I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I am convinced that America is basically finished. Not only has it run with two of the most despicable, debauched, and diabolical candidates for president ever, but the American people have willed it to be so.
And even worse yet, those who claim to be Christians and conservatives have willed it to be so – at least with their undying support for the immoral pagan and lifelong lefty, Donald Trump. Yes I know, Clinton will destroy America. I get that, and have always got that.
But I also know that Trump will just as certainly destroy America, just as he has succeeded in destroying the Republican Party, the conservative brand, and what is left of evangelical Christianity in America. And I have made the case why I cannot support Trump in plenty of articles by now.
Yet I still get “conservatives” and “Christians” insisting I must run with this sham. I recently got an invite to join a “Christians for Trump” page. I wrote back saying it is exactly because I am a Christian and a conservative that I cannot be for Trump.
I assume my comment never saw the light of day on their site. I might as well have gotten a “Christians for Ahab” invite by those concerned about Jezebel. I might as well have gotten a “Christians for Mussolini” invite by those concerned about Hitler.
I might as well have gotten a “Christians for death by strychnine” invite by those concerned about death by arsenic. I might as well have gotten a “Christians for bowel cancer” invite by those concerned about liver cancer. Sorry, I will not shill for either devil – and devils they are.
Trashing Conservatism
But let me speak a bit more about these two candidates from hell – especially the liberal who is now pretending to be a Republican. This is the real tragedy unfolding here: the death of conservatism and worse yet, the death of Christianity. Historically conservatism has always been about key principles, values and beliefs which could not be jettisoned without destroying conservatism itself.
But that is exactly what we are now doing as we worship and support this lifelong liberal and Democrat supporter: we are disembowelling conservatism. I expect lefties to try to sabotage and destroy the conservative brand – but when so-called conservatives do it, you know we are now in big trouble.
A principled conservative I greatly respect, Ben Shapiro, has recently just written on all this. He offers four things being trashed as the “GOP Is Morphing Into Trump’s Fringey Troll Army”. His second is conservatism itself:
Conservatism Matters. It’s one thing to vote for Donald Trump while decrying his lack of conservatism, as Mark Levin does every day — that’s honest and praiseworthy. It’s another to pretend that his non-conservative agenda is conservative. Some high-profile conservatives have flipped on government paid maternity leave; a huge number of high-profile conservatives have flipped on free trade (leading to a massive drop in popularity among Republicans for free trade); an enormous number of high-profile conservatives have been warmed up to Vladimir Putin; virtually all major Republican voices have glossed over Trump’s ugly and nasty lie that Bush lied and people died in Iraq. Some heretofore conservatives have simply suggested that conservatism has failed, and we need Trumpian nationalist populism to replace it. Others have sighed and said that maybe the country has moved beyond conservatism altogether, so he’s the best we can do. So much for principle. Victory for a statist blowhard is more important, and if that requires sacrificing the notion of a conservative revival anytime in the near future, so be it.
And one of the key principles of conservatism (and of Christianity) is that character and integrity are vitally important. I have written about this for years now. Back in 1998 I penned a piece called “Character and Public Life”. In it I wrote:
Our real problems today are not economic problems. Nor are they political problems. Our real problems have to do with values, with character, with morality. A country can survive a current account deficit, but it cannot for long survive a value deficit. And the first place to begin in restoring this value deficit is to reaffirm character, integrity and morality, both private and public.
It is interesting to note that character was the only consideration enumerated by the American founding fathers as relevant to qualifications to serve in public office. A person’s politics, philosophy or ideology may be important, but the most important qualification is character. Without good character, good government is not possible.
In a recent column Jeff Jacoby puts it this way:
Would you hire a babysitter who lied with impunity? Would you choose a therapist who was a compulsive braggart? Would you want as your accountant or financial adviser someone who trailed the reek of corruption and bottomless avarice? Would you list your home with a real estate agent who routinely played fast and loose with rules that others must abide by? Would you attend the church of a pastor who spewed insults and threats and trafficked in delusional conspiracy theories? If so, you’ll have no trouble supporting Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton for president. But if you wouldn’t entrust your personal affairs to someone manifestly devoid of ethics and good character, how can you think of entrusting the nation’s highest office to either of the major-party candidates?
Over and over this year, Trump and Clinton have been described as the two worst presidential nominees in living memory — perhaps the worst matchup in US history. Both candidates espouse bad ideas and destructive policies, but that isn’t why they are so widely regarded as appalling choices for the White House. It is the candidates’ lack of integrity that makes so many Americans despair when they think of the upcoming election.
Or as Coleman Luck put it:
Conservative Christians hated the immorality of President Clinton. They hated the argument that what the man did in his private life, the awful, destructive choices he made, should not be considered when assessing his effectiveness as president. They want those destructive choices of the past to be used against Hillary Clinton right now. But they seem quite willing to accept the possibility of a different kind of immorality in their own candidate. They defend him without question no matter what he does or says, making the same kind of excuses for him that Democrats made years ago. Far worse, some consider a vicious way of treating people in business to be a strength that qualifies him to be leader of the free world.
