The Problem with Christian Trump Supporters

5/2/2018

(deep breath)
...
I voted for Trump.

There, I said it. It’s true. In 2016, I voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. And I think I’m still ‘ok’ with my decision. But this isn’t an article about how Christians should have voted in 2016 or how they should vote in the future, although that is a very controversial topic (there are different views even among the four of us here at PtP). This is an article to Christians who voted for Trump (like myself). Since Election Day, I’ve seen something troubling among Christian Trump supporters. I’m sure you’ve seen it too.

Evangelical Christians praise (and borderline glorify) him as if he were actually a stand-up guy. They defend not just his policies, but his character--praising him for ‘telling it like it is’ and ‘always punching back’ as if those were actually Christian virtues. Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell Jr. misappropriate Scriptural phrases like “you shall know them by their fruits” to describe Trump’s ‘glowing’ testimony. Christians portray Trump’s war against the media as a righteous stand against the relentless onslaught of liberal persecution.

Again, I’m not bashing your choice vote for him. I think there were good reasons for doing so; neither am I denying the reality that God has sovereignly placed Donald Trump in his position to accomplish God’s will and purpose.

What I’m trying to say is that it is possible to see Donald Trump as God’s man, without seeing him as a man of God. I fear that Christians’ blanket support of everything Trump does and everything he is has exposed our own hypocrisy and divergence from Scripture’s authority.

When Trump’s immoral, licentious choices are brought to light, do you mourn and pray for his repentance? Do you explain to your son that Trump is living in rebellion toward God (Heb 13:4)? Or, do you simply fire back with “how much worse those libs are”? Pointing out the immorality on the opposing side does not excuse the immorality on your side. Does Trump’s immorality bother you beyond the common excuse, “Well...no one’s perfect”?

When Trump rattles off tweet after tweet, do you recognize the manifestations of the fool of Proverbs? Or, do you squeal in delight as the ‘snowflakes’ squirm in disgust? Let’s just point to one example: Proverbs 29:11 says, “A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.” Which portion of that Proverb describes Trump? I would encourage you to read a previous article I wrote called “10 Proverbs for Social Media” and consider how many of them apply to Trump’s tweets.

When you hear Trump’s braggadocious and pompous rhetoric, do you see it as abominable pride that leads to utter destruction unless he humbles himself and repents? Or, do you simply chuckle at Trump’s antics and appreciate his ‘unfiltered,’ ‘unpolitical’ approach? Christians, we should be deeply concerned with Trump’s pride. When you read verses like Proverbs 16:5, “Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished,” Trump’s pride shouldn’t make you chuckle--it should cause deep concern.

I say this, not to disrespect the president, but to view his life through the lens of Scripture: based on the observable fruits of Trump’s life, he is a immoral, proud, fool. And I voted for him. Was I wrong in doing so? Maybe. I’m still comfortable with saying that my vote was simply pragmatic (Supreme Court, tax cuts, pro-life, etc.). There are solid arguments against my view; but, again, this isn’t an article about the ethics of voting.

If you are a Christian who voted for Trump, I want to encourage you: you can be supportive of his policies without praising his character. You can rejoice when he promotes your values but mourn and pray when his testimony stands in rebellious opposition to God and his Word. You can defend Trump’s political agenda but call him out when his immorality, pride, and foolishness manifest themselves.

I also want to warn you: your dying devotion to Trump and the defense of the indefensible will compromise and destroy your Gospel witness. I believe Christianity has already taken a major hit in our culture for its perceived whole-hearted and unqualified embrace of Donald Trump.

May it be clear that our citizenship is first a heavenly one, not an earthly one. May it be clear to our culture that our singular devotion is, not to a man or a political party, but to Jesus Christ, to his Word, and to his Church.

Aaron Berry earned both his undergrad and MA in Bible at Bob Jones University. He, along with his wife, Hanna, and daughter, Brooklyn, currently live in Detroit, MI, where Aaron is pursuing his MDiv degree while serving as the Director of Recruitment at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary and working on staff at Inter-City Baptist Church. You can follow him on Twitter @AaronMBerry

26 Comments

John Glass

5/2/2018 12:11:32 pm

Pretty good, balanced article. No Christian can defend Trump’s past immoral actions or defend his pride. But just as God raised up King Cyrus in the OT for the betterment of His chosen people, so Trump has been placed for a reason. Time will tell, but I believe partly it is to expose the so called Deep State in this country. Satanism, sex trafficking, Globalism destroying our national identity(illegal immigration), mainstream media’s false narratives,are just some of the issues that I believe will be brought to light soon (on a large scale) through Trump’s efforts. That said our focus should be our citizenship in heaven, as you referenced.
Good day,
John

