PRÉCIS ON THE DEVASTATING POWER OF IMPRINTING: AMERICA & MAGA CHRISTIANS BECOMING LIKE DONALD TRUMP

SCRIPTURE. “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. [Idols] have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; They have ears, but they hear not, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make [idols] are like them; so is everyone who trusts in and relies on them.”  ― PSALM 135:15-18, AMPC

KEY TERM: “IDOL.” ‘Atsab’ [עָצָב]: “From a root word meaning ‘to carve, fabricate or fashion; to grievously worship;’ refers to an idolatrous image with which to closely identify; formed by human hands [and hearts]; associated with silver and gold [mammon and materialism]; an image, form or representation, usually of a man or other animal, consecrated as an object of worship; a pagan deity; ‘a person loved and honored to adoration;’ anything on which we set our affections; that to which we indulge an excessive and sinful attachment” (Strong, 1890; Webster, 1828; Zodhiates, 1995).

QUOTATION. “[To Robert the mill owner] Your god, sir, is the World. In my eyes, you, too, if not an Infidel, are ‘an Idolater.’ I conceive that you ignorantly worship: In all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. ‘You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre!’” ― CHARLOTTE BRONTË, Shirley, 1849; edited

AUTHOR NOTE. The daughter of an Irish Anglican clergyman, Brontë was herself an Anglican. In a letter to her publisher, she claims to “love the Church of England. Her Ministers indeed, I do not regard as infallible personages, I have seen too much of them for that – but to the Establishment, with all her faults – the profane Athanasian Creed excluded – I am sincerely attached.” In a letter to Ellen Nussey she wrote: “If I could always live with you, and daily read the Bible with you, if your lips and mine could at the same time, drink the same draught from the same pure Fountain of Mercy – I hope, I trust, I might one day become better, far better, than my evil wandering thoughts, my corrupt heart, cold to the spirit, and warm to the flesh will now permit me to be.” ― Wikipedia, Feb. 6, 2024; edited

COMMENTARY. “‘They that make [idols] are like unto them’ ― Are as blind, stupid, and senseless as they; or ‘let them that make them,’ so some versions and interpreters; See Gill on Psalm 115:8; ‘so is everyone that trusteth in them;’ alike ignorant and sottish: And so are all such that set up idols and lusts in their own hearts, and serve them; or trust to their own righteousness; even all unregenerate and self-righteous persons.

‘They cannot speak a word’ for God and His grace, for Christ and His righteousness, for the Spirit of God, and His work upon their hearts, of all which they are ignorant. They are blind and have no sight and sense of their sin and misery, and of their need of Christ and His righteousness; they are deaf to His Gospel, and the charming Voice of it. They are lifeless and breathless, are dead in trespasses and sins, and have no pantings and desires after Spiritual things.” ― JOHN GILL, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, 9 vols., 1748-1763; edited

IMPRINTING. “A rapid learning process that takes place early in the life of a social animal or human that establishes a behavior pattern (such as recognition of and attraction to its own kind or a substitute).” DK: We imitate those who exhibit preferences and actions that we learned in childhood and solidified in adulthood. The longer we identify with such a person, ‘the more we become just like him or her.’

An excellent study by Trinity Forum Senior Fellow PETER WEHNER writing again for The Atlantic magazine proposes FOUR PATTERNS of Trump Followers that illustrate this process. These Patterns help explain why even Christians still support him, despite his multiple-layered egregious behavior that is in stunning contrast to the Teachings of Christ.

The article is entitled, “The Four Forces Bind Trump Supporters More Tightly than Ever” which comports with what I shall call: TRUMPIAN TALKING-POINTS (May 24, 2023; edited).

• FIRST. Trump supporters deny the worst things he has done. Jury verdicts against him are always unfair; impeachments are unjust partisan acts. Investigations of him that have found wrongdoing, all of them, are “WITCH HUNTS.” DK. This of course reinforces Trump’s strategy of ‘playing the victim,’ or the ultimate ‘Christian Martyr.’

• SECOND. Trump supporters ‘Catastrophize the threats of the Left.’It’s one thing to believe, as some of us do, that the Progressive Movement includes dangerous, illiberal elements that need to be opposed. But that is quite different from believing that if Democrats gain or maintain power, calamity follows and ‘America as we know it dies.’

• THIRD. Next, Trump and his supporters are frantically trying to ‘portray President Joe Biden as more corrupt than his predecessor.’ If Trump is an innocent man forever being framed, Biden is the head of a ‘crime family,’ according to Trump, who labeled a set of unproven allegations against Biden as ‘Watergate times 10.’

• FOURTH. Another justification that supporters of Donald Trump have constructed is that his presidency was an unqualified success, that ‘Trump did practically everything right.’ Among the problems Trump successfully dealt with by their assessment included: Health-care costs and drug prices increasing; income inequality growing; abortions rising after a three-decade decline; homicides spiking, including the largest single-year increase in murders in more than a century; the erosion of U.S. credibility worldwide; a posture of petty feuding with allies and abject capitulation to dictators.

CODA. Most of us will recognize these for “Rationalizations” whenever we engage a Trump Supporter as they roll out these reasons as their Leader’s Narrative. This is indeed ‘Imitation of Trump,’ reflecting blasphemous abuse of the Biblical Principles governing such issues.

Then to all this I add a Final Ingredient.

For Christians at least, and most especially for our Church Leaders (pastors, priests, prelates, ostensible ‘prophets’ etc.) to admit that they are wrong about Trump is simply an Ethical Hill much too far – Loss of reputation, loss of one’s employment. But far worse is FEAR OF MAN – the vicious Outcry from other peers and Trumpians, and more troublingly, ‘from Trump himself!’

Church Elites have seemed to forget (or suppress) the terrible importance of the FIRST COMMANDMENT:

And God spoke all these words, saying: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Mebut showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.’” – EXODUS 20:1-6, NKJV

I tremble for (but do not pity) those who follow after ‘Trump the False Messiah’ as if he is the only one who can solve The American Crisis, thereby replacing ‘The True Messiah’ with a Beast. Some would say, as do I: THE BEAST OF BABYLON.

From this brief review I can only conclude that our Pastors and Teachers have largely lost their courage and consequently, lost their vision and, tragically, their Sacred Commission. Therefore, in their Catastrophic Absence does Jesus Christ call each one of US to ‘Stand Firm,’ no matter the cost, beloved.

That He might greet us on that Day of days coming soon:

“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful and trustworthy over a little, I will put you in charge of many things; share in the joy of your master.” -MATTHEW 25:23, AMPC

Selah.

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/IrBY2nwKnCo