Some wit once said that politics has a long and ancient history. It comes from the Greek, with poly meaning many, and tics meaning ticks. Therefore politics is the science of many ticks sucking the life blood out of the population. While that’s a joke, and there are many wonderful and ethical politicians who have done incredibly valuable work for God (including abolishing slavery, and enshrining many of our most valuable human rights and freedoms in laws), there have been many cases throughout history where oppressive and corrupt politicians have tragically harmed, damaged, ruined and destroyed many lives because they did no follow God’s laws for nations, or any principles of love and truth upon which they are based.
But does God have anything to say about politics? Of course. He has principles that are valuable for every subject and He had quite a lot to say on politics. Some say “I will make America great again.” Some say “We will make America great again.” But those who know the Bible know that neither of those claims are true. Why? Because God says, ‘Righteousness/justice makes nations great and sin is a disgrace to all people.” Prov. 14:34 (The Hebrew word for righteousness, Tzedekah, also means justice). It is only when both leaders and people follow justice for all, the main duty of both godly and ungodly kings in the Bible and the most crucial essence of love, that nations can have any claim to greatness.
Holypost with Phil Vischer has a brilliant short talk on this issue. He talks about how Christians should be involved in politics, and that no political parties follows God’s principles perfectly. Various parties advocate some, but not all of God’s principles. This means we need to study God’s principles and candidate positions carefully. He says that because God cares most about the least of these of these and even says that how we treat them is how we treat God and is a key trait of true religion (James 1:27) as well as being a responsibility of governments in the Bible to care for, this has to be a primary criteria for Christians. He says that the unborn count as the least of these, but so do the poor, refugees, prisoners, sick, orphans, victimized minorities, environment. He rightly says that we need to think about the impact of votes on the entire world too since America is the most powerful and influential nation in the world. Make sure to watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Upj0sQnJvg
Another site points out a major problem.
**”Evangelical Christians could provide all of the funds needed to plant a church in each of the 6,900 unreached people groups with only 0.03% of their income.
**The Church has roughly 3,000 times the financial resources and 9,000 times the manpower needed to finish the Great Commission.
**Problem: “Americans have recently spent more money buying Halloween costumes for their pets than the amount given to reach the unreached.”
www.thetravelingteam.org/stats/
The issue is far beyond Halloween costumes. Many things Christians and Americans buy are useless and not just useless, they are thrown away within a few months of being bought. Christians could easily finish the Great Commission, stop basically all abortion, all poverty, end all racism, slavery, much family break up and many evils and injustices in the world in a few years if every Christian just made wise daily choices on how to spend our money, time and resources and focused them on people and also local businesses instead of things and corporations whose only goal is greed. Massive amounts are sadly spent on politics by Christians and others in America. It is estimated that ~$16 billion will be spent on the 2024 election in America alone. That amount of money on its own would be close to 10% of the way to ending poverty worldwide.
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WHY POLITICS MATTERS
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Some have said it’s better to avoid politics. But God has shown that when issues of morality and justice are at stake, Satan wants godly people to be uninvolved in politics (the whole book of Jonah makes this point well). Another wise person put it this way, the only thing required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing. Long ago Plato put it this way, “If you take no interest in politics, you are doomed to be ruled by fools.”
Most Christians/churches don’t talk about this very much…and when they do, they often choose a couple litmus test values instead of any kind of comprehensive view of what God says on the issue. That’s like what the Jews did in cherry picking what they wanted to believe on the issue of the role of the Messiah. It doomed their nation. And when we cherry pick God’s principles on any topic, instead of looking at all God says on it, the results are often harmful or disastrous. Jesus demonstrated a crucial principle of truth in Luke 24:25-27 that truth is found by looking at most/all God says on a topic and combining all the ideas (scholars call this coherence truth, and many believe it is one of the most effective ways to find truth).
If we want nations, churches, organizations, communities or any group that has any kind of politics involved to be beneficial, thriving and peaceful, from national governments down to even local boy scouts, we need to learn and follow them.
Political choices can change the course of history in beneficial or harmful ways. But they can also cause division, broken relationships, sometimes even crimes and wars if wise principles are not followed. Does God have principles about how we should interact with politics? Yes, He does and they are as usual all based on love and concern for all people, but esp. the oppressed.
Why should Christians care about politics?
–Politics influences whether we have freedom of worship or not.
–Politics influences how much freedom and justice of various kinds there is in societies.
–Politics influences cost of school, cost of health care, etc.
–Politics influences if families are stable or not.
–Politics decides tax levels and if economic exploitation and abuse are allowed or not.