As Shapiro concludes his article: “Trumpism corrupts, and absolute Trumpism corrupts absolutely. If Trump has done such heavy groundwork in tearing apart the conservative movement and exposing its principles for a hollow shell in just a year, imagine what President Trump will do.”
Trashing Christianity
As a Bible-believing Christian, this shocks me and sickens me most of all. Countless people claiming to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ have effectively sold their souls to the devil in their irrational, unbiblical and shameful promotion of Trump.
They might as well rewrite the Bible to fit their Trump-worshipping image: “For me to live is Trump…” So many of these Trump zealots really are convinced that Trump is actually the messiah America needs. They actually believe all the ridiculous rhetoric coming out of his mouth.
“Make America great again”? Ha! All that Trump wants to do is make himself great. Yet countless Christians have fallen for this hook, line and sinker. The levels of gullibility, cluelessness, and the ability to be easily conned, deceived and hoodwinked are off the charts here.
They will believe anything this guy says – ANYTHING. We have seen demagogues come before promising everything the people wanted to hear. They ended up destroying half the world in the process. It seems we refuse to learn the lessons of history.
These “Christians” have simply chucked out everything they used to believe about the importance of integrity, of honesty, of humility, of godliness, of righteousness, and of servanthood. Instead they have eagerly embraced everything Scripture warns against and condemns in the strongest of terms: arrogance, pride, deceit, reliance on power and the flesh, ungodly alliances, etc.
If they simply read the prophets and let their truths sink in, there would be no way they could keep spruiking for this enemy of everything a holy God stands for. They would need to repent and renounce their false god. But it seems getting Trump into the White House is the only thing that matters to these folks
Well I have news for them. So does Jesus. He made it crystal clear that we can get everything we crave for in this world, yet still lose it all, big time: “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?”
I realise of course that even daring to say such things will enrage the Trumpites. I have seen them in action far too often. It is frightening in the extreme. Even those who claim to be Christians can be just as hateful, nasty, and ferocious as they rip to shreds anyone who dares to disagree with them on Trump.
I know this full well – I have been on the receiving end of this far too often. These are among some of the most obnoxious and idolatrous displays I have ever encountered. Diabolical really. I have lost count of how many friends I have lost over this.
And I am talking about Christians here. You know the ones that Jesus said the world would know that Christ is real by the love and unity they have one for another? I would have thought the only reason Christian friends would have a right to turn on me in disgust would be if I denied the deity of Christ, trashed the Bible, or slept with a thousand women.
But no, there is evidently something far worse than that, which means I must be excommunicated, I must be anathema, I must be forever rejected: daring to not idolise their hero Trump. Indeed, just minutes ago I had yet another “believer” angrily attack me for daring to have a different point of view on this. Hmm, so this is the test of Christian orthodoxy nowadays?
Sorry, but if believers want to scream, “We want Barabbas” that is up to them. If they want to put all their hope, trust and allegiance in this New York liberal, and turn against all who will not, well, that is up to them. But I will have no part in it. None whatsoever.
Concluding Thoughts
I take my Christianity with the utmost seriousness. And I seek to be a principled and consistent conservative. For those reasons, the thought of Clinton getting in makes me sick. But the thought of Trump getting in also makes me sick.
As one wit has quipped: “The real problem with the upcoming election is one of them is going to win”. Being a Christian and a conservative I must fully concur with the words of Coleman Luck:
What kind of country do we want? Do honesty and integrity mean anything? Should a person’s word mean anything? Or is it all just about winning, the Art of the Deal? Perhaps Mr. Trump is the right man for the job, a man who represents everything that this nation has become. If that’s true and if you are willing to set aside every “Judeo-Christian principle” to hire a man just because you think he will “get the job done” at least be honest. The principles you say you espouse don’t really mean anything at all.
And I also totally endorse the sentiments of Jeff Jacoby:
Clinton and Trump are practically defined by their cupidity, deceit, and self-righteousness. For Americans to elevate anyone so reprehensible to the presidency would be to humiliate themselves before the world. It would also be a sign that the great American experiment in republican self-government may have run its course.
At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, as Benjamin Franklin was leaving Independence Hall, a woman approached him with a question. “Well, Doctor,” she asked, “what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin’s famous answer: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Well, we kept our republic for 225 years. Whether it survives the 45th president of the United States is an open question.
Yes exactly right. In my view here is the bottom line concerning this ugly and despicable election: Americans have rejected God and have preferred to put all their faith and trust in a pair of immoral, arrogant, decadent pagan leaders instead. Thus there can be no winner here. We all lose.
Regardless of who gets over the line on November 8, it will be a case of God letting the Americans have what they want, but sending them “leanness to their souls” as Psalm 106:15 warns about. I will not have blood on my hands by supporting either one.
Here I stand, I can do no other.
www.dailywire.com/news/9592/george-will-right-gop-morphing-trumps-fringey-ben-shapiro
billmuehlenberg.com/1998/07/04/character-and-public-life/
www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/09/30/character-matters-electing-either-clinton-trump-would-moral-disaster/DFUra308mm5PWC1s7HHTfI/story.html
colemanluck.net/2016/01/26/how-to-elect-a-president-from-hell/
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