Trump is skillfully building an autocratic system in his own country with the support of many evangelicals. It is high time that global evangelical networks, such as the WEA or the Lausanne Movement, took a firm stance on the behaviour of the current US administration.
A strong (Christian) man in America?
‘Donald Trump is our man, he is cleansing the world of the sinful filth of the liberals’, is what I hear many of my evangelical friends in the United State saying.For them, he is not only the “America first man”, but also the hope of all orthodox evangelicals, a “man of God,” a “messenger of God.” [1]
72% of American evangelicals support their president's policies. [2]
A man with such a dubious past, burdened by fraud and immoral acts, to say the least, a man whose mouth spews a torrent of foul insults, who only ever has himself in mind and praises himself to the skies – is this supposed to be the new saviour of the world? A saviour sent by God?
How do all these things fit together? What makes this man so appealing to so many evangelicals in the US? And, is it his fight against liberalism?
I myself am anything but a liberal European. I was born and raised in the Soviet Union, did not believe in God or the devil for a long time, and then came to believe in Jesus in the mid-1970s and soon ended up in a Soviet labour camp. And all because I wanted to follow Jesus and his Word.
My subsequent expulsion from the country ultimately saved me from certain death. I was never liberal.
But I am radical in following my Lord Jesus Christ. And as a follower of Jesus, I want to remain so. And as such, I cannot remain silent when I observe the euphoria of my brothers and sisters in the USA.
‘Then you should be happy about President Trump’, I hear again and again. ‘He fights against every kind of liberalism’. No, I cannot be happy about Trump and his administration.
How could I? Someone who uses his fight to praise himself and fill his pockets with even more money, while at the same time leaving the poorest of the poor without any financial support and even denigrating them, is not a follower of Jesus in my eyes, but a cunning scoundrel who knows how to play on people's issues so that they eat out of his hand.
No, in my eyes, Donald Trump is not a Christian president. He deals with Mammon, and that is the root of all evil.
