"They want to tear down crosses where they can, and cover them up with social justice flags. But no one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration, I swear to you.”Christians got themselves a winner. A fighter. A kick-ass, look-out-for-number-one Golden Boy.
Donald Trump, speaking to the Association of Religious Broadcasters, February 2024
It turns out that the U.S. president that Christians admire isn't Jimmy Carter. It's Donald Trump. This Kingdom of Heaven, love-your-neighbor, self-sacrificing, help-the-poor stuff Jesus preached goes against human nature. Trump understands human nature. Triumph is gratifying; social justice is hard. Trump leads a team and it carries the Christian flag. The team is running up the score.
Bruce Van Zee reflects that the Christianity of his youth has been hijacked. Christians are in thrall to a golden calf idol.
"I show you a God of gold!" The Golden Calf scene in the movie The Ten Commandments, 1956
Van Zee is a retired physician living in Medford, Oregon. I subscribe to his excellent Substack blog. He writes two or three times a week. This article appeared there earlier this week: https://bvzcvz.substack.com
Guest Post by Bruce Van Zee
A little personal history. I was raised in a strongly conservative protestant home. My father was a Presbyterian minister, and we had a strong background in Christianity and Christian ethics. Both my parents were kind, loving persons – generous and caring, honest and responsible. I feel fortunate to this day to have had them as parents. And I would like to think that I embody and practice the values they taught me in my daily life.
But I find it profoundly unsettling to see the behavior and apparent values of Christian Nationalists and MAGA types that claim to be Christian displayed in ways counter to the values and ethics I was taught.
The first mind-boggling leap is that so many of them accept Donald J. Trump as a leader who reflects their values. Some of them actually believe that Trump was “sent by God”. My observation is that Trump is about as far away from Christian ethics as I can imagine. Instead of humility, he demonstrates unbridled narcissism. Instead of love, he exudes hate. Instead of helping the disabled, underprivileged, and poor, he demonizes them. Instead of truth, he tells countless lies. Instead of responsibility and accountability, he blames others and never admits a mistake or apologizes. Instead of serving the nation, he serves himself. Instead of opposing despotic, authoritarian regimes, he emulates them.
And then there is the matter of Scripture:
Luke 10:30-37 “Jesus had compassion for a man who was robbed, beaten, and left half dead.” (Parable of the Good Samaritan). Compassion for other ethnicities and one’s fellow man.
Ephesians 4:32 “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you“ A far cry from Trump’s, “I hate my enemies.”
Corinthians 13:4 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude”. Needs no further explanation.
Matthew 25:35 “For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Contrasts strikingly from MAGA’s demonization of immigrants.
John 13:14 “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet” Christ teaching humility.
Matthew 19:24 “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Trump and MAGA’s adoration of wealth runs contrary to this and other scripture.
We could go beyond Christian Ethics and values to other religions. Almost all the world’s religions have something analogous to the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The universality of this ethic runs counter to almost everything Trump and MAGA do.
I don’t know about you, but I think the evidence is pretty damning.
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10 comments:
Trump's golden rule is: Those with the gold make the rules.
Most religions also have some version of "You reap what you sow." I'm afraid that what the Trump cult is sowing the entire nation will reap, and it ain't making America great.
This post sums up my feelings completely. Can you be a Christian and worship evil? The Antichrist has been sited for 2,000 years, but T sure fits the criteria.
Lots of Presidents of both parties have been flawed individuals, including Trump. Jimmy Cater was a choir boy, and also a lousy President. Others, like Bill Clinton, had terrible character, but did a fairly good job. People knew who Trump was before he was elected, warts and all. We overlook his personal flaws because he's been a damn good President, much better than anything the Democrats have given us lately. All people have flaws, including Presidents and Democrat candidates.
Get a clue folks. You’re being used. For political gain, Hitler frequently used religious language in public speeches and in Mein Kampf to appeal to a largely Christian German populace. In a 1922 speech, he portrayed Jesus as an "Aryan fighter" against Jewish influence and claimed, "I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator". German army belt buckles were inscribed with "Gott mit uns" ("God with us").
Well anonymous, 39% of Americans agree with you. By the way, that means a majority of Americans don’t think “he’s been a damn good President.”
Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself and pursue absolute power. He may be damned, but he's far from being a good president.
We could go beyond Christian Ethics and values to other religions. Almost all the world’s religions have something analogous to the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The universality of this ethic runs counter to almost everything Trump and MAGA do.
in the philosophy of ethics and value theory, there is the concept of universalizability, which goes back to Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Universalizability says that you are being moral if it would be OK with you for everyone else to operate under the same principles that you operate under. It's the intellectualized, philosophical version of the Golden Rule.
Which means that it can be moral to operate under the “law of the jungle” if it's OK with you for everyone else to do that. So if Donald Trump thinks it's OK for someone bigger and stronger than him to come and take all his stuff, he can still be considered to be acting morally if he goes and takes what he wants from people smaller and weaker than he is.
Arendt … believed that people… had stopped exercising their powers of judgment, preferring to mouth platitudes or simply obey orders, rather than think for themselves. But what are the social and political conditions that normalise this? One is a society where people wait for instruction on how to think …
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/oct/02/critique-pure-stupidity-understanding-donald-trump-2
Speaking of philosophical applications of the Golden Rule, it would be interesting to see Trump and others like him have to operate from behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance. The law of the jungle is a good bit more palatable for an elephant or a lion. That said, it’s no answer either, worse in fact, to make butterflies of (nearly) everyone.
Kings and emperors, have used divine imperatives throughout human history to legitimize political power. Even our Founders used religious speech (…”endowed by their creator with unalienable rights”) to assert that God willed the “rebellion” - as the British called it.
Jesus regularly taught that his kingdom was not of this world, but many who claim to be his followers apparently don’t believe that, and want a Christian theocracy, regardless of how unchristian their champion is. They also fail to notice that theocracies of any kind have never turned out very well… even if you just consider body counts.
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