–Politics decides if wars are fought or peace is followed.
–Our choices influence who is the leader and we are partly responsible for the decision they make that harm or improve lives.
and much more.
There are deceptions in politics that can be harmful too. One of the most serious is to align with a political party and blindly follow whatever they say without regard to God’s principles. Christians should be involved in politics and influencing governments as godly people were in the Bible, but they should follow the example of Jesus. He refused to place his allegiance with any political party, and often strongly criticized both conservatives and liberals of his time. He approved of and spent time with honest individuals who were seeking truth. Both major parties have some good points, but both almost always abandon God’s principles in major ways.
Academics show that political parties has often been used as a method that brainwashes people to ignore evidence and facts in many cases and even wrecks ability to do basic math.
http://grist.org/politics/science-confirms-politics-wrecks-your-ability-to-do-math/
And this is very serious, because if people are willing to compromise their principles in things like politics, how much more so will they do so in times of persecution. Frequent compromises have a major effect on not just personal character, but national character.
God has at least 20 principles about politics. I’ve listed 8 of them below briefly below. I also have another link with more of these Bible principles written out and powerful evidence from history and science showing that they are valuable throughout history and in our time as well:
blog.truth-is-life.org/politics/politics3
blog.truth-is-life.org/rights/thrive/ (see esp. from “KNOW GOD’S PRINCIPLES”).
GOD’S PRINCIPLES OF POLITICS WITH SCIENTIFIC CONFIRMATION
For those who want to know, my background is that I have been involved in missions/evangelism work for ~25 years, taught the Bible, life skills and linguistics to university students for much of that time and also have planted and pastored churches as well as being a lead organizer of several Bible science conferences. I love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30-1), have read the Bible dozens of times and seek to follow what God says through the Bible and through science to the best of my knowledge. I also have worked with many professors in different fields as a side job, editing academic papers for publishing in peer reviewed journals. That gave me a wide perspective.
Because the Bible illustrates that the conservative Pharisees and liberal Sadducees both became corrupt and united to crucify Jesus and because of various Christian leaders warning about lining up with one party, I have never lined up with any party and vote for the best candidate for the position based on the Bible principles below. That often means I vote for a few candidates from both major parties and several from independent parties like the Constitution Party, Green Party or others.
When I first heard of Trump campaigning to be president, I listened to him with an open mind and the golden rule, just as I would want to be heard. But some of the first things I heard him say were that we should blame America’s problems on foreigners, esp. Mexicans, Koreans and Chinese. But they are not the real problem. It is the top 1% of American wealthy have stolen $50 trillion from the bottom 90% and they also are hiring tons of robots and using AI which eliminates jobs. So Trump is either completely ignorant of reality, or else he is protecting these elite thieves intentionally. In either case, he is not fit to be president because he is absolutely not protecting the American people from some of the worst possible enemies.
Hanauer, Nick. “The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure.” September 14, 2020. https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america; Wiseman, Paul. “Mexico taking U.S. factory jobs? Blame robots instead”. Nov 2, 2016. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/factory-jobs-blame-robots.
Much worse, he is an advocate of the extremely dangerous socialist for the rich concept of giving billions to the wealthy for no work done (aka trickle down economics. This is defiance against God’s condemnation of greed and enriching the already rich of the highest and most destructive order as is explained below some). Among many evils it causes, it caused Trump to set the highest record of abortions in American history and increases abortion rates worldwide by up to 300% (stats below).
From the Bible, I can’t see any way to reconcile supporting Trump with being biblical or moral or concerned with what is best for people in our country. And when I consult science, it confirms the Bible’s principles about what kind of leader is best for a nation and Trump just doesn’t begin to qualify.
The criteria below are some of the major categories that God gives in the Bible for choosing leaders and there are citations to science and research that confirm them as extremely crucial and valuable for decisions in our world now.
1) LOVE/JUSTICE FOR ALL ARE MOST CRUCIAL
God is love (1 John 4:8), all His laws are based on love (Matt. 22:37-40). we are to imitate Him (Eph. 5:1) and the Bible tells us to always make decisions based on love for individuals and all people involved or affected.
“always try to do good to each other and to all people.” 1 Thess. 5:15 NLT
The golden rule, love and justice are important for everyone, built into America’s legal documents, and are especially crucial those who are suffering, being victimized or abused. Justice for all is a most crucial foundation of good governments that lead to thriving nations and long term stability. This includes repeated injunctions to never mistreat foreigners and refugees who are in need, and promises of stability for the nation if they are treated fairly (Jer. 7:5-7).
