A Train Wreck!

Dear brothers and sisters, I appeal to you to jump off the Train of Trump before its inevitable crash!

Whatever it was that motivated you to board it to begin with––the visual of another Clinton in the White House, a swamp draining, or a funny red hat––it’s time to de-board. It’s time to quit running interference for this runaway train. Those who stayed for too long on the Nixon Train regretted it later.

I beg you, much sooner than later, to stop defending our president lest you find yourself––switching back to the earlier metaphor––crashing along with him.*

“Another horn sprouted up, a little horn… There were human eyes in this little horn, and a big mouth speaking arrogantly.” Daniel 7:8**

“Normal people,” says David Brooks, “have moral sentiments. Normal people are repulsed when the president of their own nation lies, cheats, practices bigotry, and allegedly pays off porn star mistresses.” To Brooks’ Readers Digest list of Donald Trump’s depravities I might add his coldhearted jailing of children in cages at the border, his incessant childish Twitter spasms, his ridiculous and unsupportable claims to be smarter than everyone else in the room. Not to mention his praise of murderous autocrats and notorious bigots, and denying real crises (like climate change) and fabricating unreal ones (like criminals and drugs pouring over our porous border). I could go on and on. The charges just keep piling up.

“They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.” Jeremiah 6:14

This wound is serious, my brothers and sisters.

In order to stay on a train driven by a morally defective engineer one has to all but remove the chip that God installed at birth, aka a “conscience,” telling themselves it’s enough that Mr. Trump gives them conservative judges, pretends to care about the unborn, and talks about religious liberty (as though he has any religion of his own).

I suspect––no, I know––that Jesus followers are already perceived as “abnormal.” So please, please, my dear Christian friend, get off this train lest your perceived abnormality becomes irreparable hypocrisy and you further denigrate the testimony that the rest of us are scampering to rebuild (Romans 2:24).

“Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.” Jeremiah 6:15

Moral corrosion like molten lava incinerates and overruns everything in its path. No one is morally dexterous enough to turn off his or her conscience at the office and turn it back on at home. “Supporting Trump requires daily acts of moral distancing,” says Brooks, “a process that means that after a few months you are tolerant of any corruption. You are morally numb to everything.” That’s my fear for the Church, that we’re rapidly becoming “morally numb.”

The otherwise cagey bigamist eventually gets caught when he confuses which of his wives’ birthday lands in November. Things catch up to you eventually, and Mr. Trump’s train is careening toward an abyss.

Everyone who can read can also read the signs along the tracks alerting us that the trestle around the corner is out. My friends, get off the train that is heading for an inescapable crash. It may be today, tomorrow, or the next day, but this locomotive is going down, taking its riders with it. Don’t hold on till the bitter end and continue undermining the testimony of the Body of Christ.

As frightening as it is to disembark while the train is running, waiting for it to explode at the end of the line is far worse.

“Repent” means to change your mind in such a way as to change your actions. Please begin changing your mind and remove your support of Donald Trump today.***

“The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” 1 John 2:17

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*No, I’m NOT implying you’ll go to hell if you support or defend Donald Trump––though I’m not in a position to make any guarantees. I AM implying, on the other hand, that choosing to stick with him you risk severe damage to your conscience, a ton of embarrassment when he is finally exposed, and worst of all, having to turn in your MAGA hat for one that reads: “We Made America Worse After All!” 

**No, I’m NOT saying Donald Trump is THE Antichrist. But as John said: “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.” 1 John 2:18

***While I have no recommendations for alternative trains at this time, I beg you to at least get off this one! Read the signs, consult your biblically informed conscience, and ask the Spirit for courage to take the leap. We can do better than this. We’ll have to work to get it, but we can do better!