NOTES ON THE COST OF STAYING TRUE TO CHRIST IN THE AGE OF TRUMP: THE GOSPEL, PROJECT 2025, & SPIRITUAL ABUSE IN AMERICA’S PULPITS – (WITH VIDEO)

THEOLOGY

SCRIPTURE. “O Lord, the God of my salvation, I have cried to You for help by day; at night I am in Your presence. Let my prayer come before You and really enter into Your presence; incline Your ear to my cry! For I am full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol (the place of the dead).” – PSALM 88:1-3, AMPC

KEY TERMS: “FULL OF TROUBLES.” ‘Ra’ [רַע]: “From a root word meaning: ‘Bad, evil; affliction;’ calamity, exceedingly great grief; harm heavy hurt; sorrow, vexation; wretchedness; wrong; disagreeable, malignant; wild beasts; unpleasing in the sight of [God]; giving pain, unhappiness and misery; unkind; disturbance of mind; agitation; commotion of spirits; perplexity.”

QUOTATION. [A PRAYER]: “Lord, the Apostle Paul told his young protégé, Timothy, that in the Last Days, people would be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, unholy, brutal, treacherous, and unforgiving. It sounds like he was reading our headlines. You told Your disciples that, in the Last Days, we would be imprisoned and persecuted for your name’s sake. We take heart, even in these wretched signs, because we know the Day of Your Coming is near. We pray that You will grant us Courage to stand against the Enemy until that Great and Glorious Day when you call us Home.” ― MARK GOODWIN, Persecution: The Days of Noah, 2015; edited

COMMENTARY. “The first words of the Psalmist are the only words of comfort and support in this Psalm. Thus, greatly may good men be afflicted, and such dismal thoughts may they have about their afflictions, and such dark conclusion may they make about their end, through the power of melancholy and the weakness of faith. He complained most of God’s displeasure. Even the children of God’s love may sometimes think themselves children of wrath and no outward trouble can be so hard upon them as that. Probably the Psalmist described his own case, yet he leads to Christ. ‘Thus are we called to look unto Jesus, wounded and bruised for our iniquities.’ But the Wrath of God poured the greatest bitterness into His cup. This weighed Him down into Darkness and the Deep.” – MATTHEW HENRY, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 6 vols., 1708-1710; edited

II. TEACHING

Since my first years of following Christ in the 1980s, I cannot say I was ever severely persecuted (save for a few years at Regent University where I encountered several Liberal professors who despised my conservatism). No, I have had a pretty cushy ride for most of my nearly 45 years of Christian life.

Until ‘The First Advent’ of Donald Trump in 2016.

Since that Dark Year, my life has been changed pretty much for perpetuity – and so has yours. Indeed, as I have labored to process, understand and then overcome this New Beastliness that has visited America and her Church, I discovered a name for it that fits what many of us experience from our fellow Christians like a hand-tailored glove.

SPIRITUAL ABUSE. To bring our discussion of this nearly unique phenomenon in American Church and Political Life (since the two are joined at the ideological hip), we must first get our minds around THE TRUMP CULT’S uncanny hold on people’s loyalty – including countless millions of White Evangelicals!

I turn to an excellent book by mental health professional and former “Moonie,” DR. STEVEN HASSAN titled,The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control (2019). Here are a few telling excerpts from his well-documented and well-received analysis.

THE LIE. “‘A lie once told remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth,’ the infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels memorably claimed.”

THE JARGON. “‘[Cult] members learn a new vocabulary’ that is designed to constrict their thinking into absolute, black-and-white, thought-stopping clichés that conform to group ideology. (‘Lock her up’ and ‘Build the Wall!’ are Trumpian examples. Even his put-downs and nicknames—Crooked Hillary, Pocahontas for Elizabeth Warren—function to block other thoughts. Terms like ‘Deep State’ and ‘Globalist’ also act as triggers. They rouse emotion and direct attention).”

FEAR APPEALS. “As New York Times columnist Charles Blow observed, ‘Trump’s magical mixture is to make being afraid feel like fun. His rallies are a hybrid of concert revelry and combat prep. Trump tells his followers about all the things of which they should be afraid, or shouldn’t trust or should hate, and then positions himself as the greatest defense against those things. His supporters roar their approval at their White Knight … ‘Inspiring fear of real or imagined threats override’s people’s sense of [urgency].’ It makes them susceptible to a confident authority figure who promises to keep them safe, and can make them more compliant and obedient.”

