Posted on 10/07/2016 1:16:15 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
When the election is Constantine vs. Diocletian, Christians don't get to stay home.
Should Christians get behind Donald Trump?
As I’ve demonstrated here, on every criterion of politics, it seems to me that electing Donald Trump is less dangerous to the preaching of the gospel, the safety of Christian institutions from colleges down to the family, and the lives of unborn children. We don’t have to believe the claim that he’s even a “baby Christian” to recognize that this is true. Winston Churchill wasn’t any kind of Christian, but he defended our institutions and our freedoms, and that was all we needed. It is all the church ever needs. Given our own failure to evangelize the culture, it may be more than we deserve.
But aren’t Christians all about asking God for exactly that — more than we deserve? If it sounds like I’m saying that the election of Donald Trump might be a moment of unmerited grace for the United States of America. … Yes, given the only live alternative, that is exactly what I mean.
I think that some Christian resistance to backing this candidate comes down to simple distaste — some of it justified. This is a man with multiple divorces, a flashy and hedonistic lifestyle, a penchant for juvenile insults — the list could go on and on. It can wear down the soul just to think about it, and that’s for a simple reason: It’s gossip. The sins of other people aren’t meant to be fodder for our spiritual reflection, though the devil tells us otherwise. The flaws that matter in a political leader are those that connect to his likely performance in office, compared to the real-world alternatives. When we say we prefer the hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, racist agnostic Winston Churchill, we mean compared to Adolf Hitler. It’s nonsense to line up every leader next to Jesus or even our ideal politician. I promise you, they will all fall far short.
Besides, there’s a long history of Christians humbly setting aside their craving for a fully admirable leader, in recognition of a stark reality: In a fallen world, we are subject to violence. Those we are called to protect, from our own children to those in the wombs of desperate strangers, demand that we find a way to defend them. If we look at the sword which God has left in our path, and sniff that it isn’t shiny enough or might be caked with mud, and leave the innocents to suffer — make no mistake, we will answer for it.
Do Not Put God to the Test
The early Church is a good guide for this. For centuries, Christians had suffered hideously — being hunted like animals by the Roman secret police, then rounded up and killed in gruesome ways in the Colosseum as public entertainment. Many thousands were skinned alive, hanged, burned, or torn apart by animals, to the cheers and jeers of the crowd. Many more renounced their faith to save their lives, then eked out stolen decades haunted by guilt — to face an uncertain fate on the day of judgment. We might like to pretend that we would act like heroes or martyrs, but most people don’t. It’s our job to avoid and help others avoid occasions of sin, such as this one. Jesus himself warned us not to put the Lord our God to the test.
As Philip Jenkins documented in his powerful, tragic The Lost History of Christianity, by the year 1000 the majority of Christians on earth lived in the Middle East and Asia. Yet within 200 years those churches had virtually disappeared, ground down by persecution. All that’s left of most of them are a few scattered ruins in deserts, and scraps of bibles found in the lavatories of mosques.
It can happen here. Hillary Clinton and the worldview she represents have promised to make it happen here. What else can you make of her speech to the United Nations, where she said that for women to enjoy their fundamental rights, guaranteed by the government, Christian beliefs on abortion would have to change?
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Is that any different from Diocletian decreeing that we must worship the emperor? Obama’s number two lawyer already told the Supreme Court that churches which don’t perform same-sex marriages will have to face crippling taxes. We can’t say we haven’t been warned.
Constantine
When the pagan warlord Constantine came to power in 312, he rallied support from Christians by revoking their persecution. For the first time in hundreds of years, the church could operate in the open. Constantine himself remained religiously ambiguous, only accepting baptism on his deathbed — once he’d already committed the many sins he thought he would need to, to keep his throne. He saw one of his sons, Crispus, as a political rival and had him cruelly executed. He did not move to create an ideal Christian society; slavery remained perfectly legal. So did the exposure of unwanted infants. Constantine let passersby who rescued such infants claim them and sell them as slaves. The poor were taxed cruelly, and the sons of army veterans were forcibly conscripted as soldiers themselves.
