Monthly Archive: May 2020

I want to avoid making this article one of purely politics. I also do not want this to be an apologetic defense of President Trump.

Someone asked me recently why so many Christians support President Trump. As they put it , “it is nothing short of amazing the cult-like following/loyalty he has garnered from 1/3 of our country, and in particular, the Christian community.”

First, we should not have a cult-like following/loyalty toward anyone. We follow Jesus and Him only. So, if indeed any Christian does have such a loyalty to the President they need to rethink and re-calibrate their faith.

The struggle typically revolves what are perceived as major character flaws. As was stated to me, ‘a president should posses traits like integrity, transparency, empathy, patience, diplomacy, humility, accountability, trustworthiness, etc.’ I think all of us would admire such qualities in our leaders and we should hope for them and pray God molds them in this direction.

Many people struggle with this question, both believers and unbelievers. They do not understand how people (Christians) who value morals so strongly could support a person with such character flaws.

We must first consider how far are we willing to go to judge that President Trump does not possess any of these traits in an acceptable level AND how many of our presidents possessed them at any significantly greater level?Many of those traits mentioned can be faked, especially to the public eye. Satan is not bombastic but rather he is slick and smooth talking. Which matters more, saying what sounds good or doing what is right? Read Matthew 21:28-32, the parable of the two sons. When asked to do something by their father, one said ‘sure I’ll do it’ and didn’t while the other said ‘I’m not going to do it and ended up doing what their father asked. Jesus asks, “

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

Then goes on to tell them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. ^ For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did.”

In other words, the people that you don’t think have such great character traits were the ones that believed. I’m not ‘preaching President Trump into heaven’ and making no claims regarding his salvation. That is for He and Jesus. But this illustrates for us that what we DO speaks more loudly than what we say.

I would suggest that much of what this president has DONE in the last 3 years far more greatly reflects what Christians value than many previous administrations. Isn’t de-funding planned parenthood vs requiring churches and Christian organizations to perform abortions through their health care plans something Christian’s would want? Isn’t appointing judges who believe in the sanctity of life vs judges who strongly believe in a woman’s choice to murder a baby a Christian value? Isn’t allowing people to keep more of the money they worked for vs the redistribution of wealth to give handouts to those who are unwilling to work a good thing; Paul said, “If a man is not willing to work, let him not eat.” Isn’t criminal justice reform to achieve a more equitable system for those often overly targeted and prosecuted in line with the Christian value of justice? Doesn’t ending senseless conflicts in other countries make sense to Christians? Isn’t it a good thing to diminish our bondage to a godless, horrible, oppressive regime, China? Don’t Christians want the right to worship and serve God how they feel the Bible says vs how the government says they should? These are all related to things Trump has DONE since in office.

Does President Trump have flaws? Oh my yes. Can he change them? Hopefully so and I would like to see that. There is much about his character that I dislike and I do not think a large part of the Christian population have a cult-like loyalty to him. That is a fairy tale told by the news. Integrity is better measured by what a person DOES than by what they say.

So, can a Christian support someone in leadership who has character flaws? Well, guess what, we’ve been doing that in this country to one degree or another for the last 244 years.

“Woe to the obstinate children,”
    declares the Lord,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
    forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin who go down to Egypt
    without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection,
    to Egypt’s shade for refuge.” Isaiah 30:1-2

God was not happy with his children, the people of Israel. They stopped listening to Him, stopped looking to Him as their light and and His words as their direction. Instead they chose their own ways. They bound themselves to Egypt instead of to Him.

On multiple occasions God had given the people strict limitations on their relationships with other nations and peoples. But their lusts and desires had caused them to ignore God’s instruction and bind themselves to heathens. Invariably these relationships caused compromises. The people God had called to himself to serve in righteousness would find themselves over and over again participating in the other nation’s idolatry and pagan ways. Instead of the protection and blessing of God they would find themselves in the eye of God’s wrath.

The recent Wuhan virus has shown us just how dependent we are on China. During this pandemic that spread here from China we found ourselves scrambling for supplies. There wasn’t enough PPE, enough ventilators and more. Much of the reason for this? We had tied ourselves to China as our primary supply line. While hiding the existence of the virus from the rest of the world, China went from a net exporter of PPE to a net importer of PPE and began hoarding the and profiteering on the equipment.

It goes beyond PPE though. So much of our overall supply chain in many, many of our industries comes from China. Why is that? Because it is so cheap. But we don’t care why it is cheap. We don’t care about the sweatshops. We don’t care about the oppressed peoples living poverty. We care about the insane profit levels. We care about having the newest smartphone. The coolest Nike shoes.

We bound ourselves to a nation that persecutes Christians by telling them how they can worship and when they do not comply, or even sometimes when they just want to shake them down, put them in prison and sometimes even worse. We must pray for and ask God to liberate our brothers and sisters in this oppressive regime. We bound ourselves to a nation that has over a million people in internment camps. We bound ourselves to a government that continues to steal technology from other countries. We bound ourselves to a government that lied to the rest of the world about a virus while it secretly spread across the globe.

“What fellowship can light have with darkness?” 2 Corinthians 6:14

Light and darkness have no fellowship. People who say they live by morality cannot fellowship with the immoral unless they discard their morality. In order for light to fellowship with darkness it must relinquish its light and become dark. We have done this in our pursuit of wealth.

“Can a man take fire in his bosom And his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?” Proverbs 6:27-28

If you play with fire you get burned. It happened to us here and it will happen again. God has told us over and over again to depend on Him for our provision and protection. To follow His ways, His words. Over and over again we reject this instruction and we turn to our own ways and then to the unbelievers in compromise. Each time we do, it is only a matter of time before we get burned. Next time it may be worse.