Caleb Phelps

5/2/2018 12:54:02 pm

Good thoughts John. I agree with the balanced approach this article takes. I'd also add one more thing to your comment. Is it possible that God has placed Donald Trump in office to expose the hypocrisy in our American churches? Why is it that many (not all) are so unwilling to call out his immorality? Is is just because he has policies we agree with? We put ourselves in a dangerous position when our politics rise the the level of Gospel issues. We may already be there in many churches across our country. Maybe this White House regime was put in place by God to expose that wrong line of thinking.

Tori

5/2/2018 07:18:33 pm

Caleb, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Can I just copy and paste your comment when I share this article?

5/3/2018 04:20:14 pm

“Why is it so many are unwilling to call out his immorality” - I believe it is because immorality lives in the hearts of so many American Christians in one form or another that immorality has been lessened to a degree in politics(speaking in a broad sense). If we really believe we are truly close to the Lords return, then we know the days will be increasingly evil and seeing the immorality failures in our government leaders falls in line with this promise(though it doesn’t make it right of course). A difference between me, a general Trump supporter, and say a never Trumper(I have friends who are in this category) is that I viewed HRC as 10x worse than Trump, whereas the other side might say Trump is close to as bad a choice as HRC would have been. I’ve come to see where HRC is directly involved in Satanism and treasonous activity against our country, while I view Trumps past immoral activities as in line with living an unsaved billionaire lifestyle, (not excusable but at least no Satanic evidence or treasonous activity against our country) Because we are in very evil days, I see Christians being in a position of having to increasingly make the better of bad choices. And this brings out strong differing opinions among prople. Only my opinion, and I respect other Christians opposing viewpoints.

Linda Addison

5/4/2018 12:05:07 pm

Well said! My thoughts exactly. This man is accomplishing his campaign promises BECAUSE he is of the world. We all are! But I believe that God has only our best at heart through him. And I pray for him daily. As we all should do.

MARY NOVOTNY

6/4/2018 11:15:39 am

I liked your article, it was refreshing to see a Trump supporter admit that Trump is immoral. I didn't vote for him, although when he first announced he was running I thought about it. I have a real problem with his divisive rhetoric. I know the last few Presidents did little to unite us, so this is a problem that we have had for a long time. I feel that Trump is further dividing us by picking fights with individuals in addition to groups of people. I know the economy is doing well but I feel pretty sick that Trump seems only to care about the people who voted for him and not the other half of the country

Jenny

12/13/2020 10:36:44 am

Agree. Now Biden is president. What I see; however, are those very "Christian supporters for Trump" do EXACTLY what the good Pastor here has written about and that is praise and idolize this man TRUMP above God Almighty. They truly do NOT believe in Gods sovereignty because if the did or do, they'd understand Gods sovereignty in Biden as the President Elect. My honest opinion and belief is God is punishing ALL of us for our foolish behaviour.

John M Ryan

5/3/2018 01:01:07 pm

I'm not sure you are a libertarian at all when you are such
a biblical literalist.

Aaron B

5/3/2018 01:16:18 pm

John, I'm not sure why you think I'm a libertarian. I voted for Trump. But if by 'biblical literalist' you mean that I believe the Bible is God's authoritative Word, then yes, I'm a biblical literalist. Could I ask how this would keep me from being a libertarian (if I was one)?

Ted Larson

5/3/2018 02:42:24 pm

What an article. You have made some very good points that while I saw those very reasons for concern during the campaign, I could not articulate them. Thank you for speaking up with a clear and loud voice.

5/3/2018 03:13:56 pm

Ted,
Thanks for the kind words!

5/5/2018 09:24:31 am

I would like to know how to share this article with others. There does not seem to be a way of doing that through Facebook. Thanks.

5/5/2018 09:52:50 am

Ted, if you copy the website address at the top, you can share that however you want.

Bill Everman

5/3/2018 10:22:41 pm

I very much appreciate your recognition that a certain amount of hypocrisy is required to defend the words and actions of our current president.

