayers from several religious leaders, including White House Faith Advisor Paula White, Franklin Graham, Catholic Father Robert Barron, and Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress. Their prayers differed quite a bit, but they centered on the idea of the president as a person raised up by God for this moment. When Easter prayers only incidentally mention the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and focus mostly on the circumstances that put the current president in office, we face a problem. White concluded her comparison of Trump's troubles with those of Jesus by saying God has raised up President Trump and to say no to President Trump would be saying no to God. What made me especially uncomfortable was the image of all those on stage applauding these remarks. Believing in God means trusting that God is sovereign. There is a logic to the arguments of many who sympathize with Trump's political agenda, viewing him as the man for such a time as this. However, it is an entirely different matter

4:03to interpret God's providence today as an endorsement of a political agenda. When that occurs, the flag begins to overshadow the cross. The instrumentalization of faith towards secular ends only diminishes the true purpose of belief. This isn't a new temptation. What is striking, however, is how this same reduction of belief appears in both foreign policy and domestic politics. The administration's rhetoric often frames issues in terms of dominance and economic interests rather than deeper moral commitments. That logic extends into religious expression where faith becomes a tool for political affirmation rather than an independent source of truth. As a Christian, I am troubled by these developments. I cannot judge nor can I fully disentangle sincerely held beliefs from political behavior. But prudence requires recognizing that the beliefs of every political actor, religious or otherwise, are real, influential, and worthy of engagement.

5:04A healthy public life requires grappling with them, not ignoring them. Sometimes it requires calling them out. The American founding provides a contrast. The founders recognized both the significance of belief and the risks of concentrated power. Their system reflected a sober perspective on human nature, shaped by biblical ideas of sin and corruption. Power was divided, limited, and checked. But that same system rests on a view of human dignity that calls for solidarity with all persons as created equally in God's image. God's creatures, whether they are part of my political tribe, my political foes, or those living in countries like Iran, with whom we might be at war. Society precedes government, and political authority exists to serve, not to dominate. From a Christian perspective, these principles originate from the Easter story itself. The incarnation of Jesus Christ, God becoming man,

6:04so that he could obey the divine law through his life and obey the penalty for breaking the law through his death, forms the foundation of Christian hope, the reality of the resurrection, Christ's victory over sin and death, points to a kingdom not established through political force but through self-giving love. Our democratic efforts stem from the confidence that this gospel, when freely shared, will demonstrate its power. It is not any government that advances it, rather, it is God who proved by raising Jesus that he has authority over life and death. God does not need political aid to fulfill his purposes. When public events, including Easter gatherings and geopolitical decisions, leave room for genuine engagement, they contribute to a healthy society. When they reduce belief to political convenience, they distort both religion and politics. The result is often not only theological confusion, but also poor public judgment.

7:04Belief in public life is unavoidable. The only question is whether we will take it seriously, enough to understand it, both in ourselves and in others, and to act accordingly. That was a commentary by Ray Pennings. He is the co-founder and executive vice president of Cardoose. You can read the full text of his article on our website, TheHub.ca. Our second essay is by Patrick Luciani, writing on how Canada's sins of good intentions helped prolong Cuban misery. Oh, Canada, what have we done? For more than six decades, we have helped prop up Cuba's communist tyranny through our trade, our tourists, and our timid diplomacy. While Havana's boot has ground down the spirit of its own people, once a country that liked to think of itself as principled and independent, Ottawa became an enabler of oppression, spending its moral capital on a regime that mocks the freedoms we claim to cherish. It began in 1959,

8:05when Fidel Castro's rebels stormed the capital city of Havana. While America recoiled and imposed its embargo, Canada extended a welcoming hand, recognizing the revolutionaries almost at once and keeping our embassy open when others pulled back. We called it constructive engagement, the hopeful belief that commerce and conversation might coax the beast toward reform. In fact, we fed it. Even Prime Minister John Diefenbaker looked on Canada's approach to Castro with sympathy, in part from a desire to defy the Americans. Some of the blame also lies with the department of foreign affairs, where communist sympathizers found too easy a hearing under the soft power instincts of Lester Pearson. The horror unfolded in plain sight. Executions by the hundreds at the hands of the Cuban regime were followed by labor camps in the 1960s, where homosexuals, believers, writers, and intellectuals were interned.