TOWERING HUBRIS. “‘Nobody will be tougher on ISIS than me. Nobody,’ he said during his campaign announcement speech on June 16, 2015. ‘There’s nobody bigger or better at the military than I am,’ he stated a few days later. The following month came this memorably hypnotic line, one that echoes [Sun Myung] Moon’s language: ‘I know more about offense and defense than [the generals] will ever understand, believe me. Believe me. Than they will ever understand. Than they will ever understand.’ It’s a classic example of Trump’s tried-and-true habit of lulling his audience through repetition. A few months later came another infamous claim: ‘I know more about ISIS [the Islamic State militant group] than the generals do. Believe me.’”

TRUMP’S SADISM. “‘There’s a way in which he takes a kind of manic glee in causing harm and pain and humiliation to other people’ … The Purpose is to harass and discourage rather than win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.”

We next turn to a frankly Shocking Event taking place before our very eyes in the American Church, one that I have not seen a great deal written about as it relates to the Trump Maga Movement.

III. THE CASE FOR PASTORAL SPIRITUAL ABUSE

Even these brief observations by a certified mental health professional forces us into the dark and complex literature of the myriad sorts of Spiritual Malediction that thousands of our Pastors engage, either passively or actively, every time they climb into the Pulpit on Sunday mornings.

THESIS. ‘By ignoring the massive Injury that Pastoral Indifference toward or Advocacy against Biblical Truth regarding Trump’s Antichristian Nationalism Movement submits their congregations to Existential Spiritual Damage that can become Irreparable.’

For this part of our conversation, I will be focusing on the TRUMP-FUELED DELUSION that has seduced over 80 percent of the White, Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Charismatic Churches in our land, toward nothing less than: ‘The Destruction of American Christianity and the American Order’ – wholesale, whole cloth.

Our theologian who shall shepherd us through this crucial phenomenon is DR. PAUL LAMICELA (Ph.D. in Biblical Theology) whose deep structure analysis is titled, “Bully Pulpit: Spiritual Abuse.”

It consists of a superb review and critique of DR. MICHAEL KRUGER, American theologian and the President and the Samuel C. Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, in his recent book, Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church (2022; edited).

DEFINITION. “Spiritual Abuse is when a spiritual leader—such as a pastor, elder, or head of a Christian organization—wields his position of spiritual authority in such a way that he manipulates, domineers, bullies, and intimidates those under him as a means of maintaining his own power and control, even if he is convinced he is seeking Biblical and Kingdom-related goals.”

SCRIPTURE. “Mark 10:42–43: Gentile rulers, Jesus says, ‘Lord it over them [κατακυριεύουσιν], and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you.’ Jesus’ hearers would have known exactly what He meant: Economic oppression, unjust use of violence, using power for personal enrichment, arrogance and superiority. Abusive Rulership was commonplace. But Jesus explicitly, emphatically does not want His disciples to be abusive leaders.”

UNCHECKED. “Inadequate Accountability Structure: Victims are silenced or forced to leave [as several of us have already experienced]. The Leader gets to control the Narrative, and sometimes the victims themselves are blamed. In a Culture of Silence (fostered by the Leader), the pattern of broken relationships is ‘often not revealed’ to others. When they are mentioned, problems with the leader are often ’downplayed and minimized.’”

EFFECTS. “To quote Gandalf (as Kruger does), ‘There are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured.’ Kruger rightly pushes hard against the ‘Get over it and move on,’ mentality toward victims of spiritual abuse. The effects can be truly devastating. There are Emotional Effects, including fear, anger, depression, shame (feeling that it’s their fault, or dealing with a tarnished reputation), and PTSD. There can be Physical Effects. Kruger describes how the stress / PTSD effects of spiritual abuse can induce long-term health problems. There are Relational Effects: Countless relationships can be destroyed. There can be Spiritual Effects. Spiritual abuse often crushes a person’s spiritual life and can call into question their beliefs.”

RESISTANCE. Dr. Kruger articulates Three Methods of Resistance: “(1) Prevention: Churches ought to work to keep abusive leaders from gaining power. (2) Accountability: Churches ought to oversee church leaders once they’re in a position of power. (3) Protection: Churches must care for those who bravely call out abuse.”

CONCLUSION. “Spiritual Abuse is not something that all of us have experienced. The point of this post and of Kruger’s Bully Pulpit [‘Bullied by the Bully-in-Chief] is not to make Church members suspicious of all spiritual leaders. But Spiritual Abuse is a serious and devastating problem, and it is something that can impact any church. At some point in our lives, probably most of us will interact with victims of Spiritual Abuse or become a victim (or even, God forbid, an abuser) ourselves.”

