trump

Someone posted An Open Letter to Rev. Franklin Graham on Facebook, expecting it to be controversial (it came with a warning!) and I read it with interest. I commented on the letter itself, but I wanted to preserve it here just in case it got moderated away for some reason (I don’t expect it to be, but still, it’s my thought and I wanted to keep it. Plus, I wanted to be able to edit it to add some relevant information that I didn’t include when I wrote my original comment.)

It was an interesting letter, but it missed the mark on a few things.

For one thing, the sarcasm was appreciated by, well, me – because I love sarcasm, and I say that without sarcasm – but it’s directed at a man who publicly supported Trump. Sarcasm is not only wasted on such people, in my opinion, but it actually occludes the point; they don’t recognize it.

I thought this sentence was well done: “We just preach the good news of Jesus Christ; love one another the best we can (which sometimes isn’t very well); feed the hungry that come to our doors; care for the sick; comfort the dying; and bury the dead.” But… it ended up diminishing the role of the “good news” (the freaking Gospel, our whole mission and the point of everything for Christians) and emphasizing service. I know evangelical Christians who’ve forgotten how to help the needy, and I know people who call themselves Christians because all they do is help the needy. Between the two of them, as I understand the New Testament, the former are wayward Christians and the latter are just wayward.

See Matthew 7:21-23, using the HCSB for once:

²¹ “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name?’ ²³ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you lawbreakers!’”

The loss of religious freedom is a fundamental point, and it’s where the pastor goes most astray. It’s not a loss of religious freedom to refuse to bake a cake for someone, but it’s also not discrimination to refuse to bake a cake, in the legal sense. That’s not a loss of religious freedom, it’s a loss of personal freedom, which is a much deeper issue; Rev. Graham is conflating the two, and in error… and Peter (the author of the letter) is mistaking civil liberty for a mandate to help the needy.

Funny thing: when I was married, we had a cake. But if we didn’t have one, I’d still be married. Having the cake was nice, it was traditional, I guess, but did I need it? Were my needs met by having a cake? No, they weren’t, apart from an abstract desire to have my wife’s wishes for traditionalism fulfilled.

So is denying someone a cake the same as denying them food? No, it’s not, and the President at the time of the most well-known cases of this nature asserted the same thing, by saying that we needed to feed our children something other than cheap slop in our schools. A wedding cake is a poor choice for the hungry; they’d be better off with chicken noodle soup or something like that. When the hungry come in demanding wedding cake, the reasonable response is not “sure, have a $200 cake” but “Hey, let me spend $12 on a bunch of soup cans and feed you for a week.”

On Trump… I agree. I do not understand how evangelical Christians can support Trump actively; I can understand that they might support Trump in opposition to Mrs. Clinton, but that’s reactive and not active; that’s “any other port in a storm,” and not “preference for the port with a whirlpool in it.”

I’m an American citizen. I vote. I’m also a Christian who votes.

I know a distressing number of fellow Christians who have voted for, or are willing to vote for, Donald Trump as President of the United States.

I do not understand this; to me, something’s horribly broken in their reasoning.

It’s not that Trump is not a man in need of salvation just like any other – and from all appearances, he remains in need of salvation.

See Trump believes in God, but hasn’t sought forgiveness – accepting Christ as propitiation for our sin is a pretty fundamental part of being saved, and here we have Trump directly repudiating any guilt on his part. Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” — emphasis mine.

His denial of his own sins before God means one of two things.

He doesn’t think he has sinned. The Bible says that all have sinned; he’s either elevated himself to Jesus’ stature (and therefore blasphemes) or doesn’t recognize sin for what it is, and therefore has not accepted Jesus. Not a Christian in this case.
He is lying to us about his state before God. In this case, he knows he’s sinned, and he’s accepted Christ, and he’s a Christian – but he’s also lying to people about it, and is ashamed of the Gospel somehow. Would be a Christian, by my understanding, but would also be unworthy as a candidate, since he’d be misrepresenting himself and the Gospel.

But the state of his soul is not what confuses me – I’ve voted for nonchristians before, because I felt that they were the best candidates. I could point to them and say “I think Candidate Smith has the best policy for education,” or what-have-you.

Being a Christian is important to me, as a voter, but it’s not the litmus test for my vote.

The thing is, I don’t know what the litmus test is for Christians who want to vote for Trump.

Is it ethics? It can’t be – almost every candidate offered during this election season has shown better ethics than Trump, with the sole possible exception of Hillary Clinton herself. When your campaign point is reduced to catcalls and exhortations of violence and mentions of “little Marco,” you don’t have ethics on your side.

Is it policy? It can’t be – Trump’s response to questions on policy almost invariably come down to vague answers about how he will have a policy, it’ll be great, it’ll be huge, we’re going to love it.

Is it business sense? It can’t be – he’s had businesses flame out that shouldn’t have done so, and he’s been happy to proclaim his manipulation of the system for his own benefit. You can’t say “This system is broken” and be happy to abuse the system, while expecting voters to think you’re willing to change the system.

More than anything else, it’s attention – I think people think Trump has name recognition, and that’s enough.

Name recognition is not enough. Stalin has name recognition – and nobody should be willing to consider voting for Stalin.

If you’re a Christian and you’re willing to vote for Trump, I’d love to see your explanation of “why.” I’d exhort you to reconsider prayerfully – and look at the Bible’s guidelines for leaders as well as your own personal morals. Would you want your sons acting like Trump? At all? Ever? Would you want your daughters to date such a man? Would you want to be like him at all?

If not, then please – reconsider your vote. Vote for anyone else – anyone else would be better.

Response to an Open Letter to Franklin Graham

Christians, please don’t vote for Trump.