The Theology Behind Donald Trump

Christy Thomas: Pondering Life, Old Age, and a Crazy World

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Who are they, these decent people who are also true believers in Mr. Trump? What motivates them? What makes them tick?

For the most part, they tend to be avid readers of the Bible. They do so with this much pre-determined: The Bible is without error and, therefore, 100% trustworthy. The commands therein are to be believed and acted upon.

Furthermore, the Bible was written with the 21st century US in mind, so the prophetic words found in the ancient texts are directly applicable.

In this world, the goodness of God is balanced by the evil of the Great Deceiver, i.e., Satan, who operates by whispering conspiracies and implanting lies into the minds of people. The battles are constant. The power of the Satan is real and apparent.

God does not win until the very earth we are walking upon is destroyed and completely rebuilt, with Jerusalem as the seat of the world's ruler. Those steeped in this worldview do not hold Democracy as a political system as a high value. Autocracy works far better for them.

Furthermore, and this is key, these believers operate under the understanding that they should not question or hinder the person in leadership, whether it be in the church or the nation.

A sense of security of being firmly on God's side permeates this world and creates a beautiful cohesiveness.

God put the leaders in place; trust and obey

Why the security? Because God is in control, even with Satan's constant opposition, and God puts leaders in place. It is not our job to question God or criticize those whom God chooses as leaders but to find ways to discover how God is working in and through those people set upon the throne—or in the seat of the US presidency.

This sense of the sacredness of leadership springs from a fascinating story found in 1 Samuel 24. At this point in the story, a man named Saul, the very first King of Israel, is descending deeper and deeper into devastating and destructive madness.

In our story, we learn that a young shepherd, David, is God's choice to be the next King. Saul, knowing this, is determined to kill David and preserve the power of his rule.

Periodically, hunt and chase scenes occur in the Judean desert, with Saul furiously pursuing and David ably escaping. The two occasionally reconcile, mainly because the one thing that calms Saul's troubled, even paranoid, mind comes from the music David can produce on his lyre.

But the moments of peace are increasingly short-lived.

The cave and the sluggish digestive system

And that brings us to a particularly evocative scene. David and his followers hide deep in one of the many caves that inhabit that desert. Saul, in hot pursuit, needs to heed nature's call and relieve his bowels.

Let's be real for a moment: When we've got to go and enter the squat position, we are also pretty vulnerable to attack. Thus, Saul prudently finds a spot several feet inside the cave entrance where he can do his business safely unobserved, or so he thought.

However, he happened to choose the very cave where David and his men had hidden.

By then, King Saul was an older man, and perhaps his digestive system was a bit sluggish. Whatever the reason, he was so absorbed in the act of elimination that David could creep up behind him and, without altering the older man, cut off a corner of his robe draped behind him.

When Saul finished his business and returned to his men, David emerged from the cave waving the cut edge of the robe. The Bible records these words from David's mouth (from the New King James translation):

Why do you listen to the words of men who say, "Indeed David seeks your harm?" Look, this day your eyes have seen that the Lord delivered you today into my hand in the cave, and someone urged me to kill you. But my eye spared you, and I said, "I will not stretch out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord's anointed."

And there we have it: even though Saul is determined to kill David and is doing a marvelous job of making the young man's life miserable, not to mention bringing havoc to the nation, David, with the opportunity in hand and with his men egging him on, refuses to harm Saul.

Why? Because he understood that God chose Saul to be the King over Israel. No amount of craziness, no matter how much mental and emotional instability Saul evidenced, no matter how cruel and unlawful his actions, David can not, in his opinion, righteously take action against him to protect himself and relieve the fledgling nation from its ongoing trauma.

This story, read by modern-day Bible believers, makes it clear: the job of those good people in this world of comforting theology is NOT to depose God's chosen leader--or vote him out of office. God chose him. Therefore, he must keep his position of supremacy, no matter how great the damage.

