Trump and Christ: Should Christians Fear Trump?

Many Evangelical voters in the United States believe that Donald Trump is a kind of messiah. This is at least somewhat insofar as Trump’s life story is anything but saintly.

After all, viewed in a biblical context, he cheats, lies, steals and covets his neighbor’s wife. He is vain, venal and vengeful.

In short, there are very few of the Ten Commandments Donald Trump has not yet violated.

Trump as King David?

Even so, Trump’s Christian supporters argue that he is very much like a modern-day King David – sinful, yes, but he is being used by the Lord for His purposes. All his sins are therefore redeemed by his service to the Christian cause.

Trump is aware of this unquestioning support. He has said, famously, that he can even shoot someone in plain daylight and not lose any voters. He deliberately positions himself as a defender of Christians.

The Chosen One, really?

Trump’s Christian supporters even claim that God “saved” him from an assassination, deflecting a shooter’s bullet. They see his survival as ultimate proof that he is the Chosen One.

But what if a very different Christian symbolism is in play here? One that is a much closer fit to the actual story?

The “Je suit Trump” moment

Indeed, Trump’s right ear was cut in the assassination attempt, so that he had to wear a white bandage for several days afterwards.

Some Republicans highlighted this by sporting white ear patches on the floor of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in imitation of their leader. It was a kind of “Je suit Trump” moment.

Remember this? St. Peter – and a right ear cut off

So far so good. But this harks back to the story from the Scriptures. As reported by all four of the Evangelists, St. Peter used his sword to cut off the right ear of one of them, Malchus, the servant of High Priest Caiaphas.

And that guy Malchus was no King David. On the contrary, he was in the party of men who had come to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

What does this say about Trump then?

For Christians, Jesus embodies the ultimate freedom — the freedom from death. And Peter’s life story has a lot to do with freedom. While Jesus is the Son of God, Peter is the ultimate human who is subject to all human faults and weaknesses.

When arrested in Rome and sentenced to be crucified, he flees his prison cell — thus choosing the earthly freedom — but he is stopped on the Appian Way by the appearance of the risen Christ, who points him back to martyrdom and hence to eternal life.

Ending liberty

If Trump is elected to his second term, he has threatened to be a dictator and to end the 250 years of the American experiment of liberty. Sure, it is not the divine freedom promised by Christianity, but it is one of the freest forms of government ever invented in human history.

Moreover, when Peter used violence to defend Christ and cut the off Malchus’s ear, he was scolded by Christ and told to sheath his sword. Similarly, Trump’s opponents universally condemned his would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks.

President Joe Biden, who at the time was still the presumed Democratic candidate and Trump’s rival, declared that such violence had no place in American democracy. Nevertheless, some prominent Republicans tried to pin the shooting on the Democrats.

Peter’s desperate act to protect Jesus was condemned by Jesus also because Christianity rejects all forms of violence. We don’t know this for sure, but it is hard to believe that Christ’s enemies didn’t make use of Peter’s action to portray all Christians as violent, blood-thirsty fanatics.