Today is the Feast of the Bodiless Powers of Heaven, the Holy Archangels. I’m not going to talk about that today, but at the very bottom of this Post you can access two Posts I wrote about them seven years ago.
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I’d like to drop this subject, but after all I wrote last week and what has happened this week, I just can’t. Next week we’ll get back to “religion”. Promise.
Just to keep us up to date, just in case we missed it, our neighbors across the street have now added a huge banner to their collection, which I gladly share with you.
Yeah, extreme right.
Here is this man, this miscreant, this abuser of women, who because he is rich can sue his way out of every criminal charge against himself… If he were an ordinary guy, he would be headed straight for jail. But where is he headed? To the White House.
“ Do not fret because of evildoers,
Nor be envious of the workers of iniquity.
2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass,
And wither as the green herb.” Psalm 37, NKJV
“Please, Aslan,” said Lucy, “what do you call soon?” “I call all times soon,” said Aslan.
I was afraid of that. But while we wait, we may as well try to do something useful. I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the topics noted above in the headlines.
I’ll provide here a number of articles from various times during the past decade. Each will begin with a definitive quote or two from the article – and occasionally a few enlightening words from me – followed by the original internet address (when available) so you can access the full article, if you wish.
What is Donald Trump’s religion?
James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family told pastor Michael Anthony (who happened to be recording this) that Trump “did accept a relationship with Christ” and “really made a commitment, but he’s a baby Christian.”
Christianity Today, August 4, 2015.
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Here’s what he has said about his personal faith:
In 2015, when asked about times in his life when he’s sought out God’s forgiveness, Mr Trump said, “I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture”…
“When I drink my little wine – which is about the only wine I drink – and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed,” he said. “I think in terms of ‘let’s go on and let’s make it right.’”
07/18/2015 Family Leadership Council, Ames IA
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“During his first presidential campaign, Trump’s comments about his religious upbringing were often awkward. He would misspeak when discussing the Bible and make odd claims about his relationship with God.
“During the same event, Trump expressed surprise that people don’t see him as a religious man…. ‘People are so shocked when they find … out I am Protestant. I am Presbyterian. And I go to church and I love God and I love my church,’ he said.”
Full article:
https://www.deseret.com/faith/2024/07/18/what-religion-is-trump/
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“Asked ‘Who is God to you?’ by the Christian Broadcasting Network, Trump answered ‘God is the ultimate,’ then began a brief spiel about how he got a great deal on a golf course before circling back to his original definition. ‘So nobody, no thing, no there’s nothing like God.’”
CNN Politics October 24, 2016
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This was taken from a 90-minute interview Trump gave Fox News in June 2024 – two days after his felony conviction in the New York State Court of Appeals, if that makes any difference.
Interviewer: “You’ve been faced with so much adversity and persecution * for years. What’s your relationship with God and how do you pray?”
- Editor’s comment: “!?”
Trump: “Okay, so I think it’s good. I do very well with the evangelicals. I love the evangelicals. And I have more people saying they pray for me. I can’t even believe it. And they are so committed and they’re so believing. They say, ‘Sir, you’re going to be okay. I pray for you every night.’ I can’t say everybody, but almost everybody that sees me, they say it. It’s such a beautiful thing. You know what’s a beautiful thing too? When you look at all of this bad stuff going on, they have nothing to look up to. They have no God. They have no anything. They kill people. They beat people. They push people into subways. There’s just nothing there. Religion is such a great thing. There’s something to be good about. You want to be good. It’s so important. And I don’t know if it’s explained right. I don’t know if I’m explaining it right during now, but when you have something like that, you want to be good. You want to go to heaven. You want to go to heaven. If you don’t have heaven, you almost say, What’s the reason? Why do I have to be good? Let’s not be good. What difference does it make?”
Fox & Friends, June 2, 2024
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“Trump was not a regular churchgoer before he was elected president. He attended Norman Vincent Peale’s church for a while and praises Peale’s book The Power of Positive Thinking. He has also attended Episcopal churches for several Christmas and Easter services.