- “Godliness/justice makes a nation great, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” Proverbs 14:34 (NLT) (the Hebrew word tzedekah here means godliness and justice).
- “When the godly are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked are in power, they groan.” Proverbs 29:2
- “Those who plant injustice will harvest disaster, and their reign of terror will come to an end.” Proverbs 22:8 NLT
- “Let true justice prevail, so you may live and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” Deut. 16:20 (NLT) (e.g. 1 Kings 10:9, Psalm 72:1-5, 12-15, 89:14, Proverbs 29:14, Numbers 15:15, Amos 5:15, James 1:27).
- “You must never twist justice or show partiality.” Deuteronomy 16:19 (2 Chron. 19:7, Prov. 28:21, Leviticus 19:15, Deut. 10:17)
- “True justice must be given to foreigners living among you and to orphans…” Deuteronomy 24:17
- “This is what the Lord says: Be fair-minded and just. Do what is right! Help those who have been robbed; rescue them from their oppressors. Quit your evil deeds! Do not mistreat foreigners, orphans, and widows. Stop murdering the innocent!” Jeremiah 22:3
Science also shows that altruistic societies always win over those that are selfish. Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson pointed out that selfish individuals sometimes have successes in limited areas, but at the group level,
“A group of altruists will beat a society of selfish individuals every time.”[4]
John Rawls, one of the most famous political scholars, advocated that we should imagine that we don’t know what gender, race, abilities, tastes, wealth, or position in society we are and then vote based on that, with the view of the good of all in mind.[5] This is basically following the principles of love, justice and the golden rule.
So if you see a political leader fully of injustice, falsehoods, double standards, supporting racism, sexism, nationalism, and esp. advocating violence or bombing as primary solutions to a problems, all of which Trump has repeatedly done, this is not someone who can be biblically supported.
Even Trump’s own staff have repeatedly seen that injustice is intrinsic to who Trump is and many don’t support him now because of what they have seen as articles like these and many others point out. Only 4 out of 44 have openly said they will support him as president for a 2nd time.
**Dozens served in Trump’s Cabinet. Four say he should be re-elected.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-cabinet-endorsements-rcna96648
His own chief of staff says that Trump wants to be a dictator and a fascist.
“John Kelly, the retired Marine general who was Trump’s Homeland Security secretary and then chief White House aide for almost 18 months, told The New York Times that Trump wanted to rule as a dictator. Kelly also shared…about Trump once pining after “Hitler’s generals.”
‘Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators—he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly told The Times. “He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.’”
**Trump Is a Hitler-Loving Literal Fascist, Says Ex-Chief of Staff
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-is-a-hitler-loving-literal-fascist-says-ex-chief-of-staff/
Trump’s own former vice-president, Mike Pence is not willing to support him being president this time.
“Pence cited Trump’s continued belief that Pence should have refused to certify the 2020 presidential election results, his concern that the GOP nominee was pursuing a more “isolationist” foreign policy, the rising national debt and his concern that abortion is deemphasized in the GOP’s 2024 policy platform.”
Mike Pence Reveals Four Reasons He Is Not Backing Donald Trump Published Jul 26, 2024
https://www.newsweek.com/mike-pence-reveals-four-reasons-he-not-backing-donald-trump-1930804
God is a God who cares about justice. Trump throughout his life and last presidency absolutely has not as many of his own people have testified.
2) TRUTH IS VITAL FOR LASTING FREEDOM:. Telling the truth is an essential and fundamental trait for government leaders since there is so much power and opportunity for corruption.
The Bible says that truth is the basis of freedom, all God’s laws are true and they are the foundation of successful government leadership as well as warning against that lies as abominations (Psalm 19:9, Deut. 17:18-21, 1 Kings 2:1-4, Isaiah 59:4,14, John 8:32, Prov. 12:22).
Truth will set you free.” Jesus “John 8:32.
Many wise intellectuals from many cultures agree that truth is crucial and lies are the way to smash freedom and descend into tyranny.
Yale professor Jason Stanley has said,
“Truth is required to act freely…freedom requires truth, and so to smash freedom you must smash truth.”[6] Confucius said, “The object of the superior man is truth.”
Dr. Timothy Snyder studied totalitarian regimes in dozens of countries and warns,
“Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true then all is spectacle; the biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.”[7]
Dr. Snyder also says,
“If we don’t have access to facts, we can’t trust each other. Without trust, there’s no law. Without law, there’s no democracy. So if you want to rip the heart out of a democracy directly, if you want to go right at it and kill it, what you do is you go after facts. And that is what modern authoritarians do.
