NOTES ON THE IMMINENT JUDGMENT OF AMERICA’S WEALTHY OPPRESSORS: ALMIGHTY GOD SHALL NOT BE FURTHER MOCKED! – (WITH VIDEO)

1. THEOLOGY

SCRIPTURE. “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days.

Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Saboath. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.” – JAMES 5:1-6, NKJV

KEY TERM: “FATTENED YOUR HEARTS.” ‘Spatalao’ [ἐσπαταλήσατε]: “‘To be voluptuous;’ i.e., to live extravagantly, luxuriously, or wantonness [deliberate or unprovoked cruelty]; to be self-indulgent.” NOTE: “The verb ‘spatalaó’ conveys the idea of living in excessive luxury or indulgence, often with a connotation of moral laxity or self-indulgence. It implies a lifestyle characterized by excess and a lack of restraint, particularly in the context of wealth and pleasure.”

QUOTATION. “The World says: ‘You have needs — satisfy them.’ You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.’ This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.” ― FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY, The Brothers Karamasov, 1880; edited

COMMENTARY. “‘Public troubles are most grievous to those who live in pleasure, and are secure and sensual, though all ranks suffer deeply at such times.’ All idolized treasures will soon perish, except as they will rise up in Judgment against their possessors. ‘Take heed of Defrauding and Oppressing; and avoid the very appearance of it!’ God does not forbid us to use lawful pleasures; but to Live in Pleasure, especially Sinful Pleasure, is a provoking sin. Is it no harm for people to unfit themselves for minding the concerns of their souls, by indulging bodily appetites? ‘The Just may be condemned and killed; but when such suffer by Oppressors, this is marked by God.’– MATTHEW HENRY, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 6 vols., 1708-1710; edited

II. TEACHING

As a life-long student of American Politics, it has become increasingly obvious to me and many other ‘Culture Watchers’ that America is no longer (if it ever was given its origins in wealthy White Founders), a Democracy. Or, if you prefer, a Republic. This is because it has been the Norm that only mostly white, rich people tend to be able to afford to run for office and thereby rise to high public office.

Duke University political scientist and Princeton University Ph.D. DR. NICK CARNES in 2018 documented this in his book, The Cash Ceiling: Why Only the Rich Run for Office. Princeton’s official Promo state in clear terms the Problem.

Why are Americans governed by the rich? Millionaires make up only three percent of the public but control all three branches of the federal government. How did this happen? What stops lower-income and working-class Americans from becoming politicians? … In the United States, elections have a built-in ‘Cash Ceiling,’ a series of structural barriers that make it almost impossible for the working-class to run for public office. Elections take a serious toll on candidates, many working-class Americans simply can’t shoulder the practical burdens, and civic and political leaders often pass them over in favor of white-collar candidates.”

Respectful of the good professor’s sterling credentials, his solutions were obviously not sufficient to head off the Trump Billionaire Coup d’etat that is now taking place at light speed. To this vital historic, economic, political, and yes, spiritual point inveighs WILL DUNN, business editor of the New Statesman online journal.

His essay is titled, sharply enough: “America’s New Plutocracy” (Jan. 15, 2025; edited). Here are his MAIN POINTS.

• PAYOLA. “In August 2015 a prominent American businessman let slip, on live TV, how easy it was to buy favours from politicians: ‘When they call [for donations], I give,’ he said. ‘When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me. And that’s a Broken System.’”

• TRUMP. “The businessman was, of course, Donald Trump. Central to his first presidential campaign was a promise to ‘Drain the Swamp’ of Washington’s influence dealers – and in a way, he did. There is no longer any need for Plutocrats to buy influence through lobbyists and conversations behind closed doors. The Age of Political Subterfuge is over. In the New Trump Administration, the Super-Rich personally occupy positions of power.”

