The Beast Ascendant

¹⁹ Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against the rider on the horse and against his army. ²⁰ And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed in its presence the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur.

Revelation 19:19-20

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, disturbing in itself, has led to disturbing reactions from the Christian Conservative Right. He was spoken of in Messianic terms, hailed as God’s chosen one and as the anointed. Were people truly confusing Him with the Messiah? Perhaps not definitively, but the closeness in word and emotion is troubling. Can they not see that in character, word, and deed, Donald Trump is the very antithesis of everything that Christians hold as noble, true and just – that he is the very opposite of Christ?

People argue that, for the sake of ensuring certain policies are adopted, Donald Trump should be supported despite his distasteful character and history, and that no politician is perfect and all of them lie and can’t be trusted. It is, perhaps, this calculation that Mike Pence made when agreeing to serve as his Vice President. But Donald Trump is qualitatively different from other politicians. We know there is literally nothing he will not say or do to ensure that he wins and gets his way – as long as he can get away with it. Truth and objectivity are simply irrelevant in his universe whereas for most other politicians they still matter even if they seek to bend or twist them to their advantage.

Christians should be the very ones able to discern this fundamental difference between Trump and other politicians, but it seems that the Christian Right (at least in the US) fails completely to do so and instead fêtes him as the Messiah (or as near as you can without actually saying so). The Bible warns us repeatedly against the serpents, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the Beast that would lead the world and God’s people astray. But it seems no heed is paid to the terrible warnings of judgment against those who follow the lies and deceits of the Beast and his acolytes.

The Christian Right seems to have fallen for the lie that the end justifies the means. No serious reading of the Bible could ever lead to such a conclusion. How something happens is just as important, even more important than the result (after all, the result is in God’s hands, but how we seek to achieve it is in our hands). The very nature of Christian salvation demonstrates this – the Cross could not, by any earthly calculation have been the means to salvation, but it was exactly this way that God chose for His Son for the sake of humanity. In siding with Trump, the Christian Right seems to have forgotten this and to have forgotten who they are and to what they have been called.