There’s a reason I regard Trump as a dimestore antichrist

Last updated on: August 14, 2018 at 12:38 am by Mark Shea

There’s a reason I regard Trump as a dimestore antichrist 2018-08-07T00:06:48-07:00 Mark Shea

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And it is spelled pretty well in this video:

Yep. I’m aware of who Reza Aslan is and the crappy work he has done on Jesus. Irrelevant. Stop with the genetic fallacy already. The points he makes here are sound and solid. And they do not, alas, apply only to white Evangelicals. They apply to white conservative Catholics too, many of whom parrot the same cult of personality junk about Trump and many of whom exercise the same consequentialist logic by which they excuse every filthy thing he does because it is he who does it. They make him a law unto himself and a god whose lies define reality for them. His opponents are wrong simply because they oppose him. Their facts and evidence are lies and fake news simply because they contradict him. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life who sitteth at the right hand of the Father who anointed him to bring good news to the rich.

His actions are bad enough. But what I have always found most viscerally sinister about the Cult of Trump is their imitation of Simon Magus, who (like all diabolists) tried to create reality by the power of his magical word. This is the essential thing about People of the Lie. They blasphemously attempt to assume the creative power of God Almighty and try to create reality by the power of the word with their lies. It is a demonic parody of the Triune God who actually does create by the Power of the Word. And it will end in catastrophe. All the more so because they use the name of Jesus to do it.

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this became known to all residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks; and fear fell upon them all; and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. (Acts 19:13-17)

The Christianist Cult of Trump is a diabolical parody of the gospel. Far more than harming the US is the harm it is inflicting on the Church and the judgment it is begging God to call down upon it. God is merciful and does not hear their repeated prayers for punishment. But the nature of sin is that it is its own punishment. Peter offered Simon Magus no punishment for his hunger for power and his perverted understanding of God’s gracious love. But to receive that mercy it is necessary to admit the sin, and there is precious little sign that the People of the Lie who adore Trump–especially the pride-filled Christianists–are anywhere near doing that. They are the Greatest Christians of All Time. What do they need to repent of?

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