Perfectionist Christians, who demanded the kingdom of heaven on earth, or felt a profound distaste for this ruthless autocrat, might have held themselves aloof and refused to work with Constantine — as one sect, the Donatists did. They scorned the prayers of “imperfect” Christians, and removed themselves to live in “pure” communities. But the vast majority of Christians, including the hundreds of bishops who had remained faithful under persecution, looked instead to Constantine with gratitude as a gift from a loving God. The early Christian poet Lactantius wrote this hymn of praise:
We should now give thanks to the Lord, Who has gathered together the flock that was devastated by ravening wolves, Who has exterminated the wild beasts which drove it from the pasture. Where is now the swarming multitude of our enemies, where the hangmen of Diocletian and Maximian? God has swept them from the earth; let us therefore celebrate His triumph with joy; let us observe the victory of the Lord with songs of praise, and honor Him with prayer day and night. …
Constantine’s Council Gave Us the Creed
The bishops were more than grateful. They were downright cooperative, allowing Constantine to summon a church council to resolve controversies over the divinity of Christ. He paid for the bishops’ travel and gave the keynote speech at the council’s opening — then used the force of law to enact its decisions. It was this council, held in Nicaea, that gave us the formula still recited by well over a billion Christians: the Nicene Creed.
Since the church is the means of salvation, its first duty, after faithfulness, is self-preservation. I cannot think of a less loving or less Christian thing to do than to willfully raise the risk of a persecution that might lead souls to hell. If we do that out of distaste, to keep our hands “clean,” or to keep up the federal funding for our favorite government program, we are failing as Christians. I for one don’t wish to hear on the Last Day these words: “I was persecuted, since you did not protect me.”
I don’t think there is any doubt that Hillary’s justices will declare open war on Christianity.
Look for mainstream Christians to be jailed (or worse) for their hate speech.
I believe all of this has been prophesied for the last day, but that doesn’t make me any happier to see it coming to fruition.
Only the persecuted allow themselves to be persecuted.
May be inviting persecution?
I think you can count on it.
And yet there are people who will pray for persecution so that the world will “know who the real Christians are”.
I think that would be the beginning of another revolution....
Well we Jews were the first.
Great article.
A very traditional priest friend of ours made much the same case.
The author needs to read the bible. Jesus said he that tries to save his life will lose it. Christ said he will build His church and that the gates of Hell won't prevail. it's not our job to work for self-preservation. Our job is to believe on the name of Jesus, preach the gospel and to love one another. And that love may lead to persecution and death.
Persecution is coming to the USA regardless of the next election.
Given that the alternative is a criminal, a traitor, an accessory to rape, etc., Trump looks pretty good.
This kind of doctrine has led to an institutionalist view of Christianity. Whatever else you do, preserve the institution.
The biblical view is to make hay while the sun shines, because sunny weather will not be continuous — and yet there is always a guarantee that it will be sufficient because Jesus, by virtue of keeping His promise, won’t permit the church to go extinct.
If an Age of Trump comes, Christendom would be exceeding wise to use this also as an age of evangelism, rather than as an age of lolling back and relaxing.
But there is no such thing as “duty after faithfulness.” Faithfulness is IT.
It’s still our duty to protect, as we can, our fellow Christians.
We may not be of the world, but we are in it. God doesn’t like suicide, either, and failing to do our best to get the best man in is the equivalent.
I know at least one professed and sincere atheist who, of course, doesn’t believe there is any God but who also believes that a necessity for a free and prosperous nation is a general belief in, not just some deity, but the God of the Bible. He says he would not discourage belief except in his own children and wouldn’t be a fanatic with his kids.
I think that furnishing refuge for them should be a paramount consideration in all of Christendom with its various parts.
That would be one reason why we would want a sane America that doesn’t footsie with terrorists.
But there have been no “territory promises” made to Christians. If a territory becomes inhospitable, and staying there makes no sense from an evangelistic point of view, then I’d take that as a sign from God “Move on, My sons and daughters. That may actually make My judgment on the area easier to carry out.”
As I have said in the past, if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency the only comfort that I have is that when she starts rounding up people and sending them to concentration camps many of the people that voted for her as well as members of the Ministry of Propaganda will be included in the groups that are sent to concentration camps. She has proven that people that are close to her are not immune.
Sounds like a conflicted soul; I pray of course the Lord has mercy upon him and removes any cause of doubt before he leaves the world.
But I’ve also seen atheists and agnostics confess that Christianity makes sense for the well being of a society.
Your and my comfort in all cases should be in the Lord.
My gut spiritual sense — and I’ve been mistaken sometimes — is that Trump does have the divine wind at his back at this point. Too many things are going right, even though we may be hard pressed to explain it. Hillary is the standard shuck, jive, and lies. It is not Hillary or Trump who is being put to the test here; it is America.
But I hope neither I nor anybody else in Christendom would make the mistake of imputing the credit to Trump rather than to that divine wind. Trump, if he wins, will be how God will have helped us at this juncture.
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