Donald Trump, born again Christian?

So, apparently Donald Trump has accepted Christ.

That is the report of James Dobson, coincidentally one of the evangelical leaders whose support Trump has been courting as the Republican Party heads into its convention. Trump is decidedly toxic, with the result that many prominent Republicans are keeping their distance, even as they pledge to support him as the presumptive nominee.

Of course, as a Christian, Trump would be able to lay claim to God's forgiveness, which he famously has said he has never needed; and then Christian voters throughout America would be obliged to support him too. The alternative is Hillary Clinton.

As my younger brother would say, "That's nice, Gary."

Trump is racist, mysoginistic, xenophobic and a liar; and he preys on the worst and basest impulses in people. As such he is unfit for city councilman, let alone the White House. Religious beliefs (real or feigned) are irrelevant to a candidate's worthiness of public office. His lack of moral character makes him the worst candidate from a major party in at least a century.

As to the claim that he's suddenly become a Christian, I call political opportunism. Want me to take claims of a recent conversion seriously? Claims of conversion don't mean a thing without a changed life. Urge him to drop his vainglorious pursuit of the presidency and to show fruit in keeping with repentance. He might start with the command of Christ to "Sell everything you have and give it to the poor, so you will have treasure in heaven. Then, come and follow me."

Trump should never hold office, but at least that way he'll have done something meaningful with both his life and his money.

If Trump comes off like someone deliberately exploiting religion for votes, the ones who comes off truly terrible are James Dobson and Jerry Falwell Jr., who are attempting to spread their legitimacy in the evangelical world over Trump. Dobson, who founded Focus on the Family as part of his effort to spread his gospel of how to raise children, has had waning influence in the evangelical world despite retiring from that particular ministry several years ago.

But if we must be honest, this is not terribly surprising. Dobson is someone who loves power and has a naked hunger for influence. That's been evident since he leveraged the audience of his show to get a seat on the Meese Commission on Pornography, but it has been especially evident since the heyday of Focus on the Family during the Bush administration, when he was threatening to put senators whose votes he disagreed with "in the hot seat."

Falwell's father was much the same way, and though I know precious little about Falwell Jr., it looks like the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

I doubt very much that the two men are making up a born-again story for Trump. My best guess is that they want it to be true, since that would appear to grant legitimacy to supporting Trump's White House ambitions and to telling rank-and-file evangelicals to support them as well.

What this tells me is that these two men, and other evangelicals who are "advising" Trump, are willing to accept a man who represents the opposite of Christ's teachings if they believes it will give them the potential for influence. To Dobson, Falwell, Michelle Bachman and their fellows, bigotry, xenophobia, philandering and self-aggrandizement are all preferable to having a liberal in the White House, at least when you give them a Christian gloss.

It is heartbreaking how far they have fallen.


Copyright © 2016 by David Learn. Used with permission.