Step one: You lie yourself, all the time.
Step two: You say it’s your opponents and the journalists who lie.
Step three: Everyone looks around and says, “What is truth? There is no truth.”
And then, resistance is impossible, and the game is over.”[8]
It’s not an accident that our world has so much injustice and corruption at the same time that truth is being smashed with many lies, distortions and false claims, esp. from certain people like Trump who place no value on truth and think they can manipulate people’s thoughts by repeating lies. He has stunningly made over 30,000 claims that are false in part or in whole, many of them so very intentionally, obviously and egregiously false that they should embarrass young children who don’t have a fully developed conscience yet.
**Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/
3) NO GREED/ADULTERY: God said that leaders must not be greedy/promiscuous (Deut. 17:17-18). Why? Because a person who betrays his spouse, family and community in those ways will have no problem lying and betraying an entire nation for personal benefit. Several stories in the Bible and many others in history demonstrate this, including Ahab’s greed causing him to kill innocent people like Naboth and Solomon’s many wives against God’s instructions, influencing him to idolatry and oppression of his people.
Greed and high concentrations of wealth in a few hands have caused many civilizations to go into tyranny or completely collapse. Quite a few scholars agree with Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis who warned that,
“We may have democracy in this country, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”
Dr. Richard Wilkinson has done extensive research showing that once there is major concentration of wealth in a country, esp. when the top 20% have 9 times more than the bottom 20%, all sorts of social evils result and eventually entire societies can collapse.[9]
Billionaire Nick Hanauer writes in an article about the dramatic dangers of serious inequality. He writes:
“What do I see in our future now? I see pitchforks….Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution…Wake up, people. It won’t last. If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out…You’re living in a dream world…Any student of history knows that…revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning.”[10]
This explains why the Bible condemns greed/the love of money as the root of all evil (1 Tim. 6:10) and says it brings grief to families (Prov. 15:27), “causes fighting” (Prov. 28:25), causes violence (Ez. 45:9, Is. 5:7,8), ruins nations (Hab. 2:5) causes terrible times (2 Tim. 3:1,2) erases/eradicates God’s love in hearts (1 John 3:17) and many other evils.
4) OPPOSE CORRUPTION/DOUBLE STANDARDS/RACISM/NATIONALISM
A crucial aspect of justice means that we must treat the civil rights of the rich and poor, native and foreigners/immigrants, etc. as equal to our own and refuse to engage or support double standards or oppression. It’s just the golden rule at the national level. God repeatedly tells people that he “Lord detests double standards of every kind.” Prov. 20:10 and that He condemns corruption, favoring the rich or poor or mistreating/discriminating against foreigners in legal matters.
- “A ruler with no understanding will oppress his people, but one who hates corruption will have a long life. Proverbs 28:16 (e.g. Hab. 2:12, Jer. 6:28).
- “You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way.” Exodus 22:21 (see also Ex. 23:9, Zech. 7:10)
- “Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor. And do not scheme against each other.” Zechariah 7:10 (see also: Malachi 3:5)
God repeatedly instructed leaders not to rule with prejudice. They must judge all fairly and objectively. And so Christians cannot support any leader with traits of injustice or corruption.
5) ENABLE INDEPENDENCE AND AIM FOR INTERDEPENDENCE
The Bible repeatedly speaks of freedom as God’s goal for human beings. Jesus said that His truth sets people free (John 8:32, 8:36). David says God’s laws are the foundation of freedom. A top duty of kings was to protect people from oppression and keep them free as is shown above. This would include freedom from sin, freedom for debt and economic oppression, freedom from political oppression (like communism/totalitarianism, etc.) and others.
- “If you want to live securely in the land, follow my decrees and obey my regulations.” Leviticus 25:18 (NLT)
- “A ruler with no understanding will oppress his people” Prov. 28:16
Children are dependent on parents. Adults are independent. But the highest level of living is when independent people join together in communities to complement/cover the weak points of each person and maximize strengths. Then they become interdependent, the most successful level of living according to many thought leaders like Stephen Covey.
Biblical writers speak of how people should first take care of their family’s needs and ensure a basic decent life for them and then look to see how they can benefit others in the church and then outside it, not hoard wealth (1 John 3:17). When we have funds or resources, they need to be focused on the most serious human needs and creating as much equality and independence as we can.
- “Of course, I don’t mean your giving should make life easy for others and hard for yourselves. I only mean that there should be some equality. Right now you have plenty and can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal.” 2 Cor. 8:13-14
6) ECONOMIC JUSTICE / GREED DESTROYS DEMOCRACY
People and governments should not give the rich special favors and treatment.