DK’S TAKE. Beloved, I know how extraordinary this information is to all of us, but I tell you within the Lord’s Earshot: ‘It is happening!’ Not just to me, but to countless quiet and mostly silent victims who have been influenced, persuaded, cajoled, lied to and even threatened with death in order to support the Trump Nationalist Cult.

As a footnote, most Pastors will claim that they engage in no such conduct! That is why I am careful to frequently distinguish between the Overt Bully who directly advocates for Trump, versus the Covert Bully whose comparative Silence leaves the congregant in a Spiritual Haze about what to do with the Election.

There is a special label for such “Men without chests,” as C.S. Lewis described them.

The Passive-Aggressive Pastor. “Passive-Aggressive Behavior is a pattern of indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them. There’s a Disconnect between what a person who exhibits Passive-Aggressive Behavior says and what he or she does.” – DANIEL K. HALL-FLAVIN, M.D, The Mayo Clinic, ret. Oct. 21, 2024

“But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” – JESUS OF NAZARETH, Matthew 5:37, New King James Version

DERELICTION OF DUTY. “A specific offense under United States Code Title 10, Section 892, Article 92 and applies to all branches of the US military. A service member who is derelict has willfully refused to perform his duties (or follow a given order) or has incapacitated himself in such a way that he cannot perform his duties. Such incapacitation includes the person falling asleep while on duty requiring wakefulness, his getting drunk or otherwise intoxicated and consequently being unable to perform his duties, shooting himself and thus being unable to perform any duty, or his vacating his post contrary to regulations.” – Wikipedia, July 19, 2024; edited

Selah.

Here is what I expect to take place should Trump regain Presidential Power. This is a Synopsis taken from a dispassionate analysis by ALISON DURKEE, Forbes’ senior news reporter covering US politics and legal news, in a piece titled: “Project 25 Explained” (Oct. 1, 2024; edited).

15 “THINGS TO COME” FROM TRUMP 47. “‘Project 2025, spearheaded by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation with help from more than 100 other conservative groups, is a multi-part plan for the next conservative administration’—Namely, if former President Donald Trump regains the White House—which includes a LinkedIn-style Database for presidential personnel hopefuls, training programs for Executive Branch positions and an as-yet-unreleased ‘Playbook’ laying out what Trump should do in his first 180 days.”

Viewer Alert: You are going to like some of these proposals, perhaps a lot of them!

