If a person actively denies having had any interest in the most basic tenet of Christianity, is it really "judging" to take them at their word?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDbOHvfdiE
I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.
Trump's words were not a "denial of any interest" -- his words simply revealed that his understanding is imperfect and still based on the outward attempt to obtain grace by works -- which, you have to admit, is a common misunderstanding among many who claim to be Christian.
Should Trump be nominated or elected, God will still be in charge. the Bible is clear that God uses "kings"-- chief national administrators -- and anoints them for His purposes (Rom 13). From ancient times, God's requirement for national chieftains is that they administer justice equitably to the poor as well as those better off (Prov 16:12; 20:28; 29:4; 29:14).
Christians are under instruction to appoint righteous ministers in our churches; and while Christians' obedience to goverment authority is mandated in Romans, the Bible does not specify "only if the authorities are Christian." Our Constitution does not require a certification of Christian salvation to be eligible for the Presidency.
The Bible gives us many examples of "kings" whose actions were morally imperfect, but whose reigns were still useful to God's purposes for His people. King David, for instance, killed his love rival so he could take the rival's wife, Bathsheba (2 Sam 11, 12). Yet by the time David was on his deathbed, with his several wives jockeying to try to make their sons the next king, he prayed to God, thanking Him for having given him the strength to kill and humiliate his opponents and to behead his enemies (2 Sam 22:38-43) in order to establish the kingdom of Israel, and he claimed in verses 21-25 to have always been righteous and to have kept the law of the Lord; therefore he was deserving of the Lord's favor. So there is a conflict of fact there -- did he always keep the law of the Lord, since adultery had been established as a sin from the time of Moses? And this view that "works" can bring about his salvation is a pre-Christian understanding at best; but it is also a demonstration of the mind of a king who needed to depend on the Lord's favor mentally in order to do the things he was called to do by the Lord -- establish the kingdom in earthly terms, through bloody battle, as well as lay a foundation for it spiritually.
David had, however, repented as Christians would later be instructed to do in order to achieve salvation, although he needed to be called out by Nathan before he did so (2 Sam 12:13). Centuries later, after Christ's ministry and ascension, the ancient King David was praised: "God testified concerning him: 'I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do' " (Acts 13:22); and we still read David's book of Psalms today. Although an imperfect human who sinned and may have understood salvation imperfectly, David received the Lord's favor because God used David's individual gifts and strengths.
In the many books of the Bible describing the exile of the Jewish people into Babylon, we find the stories of Cyrus and Darius, pagan kings of Persia, who were used by God to benefit His chosen people. Cyrus restored the Jews to Jerusalem, ending their exile in Bablylonia and sending with them the treasures that had been looted from the Temple of Solomon by his predecessor Nebuchadnezzar (Ezra 1:1-11). Cyrus was prompted by God, who "stirred up his spirit" -- yet, he was a pagan. But through his actions, and those of a subsequent pagan king Darius, who kept opponents of the Jews from frustrating their efforts to rebuld the Temple (Ezra 4) -- we are Christians today.
You might also note that Ezra didn't even read his own mail -- it was read to him (Ez 4:18). But he was the anointed one through whom God worked to restore Israel.
Now, in case you are saying to yourself right now that I'm comparing Trump to Biblical kings, I'm not. But I am pointing out the mystery, once again, that God works in mysterious ways to bring about His purposes. The Bible gives us examples to consider how He works. God alone is worthy of worship.
As regards the state of Trump's salvation: speaking for myself, true surrender to the Word also came later in my life, even though I considered myself Christian since birth and behaved as I believed the Bible instructed me to in relation to the world. It was the inward surrender that was missing. Yet I was able to accomplish good for others even though my heart was still not ready for complete surrender; that was a painful process so devastating that it sapped my energy for years when it came. God saw me through His earlier purposes for me and broke me when it suited Him, and when my physical strength and will would be less needed by the famlly for which I was responsible. Can the same not be true for someone like Trump, whose skills are needed for the nation now? Already, his clear denunciations of govenment corruption and media/governmental waffling about immigration, political correctness and the dangers of jihadist infiltration have crystallized those dangers to our nation and brought about changes as no one else has been able to do just prior.
Can a president who must order and take responsibility for armies, knowing that many will be killed or maimed, many in error, live his life as a monk in constant adherence to the letter of the spiritual law? It is not even possible in a civil society in which "strangers" (non-Christians) also have the same civil rights ("Rain falls on the just and the unjust" - Matt 5:45). Because if he did follow all laws to the letter, he would have to do everything in the Name of God rather than Caesar, proclaiming Jesus, which would bring down a rain of legal opposiiton from the organized satanic forces already well installed in our laws.