“Whoever oppresses the poor to enrich himself and whoever gives gifts to the wealthy will yield only loss.” Prov. 22:16 ISV
This includes the trickle-down economics, which gives many billions of dollars or even trillions over time to certain powerful rich for no work done. This is socialist welfare for the rich of the worst and most destructive kind and ruins the middle class and poor and small businesses over time as economic research has shown. Trickle-down economics is in essence, one of the worst forms of economic abuse and cruelty.
As above, the Bible strictly forbids the government from favoring the wealthy and hoarding wealth…and not just for Israel. That was the primary sin of Sodom and Babylon and a reason for their punishment (Ez. 16:49), and was also identified by Daniel as wickedness even in pagan Babylon (Daniel 4:27). Greed in the form of trickle-down economics or anything else, has only caused harm to nations and produced various forms of slavery.
Even the architect of trickle-down economics, Reagan’s chief budget advisor, David Stockman, who would have delighted in telling the world that it worked, had the integrity to admit it doesn’t work.
“What is profoundly disappointing about the Trump campaign’s stab at a semi-coherent economic plan is that it is a dog’s breakfast of some plausible policy ideas, really bad fiscal math and a relapse to the discredited, 35 year-old dogma of sweeping income tax cuts which pay for themselves. They don’t…it would have also caused enormous economic havoc had not the Gipper’s advisors—me included—talked him to signing three tax bills over 1982-1984 that recaptured roughly 40% of the revenue loss from his cherished tax cuts. Even then, the public debt grew by 250% during Reagan’s eight years—-or by more than under any peacetime President in American history.”[11]
Represent Us summarizes the corruption that is caused by immoral trickle-down economics and says that it has cost the US government over $4 trillion dollars in just 5 years (that is many times more than the amount needed to end extreme poverty worldwide**). They highlight a Princeton study that shows that this concentration of wealth results in the will of the majority of the people for the interests of a few super rich and powerful oligarchs that destroy democracy in America.[12]
A 2020 study, by the London School of Economics of 50 years of data from 18 countries showed that the only significant effect of significant tax cuts to the rich was to increase income inequality with little benefit to unemployment or economic growth.**
https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2020/L-December/Tax-cuts-for-the-rich
“The “King of Debt” promised to reduce the national debt — then his tax cuts made it surge…The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office.the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration”
See: Sloan, Allan and Podkul, Cezary. Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years, ProPublica, for ProPublica Jan. 14, 2021, https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump
Trump’s policies of gargantuan trickle down fraud against the poor and middle class, welfare for the rich…have never ever ONCE in history worked for anyone except an elite few. And they won’t in the future either. They will only continue to destroy families and democracy.
7) MAKE PEACE A PRIORITY/AVOID WAR
Jesus is the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). He says:
”Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.” Romans 12:18
There are many passages in the Bible advising that we avoid violence and war if at all possible[13], although there are times it is necessary.
Many wars are just for greed, profits for military-industrial complexes (as even presidents like Eisenhower have acknowledged) and/or power. Since they devastate countless lives and waste enormous amounts of money (extreme poverty around the world could be ended with just a small portion of the money spent on warfare every year worldwide), most problems can be solved far easier and more quickly in peaceful ways. Researchers like Dr. Chenowith have found that aggressive pacifism is a far more effective way to keep people free and democratic**. So we should do everything we can to avoid violence.
Matthew Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, points out that Trump is not in any way a pacifist. He is gung-ho for violence and all sorts of wars.
“Despite inveighing against “endless wars,” Trump massively escalated the country’s existing wars in multiple theaters, leading to skyrocketing casualties. In Afghanistan, he substantially upped the amount of airstrikes, leading to a 330 percent increase in civilian deaths. In Yemen, he escalated both U.S. counterterrorism activities and support for the devastating Saudi-led war against the Houthis. According to the United Kingdom’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism, there were 2,243 drone strikes in just the first two years of Trump’s presidency, compared with 1,878 in the entire eight years of the Obama administration.”[14]
8) TRUMP ISN’T A BIBLICAL CHRISTIAN SINCE HE DOESN’T CONFESS SINS
All humans make mistakes. It happens. If leaders are wise and want to progress past those mistakes, they need to have a character of humility, recognize the harmful things they have done, and be willing to confess and make them right as much as they can. King David exemplified this with his serious sin
- “Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night.” Psalms 51:1-3
Unfortunately, Trump has stated clearly that he doesn’t confess his sins. Not only that, he aggressively seeks revenge on those who critique his mistakes, even if they have the best intentions. That against shows that he has no concern for truth or what’s best for society and also that he isn’t a biblical born again Christian, since real Christians confess their sins (1 John 1:9) and Trump doesn’t.
