How I really feel about Donald Trump
Donald Trump, shown speaking during a town hall in Sandown, N.H. on Oct. 6, made a series of lewd and sexually charged comments about women as he waited to make a cameo appearance on a soap opera in 2005. He issued a rare apology on Oct. 7, "if anyone was offended."
Earlier in this campaign season, before Donald Trump advised his Twitter followers to “check out sex tape,” before The Washington Post published a video with Trump talking crudely about sex and sexual assault, as many as 78 percent of white, evangelical Christians said they planned to vote for him.
Now, the flagship magazine of evangelical Christianity is blasting the Republican presidential nominee – and criticizing the Christians who vote for him.
“Enthusiasm for a candidate like Trump gives our neighbours ample reason to doubt that we believe Jesus is Lord,” Christianity Today editorial director Andy Crouch wrote Monday in an editorial. “They see that some of us are so self-interested, and so self-protective, that we will ally ourselves with someone who violates all that is sacred to us.”
Christianity Today was founded by evangelist Billy Graham in 1956 and today serves as a major voice of evangelicals, who make up about more than a quarter of the U.S. population.
The publication does not endorse candidates because it is a nonprofit organization, Crouch wrote in the editorial. But Monday’s editorial, which devoted a paragraph to criticizing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton (mostly for her use of a private email server), hammered Trump for about 1,000 words.
The revelations of the past week of his vile and crude boasting about sexual conquest — indeed, sexual assault — might have been shocking, but they should have surprised no one.
Evangelical leaders have been some of the most prominent national figures to have stuck by Trump over the past several days, while dozens of Republican members of Congress have withdrawn their support. Theologian Wayne Grudem decided after seeing the video released Friday that he could not support Trump, but such major evangelical figures as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell Jr. have reaffirmed their endorsements of the real estate mogul.
Christianity Today said that any evangelical leaders changing their mind about Trump are “heartening, but it comes awfully late. What Trump is, everyone has known and has been able to see for decades, let alone the last few months. The revelations of the past week of his vile and crude boasting about sexual conquest — indeed, sexual assault — might have been shocking, but they should have surprised no one.”
The editorial criticized the Republican nominee in biblical terms. Quoting a list of sins that St. Paul condemns — “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry” — Crouch wrote, “this is an incredibly apt summary of Trump’s life to date.”
Who is Trump?
What Evangelicals are saying about Trump is that 1) he is God's chosen instrument of America's recovery to former greatness; 2) he is a new Christian and therefore old sins have been forgiven.
There are a few problems with these beliefs however, for instance, (starting with number 2) I have never seen anything that would indicate to me that Trump is in fact born again. I have no reason to believe that his new-found Christianity is anything other than political posturing to deceive the Christian right. Also, his call last month for people to look for sex tapes of the former Miss Universe, is not something one would expect from a Christian no matter how immature.
The first belief, that Trump is God's chosen instrument for America's return to greatness, is really bizarre. It comes about as a result of many 'prophecies' by certain evangelical 'prophets', prophets who are believed with very little discernment or concern for truth.
"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God..."
Please note: trump is not capitalized here
I believe in prophecy, but most prophecies I have heard in my 33+ years as a Christian have completely failed. In fact, almost all of them. But it's particularly problematic when all the prophecies concerning Trump's virtual ascension to the right hand of God come from Americans, Americans who intensely dislike the current administration either because of liberal leanings, or, I suspect possibly in some cases, because the President is black.
America the Great!
At any rate there are major issues with God anointing Trump to lead the USA back to greatness such as - It contradicts the entire Old Testament revelation of Who God is and what He expects of His people.
a) America has become a cesspool of sex abuse (read culture of rape), child sex abuse, child pornography and pornography, child sex trafficking, and horrendously vile parenting resulting in sickening sexual abuse and often torture and death of children within their own families. All of this disgusting evil is growing at an astounding rate.
Startling Numbers of Children are being Sexually Abused in Canada, US
b) America has turned more and more to alcohol and especially drugs. The legitimizing of marijuana will have, and is having far more reaching effects on America's youth than you can believe.
Scary Research into the Effects of Marijuana on Teenagers
Northwoods Ministries: Colorado's Legalized Marijuana has ...
c) Corporate greed has reached levels the likes of which most of us would never have believed just a few decades ago. I could name a list of companies several lines long where corporate profits were put well above any form of honesty or integrity. Big pharma is just the latest and ugliest on the list.
Northwoods Ministries: Turing Pharma CEO Martin Shkreli Arrested ...
Northwoods Ministries: Big Pharma Still Sucking the Blood Out of ...
d) Corruption in the government is not in the news much but really, the agenda in Congress and the Senate has been run by special interest groups (read America's oligarchs) for at least the last 20 years. Dozens of bills have been passed that have benefited the very wealthy at the expense of middle and low-income families. Meanwhile, the lobbyists and the media, who know which side their bread is buttered on, convince gullible citizens that it is all for their good. I'm talking about laws that allow for unlimited funding during elections resulting in wealthy people purchasing their Senator or Congressman. I'm talking about the NRA forcing legislation that would forbid the CDC from investigating the number of deaths and injuries from firearms, etc., etc.
Republicans - For God's Sake Stop It!
e) There are millions of babies being aborted every year, 99% of them for the sake of convenience or lack of responsibility for using birth control. Some of these babies are aborted minutes or even seconds from birth, and some are even born alive and then murdered so their organs can be harvested. I would not want to have to stand before God on that Great and Terrible Day with that on my resume, but many Americans will.
When Abortion Suddenly Stopped Making Sense
f) Then there is the idea that America is a Christian country because there are so many Evangelicals. Yet many, if not most of those Evangelicals are nothing like Jesus, and nothing like what Jesus expects them to be. What does He expect them to be like:
1) feed the hungry
2) give drink to the thirsty
3) clothe the naked
4) house the homeless
5) take in the stranger
6) visit the sick and incarcerated
In other words, to love their neighbour. Today, the whole world is our neighbour.
American Christians
But what do you hear from Christians? "If they won't work, then don't let them eat". This oft-quoted scripture is taken completely out of context as it was written in reference to those who thought Jesus was coming any day and so there was no point to working. Compare that to America today where there are few, if any jobs, and where many of them don't pay enough to cover the rent on a old shack, let alone feed a family.
Kirsten Powers - Christian, Democrat; How did That Happen?
Many American Christians have become hard and are completely lacking in the fruits of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. Their faith is in their guns rather than Christ and they are trying to create the Kingdom of God on earth while at the same time they completely destroy their witness to unbelievers, which is the point of the article above. You are ensuring that you will always be seen as reprehensible and undesirable and the enemy of all that is 'good', from a liberal perspective. There is nothing of Christ in that! There is no way to glorify Christ in that. We glorify Christ by manifesting His character, the character He displayed 2000 years ago, not the character He will display as judge.
How the New Christian Left Is Twisting the Gospel
Rev. Graham: “As I Read the News, I Can’t Help but Wonder If We’re in the Last Hours”?
My point here is that when God's people in the Old Testament turned away from Him, He sent prophets to warn them. But there were always false prophets who would stand against the truth and tell the kings that all is well, not to worry. God never restored Israel or Judah to their former greatness until they came to a massive repentance and revival. This often involved the removal of many Jews from the land or from the people either through invasion and abduction into slavery, or through some calamity such as those which befell the Israelites in the desert.
Do you see a serious heart of repentance in the Evangelical church in America today. I don't! All I see is apostasy, right in the pews.
Jesus had nothing to do with politics, and neither should we.
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