• FACTS. “It’s there in broad daylight: a New Statesman analysis of political appointments announced so far by the Trump administration has found 26 appointees whose personal fortunes exceed $100m; 12 are billionaires. At least two others have spouses who are billionaires; others belong to billionaire families, or have concealed their wealth so it is hard to say how much they have (all we know is it’s a lot). America’s new Ambassador to the UK is the investment banker Warren Stephens (estimated net worth $3.4bn); Trump’s Commerce Secretary is the investment banker Howard Lutnick ($2bn); his Education Secretary, the former wrestling promoter Linda McMahon ($3.2bn). Nasa will be run by the Defence tycoon Jared Isaacman ($1.8bn). Trump’s appointees so far have a combined net worth of around half a trillion dollars. The second Trump administration will be the richest democratically elected government in history.”

• MAMMON. “The Belgian-Dutch philosopher Ingrid Robeyns describes this as ‘Plutocracy on steroids.’ In her recent book, Limitarianism, Robeyns charts the concentration of extreme wealth over the past four decades. The Super-Rich, she told me, ‘have benefited tremendously from the economic choices’ made in Western countries since economic policy changed in the late 1970s – ‘Financialisation, Globalisation, Privatisation – all the stock ingredients of Neoliberal policy’ – as well as the Long Boom in assets since the 2008 Financial Crisis.”

SHIFT. “Somewhere along the way, the priorities of the rich seem to have changed. In his 2024 book As Gods Among Men, the Italian economic historian Guido Alfani writes that in centuries past the very rich were tolerated with suspicion, because their wealth could be deployed  – during a plague, a war or a financial crisis – to stabilise society. The Modern Super-Rich are different, he argues: They may indulge in philanthropy, but most avoid their obligations to society. Money now buys the means to avoid paying tax, to silence critics and rewrite laws. In this reading of history, Trump’s inauguration on 20 January is a moment of Change, the Enthroning of a new and more aggressive form of Plutocracy.”

• RUSSIA. “The historian Mark Galeotti agrees there are Parallels between the Russian Oligarchs who returned Yeltsin to power and the American Billionaires who support Trump: ‘In 1996 you have wealthy interests deciding to throw their weight behind Yeltsin… that’s the Elon Musk Model. But at the same time, what’s fascinating is the degree to which people like [Mark] Zuckerberg, after the [Election], suddenly realise they need to be in with the Regime. And that’s much more like the Putin Era – ‘The House-Training of the Oligarchs.’”

• OPPRESSION. “The Difference between Trump today and Putin at the turn of the Millennium, Galeotti said, is that it was necessary for Putin to give his Oligarchs a sense of what was at risk – [Billionaire Mikhail] Khodorkovsky spent a decade in a Siberian prison on politically motivated charges for tax evasion and theft – before they were ‘House-Trained.’ ‘We’ve had a term of Trump already, to get a sense of … the shallows of this man, his vanity, his capacity for revenge. And with Zuckerberg and [Jeff] Bezos and others, we’re seeing people already toeing the line.’” [DK NOTE: Will now Zelenskyy beat a path back to Trump to kiss the ring? Time will shortly tell].

• POWER. “Today’s Plutocrats have a different kind of money to the Aristocrats of the past, who owned land, or to the Robber Barons, whose wealth came from the revenues of their industrial monopolies. The wealth of Trump’s team is made and stored in financial markets; their net worth is the sum of other people’s confidence in their power. It travels easily and can buy citizenship, safety and influence almost anywhere.”

• CEASAR. “This is why Trump will remain loyal to his Billionaires, or at least to the policies that have enriched them: He is one of them! In 2016 his net worth was a touchy subject; few people believed his boasts. He is much wealthier today. Since 2021 he has been encouraging his supporters to invest in Trump Media & Technology Group, of which he owns about half. The company has so far lost $400m and employs fewer people than the average McDonald’s franchise, but it has a market capitalisation of $8.4bn at time of writing. In post-Soviet Russia, Power bought money. For the new Plutocracy, running on the strong medicine of market exuberance, they are the same thing.”

DK NOTE. As if all this massive Change and Deconstruction of the Old Ways of doing Government and Business were not enough my friends, there is a very much Darker Shift that has been the Principal Cause of nearly all of this inarguable Decline into the Worship of Money. Stay tuned.

III. APOSTASY

“Now in regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to meet Him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly unsettled or alarmed either by a [so-called prophetic revelation of a] spirit or a message or a letter [alleged to be] from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has [already] come. 

Let no one in any way deceive or entrap you, for that day will not come unless the apostasy comes first [that is, THE GREAT REBELLION, the abandonment of the faith by professed Christians], and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction [the Antichrist, the one who is destined to be destroyed], who opposes and exalts himself [so proudly and so insolently] above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he [actually enters and] takes his seat in the temple of God, publicly proclaiming that he himself is God.” – 2 THESSALONIANS 2:1-4, AMP

I have often stated an Old Adage that says, “As the Church goes, so goes the Nation.” DR. DAVE MADIGEN, writing for a ministry called, Adoration Abode on April 19, 2023, nicely elaborates on both the wisdom of this saying, and the Consequences of its abandonment.

“‘As the Church goes, so goes America. As the Church goes, so goes the World.’ The Mission of the Church is to spread the Gospel of Jesus. The Church is to be the Beacon on a Hill, a Light to the World attracting all people to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; attracting them to His ways; to His forgiveness; to His never-ending love for all mankind. And in past generations, the Church has had much success in carrying out its Mission.

‘But, somewhere along the way, the Church lost its bearing. It ever so slowly, so insidiously, changed direction and veered from ‘The Old Path,’ onto a Path that we, as believers and lovers of God, hardly recognize.’ This is not to say every contemporary Church and its religious leaders have gone astray. There are churches today that still cling to the Old Path.’ Jeremiah 6:16 says: “Thus says the Lord: Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls” …

[He then argues]: ‘Charlatans standing behind the pulpit … Actors … who portray pastors.’ These are the people who bring some of the most shame to the Church and to the name of Jesus. And these are some of the people whom 2 Tim 3: 5-6 speaks: ‘Having a form of godliness’ (when standing behind the pulpit), ‘but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households’ (by either preaching in church or through the airwaves)‘and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts.’ These are the people who shamelessly attempt to convince their congregation to purchase luxury items for their personal use. These ‘disingenuous Self-Pleasers behind the Pulpit’ don’t seem to care about the needs of the flock. They only seem to care about how the flock will sow into their wants and desires.”

WHY? I have been writing a great deal in recent years about what I now simply call, “TRUMP CHURCH.” This vast American Religious Community consists of at least 85% of White American Evangelicals committed to the syncretistic ideology known as ‘Christian Nationalism.’ This Cult-like Spiritual and Political Fellowship makes a thousand excuses for supporting a known rapist, felon, pathological liar, and in my studied theological view, the very First Denizen of Satan’s Kingdom known as the Biblical Antichrist.

A stunning, little-reported Survey by The Christian Chronicle,is summarized by their Media Editor CALVIN COCKRELL.  His piece is titled, “Why Did So Many Christian Voters Support Donald Trump” in the Election last November 5, 2025 (Dec. 11, 2024; edited).

The results are both astonishing and yet, somehow predictable – Given what we are all watching now on a daily basis.

• MONEY. “The Trump Campaign promised to put a stop to inflation, which has recently fallen to 2.6 percent after spiking to 9.1 percent in 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index. The 10-year average annual inflation rate is just under 3 percent.”

• IMMIGRATION. “Trump also promised, as in his 2016 Campaign, to finish the Border Wall with Mexico, enforce immigration laws and begin mass deportation of immigrants living in the country illegally. The Department of Homeland Security estimates: The number of immigrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal status fell from 11.4 million to 10.5 million from 2015 to 2020, the end of Trump’s first term, rising back to 11 million in 2022 under President Joe Biden’s administration.”

