A column in today’s Wall Street Journal about Donald Trump reminded me of the antichrist.
Whoa there, Trump fans! Don’t cancel your free subscription to my blog without hearing me out, please. I’m not implying Trump is the antichrist. I simply see a parallel between the way people are going wild over him and the way ” . . . the whole earth [will marvel] as they [follow] the antichrist” (Revelation 13:3).
The WSJ column was written by Bret Stephens’. Here are a few selected quotes.
Since Mr. Trump joined the GOP presidential field and leaped to the top of the polls, several views have been offered to explain his popularity. He conveys a can-do image. He is the bluntest of the candidates in addressing public fears of cultural and economic dislocation. He toes no line, serves no PAC, abides no ideology, is beholden to no man. He addresses the broad disgust of everyday Americans with their failed political establishment . . .
[The ascendancy of Trump] says . . . that a movement that is supposed to believe in defending old fashioned values and traditions against the assorted degradations of the postmodern left might allow itself to be led by a reality-TV star whose [trashy] tastes in trophies, architectural and otherwise, mainly remind me of the aesthetics of Bob Guccione (founder of a porn magazine) . . . It says that many of the same people who have bellyached nonstop for the past seven years about the cult-of-personality president currently in the Oval Office are seriously willing to consider another cult-of-personality figure on the off-chance he’s peddling the cure America needs. Focus group testing by pollster Frank Luntz suggests that Mr. Trump’s fans could care less about his flip-flopping political views but responded almost rapturously to his apparently magnetic persona. When people become indifferent to the ideas of their would-be leaders, those leaders become prone to dangerous ideas. Democracies that trade policy substance for personal charisma tend not to last as democracies . . .
Somewhere along the way I was taught that antichrist will rise up in a world of chaos. Things will have become so bad everywhere that we’ll clamor for a strong leader who promises to save us. I think Revelation chapters 6-11 imply that, and recent history bears it out. Recall how new President Obama was going to unify this divided nation, and how he exuded hope for a new world order.
Now we have a candidate who, in Stephens’ words, “conveys a can-do image, is the bluntest of the candidates in addressing public fears of cultural and economic dislocation, toes no line, serves no PAC, abides no ideology, is beholden to no man [and] addresses the broad disgust of everyday Americans with their failed political establishment.”
Therefore . . .
- Let’s not be carried away by Trump’s angry charisma.
- Let’s not believe, as he said in one interview, that the Bible is his favorite book. When asked his favorite verse, he couldn’t even loosely paraphrase one!
- Let’s consider that we have two remarkable contenders not part of “the political class”–Carson and Fiorina.
- Let’s realize that our primary allegiance is to the Kingdom of God and our voting should be informed by that.
- And let’s remember that, while we must submit to and pray for those in authority (Romans 13:1-7; 1 Timothy 2:1-7), new political leaders are not our hope. Jesus is (Titus 2:13).
For the grace of God that brings salvation
has appeared to all men.
It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions,
and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,
while we wait for the blessed hope—
the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,
who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness,
and to purify for himself a people that are his very own,
eager to do what is good (Titus 2:11-14).
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