Having self-respect and some of a positive self-image is a good thing. But when taken to extremes so that you deny responsibility for sin, that’s a very serious and malignant deception and has caused so much heartache in so many lives.
Trump revealed his inner spirituality during a Q&A session with Frank Luntz at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa.
Interviewer: You used the word Christian. Have you ever asked God for forgiveness?
Trump: ＂That’s a tough question.．．＂ (Trump goes on a long spiel avoiding the actual question and lauds Norman Vincent Peale as his spiritual inspiration.).
Trump:,＂I’m not sure I have [asked forgiveness]. I just go and try and do a better job from there. I don’t think so. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t….I try and lead a life where I don’t have to ask God for forgiveness.”[15]
How do Trump’s words align with the Bible’s requirement that we confess sins in order to be forgiven?
- “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” 1 John 1:8-9
Because he states he has never asked forgiveness, strongly advocates revenge and denounced Christians as ‘fools,’ ‘idiots,’ and ‘schmucks.’ in his book “Think Big and Kick Ass”, has ridiculed Christian leaders in private, many have wondered if Trump could be called America’s first atheist president (atheist in the sense of lack belief and ignoring most of God’s major principles.
See: Pryor, Ben. “Was Donald Trump America’s First Atheist President?” Mar 08, 2022
https://www.newsweek.com/was-donald-trump-americas-first-atheist-president-opinion-1685586
Furthermore, many have noted that he doesn’t just engage in willful sin, he is open and even boasts about some of them and is the ultimate embodiment of all the 7 worst sins as many have noted. This has caused some to call him an anti-Christ (the Bible says there are many anti-Christs in 1 John 2:18. Trump is certainly not the main ones, but his life has been an is against Christ, so in that sense he can be one of many anti-Christs).
Trump embodies every one of the Seven Deadly Sins
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/07/31/how-trump-embodies-seven-deadly-sins-brian-klaas-column/523664001/
Trump is the Embodiment of All Seven Deadly Sins
https://medium.com/bouncin-and-behavin-blogs/trump-is-the-embodiment-of-all-seven-deadly-sins-ed80a00faa3c
- Lust: He had had affairs on all his wives including 1 with Stormy Daniels, boasts of having sex with 100s of women, and witnesses testify that he was close friends of Epstein and raped young girls.
- Gluttony: He loves his food, esp. junk food and has few if any restraints on what he eats.
- Greed: His life is full of an obsession with greed.
- Sloth: He’s well known for taking many vacations to his properties and playing a lot of golf.
- Wrath: He’s constantly spouting anger and insults towards anyone who criticizes him for anything. And he blames foreigners and other races for most of America’s problems.
- Envy: He envies dictators who are not subject to constitutional control.
- Pride: He is the most narcissistic president in US history as 1000s of psychologists have said.
This is not a small issue. It means he is not just a baby Christian learning about God. He is in full out and willful rebellion against one of God’s most crucial principles and Hebrews 10:26-31 tell us clearly that continued willful rebellion cancels grace.
This is terrible on the personal level too. Trump’s example will influence many to refuse to admit sins. I have known a girl for years, who is now studying neuroscience. But her mother betrayed her quite a few times, breaking major promises and refusing to confess them (the mother would almost never confess wrongs to anyone). The girl said,
“It’s bad enough that she broke promises, but she doesn’t even say she’s sorry…and that hurts even more.”
What will the effects of Trump’s example be on millions of Americans? Only time will tell. But since Trump does not have a biblical sense of sin or right or wrong, it’s now understandable why he makes so many claims that are false, lies, deceptions, over 30,000 in just 4 years…and that’s only what’s in public.
**Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/
100+ Terrible things about Trump
There are many other terrible things about Trump and how he will be damaging to everyone’s lives if elected. Here are some.
75 worst things
https://youtu.be/gdstZDCCgAc?si=kvpxbDVW0MpO6rlF
100 worst things.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DB2FAkTprGF/?igsh=ZXBseHl4bnV4ZzJh
ABORTION ISSUE
Many republicans are concerned about abortion and think this is the most evil thing that any leader can do or advocate. The Bible does not mention the term abortion anywhere. It could have done so just as easily as it condemned infanticide and child sacrifice in several places. But despite this, let’s say abortion is a serious sin. What is the main cause of abortion? Again, God says the primary cause of all evils is greed (1 Tim. 6:10). So the party that is drunk on greed and giving trillions to the wealthy against God’s explicit instructions, will then by every principle of godly logic, also be complicit in causing the most abortions. And that is what we find from research too.