That freedom of Proclamation that our Founders enjoyed does not exist today and has been under decades of legal attack by atheists, communists, cultural jihadists, other religionists and now, Chrisitan apostates. The next president must step into the situation as it is, not as we wish it to be, and work within or in contention with that corrupted system to move jurisprudence back towards protection of the civil rights of Christians, which today are the only majority religious rights under attack, while muslims, atheists and homosexualists are enjoying special privileges and protections. Unless you want him to be a dictator ruling by executive order as Obama has, the next president will have to amass a majority of voter opinion, legislators and legal authorities around the impetus to restore balanced rights. Trump is well suited, I claim best suited, to achieve a broad dialog and incremental change, even if he only views it as "deal-making" -- and perhaps because he might only speak of it that way.
Most Christians quite naturally gravitate to the one who openly proclaims the interests of Christians, such as Senator Cruz. But consider that in taking that stand as the Christian's legal champion, he is also implicitly promising that in his administration, non-Christians will be legally coerced to follow Christian standards of morality. Yet this is just what the powers and principalities will fight against most fiercely, defying any direct call for what they view as frightening opposition to their carnal desires.
In contrast, a man like Trump who may not express open surrender to Christ, but rather a mere secularized interest in playing "the religion piece" on the chessboard for the sake of a more just society -- such an agent may be more useful to God in moving this sinful nation back around gradually to receive its Awakening. Christians cannot hope to impose their morality simply by passing a lot of laws and using the power of the state to enforce them. That is the direct approach many desire and believe could be taken by Cruz; and it's both a set-up for disappointment, it courts the outbreak of bloody civil protests, as beneficiaries of the recent past's Sexual Revolution defend their now-fortified institutions of promiscuity, abortion, cohabitation, adultery, "no-fault" divorce, homosexual and transsexual normalization, artificial or third-party fertilization and gestational surrogacy. That's a lot of people with entrenched lifestyles currently protected by law to go up against. Trump just doesn't look as threatening to them. As such, he may be able to accomplish more, with less opposition.
Neither Cruz nor any American president in this coming four years will be able to set aside the calamitous mass of laws since World War II that have deinstitutionalized Christianity and erected secular atheism in its place: laws from the level of Supreme Court decisions all the way throughout hundreds of thousands of state, local and community ordinances and Federal regulations that now protect unChristian ways of life as described above. The sheer volume of anti-Christian law now on the books will require a shrewd strategist and tactician who can deliver, at best, some demonstration cases and, more importantly, a blueprint for the eventual deep restoration of equity towards Christians, defense of the history of Christianity in American culture and a long-range plan of corrective legal action. That kind of thinking is more in line with the redeveloper experience of Mr. Trump. The electorate would not expect Trump to prioritize the whole restoration of Christian society from the get-go as Cruz supporters seem to think Cruz should -- as if, given the above constraints, he could. God might choose the slower, less obvious use of Trump's experience in strategy, problem-solving and planning, disguised somewhat by Trump's non-orthodox expressions of belief. This appearance of not being a gung-ho Christian may work in God's favor to make a Trump administration more acceptable to a wider range of citizens, many of whom are not strong in Christian faith, and also give Trump cover from the fiercest direct attacks regarding Christian restoration.
The more cynical among us will believe Trump is every bit as hypocritical about Christianity as Obama, who claims the Name but defies His Word now quite openly. Yet Trump has no muslim parent, foreign childhood among muslims, nor caliphate-sympathizing aspirations up his sleeve, as Obama did. If Trump should disappoint in this area by delivering only a blueprint instead of a finished Tower of Christian Restoration, it will still move us farther ahead than we are now, starting with his vow to turn back the planned insurgency of muslim "refugees" into the U.S. --Trump was the first candidate and consistently the most adamant about walling off the invasion by illegals and turning away any potential jihadist Trojan Horse.
In closing, here are two videos that you may find the time to watch. The first is the introduction of Trump by Reverend Jerry Falwell Jr, explaining to the students of Liberty University of which Falwellhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rksd80-FCAw is president, his view that voting for an avowed Christian has not always resulted in the best outcome:
Rev Jerry Falwell Jr introduces Donald Trump
The second is Donald Trump testifying before the U.S. Congress in 1991, giving his reasons why the banking laws of the day were depressing the economy, denying jobs and affordable housing to people, including low-income housing. It is long, but it gives a clear view of a man who, 25 years ago, was already thinking both broadly and specifically not just about law as it would benefit him, but about the people it would affect and what would be most fair for the most people: