There is a damn good reason the Constitution’s Framers and Founding Fathers went to great lengths to prevent what they knew was an ever-present threat of religious fanatics taking over the U.S. government. Since even before Trump’s poorly attended inauguration, Americans have been witnessing the greatest representation of the theocratic threat the Founders’ attempted to prevent because Trump has loving embraced radical Christian extremists and has given them authority over a broad range of issues related to domestic policy.
In the continuing saga of America’s transformation into an inherently barbaric theocracy, there was the revelation that the bastardized Christian fascists running the government played a pivotal role in directing Trump’s barbarous family separation policy. Although it is true there has been a tepid backlash to Trump’s brutal immigration policy by some Christian groups, the evangelical zealot running Trump’s White House Bible Study group has been, and still is, directing Trump’s administration according to his interpretation of the Christian bible, not the U.S. Constitution.
It looks very likely that J. Beauregard Sessions’ idea to use his Christian bible as justification for Trump’s policy of ripping children from their parents came by way of a theological edict from Trump’s White House Bible Study (WHBS) preacher. The evangelical cretin named Ralph Drollinger runs Capitol Ministries as well as an evangelical indoctrination program for the White House, Congress, and Trump’s Cabinet members. It is noteworthy that as reported by ThinkProgress, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request noted that taxpayers are paying for “significant staff time and resources (invested) in coordinating Christian bible studies every week,” with an inordinate amount of involvement by Trump’s DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen who vehemently defended Trump’s family separation policy.
As reported by Andrew L. Seidel, the day prior to Sessions using the bible to defend Trump’s cruel child kidnapping crusade, preacher Drollinger’s bible lesson centered around “The Importance of Parenting and the Course of the Nation,” beginning with need to force “obedience to a nation’s laws” with the same cruel abuse as a good god-fearing parent. The lesson included scriptural citations of Proverbs 28:4 and Romans 13:32 – the latter being the passage Sessions used to justify the tearing children from their parents. In fact, it is almost certain that Sessions jotted down some notes from Drollinger’s lesson verbatim because as the White House preacher has often boasted:
“Jeff Sessions [will] go out the same day I teach him something and he’ll do it on camera. And I just think, man, these guys are faithful, available, and teachable.”
Obviously, because he has no expertise in anything of value to the people or the government, preacher Drollinger considers that his job does not entail advising or influencing Trump’s policies, it is manipulating them; and no members of Trump’s cabal are more easily manipulated thanSessions and aspiring preacher Mike Pence.
According to documents in the FOIA request, Drollinger provided the Trump cabal with the exact rationale supporting separating families using the same theological arguments “espoused in his previous Bible study entitled “What the Bible Says About Our Illegal Immigration Problem.” When Sessions was railed on for using the Christian bible to justify ripping families apart, Drollinger rushed to his defense with bible in hand. Drollinger defended Sessions with a “theological explanation of the child separation policy” from 2016 on the Capitol Ministries homepage. The “follower of Jesus” explained that there is “zero tolerance” for anything untoward or illegal in Trump’s America and losing ones children is an apropos price to pay for lawbreakers. Drollnger said:
“It follows that when someone breaks the law of the land that they should anticipate that one of the consequences of their illegal behavior will be separation from their children.”
Like Sessions, Drollinger’s defense includes citing scripture about everyone following the law of the land, unless they are religious Republicans serving in Trump’s criminal organization. However, if they are refugees of color and seek asylum from abuse, Drollinger says god’s word justifies punishing the children of undocumented immigrants he insists “must suffer all the consequences of breaking the law.” Drollinger writes:
“It is not overreaching to reason from this passage [Romans 13:1-7] that immigration laws, like all of a nation’s laws, should stem from a desire to protect the nation and its citizenry. That protection should deter a myriad of intrusions by illegals. God intends for Governments to bear the sword relative to enacting justice. They are to be an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. This means Government is sanctioned, bound, and responsible to punish those who break the law … including illegal immigration.”
However, Drollinger offers no mention of government vengeance for violating the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, Take Care Clause, or anti-nepotism laws committed by Trump, or several instances of Trump’s mendacious Cabinet members committing perjury under oath.
It is an atrocity that an evangelical maniac in the White House is “manipulating” the Trump administration to action despite a constitutional prohibition on religion influencing the government. If Democrats, the media, and American people were not so terrified of offending the “faithful,” the nation would not be facing a clear and present danger of a theocratic coup d’état. Moreover, although it is true there are some Christian groups opposed to Trump’s barbaric “zero tolerance” immigration policy, it is likely there are no small number of Trump’s evangelical acolytes clinging to the concept that their archaic bible does support tearing families apart - because they are the wrong color. This particular immigration issue is not about enforcing the law of the land. If that were the case Sessions, Pence, Trump, and several other Cabinet members would be sitting in a federal penitentiary. They did, in fact, violate 18 U.S. Code § 1621 that succinctly details the federal punishment for committing perjury under a “swear to god” oath.
No doubt there is plenty of blame to go around for Trump’s nasty “zero tolerance” immigration policy, and it is not unbelievable that Stephen Miller had a hand in convincing Trump that cruelty towards Hispanic children is a policy to be proud of implementing. However, a fair share of the blame lies at the feet of preacher Drollinger who has spent the past two years inculcating biblical inhumanity into the Trump cabal and defending the practice as “godly;” as if America is already an evangelical theocracy. Tragically, because far too many Americans still fail to see the impending doom of an extremist religious regime running the government, that dreaded theocracy is manipulating the most powerful office in the land; and all the while the people are mesmerized by Trump’s tweets and how often he hits the links at Mar-a-Lago.