We’re in the first weeks of Lent, the 40 days in which Christians are called to rededicate themselves to virtue — and the Trump administration seems to be having a good time making their war with Iran seem like a group of twelve people playing a game of “Call of Duty.”
When Jesus calls believers to live as gently as possible, the White House keeps releasing social media posts mixing images of US forces bombing the Iranian regime with everything from SpongeBob SquarePants to Iron Man to “Grand Theft Auto.” Although Proverbs warned that “everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to Jehovah,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth – who likes to flash his ugly tattoos that refer to the Crusades – gives speeches focused on the glories of this war that make him sound bloodier than Count Dracula.
Even though Christ commanded that people not pray out loud in public like “hypocrites,” President Trump happily allowed a group of clergy to lay hands on him in the Oval Office this week as the one God “continues to give our President the strength he needs to lead our nation as we return to one nation under God.”
Which God: Jehovah or Trump?
During last month’s National Prayer Breakfast, the president boasted that because of him, “religion is back now hotter than ever.” Perhaps the most non-Christian man to ever serve as chief administrator has been wrapping himself in the mantle of Jesus – and far too many Christians have ignored the repeated warnings of the Good Book about false prophets and cheered him on.
Flannery O’Connor could write an entire novel about Christian hucksters from Year One of the second coming of the Trump administration.
As the war with Iran continues unabated, this devotion to Trump turns to idolatry.
Pastor Greg Laurie – best known for holding the Harvest Crusade revival in Southern California a generation ago – wrote online that Trump’s Iran campaign is “cause for us to sit up and pay attention” because he feels it is in line with End Times prophecy about the Middle East preparing for war just before the Second Coming. The non-profit organization Military Religious Freedom Foundation revealed that it has received hundreds of complaints from soldiers about their commanders claiming that what is happening is biblically justified.
Meanwhile, the US Deputy for South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, told the media that what is happening is a “religious war” that will “pave the way for the Middle East for a thousand years” – the exact time the Book of Revelation said Christ will reign until Satan returns. Some of Trump’s supporters have even compared their savior to Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who freed the Israelites from the Babylonian yoke and whom the Book of Isaiah called God’s “anointed one” and who would ‘conquer the nations before him and take away the kings’ weapons.
The Bible is not everything. But from the Old Testament to the New, it consistently preaches for the faithful to humble themselves and help the poor and oppressed. Trump’s version of Christianity instead does not preach mercy to those who oppose him, it wants followers to exalt him above all else, it celebrates the wise instead of God.
This Lent increases his rebelliousness like never before.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine spoke at a press conference at the Pentagon on Wednesday in Washington.
(Konstantin Toropin / Associated Press)
It is a time of extreme fasting; Trump continues to push for a White House renovation that will make the Palace of Versailles look as shiny as a mud house. Those of us who observe Lent are asked to repent of our sins; Trump doubles down on them like they’re McDonald’s fries. We should think about our mistakes and ask for forgiveness from the Almighty and those we have wronged – has Trump ever done that?
We should also practice giving and helping those who are poorer than us as a way of honoring Christ, who revealed that giving is the only way to give. Trump has been crying that he is finally looking for a common man – but instead of helping the millions of people that his economy had already left behind before the Iran campaign, he is dismissing their plight and asking the American people to participate and climate prices and just believe in him.
Or is that Him?
Conservative Christian leaders have always been on the wrong side of American history, from slavery to imperialism, Jim Crow to women’s rights. That’s why it’s not surprising – but still disappointing – that a Pew Research Center poll released earlier this year found 69% of white evangelicals think Trump has done a good job. Fifty-two percent of white Catholics feel the same way, compared to only 23% of Latino Catholics, even though Pope Leo XIV is a frequent critic of American foreign and domestic policy.
Lent is also a time when Christians remember that the pain of Christ’s death leads to the hope that is Easter. That is why this Lent, may Christians turn to Trump in a way that has never happened before.
War has always been a time of propaganda, of demonizing the enemy and promoting your side. It’s a sad, sad story, with death and murder and endless mourning. Children die. War is not something to be celebrated, even if it is necessary. And there is a big if it is close to the latter, even if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei deserved his fall and Iranians in their own country and in other countries have duly celebrated.
But history’s greatest heroes know – to quote the conclusion of the Oscar-winning biopic “Patton” – that glory is fleeting. Trump, Hegseth and others don’t. They are the men the Psalms ask God to deliver us from, the warmongers who “think evil in their hearts” and “go on” seeking violence. Seeing how this administration and their supporters are doing now reminds me of what Johnny Cash once sang: soon, God will bring you down.
Let’s just hope we all survive if that happens. Please, if you pray. (And not for Trump).
