Put No Confidence in Princes

What the world really needs right now is another armchair quarterback’s opinion about Donald Trump.

I’m kidding, of course. Most of our collective rantings about this singularly contentious man just add a lot of noise to an already deafening pandemonium. Like half the country, I, too, find myself restlessly churning in the wake of Trump’s recent guilty verdict in the trial involving hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, the porn star with whom he allegedly cheated on his wife.

Most of the left thinks Trump’s guilty verdict is legit.

Most of the right interprets it as Trump derangement syndrome played out in a kangaroo court of lunatic activists hellbent on persecuting the lone man with enough power to save American from the Marxist woke agenda.

Both sides are sort of right.

The left is right, in my opinion, because there was a whole lot of legitimately shady activity going on where this hush money was concerned. I’m not an attorney, so I’m not going to pretend to have the legal chops to interpret the letter of the law on this case, but the way this whole thing went down was bad enough to get Trump’s cleanup guy, Michael Cohen, permanently disbarred and sentenced to prison. That’s not nothing. From where I sit, it does seem an awful lot like there were legitimate violations of campaign finance law, but either way, the whole situation is shady as the day is long.

On the flip side, the right is right in the belief that the left would NEVER pursue a criminal conviction for something like this if it were one of their own candidates involved. (Bill Clinton and his hush money come immediately to mind.) They’re infinitely hypocritical. They turned over every rock they possibly could for the express purpose of finding SOMETHING to use to barbecue Trump. They don’t care about the specific violation— they just wanted to punish him.

Either way, the whole debacle is going to work out in Trump’s favor come election time. The legal case against him is too weak; the verdict will likely be overturned. Trump will never spend a minute in prison, and even fence sitters on the moderate right will be concerned enough about the precedence of lawfare being set here that they’ll be mobilized to vote in his favor. I don’t know exactly what the left thinks they accomplished here. This isn’t the victory they seem to believe it is, but maybe they think they get virtue points by being able to call Trump an official felon? I don’t know. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

But that’s not what I want to focus on here.

Maybe you think Trump violated the law. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you think he’s being viciously persecuted. Maybe you think he’s being hoisted on his own petard. Perspectives abound, many of them passionately expressed on memes and angry social media rants. You’re obviously allowed to feel and think whatever you wish to about all this—and to express it freely in your circles of influence.

But there is one trend I’ve noticed in a lot of these posts that I want to challenge because I think it reveals a concerning truth about political idolatry in America. I can already feel some people recoiling at the suggestion, but bear with me. Over the past few days, I’ve seen at least a dozen of my friends share some variation of the following sentiment: “You know who else was falsely convicted in a sham trial? Jesus Christ.”

You guys, this is borderline blasphemous. There is no comparison here.

Remember that time Jesus cheated on his wife with a porn star, paid $130,000 to keep her quiet, and then lied about the use of funds?

Oh yeah, me either.

I’m genuinely at a loss as to how otherwise logical people can make this egregious conflation. Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, the sinless Savior of the universe, the healer of the blind, the Redeemer of our souls vs….. Donald Trump?

I just can’t.

Even though I think it’s relatively obvious that Trump’s trial was something of a witch hunt, the fact remains that he supplied the ammo for his own persecution. You don’t spend $130,000 to hide an affair that never happened. If anything, you spend that kind of money on an attorney to prosecute a liar who would try to extort you that way. Trump’s not as pure as the driven snow. He behaved badly, and it caught up with him. the dramatic scope of the consequences not withstanding. Comparing him to Jesus is just wrong on so many levels.

But it’s a comparison so many people have been making for a long time, and I’m actually really concerned about this trajectory. Even during the last election cycle, so many people were basically referring to him as God’s chosen instrument to save America. And listen, once that becomes your conviction, there’s no amount of corruption you won’t allow or whitewash, no limit to the the number of absurdities you’ll allow yourself to believe. If he’s God’s chosen instrument, then everything else gets a free pass because no one is perfect, and God uses imperfect people all the time.

I watched this play out so vividly in 2020 with all the Trump “prophecies” that never came to fruition. Michael Brown wrote an excellent piece on this embarrassment that perfectly captures my feelings about it. In his book “The Political Seduction of the Church,” he offers a list of signs that we have become politically seduced, and I’ll share it here:

• When we’re more concerned with winning elections than winning the lost.

• When we wrap the Gospel in the American flag.

• When we equate our country with the kingdom of God.

• When we confuse patriotism with spirituality.

• When we compromise our ethics to keep our party (or man or woman) in power.

• When our church/denomination/ministry becomes an appendage of a political party.

• When we put more trust in earthly methods than in spiritual methods.

• When we make one political party the party of God and the other the party of Satan.

• When we become as vulgar and rude as the candidates we follow.

• When we look to the White House more than to God’s house.

• When we make a human being into a political savior.

• When we equate loyalty to God (which is unconditional) with loyalty to a party or a political leader (which is conditional).

• When our prayers and our prophecies become partisan.

Oof. Dr. Brown nailed it. All of these things are in play when we compare Donald Trump to Jesus, when we say things like, “He’s America’s only hope.”

No. If you’re a Christian, Jesus is America’s only hope. We already have a King. We don’t need a golden (or orange) calf for a prince. Can God use Donald Trump? Absolutely! Will He? Not sure yet.

And listen, I get that a lot of you don’t even like the man, but you are genuinely concerned about what will happen to America under another four years of liberal policies, and let’s face it: Shady as Trump may be, a lot of his policy positions are fantastic. It’s exactly why I plugged my nose and voted for him twice. I won’t do it again, but I fully understand why many will, and I don’t fault them for it. And before anyone panics, rest assured that hell will freeze over before I vote Democrat either. We have no good options this coming November. I’m not here to guilt anyone for making a hard choice. Follow your conscience, and trust God to fill the gaps.

But if your conscience is not even whispering to you when you’re tempted to pretend Christ’s crucifixion in any way compares to what’s going on in New York this week, it may be time to recalibrate a few things. No matter what happens in November, Jesus is still on the throne, and He doesn’t intend to share it with any human. He is still good. He is still working things out for the good of those who love Him. And He is not panicking.

Let that be enough.

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