PERSONNEL. “‘Project 2025 broadly proposes to insert far more political appointees who are ideologically aligned with the president into the Executive Branch’—Replacing many of the nonpartisan career civil servants who serve in it now—proposing an executive order that would put political appointees into any confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating positions (which Trump previously did at the end of his presidency, but President Joe Biden then overturned it).”
FEDERAL AGENCIES. “‘It proposes a scaled-down Federal Government,’ including: The abolishment of multiple agencies—including the Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—whose remaining departments would be folded into other agencies or privatized, including the Transportation Security Administration.”
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS. “‘Transgender rights and gender identity beyond biological sex are roundly rejected,’ with such steps as: Reinstating the ban on transgender Americans serving in the military, prohibiting public school educators from referring to students by anything other than their birth name and pronouns without parental permission, and ensuring no Federal funds are used to provide gender-affirming care.”
DEI & LGBTQ RIGHTS. “‘Project 2025 seeks to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs’ from throughout the Federal Government and in universities, and while it doesn’t outlaw same-sex marriage, it supports nuclear families that include a ‘married mother, father, and their children,’ and calls for restricting laws that bar discrimination on the basis of sex to exclude sexual orientation and gender identity.”
CLIMATE CHANGE. “‘The Proposal would undo much of the Federal Government’s climate work,’ including: Leaving the Paris Climate Agreement, overhauling the Department of Energy to promote oil and natural gas and deemphasize green energy sources, removing the Department of Agriculture’s focus on sustainability and curtailing climate research.”
ABORTION. “‘While Project 2025 doesn’t explicitly call for an abortion ban, it would take many steps to restrict the procedure,’ including: Directing the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its approval of abortion drug Mifepristone, using the Comstock Act to block any abortion equipment or medication from being mailed—which abortion rights advocates have said would be a ‘backdoor’ way to ban abortion—barring federal funds being used to provide healthcare coverage for abortion and requiring states to report all abortions that take place there to the Federal Government.”
EDUCATION. “Project 2025 emphasizes a School Choice policy that directs public funds to be used for students to attend private or religious schools – Bars Critical Race Theory from being taught in federally funded schools and advocates for legislation that would allow parents to sue schools they feel have acted improperly—such as by teaching controversial subjects or requiring students to disclose information about their religious beliefs.”
STUDENT LOANS. “‘Student loan relief efforts would come to an end’—Including: The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and income-driven repayment plans—as the proposal states ‘borrowers should be expected to repay their loans.’”
BIG TECH. “‘TikTok would be banned, and the proposal calls for Reforming Section 230’—Which shields tech companies and social media networks from being sued over content on their platforms—and allowing laws like those passed in Florida and Texas that seek ‘to punish’ social media companies who ban or suspend users based on their ‘viewpoints.’”
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT. “‘Project 2025 calls for a ‘top-to-bottom overhaul’ of the DOJ and FBI’ – Gets rid of what it calls ‘an unaccountable bureaucratic managerial class and radical Left ideologues,’ proposing an agency that would be more focused on violent crime and filing litigation that’s: Consistent with the President’s Agenda and filled with far more political appointees.It also proposes prohibiting the FBI from investigating misinformation or making ‘politically motivated moves against U.S. citizens.’” [Selah!]
TAXES. “‘Project 2025 would seek to get rid of current tax rates and most deductions and credits’ – Instead proposing a 15% rate for anyone under the Social Security wage base ($168,000 in 2024) and 30% for taxpayers earning more than that—Which means the lowest-income taxpayers will now pay more and some higher earners will pay less, and it would also lower the corporate income tax rate to 18%.
FEDERAL RESERVE. “‘The Project seeks to reform the Federal Reserve by “tak[ing] the monetary steering wheel out of [its] hands and return[ing] it to the people’ – Which the authors propose could be done by getting rid of the Government’s control over the nation’s money entirely—instead leaving it up to banks—or returning to the Gold Standard, in which the dollar’s value would be tied to a specific weight of gold.”
FOREIGN RELATIONS. “‘Project 2025 emphasizes Opposing China’ – Which it describes as ‘a Totalitarian Enemy of the United States,’ and directs the U.S. to pull out of international organizations when they don’t serve the administration’s interests, including the World Health Organization and various United Nations agencies.”
HEALTHCARE. “‘Project 2025 does not seek to overturn the Affordable Care Act, but would make significant Cuts to Medicaid’ – And impose work requirements to receive coverage, as well as reform Medicare—including by making Medicare Advantage, a paid supplement to Medicare, the default option for patients.”

THE FUTURE. “My top concern about HARRIS ADMINISTRATION is that, because of her lack of expertise on Defense Issues, she won’t commit the resources needed to quickly build up our forces to deter the converging axis of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

I am, however, much more concerned about a TRUMP ADMINISTRATION. Donald Trump and his supporters are a danger to Constitutional Governance in America. One specific scenario I worry about is President Trump, enabled by an enfeebled Congress and more ruthlessly competent advisers, to issue legal orders for the military to engage in violent suppression of domestic protest or to execute arrest warrants for the president’s political opponents. [NOTE]: ‘The President has Unchecked Constitutional Authority to declare an Insurrection is occurring and wanted to do it in 2020, and he’s threatening it now.” – KORI SCHAKE, Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign Defense Policy, American Enterprise Institute, “Trump is a Threat to the Constitutional Order,” Oct. 8, 2024; edited

CODA. Though I have quoted him several times before, his powerful words hang in the air here, demanding to be restated. Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate ELIE WIESEL WARNS:

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s Indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s Indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s Indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s Indifference … ‘Take sides!’ Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” – Cited in U.S. News and World Report, Oct. 27, 1986; Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, in New York Times, Dec. 11, 1986; edited

‘Beloved, the essence of Indifference is a Lukewarmness!’ And we all know by now that God promises that such “disciples” shall be ‘Vomited out of His mouth!’

Therefore, JESUS COMMANDS PASTORS:

“To buy from Me gold that has been heated red hot and refined by fire so that you may become truly rich; and white clothes [representing righteousness] to clothe yourself so that the shame of your nakedness will not be seen; and healing salve to put on your eyes so that you may see.” – REVELATION 3:18, AMP

CODICIL. These are, beloved, the very Words of our King – ‘Especially to our Pastors, Teachers and Leaders’ – to bring them Home, before Midnight Falls, when there are no more calls to Repentance. Ever!

Selah.

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/Dg5hY8_LjCU