TRUMP...our CYRUS?
It’s kinda remarkable that an ancient Persian King (600-530 BC) would become a household name in the western evangelical church! This has happened through adopting the CYRUS narrative as a means of sanitizing an unholy relationship between TRUMP and the church. In other words, the Christian church can justify its co-dependant relationship with the most boastfully un-Christ-like President the US has ever known. TRUMP’s recent inauguration was a sad testament to this unseemly and, I would say, damaging relationship. So, who was CYRUS?
CYRUS was the founder of one of the greatest Near Eastern empires that would eventually overtake Babylon, the nation that God used to judge disobedient Judea. The Babylonian King, Nebuchadnezzar, after much prophetic warnings given to Israel, conquered Jerusalem, hub of Judea, the southern kingdom in 586 BC. The Babylonians took the brightest and best Hebrews back to Babylon to serve Nebuchanezzar. In this way, Nebuchadnezzar, was considered God’s instrument of judgement for Israel’s idolatry, unfaithfulness and disobedience. Some of these brightest and best we used to sing songs about in Sunday School-Daniel, Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. After 70 years of Israeli captivity in Babylon, CYRUS conquered Babylon and was used by God to return the exiles to Judea for a fresh start. This is why CYRUS is considered a pagan king used to serve the purposes of God by delivering God’s people from captivity.
MAGA Christians have sanitized TRUMP’s arrogant and unrepentant sinfulness by portraying him as a modern-day CYRUS, or deliverer. WOW! What incredible moral contortionists they have bodly become! There is so much distortion in this view.
According to the majority of evangelical Americans (MAGA Christians) TRUMP is being used to restore the US to its special status as a Christian nation, a nation God will continue to use to save the world. Truth be told, this is a fiction. It ignores the fact that the US Constitution clearly separates church and state so that the government is never meant to be directed by the church’s agenda. Secondly, throughout the short history of the American experiment in democracy, there are millions of its inhabitants who would take issue with its characterization as a nation whose ethos is righteous. Ask the indigenous, African-Americans, Japanese and let’s be honest, most immigrants, women, gay-lesbian-trans, and undocumented workers if they have been the subject of the grace of God while on American soil. This is not to mention the peoples of the world who have been used to further the interests of the United States. I’m sorry, but it is ridiculous to suggest that America is a Christians nation-a nation that is committed to furthering the Kingdom of God on earth.
MAGA Christians don’t seem to understand the break down in the logic of this TRUMP as CYRUS comparison. They would never, for instance, accept that their exile is a result of God’s judgement as it was for the Israelites. Rather, they would claim that their exile is a result of unjustly being overtaken by the woke, progressive agenda of the liberal elites. Their return is not a humble exercise in contrition like it was for Israel, but rather a triumphant act of vindication.
I would think that MAGA Christians are better served by the idea that TRUMP is their Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar, like TRUMP, was a raging narcissist who demanded absolute fealty. This is perhaps most clearly demonstrated by his building of a golden idol. We read in Daniel 3:
1King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its breadth six cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. 2Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. 3Then the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. 4And the herald proclaimed aloud, "You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, 5that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. 6And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace." 7Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.
Although MAGA Christians would never admit to idolizing TRUMP, their devotion, trust, adulation and fealty would seem to come awfully close. Of course, they would contend that the ends justify the means. If TRUMP will be used of God to make the US Christian again, then accepting the rest of TRUMP’s vindictive agenda is justified.
It is the ends to which I would like to now turn. What are the ends that MAGA Christians suggest warrant kissing TRUMP’s ring? One would think that as evangelicals, they are committed to God’s Great Commission found in Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus said to His disciples…
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
What seems to be their objective, or chief end, however, is making a nation that is governed by Christian values and principles and for good measure is powerful and prosperous...the rest of the world be damned!
I don’t think these are the same things. Jesus taught largely about the Kingdom of God. As He explained to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:36) As followers of Christ our loyalty is to Christ’s Kingdom, not America.
We all know that MAGA Christians’ strategy is to legislate Christianity by packing all three branches of government with MAGA-sympathetic leaders.
When I look to scripture, I see a very different strategy to building the Kingdom of God and it starts with humility. Our most effective means of not Making America Great Again, but building the Kingdom of God is humble servanthood.
What a great segway for a return to Nebuchadnezzar!
There’s this sentiment out there that MAGA Christians are having an effect on the faith journey of TRUMP. I guess, the idea is that the carnage they are doing to the reputation of the faith is worth saving TRUMP’s soul. If you think this way, perhaps consider Nebuchadnezzar. It is not absolutely clear from scripture how long-lasting the effect of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego resistance was but their absolute refusal to “kiss his ring” resulted in a conversion of sorts. We read in Daniel 4:37, “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.”
If the MAGA Christians really want to convert TRUMP, I might suggest, righteous resistance might be a more effective strategy to getting into bed with him.