I also appreciate your point that "our citizenship is first a heavenly one." Given that, I do not understand the reasoning of many believers who chose to vote for Trump (or, for some, Clinton) on the basis that he (or she) was the "lesser of two evils." I seem to have missed the part of the Bible where believers are told to always choose the lesser of two evils...but I do remember a lot about turning away from evil.

There is nothing in scripture that requires you to vote for a Democrat or a Republican. There is nothing in scripture that requires you to vote...period. As long as people vote for evil, we will continue to see evil get elected.

5/4/2018 08:02:54 am

Bill,

Those are definitely tough questions and ones that I had to wrestle with. I don't want to get into a big discussion on the ethics of voting, but I'll say this: Since the contemporary audiences of both the Old or New Testaments were not within context of a democratic republic, I don't expect to find Bible verses on whether or not I should vote.

What I do find, however, is that Christians are called to act as responsible citizens within their culture (Rom 13; Titus 3:1; 1 Pet 2:13-14; 1 Tim 2:1-2). In our American culture, a responsible citizen will exercise his or her right to vote. The Bible explicitly commands us to vote, but it is an application of biblical principles that I've chosen to follow.

5/4/2018 03:00:19 pm

Good points!

Loren D.

5/4/2018 06:28:08 pm

You are right, but voting for a politician or party that advocates for gross immorality, such as the murder of unborn children, will be judged by heaven. Doing evil is evil in the sight of God, but advocating for evil is truly an abomination. As Christians we need to be in prayer regularly for the heart of our leaders and politicians, that God would help them to use wisdom, to do His will, and, most of all, repent and soften their hearts toward Him. This was my prayer for Obama and it is even more so now for President Trump.

Unfortunately, we are often left between a rock on a hard place, being either forced to vote for a man that cheats on his wife and cannot seem to control his tongue or a woman that advocates the sacrifice of babies and the theft of other peoples' riches and possessions in the name of 'fairness and equality.'

Which is the greater evil? Who do I vote for? Do I not vote and allow the more evil candidate to win? Do I vote and one day be forced to own that decisions before God?

So. Lloyd

5/4/2018 10:22:08 am

I would like to see an explanation of the difference in how pres. Obama was treated by the same people. Was he not placed in the job by God as well? Was he not a much better example of the Christian values that Trump is failing to meet? Also Bill Clinton did not receive a pass on his adultery. Why the difference if God picks the president for a reason then how do you criticize any of them for policy or behavior?

Waverly Marsh

5/23/2018 10:46:27 am

I have lost lifelong friends who voted for Trump. I tried to warn them passively through facebook (should have directly told them to their face in June 2016 not to vote for this evil freak Donald Trump). What I've noticed is Trump supporters seem to have been taken over by evil spirits. They were comfortable with many TV preachers too numerous to name here that seemed to universally and in lock-step with one another to compare Donald Trump with King Cyrus or "God's Man" for America's Good. I was a supporter of Trump during the primaries until June 2016 when Trump became a turncoat on many issues but the most egregious one was his support of sodomy which God calls an abomination. No way I could vote for that despite how evil Hilary Clinton was and is. So I sat out the election. Friends called me "dead wrong" for telling them that it was evil to vote for Trump or to listen to pastors that told them that Trump was "God's Man"......It was very painful for me, but I did not compromise on it. Same with "freinds" who sang the praises or voted for Obama or Hilary. I will always refer back to scripture when it comes to this matter. I feel that Trump voters/supporters are not saved, not going to Heaven and are cursed of God. To me they are no different than unrepentant murderers or rapists. I don't know if they can even be saved; that is up to God, but I do know if they don't repent of this evil idolatry that they will end up in the lake of fire. I pray every day for Trump to be removed from office. He is unfit and a demonically inspired madman. Not that other presidents didn't do some horrible things....but this man Trump is a second son of satan right along with the King of Sodomy Barack Obama. The world will be in the heat of the tribulation soon and Trump is part of the Fuse. So in that regards, God will use Trump....but not the way his supporters think and they will go crazy violent after Trump is removed. We truly are in the last days. Repent if you can. Pray God will give you repentance if you've voted for the evil monsters (Trump, Hilary or Obama).

Dottie

8/3/2018 07:35:47 am

I 100% agree with your comment Waverly

Christina Yates

6/3/2018 01:55:16 pm

More a question than a comment; would a vote for Bernie Sanders be a Christian vote?