Right now, we are experiencing a noticeable mental/spiritual transfer from the Bible story to the situation with Mr. Trump.

When, against all odds, Mr. Trump won a second term, the sense that God had indeed placed him in leadership was set in concrete.

No matter how coarse, how despicable his treatment of others, how much he tends toward unaccountable dictatorship, how scary his alliance with Putin, how ignorant he remains of the larger world, how many unknown entities to whom he owes vast sums, how demeaning his stands on legitimate science, how unlawful, destabilizing, and harmful the DOGE purge is, Trump is God's chosen person, and God has a reason behind the events.

With this election, his followers proclaim that God's will is indeed done on earth as it is in heaven.

Theocracy is the goal here, not Democracy

More about the anti-democratic stance: the people in this wonderfully safe world where every question can be answered by reference to the Bible carry a core belief that God, with them as God's agents, will dismantle the current democracy for a spiritual autocracy, i.e., a theocracy, with biblical laws governing every aspect of life.

Therefore, since Trump is God's chosen man, so unexpectedly put in power by religious people, he is clearly the person to lead the charge. Unfortunately, the marriage of religion and politics has never, in the course of human history, led to a good outcome.

But few people read history, and even those that might be historically knowledgable are certain this time will be different. This time, they are SURE they are on God’s side.

For these reasons, it is unlikely that these true believers, many of whom are wonderful human beings who care for each other and find many ways to serve the larger world, will ever be convinced that Mr. Trump does not belong in the Presidency. They will, in all likelihood, support his now-public attempt to subvert the US Constitution and set himself up for a third term, with the goal of eventually ending free elections.

Their version of the Bible’s edicts will become the law of the land. It will not be a nice place to live for any who disagree.

I lived and breathed this world

I lived and breathed this world for years. By being so sure God is indeed in charge and busy choosing my leaders, my job became amazingly simple: do everything possible to support those leaders, no matter the personal cost I may need to pay.

Furthermore, I should always be on the alert for the subtlety of the Great Deceiver, the Satan, and his co-conspirators, who will do anything possible to divert me from my proper mission.

When I felt strongly the call of God upon my life to pursue the pastorate, the response was, “God would never call a woman to that position—clearly, you are listening to the voice of Satan.”

I spent years and years twisting my mind into knots, trying to make it work. I also endured significant horrors in my private life before I finally could no longer deal with the discordance. Eventually, I was both kicked out and also walked out voluntarily.

It was an excruciating leaving process as it also meant walking away from my community, my comfortable place, the theology that, in its twisted way, enabled me to make sense of the world.

I eventually found my way into a wider theological world where I could more fully embrace the mystery of God, the complexities of life, the challenge of holy living, and the freedom from worrying that some co-equal evil force, conspiring against me, was prowling around at all times trying to entice me into evil or improper beliefs.

In truth, I'm human, and I'm limited. All of my beliefs about God are, by definition. incomplete. Many are likely misguided. And so are everyone else's. But the far-right religious world, known primarily as evangelicals, functions on absolute certainty of beliefs.

It is, sadly, this very certainty of total rightness in theological thinking that propelled Mr. Trump into his first presidency and now this second and this attack on our democracy.

I want to mention another issue that springs from this world of comforting theology and the near-adulation of those seen as chosen by God for leadership positions.

Incidences of spousal and sexual abuse, along with economic crimes, can and often do run unchecked. If God's chosen leaders need to exercise that leadership in a manner that many might see as cruel or prey upon vulnerable people, it becomes our job to protect and support those leaders. We have no right to question someone whom God has placed in leadership.

In that theological world, it will come right in the end, even as it makes no sense now, and senseless suffering and unnecessary deaths are inevitable.

I grieve. And there is essentially no way to fix this.

The Rev. Dr. Christy Thomas is an author and columnist and a retired clergy member of the former North Texas Annual Conference, now the Horizon Texas Conference, of the United Methodist Church.