I
Can’t Keep Quiet Any Longer
Well,
well…Trump has proved beyond any doubt what an ignorant and greedy dumb ass he
is. Speaking of asses, if you have ever
read C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia Book 7, The Last Battle, there’s
a strong parallel. In this book, Puzzle the Donkey is convinced by the evil Ape
to wear an old lion’s hide and pretend he is Aslan, the true King of Narnia
(and a type of Christ). He has been turned into a false Christ, what the Bible
calls an Anti-Christ. I wonder who the Ape is behind the Jackass Trump. Elon
Musk? Maybe the Devil himself?
Some of
us have known what a blind narcissist Trump is ever since The Apprentice.
He doesn’t understand or have any real experience with governing, domestic
relations, economics or foreign relations, and now the whole world knows it.
All he knows how to do is please his egotistical self. He doesn’t know the
difference between right and wrong, truth and lies. He must always be right,
the measure of all things. He thinks he is all-powerful now that he is
President of the most powerful, influential nation in the world. (But how long
will this last, I wonder?) Never mind checks and balances; never mind the
Constitution, if it stands in his way. Never mind that the rest of the world’s
leaders know what an idiot he is.
I have
read a lot about the rise and fall of empires such as Rome, the British Empire,
the Third Reich. All eventually weaken through poor government, and fall. Our
turn is next, whether we want to believe it or not.
The
saddest part to me is how he has deceived even Christians. Whenever I see a
vehicle with a “Trump” bumper sticker and a “Jesus” bumper sticker, I want to
attach a note to their windshield saying, “I am very sorry for you because you
have been deceived by the Anti-Christ. Didn’t Jesus say ‘You can’t worship both
God and money.’ ? But you elected a leader whose god is money.”
People
may say they don’t worship money. It’s just a necessary part of life. Okay so
substitute “consumerism”. How many of us feel we have to have the most
up-to-date houses and furnishings, appliances, phones, cars and trucks-- all
the gadgets of modern life. They’re supposed to make us happy. That’s what all
the commercials say. But do all those possessions really make us happy? There
are more depressed and suicidal people in this consumer society we live in than
there ever have been before. Sometimes I think I’d be happier living in a shack
on some tropical island.
I’ve
pondered for a long time why so many Christians support Trump and his values.
So far I’ve come up with two ideas. 1) They have been led astray by the
idols of money and consumerism. Some say that it’s getting hard to tell the
difference between Christians and non-Christians in their actual behaviors in
the everyday world. 2) They still think that the USA is the “Big
Kahuna”, the God-chosen nation, the most powerful and perfect nation, the
cradle of truth, wisdom, and democracy. But any honest and diligent historian
can tell you this isn’t so. History has been written by the victors, who have
swept our crimes and mistakes under the rug—the persecution of the poor and
minorities, the attempted genocide of the indigenous peoples, the enslavement
of other humans. We can’t “make America great again” when it’s never been all
that great to start with. All the great empires of the past have done these
same things, but the worst part is we are still doing it.
A third
possibility has also occurred to me. Perhaps God is using Trump like he used
the evil kings of ancient Israel to lead their people astray to the worship of
other gods and idols, instead of the True and Only God of Heaven and Earth. As
a result, Israel was demolished over and over again, and eventually led into
exile.
“But we
don’t worship idols and bow to statues,” you may say.
Well, in
this world of consumerism that surrounds us and infiltrates almost every aspect
of our lives, a lot of us do without realizing it: Build a newer and bigger
house, or even a newer and bigger church. Get rid of that “dated” furniture.
Buy a newer and fancier vehicle with all the newest technological bells and
whistles. Use more than our share of the earth’s limited resources, at the
expense of the rest of the peoples of the world. Keep using those fossil fuels.
Sure they’ll run out eventually, but we’ll figure something else out later.
Never mind that it may be too late by then. Climate change? It’s a myth…
These
are some of the idols we worship. Not to mention Trump himself, thinking he can
deceive Christians that he’s one of them by printing his own special version of
the Bible. Hitler did that, by the way. His Bible claimed that Jesus wasn’t
Jewish at all, but a member of the white, Aryan Master Race. Sounds eerily
familiar…
We might
as well admit that we live in a post-Christian world. Too many people who claim
to be Christian are really worshipping America, not the Kingdom of God that
Jesus taught. As early as the third century AD, when Emperor Constantine of the
Roman Empire made Christianity the state religion, the church Christ founded
began to stray from His teachings—such as help the poor, sick, and needy; the
outcasts, those on the fringes of society; comfort those in need; love your
neighbor as yourself. Many churches give this lip service, but does it show in
what they are doing? That early church was soon infiltrated by the forces of
wealth and power, the very things Jesus condemned in the religious rulers of
His day. And the church of today hasn’t escaped this influence of
power-politics.
“Love
your neighbor as yourself.” Too many of us love only ourselves. (I admit I’m
guilty of this at times, too.) Oh and remember Thomas Jefferson’s famous
words—“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”? We’re all stuck on the
last part and overlook the other two. Happiness is what we pursue, at the
expense of anyone else who stands in our way.
Now we
have the prime role model of this as our ‘leader’. And if anyone dares to
challenge him or disagree, he’ll say his favorite line, “You’re fired!” If that
doesn’t work, he’ll send in his Storm Troopers. It’s even clearer this time
around, as he has Musk playing the Goebbels to Trump’s Fuhrer.
Yes, we
should pray for our leaders and for God to deliver our country from its sins.
But that’s not enough. We need to repent of our past sins. And delivering the
USA may not be God’s plan. He may be using Trump to take us down, as He took
Israel down—off our high horse—like He did to all the empires before us. I
wonder what the next world empire will be—China? Russia? Or will computers and
AI take over completely, making human beings obsolete? Any true reader of
science fiction can attest to this possibility.
My final
take is that people think Trump will save us from the “evil Democrats”. But who
will save us from Trump? Will the God we worship, or at best think we worship?
I wonder. He has His own plans, and they probably aren’t ours.
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