Paul Rosenbaum

6/13/2018 10:31:03 am

Yes and no, there is not such thing as a Christian vote. But Bernie Sanders (as well as others) wants to continue the institution of a form of government that normally exclude the God of the Bible. The only real Biblical form of government is a Theocracy (God is the ruling King) but that only existed before king Saul; and the result was recorded for us in Judges 21:25 and 1 Sam. 8:7. Man is too prideful to follow the man (or woman) who is following God for more than a short time. Even during the times of the kings of Israel the people fell into Idolatry several times. Gog recorded all of this to teach us the is no perfect form of government on earth, but there might be some forms that are a little better than others.

6/13/2018 10:01:36 am

I have herd preachers who say they have personally met Trump and they say he has repented and accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. I agree he has been elevated beyond what he should in some minds but so is JFK. As for his ongoing issues with things like his tweets please remember we all have struggles and stumble from time to time. How many of us would like to stand under the microscope he stands under every day? None of our presidents were (or are) choir boys.

Jeanette Pietrantonio

6/14/2018 06:26:03 pm

I am responding to Aaron Berry's post.
In my opinion, when people begin to post their doubts about previous political or religious statements made, it opens a sinister version of Pandora's Box...the paradox that surely is.
Surely our enemies are reading with great excitement as Americans plunge forward in finding fault with our President. The delight they must have in seeing the consistant, election after election, disunity displayed by the masses. It gives them a birds eye view of a country who does not stand by their president. In most those countries, one would be killed if they posted this blog...but here in America we have the God given right to speak our views openly.

When did we forget the Scriptures that show us that America is the Promised Land? You can dance that any way you want, but given the biblical description of the Promised Land, no other country matches the criteria. When did we forget that we are commanded to "pray for our leaders" ?
I personally did not vote this election but was, and still am, pleased that Trump was the choice. He meets our aggressors where they need to be met. We have had many Presidents talk to North Korea...Trump sent missles into Syria letting Russia know we know what their up to...and at the same time that sent a message to North Korea. You can bet North Korean leaders are fully aware we can wipe their existence off the face of the earth with not a huge amount of effort. Trump has mastered "calling the bluff" and he understands more than most what's actually being said by our aggressors and their intent.
I didn't see anywhere in your blog about the 81 accomplishments Trump has made his first...yes, first year in office.
Whether you agree with them all policy-wise or consider them significant accomplishments, is irrelevant. The previous record was held by President Harry S. Truman and it was nowhere near 81.
As christians we are to lift our leaders to God, to pray God's wisdom be poured on them. I felt a prayer of mine had been answered when he confessed salvation through Jesus Christ because the Jesus I have served for 68 years said he came for ALL...believe it or not, that includes Trump. So I was excited. Does he make mistakes? Sure. So do I and he is not exempt from that because he is President. It's time the wishy washy lackadaisical attitudes of people like Obama be called what they are and treason by Clinton be tried in a court of law. This woman is evil on so many levels...just research the number of people from columnists, to authors to political people that have died in association with her. Trump is rich..yep. He made a real estate decision at the right time and place and it blossomed into what it is today. If that had happened to you, would you think as you do right now?
God did not put one of us here to judge. The only humans allowed to do that are actual judicial judges. God is the ultimate judge.
In closing, I can understand your viewpoint but I still stand by the belief that people posting their doubts or questions after making a particular decision...should not be out there. That is personal. Please remember, there will always be acountability...and you have to ask yourself if, at the end of the day, you, as a Christian want to be accountable for opening the door to such negative responses that will come against the leader of our country. That's what secular thinking does...we are Christians, with renewed minds, like Christ and we should point to the positive or be silent.
Here is link to 81 things he has accomplished in case you aren't aware of them...
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_richard_baris/trump_s_first_year_accomplishments_compiled_in_shockingly_long_list
Jeanette

Ruth Klein

10/29/2020 07:44:59 pm

Well, this was a timely read in light of John Piper’s most recent article. Great points, that still ring true 2.5 years later .

JW Worcester link

9/26/2022 09:24:55 pm

The idea of voting for the lesser of two candidates is non-sensical if you voted for trump in the primaries. Alan Keyes said that in a democracy the citizen is Caesar. I didn't vote for Trump in the primaries and I was very upset at how he denigrated all of the other candidates for the Republican nomination for President. Most of what he said was fake news. Our voters apparently never dug up the real info and instead were satisfied that there was more dirt to destroy a person's reputation. Our voters may not be any better than Caesar.

The Problem with Christian Trump Supporters

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