Christianity and Trumpism

I was surprised to find out this morning that Trump expects to win a competition he already lost sometime ago. I thought we were past this point, but as I turned on his speech to see if it was the case, I watched him continue to stoke fires, insult people, promote conspiracy theories, preach how great he is, and bolster himself in the stage of denial. From his perspective, his loss means we should be ashamed of ourselves for eternity (his words, not mine).

This attitude isn’t new. Nearly every time I’ve turned on any speech of his, it’s the same un-character at play. How this man became a savior figure for Christians baffles me, but how he continues to be that figure after everything that’s happened baffles me more. If you put him on a stage next to Jesus and asked them both questions to see how they’d answer, you would have very little overlap. Even the way in which they speak would sound polar opposite. You can see all of this pretty plainly just by reading the sermon on the mount straight through in one sitting.

Many prophets are still apparently waiting for Trump to somehow overturn everything. What spirit are they prophesying from? As Christians we are required to test everything we hear—every. last. word. From people we know and trust and from people we‘ve never heard of. And if we actually do the testing, we’ll see very quickly that all these words don’t line up with the Holy Spirit because they don’t match the words He’s already inspired in the Bible.

The church continues to be at a dangerous crossroads with their politics. We must work harder to understand our Bibles and to discern the difference between the Holy Spirit’s voice and our own.