Donald Trump addressed Liberty University, calling on Christians to “band together” and promising that “we’re going to protect Christianity.”
He also cited his favorite Bible verse: “Two Corinthians, 3:17, that’s the whole ballgame … is that the one you like?” (“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”)
Liberty’s president, Jerry Falwell, Jr., said that Trump walks in Christ’s footstep. “Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others, as Jesus taught in the New Testament,” Falwell said.
Meanwhile, in an interview last Sunday (excerpted after the jump), Trump doubled down on his earlier statement that he hasn’t asked God for forgiveness because he hasn’t done anything wrong. He did, though, say that he has “a great relationship with God.”
I can see Christians voting for a non-Christian who promises to protect them. I suppose the Children of Israel would have voted for Cyrus over Nebuchadnezzar. Then again, do we need an earthly ruler to “protect Christianity”? Isn’t that a violation of Psalm 146 (among other texts)?:
Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish. (Psalm 146:3-4)
At any rate, does it make sense for an “evangelical” to present someone who, by his own admission, feels no need of the gospel and so lacks faith by nevertheless presenting him as a Christian because of his alleged good works? Or is Trump’s claim, using evangelical language, to have a “great relationship with God” enough, despite his indifference to the gospel?
Don’t get me wrong: Christians can certainly support whoever they want for secular reasons. Doesn’t this show how ridiculous it can get to mingle religion and politics?
From Ben Schreckinger, Trump calls for Christian unity at Liberty U. – POLITICO:
Saying other religions are doing the same, Donald Trump called on Christians to “band together” and “unify” at an address to Liberty University students on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Trump delivered the Christian nationalist message as he continues to court evangelicals, a crucial Republican bloc, especially in Iowa, where he and Ted Cruz are neck-and-neck in polls ahead of the Feb. 1 caucuses.
“Christianity, it’s under siege,” said Trump, who at one point bungled a scriptural citation. “We don’t band together. Other religions, frankly, they’re banding together … we have to unify.”
He called Liberty, an evangelical university founded by the late Jerry Falwell in 1971, a model for the nation. “You’ve banded together. You’ve created one of the great universities,” he said. “Our country has to do that around Christianity, so get together, folks.”
Jerry Falwell Jr., the university’s current president, said he was not endorsing the businessman, but he came just shy of doing so, describing Trump in his introductory remarks Monday as the only presidential candidate who “cannot be bought.”
“He is not a puppet on a string like many other candidates who have wealthy donors as their puppet masters,” said Falwell, echoing Trump’s latest line of attack against Cruz. “The American public is finally ready to elect a candidate who is not a career politician.”
Falwell said Trump and his adviser Michael Cohen have cultivated a friendship with him since the businessman came to speak here in 2012. At the time of that address, Trump’s advice to students to “get even” with opponents was criticized by some evangelicals as un-Christlike.
But Falwell assured students that the mogul does in fact walk in Christ’s footsteps. He enumerated good works he said Trump has performed and that the media would not want to reveal: saving a basketball tournament in Harlem, paying off the mortgage of a couple who helped him with car troubles, aiding businesses affected by the outsourcing of a Maytag plant.
“Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others, as Jesus taught in the New Testament,” Falwell said.
Nodding to the setting, Trump led off with talk of Christianity and discussion of Middle Eastern geopolitics. “We’re going to protect Christianity,” he said, noting that the Islamic State has been beheading Christians.
[Keep reading. . .]
Maxwell Tani, Trump on God:
After months of reflection, Donald Trump says he still doesn’t regret his decision not to ask God for forgiveness for his sins.
In an interview on Sunday with CNN, the Republican presidential frontrunner said that he does not regret never asking God for forgiveness, partially because he says he doesn’t have much to apologize for.
“I have great relationship with God. I have great relationship with the Evangelicals,” Trump said in the interview before pivoting to his poll numbers among Evangelical voters.
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