…Since moving to the White House, however, he has visited many different churches, mostly evangelical and Pentecostal. He has met with numerous ministers, been prayed over, and sought the advice of spiritual counselors like Paula White-Cain, a Florida televangelist often associated with the prosperity gospel *, who took a position as the Trump administration’s faith outreach coordinator last year. City of Destiny, the church White-Cain founded in Florida, is nondenominational.”
- “Prosperity theology is a religious belief among some Charismatic Christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God for them, and that faith, positive scriptural confession, and giving to charitable and religious causes will increase one’s material wealth.” [Wikipedia] (Editor’s comment: As evidenced, perhaps, by what happened to Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Apostles and the Martyrs?)
For full article above: https://www.christianitytoday.com/2020/10/trump-nondenominational-presbyterian-religious-eisenhower/
Below is Paula White-Cain (see above) praying in tongues for the election of Donald Trump. Dear Orthodox brothers and sisters, please watch this, and note the religious style of a chief advisor to next President of the United States.
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“In his victory speech early this morning, Trump, referencing the two assassination attempts against him in Pennsylvania and Florida, said “many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness. And now we are going to fulfill that mission together…”
Fox News, November 5, 2024
Why do evangelicals love Donald Trump?
“Trump supports Jesus, and without Jesus, America will fall,” said Kimberly Vaughn of Florence, Kentucky, as she joined other supporters of the former president entering a campaign rally near Dayton, Ohio.
Many of the T-shirts and hats that were worn and sold at the rally in March proclaimed religious slogans such as “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president” and “God, Guns & Trump.” One man’s shirt declared, “Make America Godly Again,” with the image of a luminous Jesus putting his supportive hands on Trump’s shoulders. Many attendees said in interviews they believed Trump shared their Christian faith and values. Several cited their opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, particularly to transgender expressions… Nobody voiced concern about Trump’s past conduct or his present indictments on criminal charges, including allegations that he tried to hide hush money payments to a porn actor during his 2016 campaign. Supporters saw Trump as representing a religion of second chances.”
Full article:
https://apnews.com/article/trump-christian-evangelicals-conservatives-2024-election-43f25118c133170c77786daf316821c3
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“ Trump’s Presbyterian upbringing and later identification as a nondenominational Christian, his religious credentials appear to hold little sway over his most ardent supporters. About 7 in 10 white evangelical Protestants view Trump favorably, yet only about half say he best represents their beliefs. Even more telling, only around 2 in 10 within this group strongly associate the term “Christian” with the former president…
…R. Marie Griffith, a religion and politics professor at Washington University in St. Louis, offered insight to the AP into this apparent contradiction. ‘They really don’t care about, is he religious or not,’ Griffith explained, pointing to a shift in how white evangelicals now approach morality and religion in politics…
…This disconnect between personal faith and political support reflects a broader trend in conservative Christian circles. Griffith suggests that many white evangelicals have adopted a worldview that prioritizes political goals over traditional religious values.”
Full article:
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-kamala-harris-poll-christian-religious-beliefs-voters-1957548
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“But anyone who’s so much as set foot in an evangelical church over the last eight years knows that Christians don’t describe Trump as an unfortunate necessity, but a literal God-send.
“Trump’s sexual misdeeds may break religious doctrine, Perry says, but they also affirm his masculinity — at least in the evangelical view. They demonstrate that Trump is a virile, red-blooded man, afflicted by God — like all “real men” — with lust. Not just lust for sex, Perry says, but for power. And much like Biblical warriors who themselves struggled with sexual temptation, Trump can wield that power to lead the faithful to glory.”
This article gives a fascinating look into the current Evangelical mindset – well worth reading.
Full article:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/07/stormy-daniels-donald-trump-evangelical-appeal-00156488
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The following is an excerpt from a September 5, 2023 NPR interview of Russell Moore, former President and now ex-member of the Southern Baptist Convention. Interviewer: Scott Detrow.
