A lot of “Christians” have objected to Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign. They say that Donald Trump is an immoral man who has no place running America. Instead, many are divided between whether or not they should support Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.
Donald Trump was raised a Presbytarian. Like many mainline Protestants, he has a nominal association with the congregation, but that is the end of his Christianity. If anything, he was raised the American upper class church of money, power, and prestige. He has over a billion dollars in personal assets with much of it acquired through questionable means, he has been involved in multiple bankruptcies, multiple marriages, even more extramarital affairs, fraud lawsuits, and countless questionable business deals made both illegally and away from public scrutiny. A proverbial “bad boy” of business, entertainment, and high society, Donald Trump cares for religion no more than it enables him to advance his own personal ends. He is at the very least a baptized American pagan who with his fellow countrymen worships at the church of me, myself, and I.
My feelings? Yes, he is an immoral man, and I don’t care. In fact, I choose him over the so-called “Christian” candidates” any day of the week.
It is said that people elect politicians because, in a small way, they reflect the values and beliefs of that society. If you want to know something of a society’s health, just look at their elected officials.
Have you looked at America 2016 lately?
She’s like that woman that everybody knew when they were younger- the girl who was beautiful, who always got all the attention, dressed in the smallest and tightest clothes, dated the most attractive men, and was at all the parties because she was the life of the party- whose body aged but her mind and spirit did not. She got married, had a few children, and when she was told she could not continue to live like a teenager, she divorced her provider husband, abandoned her children, and went back to partying. But now she is in her mid-40’s and she is wearing the same clothes and acting the same way she did when she was younger. You can see her stretch marks, cellulite covered thighs, and amorphous stomach fat squeezed through her three-sizes-too-small clothing like a warm marshmallow in a smore. Her attempts to be funny or flirtatious are just painful to watch.
As much as it hurts to say, America is currently a nation in decline. Sure, we will survive and regroup as a people, but right now we are a stage of breaking down as opposed to building up, contracting instead of expanding. It is practically a heresy to say that American society and business is doing anything but growing, but basic facts and simple observation clearly show to the contrary. The manufacturing sector of the economy is gone- what remains is relatively small and being outsourced more with each passing business quarter. Approximately 20% of Americans are on food stamps or other forms of government assistance– a record high- and that number continues to increase. As Donald Trump himself as pointed out, the unemployment rate in the country is well over the 5% the government claims and could be as high as 40% on a national level. Crime is exploding, other forms of government assistance are at record levels, our national debt is possibly the worst debt in world history, our military is involved in multiple foreign wars, and we cannot take care of basic, domestic obligations.
If business and economic indicators are not enough, just look at the average American man and when appropriate, his family situation. The median per capita income is barely $29K, which can support a single man but is almost impossible to support a family on. More than 50% of American marriages have ended or will end in divorce, which is financially devastating and even worse, psychologically destructive if there are children involved. The average American household carries approximately $129K in debt. Naturally many men feel depressed about this, and it is also no surprise why sales of alcohol, pornography, and drugs have increased continually among all segments of the population.
If these signs do not indicate a nation in decline, what else must there be?
Christian people- Catholic and Protestant alike- have been saying that America is in decline due to her immorality and abandonment of God. This is true- to an extent. The problem with American “Christianity” is that we really do not know what “Christianity ” means. For us, two people can be “Christians” even if they possess vastly different fundamental ideas about faith and morals – differences in doctrine and in some cases dogma itself. Heresy is accepted, tolerated, and promoted in the name of “religious liberty” along with every other religion that a man could believe in. What is not to be questioned is (a) the capitalist system and (b) the Constitution.
The effect of this is a kind of strange dual religion that is acknowledged but not spoken about as such. American “Christians,” which are for the most part Protestants, interpret and practice their religion in a way that reflects “American” ideals. I am not speaking about the effect of culture on religious practice- I am saying that American religion reflects the government because for many people it is merely a socially acceptable form of version of government approval.
If you want proof of this, you need look no further than the “Christian conservative” movement. Whether it is a megachurch or a small country “church,” two topics are almost always addressed in the sermons- God and America.
A lot of these Evangelical types really do seem to think that America is God’s “chosen country.” That is a heretical idea first propounded en masse by the Mormon cult, which taught:
…the United States as “a land of promise . . . a land which is choice above all other lands.” (The Book of Mormon) describes Jesus coming down from heaven, to America, and teaching to people there. Joseph Smith, Mormonism’s founder and prophet, quotes God as saying that he established the U.S. Constitution. Mormons’ Garden of Eden is in Missouri. Their version of the hajj begins in Upstate New York and ends in Illinois.
