This past summer, a group of friends and I were discussing the 2016 presidential election and the evangelical supporters of President Donald Trump. Several in the group, including me, are Christians; some were not. We all wondered, how could 81 percent of white evangelical votes have been cast for Trump? Knowing what kind of man Trump is, what he has done in his life and how he has treated people, make this extremely confusing. Why would evangelicals be drawn to a man with his background of fraud, cheating, racial discrimination, adultery, sexual assault, and many other crimes and sins?
While thinking about this, I recalled several articles I’ve read that said many American evangelicals had been feeling persecuted and shut out of the political process. They saw supporting Trump as a chance to gain the political power they desired and a chance to push the policies they wanted.
That made me think of the three temptations of Christ, described in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13. Matthew 4:8-9 tells us, “Again, the devil took him [Jesus] to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’”
All Jesus had to do was bow down to the devil, and He would have gained all the political power in the world. Very simple. All you have to do is vote for a man who has violated almost every commandment in the Bible, and you will gain the political power you have been craving.
Some evangelical leaders have said that Trump is similar to David and Moses. These were men who had sinned greatly but were then greatly used by God. The difference is, these men repented very publicly of their sins. God was then able to use them because they became willing to be used by Him. Trump has not only not repented of his many sins, he has bragged openly that he has never asked God or anyone else for forgiveness.
On July 18, 2015, at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, Moderator Frank Luntz asked Trump if he had ever sought God's forgiveness. Trump replied, “I’m not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don’t think so. If I do something wrong, I think I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture.” This from a man who has broken almost every one of the Ten Commandments, many of them multiple times.
On the “Jimmy Fallon Show” on NBC on Sept. 11, 2015, Fallon asked Trump if he had ever apologized for anything. Trump replied, “I think apologizing’s a great thing, but you have to be wrong. I will absolutely apologize, sometime in the hopefully distant future, if I’m ever wrong.”
Compare these words to David’s words in 2 Samuel 12:1-13 and Psalm 51, and to Moses’ words and actions in Exodus 3:11-12; 4:10; 33:17 (God’s words to Moses) and Numbers 12:3. Read what John says in 1 John 1:8-9: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
To become a Christian, we have to confess to God that we have sinned, that we were wrong, and that we want His forgiveness. There’s no way around that. And there was only one Person in the history of the world Who was without sin, and it’s not Donald Trump.
For Trump to say he never asked forgiveness or apologized is to say that he did nothing wrong when he had all his affairs, or when he cheated vendors, contractors, and employees, or when he defrauded thousands of customers. It is to say that lying and cheating and stealing and adultery are all okay.
As far as I can see, in Trump’s mind, that is true. For those evangelicals who support him, it appears that they agree with Trump, that lying and cheating and stealing and adultery are all okay. This is what Trump evangelicals are supporting. And this is what non-Christians see when they look at those supporters who claim to represent Christ.
Many of these evangelicals will say that they voted for Trump because of his possible nominations for justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, who will then supposedly vote against issues such as abortion, homosexual behavior, gay marriage, etc. They completely miss the irony of voting for a severely morally compromised person in order to push what they see as a moral agenda. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.” Matthew 7:18.
For those who think that these are the defining issues for Christians, I ask you to check out the Gospels and see what Jesus said about this. You will find that Jesus said nothing about abortion or homosexuality. What He did talk about, over and over, is how we are to treat the poor, the sick, the hopeless, those who are suffering.
He talked about how we should love our neighbors, even those neighbors we might not like so much. He talked about how we should treat others as we want to be treated, not getting revenge but responding in love. For anyone who isn’t sure about what Jesus wanted, He made it very clear in Matthew 25: 31-46. There is nothing in there about taking revenge or ignoring those who need help or deciding who is “worthy” of our help. Jesus makes His priorities very clear.
One of the basic causes of the current contempt so many American evangelicals seem to have for the less successful is the acceptance of the heretical Prosperity Gospel. The Prosperity Gospel has fooled hundreds of thousands of Christians into believing that if you have enough faith in God, then you will become materially prosperous. Therefore, if someone is not prosperous, it’s their own fault because they didn’t have enough faith in God.
This belief allows these pseudo-Christians to look down on people who are poor, or sick, or disabled, or suffering in other ways. These pseudo-Christians can point to themselves and say, “Look at me. I’m successful because I had faith in God. You are a failure because you did not.”
Read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Jesus tells us exactly how we should behave, toward God and others. Jesus never says we shouldn’t get angry about true injustice. The two groups He got angriest at were the conservative religious leaders and the businessmen. He blasted the religious leaders as hypocrites who watched out for their own good and ignored the needy: Matthew 23:13-33. He even took physical action against those who were putting profit over honoring God: Matthew 21:12-13; John 2:13-16.
Jesus never got angry at the ordinary people who came to Him. He fed them and healed them and most importantly, forgave them. He ate with prostitutes and sinners and those whom society had rejected. And they loved Him. He never blamed them for their circumstances, and He never told them they needed to have faith in order to get rich. He never condoned sin, but He showed that love, not condemnation, was the way to win followers.
What some of today’s evangelical leaders have done is turned all this upside down. They have bowed down to Trump and advocated for policies that would harm millions of Americans who need health care, or food, or shelter, or other assistance, claiming that people should take care of themselves, and if they can’t, too bad. This relieves these pseudo-Christians from having to look at what the Gospels say and taking any responsibility for those people whom Jesus told us we were to care for.
Several years ago a popular movement emerged among young Christians asking, “What would Jesus do?” (WWJD) The basic idea was to think about how Jesus would have responded to various circumstances and then try to do the same. As I looked at what evangelicals have done, I realized that we know what Jesus would have done about Donald Trump. It’s what he did on the mountain when Satan tempted Him. He said, “No.”
If Jesus had accepted Satan’s offer on the mountain, He could have avoided the pain of crucifixion and His death on the cross. We know Jesus could have accepted Satan’s offer because during his prayer to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, He said, “Not My will, but Yours be done.” Luke 22:41-42.
Jesus had free will, but He surrendered His own free will to His Father and submitted to God’s will. Jesus had the chance to take the easy way out. He could have had all the kingdoms of the world, and all the political power, if He had just bowed down to Satan. This was the choice that faced American evangelical Christians, and too many chose the easy way out. Instead of doing the hard work required to follow Jesus, they chose instead to sell their souls for political power, using the excuse that the end justified the means.
For two millennia, Christians have asked themselves, “What would Jesus do?” Sometimes the answer is not clear, but in this past election, it was very clear what Jesus would have done, because He actually did it. In the choice between gaining political power by selling His soul, or saving His soul by rejecting the easy way, Jesus didn’t choose the easy answer. He chose to do His Father’s will.
Jesus passed the test. Millions of American evangelical Christians failed. Mark 8:36 says, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his own soul?” These people now have to ask themselves the question, was it worth it?