DETROW: Moore’s new book, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call For Evangelical America, is an attempt at finding a path forward for the religion he loves. When we talked this week, Moore told me why he thinks Christianity is in crisis today in America.
MOORE: Well, it was the result of having multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching – turn the other cheek – to have someone come up after and to say, where did you get those liberal talking points? And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would not be, I apologize. The response would be, “yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak”. And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.
Moore told me why he thinks Christianity is in crisis today in America.
…“almost every part of American life is tribalized and factionalized. But it shouldn’t be that way in the church. The very existence of the church is to mean a group of people who are reconciled to God and to each other and, from the very beginning, was standing apart from those sorts of factions. And so I think if we’re going to get past the blood and soil sorts of nationalism or all of the other kinds of totalizing cultural identities, it’s going to require rethinking what the church is. And I don’t think that’s something new. I think it’s very old. I think it’s recovering a first-century understanding of what it means to be the church.”
Full interview:
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/05/1192374014/russell-moore-on-altar-call-for-evangelical-america
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Mr Trump’s Promises to (Evangelical) Christians
“As voters head to the polls on Tuesday, Donald J. Trump’s ambitions for America’s future are almost impossible to miss. He has sworn an era of ‘retribution’ for his enemies. Vowed to deport millions of immigrants. Fueled concerns about rising fascism.
“But he is making another promise that may be overlooked, but equally transformative: He will champion his followers’ brand of Christianity across American life and government.
“Mr. Trump said last Friday to a gathering of Christian conservatives: ‘I love you. You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.’
“His interviewer on Monday, Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, noted that Democrats have highlighted that quote as evidence that Mr. Trump would end elections, and urged Mr. Trump to rebut what she called a ‘ridiculous’ criticism.
But Mr. Trump declined to do so, repeating a pattern he frequently employs in which he makes a provocative statement that can be interpreted in varying ways, and makes no attempt to quiet the uproar. This comment was especially striking, given his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his shattering of other democratic norms.”
Full article
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/us/politics/trump-christians-vote-ingraham.html
Donald Trump and Roman Catholic Voters
“The poll, published by the Washington Post on November 5, showed that 56% of Catholic voters supported Trump, compared to 41% for Harris.
“This score marked a strong evolution compared to the 2020 election, when, according to an Edison exit poll, 52% of Catholics supported President Joe Biden compared to 47% for Trump. In 2016, however, Trump won the Catholic vote by 50% compared to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s 46%…. While the old Democratic Catholic guard had, for example, adopted the fight for gay marriage and abortion rights, the new generation of Catholic voices seemingly adopted more conservative positions on these subjects, reinforced by the American bishops who often clashed with Biden.
“…Trump reached out to Catholics in the country in a way that the Harris-Walz campaign did not. For instance, Donald Trump made the choice of a Catholic convert as Vice-President, J.D. Vance.”
Full article:
https://international.la-croix.com/world/us-elections-catholic-voters-supported-trump-over-harris
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J D Vance’s religion
… this young man (age 40) who, given Mr Trump’s age (78) and not infrequent periods of “dottiness”, might well succeed him to the Presidency.
“His [2019] conversion also put Vance in close touch with a Catholic intellectual movement, viewed by some critics as having reactionary or authoritarian leanings, that has been little known to the American public until Vance’s rise to the national stage as the Republican vice presidential nominee.
“These are not your father’s Catholic conservatives.
“The professors and media personalities in this network don’t all agree on everything — even on what to call themselves – but most go by ‘postliberal’. Vance has used that term to describe himself, though the Trump-Vance campaign did not respond to questions about where Vance sees himself in the movement and whether he shares some of the beliefs promoted by many postliberals.
“Postliberals do share some longstanding Catholic conservative views, such as opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.
“But where Catholic conservatives of the past have seen big government as a problem rather than a solution, the postliberals want a muscular government — one that they control.
“They envision a counterrevolution in which they would take over government bureaucracy and institutions like universities from within, replacing entrenched ‘elites’ with their own and acting upon their vision of the “common good.