America is a good place, and there are a lot of great things here. However, America is just a nation like many others. She is not Israel. Moreso, she is not even Catholic and has a tumultuous relationship with the Faith because of the Catholic Faith’s intolerance towards the American attitude about religion. America cannot stand the absolute, rigorous nature of the Catholic Faith because it places God and His law as not just the supreme law of individual lives, but in the public community as well. To be a Catholic is to live the Faith of Christ publicly and to see that it is manifested in society in a public way. This necessarily means condemning other religions and, more importantly for the American, the condemnation of the government when it engages in immoral, evil practices that go against the divinely revealed Faith.
This may sound like a “revolutionary” idea, but it is only revolutionary in the sense that this was the modus operandi of the European nations and many other nations for most of Christian history up until the modern period. It used to be called the three estates– The State was the first, the Church was the second, and the people were the third. The Church acted as the “buffer” between the state and the people. “Freedom of religion” cannot naturally exist in such a case because religion is the primary unifying force between the state and the people. It is what not only binds them together, but it is what also prevents either from exploiting and abusing the other. The American system is anathema to the Catholic perspective because it would mean loyalty to the Faith first instead of to the American “ideal.”
This division in America has become all the more apparent as America has descended from a once-great superpower into a worn-out has been and it shows in the type of “Christian” candidates that run for congress.
Tell me, most members of Congress are “Christians,” they say, and so many of them invoke the name of “God” and “America” together, yet Congress has an approval rating of 11%– how does one intellectually reconcile this? What about all of the scandals involving these same “Christian” congressional members?
When I look at Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or any of the other so called “Christian” candidates get up on stage and start invoking God and saying God bless America, I want to vomit. These people would not know God if He looked them in the face and told them I am who I am because they only god they see is the one in the bathroom mirror each morning. Yes, some of them may go to a church or so forth, but then the question is simple- if you are such a good Christian and are following your faith so purely and working for what is right, why are you embroiled in so many scandals? Why is the nation falling apart when you are the watchman whose job it is to prevent this from happening?
To me, the answer is simple- yes, these people are Christians- American Christians. Their Christianity is their sociocultural seal of acceptability that they are “good Americans” who support God, family, apple pie, and everything the government wants to do because good Americans act first and ask questions later. If they do believe, then their loyalty to the government precedes loyalty to the Faith.
Unfortunately, Catholics are no less affected. John Kennedy noted this in his 1960’s speech where he proclaimed he was an “American” first and a Catholic second. While it is a well-delivered speech with some good points, the basic message is clear- religion in America is second to the government:
The fact is that American Christianity is really a social religion. It has nothing to do with God, since many seem to think of God as little more than a glorified, ethereal sugar daddy. Forget about Him being the Just Judge- what matters more is what He can give “me” right now because, sadly, the world matters more than the heavenly.
Honestly, I do not want another “Christian” president, or even politician right now. This country has a lot of problems and is definitely in need of God’s help, and Christians do have a role to play in that. What does not have a future- and what cannot be allowed to have a future- is Americanist heresy masquerading as Christianity. We certainly don’t need another loser.
Cruz is an establishment guy, but he knows where the money and the power is, so when the Tea Party train came along, Cruz jumped onboard and posed as an outsider challenging the system. He knew the only way he was going to become a senator was to tack violently to the right, so he mastered the Tea Party lingo and rode the train all the way to D.C., where his fakery has reached epic proporations.
There is no shortage of power-mad narcissists floating around Washington, the kind of people who line their office walls with photos of themselves shaking hands with Very Important People. But Cruz gives them all a lesson in self-aggrandizement by decorating his Senate office with a giant oil painting of himself. In fact, it’s not just an oil painting of himself. It’s an oil painting of other people making paintings of him as he argues a case before the Supreme Court (source)
Donald Trump is a reflection of our modern, pagan, American society- the good, the bad, and the ugly. You may hate Trump, but he speaks what is on his mind even in areas where he is manifestly wrong. He is, in a sense, an ideal American who has all the wealth and power of the good life that the American prosperity gospel promises but without the false religious notions that accompany it. Indeed, if we are going to get the politician we deserve, Trump would be a mercy, especially given the other choice:
Jesus believed the Pharisees had something they needed to learn from the tax collectors and prostitutes of His day.
Maybe, just maybe, America’s “Christian politicians” and their supporters can learn a thing from a pagan like Trump.
Trump 2016.
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