Trump worship in America eclipses true discipleship and worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. You may not like that, you may disagree, but at this juncture in America’s history, as America is on a great decline and heading towards its demise — due to abandoning God and serving Satan and his lies, being seduced and deluded by the lies of the father of lies — only 4% of Americans possess a Biblical worldview. The overwhelming majority of those professing to be Christians are so in lip service at best. Not knowing what true discipleship and true Christianity are.

In Trump they trust. Not in God. Not in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not in the Holy Spirit. Not in the infallible inerrant whole living and active Word of God.

This is denied. But the proof is in actions. And words.

Idol worship, abandoning God, perverting the Word of God to suit the times, the heresies, the false teachers and their false teachings for all the itching ears, the strong delusion are all present and accounted for in eroding and rotting America.

And the rot is squarely within the professed church. Turning to unsound doctrines and abandoning the fath. Placing faith in a man, a nation, a manmade document over the God-breathed Word of God, rather than placing faith in God, in Jesus as Lord, in the Holy Spirit.

Blasphemy? Yes, blasphemy and beyond as the delusions increase by the day their god Trump is their savior.

Thus, revealing they have never truly been renewed of mind and spirit, truly transformed by the Supernatural power of God, and have been merely going through the motions and vainly imagining that shiny cross around their necks validates them in the sight of God.

A Tree and Its Fruit

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

I Never Knew You

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Build Your House on the Rock

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Matthew 7:15-27

Ken Pullen, A CROOKED PATH, Friday, April 7th, 2023

The Blasphemy of Comparing Trump to Jesus Christ

April 6, 2023

By Reverend Nathan Empsall

Reprinted from Time

Before and after Donald Trump’s historic indictment and arraignment, countless MAGA Republican provocateurs have been noting the Holy Week timing and blasphemously comparing Trump to Jesus.

“As Christ was crucified, and then rose again on the 3rd day, so too will Donald Trump,” tweeted one right-wing lawyer known for representing Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Other influencers making the comparison include Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, TPUSA Faith founder Charlie Kirk, and even Trump’s own attorney. Trump, himself, framed his arrest as an attack on Christians in an “emergency prayer call” on Tuesday, April 4, with televangelist and longtime aide Paula White-Cain, attorney Rudy Giuliani, and MAGA worship leader Sean Feucht.

Any comparison between Trump and Christ is clearly heretical and inappropriate. However, these extremist voices are right about one thing: There is, indeed, a parallel between Donald Trump’s arrest and Holy Week. But it’s not between Trump and Jesus—it’s between MAGA leaders and Pontius Pilate, the brutal Roman governor who ordered Christ’s crucifixion.

Not only would Jesus never pay anyone hush money to change the outcome of an election, he wasn’t even a politician. When the devil tempted Christ with earthly authority, he flatly refused to take it. Neither did Jesus support political violence the way Trump delights in playing Jan. 6 footage at his rallies. In fact, when the disciples drew weapons to prevent Jesus’s arrest, he told them, “All who take the sword will die by the sword.”

Pontius Pilate, on the other hand, was a regional Roman dictator known not only for his cruelty, but also for his alliance with local religious leaders. The high priests were eager to collude with the governor, including to crucify Jesus, because it allowed them to keep their status and personal freedom. In turn, Pilate benefited by having allies who could keep his subjects in line and thus keep him in power. It was a great deal for everyone—everyone but the people.

Two millennia later, a nearly identical bond has been forged between conservative American Christians and MAGA Republican politicians like Trump, Greene, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Under the blessing of conspiracy-theory preachers like Franklin Graham, Mike Huckabee, and Paula White-Cain, these politicians use and abuse religious imagery to create a culture where disagreeing with them is no longer seen as civic discourse, but as an act of blasphemy. To them, indicting a corrupt Republican politician like Trump isn’t an example of a healthy democracy, but a demonic attack on a holy figure anointed by God.

This is part of what academic scholars and Christian activists alike mean by the term “Christian nationalism:” The heretical merging of American and far-right Christian identities to proclaim that only conservative Christians count as “true Americans,” and that only right-wing Republicans can be considered true Christians. This is an authoritarian political ideology that seeks to rewrite colonial history, erase the separation of church and state, and declare America to be a theocratic “Christian nation” where only conservative Christians hold power and other communities lose their legal rights.

In such a system, supporting Trump’s indictment equals opposing God. One recent example of this melding of religion and “us-vs-them” political fascism was Trump’s March campaign rally in Waco, which was punctuated by a hymn-like treatment of the National Anthem sung by the so-called J6 Choir, blessings from Christian-nationalist pastor and court evangelical Robert Jeffress, and Trump’s own angry insistence that Christians are being persecuted by the FBI.

Co-opting religion for power isn’t just blasphemous; it’s also dangerous, repeatedly leading to real-world violence. The most obvious such moment is, of course, the use of religious language and symbols before and during the failed Jan. 6 insurrection. Last year, MAGA adherents—operating in the same echo chambers—again took aim at the FBI, IRS, and even the National Archives. Trump himself has all but called for people to take up arms in response to his indictment, repeatedly telling his supporters “They’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you.”

Unfortunately, leaders on Capitol Hill have been reluctant to call out Christian nationalism, all but omitting it from last year’s Jan. 6 committee report despite clear evidence that the insurrection was largely fueled by the dangerous political ideology. Perhaps the committee was afraid of being seen as anti-Christian—but the truth is that Christian nationalism’s biggest critics are in fact Christian leaders like Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and Lutheran Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, as well as Christian organizations like Faithful America, Red Letter Christians, Vote Common Good, Sojourners, and the aptly named Christians Against Christian Nationalism.

Similarly, far too many moderate, progressive, and apolitical pastors decline to acknowledge or speak out against the merger of MAGA and religion, whether it is because they misunderstand the separation of church and state, or because they are afraid of losing church members. But for all their attempts to stay out of the fray, these pastors are sending an unintended yet devastatingly dangerous message. When prominent far-right televangelists and pastors invoke Jesus’s name to support Trump’s authoritarianism or to oppose bringing him to justice—and when Donald Trump uses prayer calls to falsely tell Christians that the U.S. is under attack and he is our only defender—the silence from the rest of our complicit pulpits can lead Americans to believe the Church takes the same position. Silence is acceptance.

It is time to not just raise but sustain a loud prophetic voice. This Holy Week, let us take up our crosses and love our neighbors by standing up to those brutal strongmen who would destroy both democracy and the church in Jesus’ name.

Where Christian nationalism calls for violence, let Christians call for peace. Where QAnon quotes Jesus to platform misinformation, let us remind them Jesus said the truth shall set you free. When we are told that a Christo-fascist politician automatically becomes our savior if they’re coincidentally arrested during Holy Week, let us, instead, insist that equality and justice demand that no one is above the law. And where Trump bellows for anger and discrimination, let us work to love our neighbors, no exceptions.