“’What is needed … is regime change — the peaceful but vigorous overthrow of a corrupt and corrupting liberal ruling class and the creation of a postliberal order,’ wrote Patrick Deneen, a prominent author in the movement, in his 2023 book, Regime Change.”
Full article:
Next Week: Do you Fast during November? Be honest, now.
Week after Next: The Entrance of the Virgin Mary into the Temple
The Bodiless Powers of Heaven
There you go again, good Priest, wandering out of your lane. I am surprised at you! Seems TDS reaches into the pulpit as well, as long as it stays in front of the Iconostasis all will turn out fine.
Ah, Len, thank you for writing. I’ve been eager for somebody to say this.
So… Consideration of Christian morality extends to my personal behavior but not to politics? I’ve only described what Mr Trump is saying and doing. I’ve made no judgments on him. Maybe, all things considered, he’s doing the best he can, given his background. I know I’m not. He may get to Heaven and I won’t, for all I know.
But why is description of his behavior not fair game? (After all, we had to vote for him – or not.) Description of my behavior if I acted like him would be fair game. (“Look: the priest is lying and stealing again. What should we do about him?”)
FB
“..thank you for writing. I’ve been eager for somebody to say this.” So I’ve fallen into ANOTHER Orthodox conundrum! Zounds! As you dance in front of your own innocence please allow your “this miscreant, this abuser of women, who because he is rich can sue his way out of every criminal charge against himself… If he were an ordinary guy, he would be headed straight for jail. But where is he headed? To the White House”.
So you did give a bit of an opinion! We can both agree that he is no model for our youth nor any age, to be true, however as the hub-hub dies down it occurred to me that both sides were screaming for Our Lord to run rather than those that were TRULY chosen (from both realms?). She a ‘side girl and he a red blooded fully born & bread American. Recently found out his dad was very good friends with Norman Vincent Peale, which accounts for his can-will-do attitude. I did commit myself only to Him, but simply voted for the lesser of…Though not a virtue, he does not drink nor smoke and after your decades in the Confessional I trust you’ve come across every dirty dog in the kennel, so to speak. So, you are not shocked, but are you trying to close the barn door? The votes are in, giving rise we all knew he’s a scoundrel, just not a stupid one. Our country was born, founded and bred by scoundrels who, had they been caught, would have all been felons and hanged. Such a legacy! At one time Trump would have died in a duel, however the courts now handle such disputes as lawsuits and such.
A bit of personal history: I worked for 30 years in San Quentin State Prison and witnessed little devils trying to be good. You, OTOH, worked for Him on us noting good people that had a bit of devilish behavior at times. Glad we had this exchange.
I tried attempting to respond to me on the Christian Nationalism but we both know how life catches up and gets in the way of what we want to do. Thanks for the exchange. God Bless and show His Mercy to you.
Oh, come on, Len. Again I gave not a judgment but a description.
Miscreant: “a person who behaves badly or breaks the law”
Abuser of women: Is there any question that he has done this? He even bragged about it!
He is rich: accurate
Can sue his way out of every criminal charge against himself. Hey, he has just done it.
OK, I could have left the introductory description off.
However, I tried to make the rest of the Post as impartially descriptive as I could. I thought I found a lot of interesting material. Did I maybe fail at that, too?
Oh, enough. I’ve got to go write a little talk for our parish’s 35th Anniversary celebration tomorrow evening.
God bless you.
P.S. Yes, there have been many rats in politics in times past. My issue with Trump is that he parades it around so openly, so proudly, as if it’s just fine, thank you, a badge of honor.
FB
P.P.S. Hmmmm… I think I just made a judgment.
Thank you, Father Bill, for this information.
Good Father Bill, I personally find Psalms 145:3 to be a guide in these times that most Americans, or better most peoples world wide paraphrase, “Don’t trust politicians.”
Len, I agree with your conclusion.
However, I suspect you mean Psalm 146:3 which reads “Do not put your trust in princes, Nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help.”
Thank you, Father. I was using the Orthodox Study Bible not the Protestant version. But you are right in either case. I am pretty sure Trump is not for our salvation!