ABORTIONS RISE UNDER TRUMP AND REPUBLICANS LIKE HIM
Dr. Yana Rodgers from Rutgers analyzed abortion rates under republican administrations which slash funding for women’s health care clinics worldwide and found that this greatly increases abortion worldwide for several reasons (one is that many women lose access to birth control or family planning resources and so there are many more unintended pregnancies).
“Supporters of the global gag rule say defunding abortion providers will reduce abortions. However, researchers from Stanford University in 2011 found that this US policy actually made women in sub-Saharan Africa twice as likely to have an abortion…Analyzing abortion data from 51 developing countries between 2001 and 2008 — which encompassed the reproductive decisions of about 6.3 million women — I found that women in Latin America were three times more likely to have an abortion while the global gag rule was in effect.”[16]
Stanford researchers found that in 26 countries during republican administrations “abortion rates rose among women in countries highly exposed…a rise of approximately 40%.”[17]
The very conservative organization “The Heritage Center” acknowledges that the highest number of abortions ever reported in US history happened in 2017-18, which is of course when Trump was president.
“Planned Parenthood [had] a banner year in providing abortion on demand…The report…states that Planned Parenthood affiliates performed 345,672 abortions from Oct. 1, 2017, to Sept. 30, 2018—the highest number of abortions ever reported in a single year.”[18]
ABORTIONS FALL UNDER DEMOCRATS
The CDC and even the conservative Focus on the Family have shown that the lowest rates of abortion happened under democrats or Obama.
Focus on the Family reported:
“In 2015, the number of abortions was at its lowest since 1976 – and had dropped almost in half in the last 20 years.”[19]
The CBS news reported:
“All statistics measuring abortion in the U.S. — the rate, the ratio to live births, and the absolute number — reached a “historic low” in 2016, according to new data released Wednesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Smith, Kate.” [20]
Time reported:
“Abortion rates in the U.S. have reached a historic low, according to new numbers released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday. According to the report, the decline in abortions was seen in women across all age groups.
For women ages 15 to 44, the abortion rate (the number of abortions per 1,000 women) dropped 26% between 2006 and 2015…This translates to a significant drop in the yearly number of abortions over the decade ending in 2015. In 2006, medical professionals reported performing 842,855 abortions. By 2015, that number dropped to 638,169, according to the CDC. The drop in abortions was especially pronounced among teenagers…From 2006 to 2015, the abortion rate for women ages 15 to 19 dropped by more than half.”[21]
The graph is from the CDC’s 2015 Abortion Surveillance Report. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/ss/ss6713a1.htm
Looking at the graph on the site above shows that the biggest decreases in 20 years have been under Obama with ~2-5% decreases every year he was in office.
CONCLUSION
Donald Trump fails basically all biblical tests of leadership, or even being a godly person of any kind. But even if abortion is your #1 issue of concern, you still have to be against Donald Trump because by Bible principles and research his policies and that of some republicans are the top #1 cause of abortion worldwide and in America as well as every other major evil on this earth (due to America having more power and influence than any other nation) including the destruction of families, destruction of the environment, increased bombings by the military, increased poverty, putting many Catholics in power in the Supreme court and judiciary and powerful positions in government, etc.
Democrats and other parties (like the Green and Constitution Party) aren’t perfect in following God’s principles to be sure. But they are actually following a lot of the principles that God says are crucial for national leaders and governments according to the Bible and science. And that is the choice now, to choose a man like Trump who has lived his whole life in explicit defiance of God’s principles in almost every area of life and is wholly unrepentant for that…or leaders who care about love and justice for all, truth, economic equality. freedom and following policies that can actually make a better life for issues that concern all of us, conservatives, liberals, independents and others.
That is the choice…and for those who read the Bible, it’s easy and crystal clear to see from its principles that Trump cannot be supported by anyone who actually follows the Bible and thinks God wisdom is something a Christian should follow.
You’re going to find people who don’t agree with you on politics. Try to educate them about the importance of the principles above. You can warn them about the serious and severe consequences of ignoring them as God did repeatedly with Israel. Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer in warning Christians about the consequences of supporting Nazis said that sometimes love means severe rebukes to save people from sinful disasters
But don’t forget that Jesus said we are to love even our enemies. Jesus is King. If the election does not go the way you or I wish, we can still work in many ways to spread good through churches and various other organizations day to day and week to week. The Jews did this and were able to survive the worst crises in history and still thrive. That’s a lesson for us. It is altruistic people working together that really determine how well their communities and nations succeed.