9:05By the 1970s, Amnesty International was documenting thousands of political prisoners, tortured, broken, and vanished. Pierre Trudeau's infamous 1976 Havana embrace with Fidel crowned the tragedy. Our Prime Minister faded a tyrant while jails filled with poets and priests. We sent wheat, machinery, and mining technology. Lifelines that helped steady Castro's grip in the midst of chaos. And for what? Cubans are still left wandering in darkness, hungry for some measure of relief. We're still. Castro revealed the depth of his fanaticism during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In his secret letter to Nikita Khrushchev on October 26th, little known, but explosive. Fidel urged the Soviets to launch a nuclear first strike on the United States if invasion seemed likely. What is the sacrifice of millions of tons of oil,

10:06a million lives, and 1,000 kilometers of cultivated land in comparison with the survival of socialism? Khrushchev recoiled at the hotheadedness and pulled back from the brink. Yet even then, as I wrote in an earlier piece, Fidel's willingness to gamble with the lives of Cubans, Americans, and Canadians made the regime's fanaticism plain. And still, we romance it. Canada's Cuba policy reveals a moral blind spot that has clouded our judgment for generations. It began under Pierre Trudeau and has persisted in softened form under his son Justin. Pierre's starry-eyed fascination with Castro's revolution ignored the gulags taking shape under the tropical sun. Turning a dictator into a dashing anti-imperialist while dissenters rotted away. That myopia, born of anti-American posturing and romantic socialism, warped our foreign policy instincts. Justin Trudeau inherited the flaw and made it worse.

11:06His 2016 eulogy for Castro, praising the remarkable leader even as the world recoiled, doubled down on the illusion. At a moment when Cuba's repression was no less real for being familiar, father and son alike turned away, preferring easy gestures and diplomatic posing to any serious defense of liberty. The result is a dynastic blind spot, one that has left Canada clinging to a failed ideology and trading moral clarity for naïve maple leaf diplomacy. Year after year, the betrayal deepened. Canada became Cuba's top Western trading partner, a major investor through share its nickel empire, oil rigs and resort developments. Every year, a million snowbirds went south before the pandemic, making up roughly 40% of tourists and sending hundreds of millions into state hands. Our tens of millions in aid since 1994, food, gender programs, solar panels, eases the regime's burdens

12:08and helps it postpone reform while we congratulate ourselves. Worse, our UN votes against the embargo repeated ritualistically since 1992. Cloak Havana in victimhood and dampened outrage over blackouts, sham elections and disappearances. This is not charity. It is complicity. Human rights watch still counts some 1,000 political prisoners, even as Cuba's communist regime weakens under the loss of Venezuelan oil and the collapse of its allies. Lament as we must, redemption still beckons. It is time to admit the scale of our error. The notion that constructive engagement with communists would somehow produce democracy was a fool's errand, born of naive anti-Americanism and a false faith in managed change. Our task now is clear. We should pivot decisively toward helping build a new, free and democratic Cuba. That means redirecting aid, investment and expertise

13:09toward a post-communist transition and working with dissidents and exiles to help midwife markets, the rule of law and liberty. It also means ending any further support for Fidel's heirs while Cuba's people continue to live in the shadows we helped cast. That was a commentary by Patrick Luciani. He is a writer and book reviewer for The Hub. You can read the full text of his article on our website the hub.ca. That's it for today's edition of Hub Headlines. We hope you enjoyed the program. Hub Headlines is produced by Alicia Rao. This program was narrated by automated voices. Thanks for listening.