REFERENCES
[1] Global Center for Religious Research (GCRR). “An Open Letter to Evangelicals of Moral Conscience”. January 18, 2020. https://www.gcrr.org/evangelicals-and-trump.
[2] McBride, James and Chatzky, Andrew. “ The U.S. Trade Deficit: How Much Does It Matter?”. March 8, 2019. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-trade-deficit-how-much-does-it-matter; Donald Trump’s Positions. https://www.cfr.org/election2024/candidate-tracker/donald-trump.
[3] Hanauer, Nick. “The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure.” September 14, 2020. https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america; Wiseman, Paul. “Mexico taking U.S. factory jobs? Blame robots instead”. Nov 2, 2016. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/factory-jobs-blame-robots.
[4] Weintraub, Pamela. “#3: E.O. Wilson’s Theory of Altruism Shakes Up Understanding of Evolution”. Thursday, April 28, 2011, discovermagazine.com/2011/jan-feb/03
[5] Veil of Ignorance by BBC Radio 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8GDEaJtbq4
[6] Illing. Sean. “How fascism works.” Dec 15, 2018. https://www.vox.com/2018/9/19/17847110/how-fascism-works-donald-trump-jason-stanley.
[7] Snyder, Timothy, “On Tyranny Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century”. Jan 06, 2024. https://snyder.substack.com/p/on-tyranny.
[8] Snyder, Timothy. “On Tyranny”. The Daily Show.” January 6, 2022. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1384061561785345.
[9] Wilkinson, Richard. “How economic inequality harms societies”. |July 2011. https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson_how_economic_inequality_harms_societies
[10] The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats By NICK HANAUER July/August 2014 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014
[11] Stockman, David. “Trump’s Economic Plan—-A Dog’s Breakfast Of Some Decent Ideas And A Lot Of Really Bad Fiscal Math”. September 16, 2016. http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/trumps-economic-plan-a-dogs-breakfast-of-some-good-ideas-and-a-lot-of-really-bad-fiscal-math. See also:
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/19/reaganomics_killed_americas_middle_class_partner/ and https://mises.org/library/myths-reaganomics.
[12] Represent Us “Corruption is Legal in America” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig See also: “Robert Reich: Socialism of the Rich, Harsh Capitalism for the Rest” https://youtu.be/pmdivrgllf4
[13] Bible quotes to support pacifism. http://www.rsrevision.com/GCSE/christian_perspectives/peace/pacifism/bible.htm
[14] Duss, Matthew. “Calling Trump an Anti-Imperialist Is Nonsense The anti-war left shouldn’t fall for this dishonest pitch”. April 18, 2023. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/18/donald-trump-presidency-anti-imperialist-militarism-war.
[15] “Has Donald Trump Asked God to Forgive His Sins?”. The Line of Fire, Jul 23, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LRbjR8BIcI Grossman, Les. “Donald Trump : ‘I’m Not Sure I Have” Ever Asked God For Forgiveness’”. Jul 18, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDbOHvfdiE.
[16] Rodgers, Yana. “Abortions rise worldwide when US cuts funding to women’s health clinics, study finds.” The Conversation. March 4, 2019. https://theworld.org/stories/2019/03/04/abortions-rise-worldwide-when-us-cuts-funding-women-s-health-clinics-study-finds
[17] Brooks, Nina et al. “USA aid policy and induced abortion in sub-Saharan Africa: an analysis of the Mexico City Policy.” The Lancet. Global health vol. 7,8 (2019): e1046-e1053. doi:10.1016/S2214-109X(19)30267-0
[18] Israel, Melanie. “Planned Parenthood Sets New Record for Abortions in a Single Year”. Jan 9, 2020
https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/planned-parenthood-sets-new-record-abortions-single-year
[19] Earll, Carrie Gordon. “By the Numbers: U.S. Abortion Statistics”.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190713163556/https://www.focusonthefamily.com/socialissues/life-issues/dignity-of-human-life/abortion-statistics
[20] “Abortion at ‘historic low’ by all measures, new CDC study says”. November 27, 2019.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-abortion-rate-number-of-abortions-in-us-hits-historic-low-per-centers-for-disease-control-study-today-2019-11-27.
[21] de la Garza, Alejandro. “Number of U.S. Abortions Hits Lowest Rate Since Roe v. Wade, CDC Reports”. Time. November 21, 2018. https://time.com/5461616/abortions-lowest-rate-cdc/