• ABORTION. “While abortion was not a key issue of Trump’s 2024 Campaign, his three previous Supreme Court appointments were crucial in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Trump has most recently said he would not support a Federal Abortion Ban, preferring to leave the matter to State legislatures. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris had championed reproductive rights and supported federal abortion protections.”

• ‘CHARACTER.’ “Carys Pate, 24, a traveling physical therapist who worships with the New Bern Church of Christ in North Carolina, said she believes Trump’s philanthropic and other positive efforts often go unreported while the news media spotlight his mistakes and faux pas.’ ‘I think he truly does care about Americans. I know personal stories where he has helped … pay medical bills.’”

DK NOTE. The Rationale being constructed by Trump Supporters is this: “Well, he does bad things but he gets stuff done, so yeah, he must be a good enough guy – Used of God! – to achieve Biblical Goals.’

There is a formal name for this Ideology: PRAGMATISM: ‘Getting good things done by whatever means possible, including evil means.’

IV. LAST THOUGHTS

As I conclude, beloved, I must give you fair warning that I now hold the darkest possible opinion of Trump Church. And I shall demonstrate why from the firm theology of both the Great Apostle and Jesus Christ Himself in the ideas expressed that follow.

To do so, I borrow from the rich commentary offered by REV. DR. MARTIN THIEL, former Pastor in the United Methodist Church and liaison with the Southern Baptist Convention. Martin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Ouachita University, Arkadelphia, Arkansas; a Master of Divinity from Southern Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky; and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Midwestern Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri.

BONHOEFFER VS. BEELZEBUB. This essay is from Dr. Thiel’s Blog, Doubter’s Parish, published on January 7, 2025. His title is both piercing and telling of where I am going with my own Commentary today: “The (Unforgivable?) Sins of the White American Church (Reflections of the 2024 Election).”

• ORIGINS. “The Sins of the White American Church began early on and have continued unabated ever since. For example, large numbers of American Christians enthusiastically supported the Genocide of Native Americans, fiercely defended Slavery, actively participated in Jim Crow Segregation, and stubbornly resisted the Civil Rights Movement.”

• LEGACY. “Of course, these Sins (and many others) in the American Church didn’t form in a vacuum. From the earliest centuries of Christianity, the Church has engaged in horrific behaviors including The Inquisition, the Crusades, witch burnings, bloody religious wars, child abuse at indigenous boarding schools, indifference during The Holocaust, and a steady stream of intolerance, racism, and sexism, just to name a few. Tragically, Christian History, including American Christian History, is punctuated by one massive failure after another.”

• RUBICON. “However, on November 5, 2024, when a majority of White Christian Americans elected the most morally bankrupt, Anti-Jesus President in US history, my lifelong practice of forgiving the Church was severely tested. And this time around, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to offer Absolution. It’s not that this particular Ecclesiastical Sin is worse than the others. It’s not. For example, it doesn’t rate up there with the American Church’s centuries-long complicity in Systemic Racism or the appalling toxicity of the Religious Right over the past few decades. ‘But the Church’s Failure on November 5 feels like it might be the Final Straw for me.’”

• DK NOTE. While in prayer on June 2021, the very morning of my First Circuit Ride, I heard a Shout From Heaven so clearly it was nearly audible: “¡Se acabó!” TRANSLATION: “It’s over! I am done!”

• MEA CULPA. “Whatever you think about the (Second) Election of Donald Trump, it’s clear that ‘White American Christians determined the outcome.’ And I’m not just talking about White Evangelicals, the vast majority of whom support Trump. The fact is, a significant majority (two thirds) of all White Christians (Evangelical, Catholic, [Pentecostal, Charismatic], and Mainline) voted for Trump. And, according to Pew Research, for those who attend Church services regularly (at least once per month), that number increases to over 70 percent. These Churchgoing Americans knew exactly who Trump was. And they decided that’s what they wanted.”

• UNFORGIVABLE. “‘Lately, I’ve been asking myself, Would Jesus forgive the Church for this latest sin? Probably so [I disagree!].But I’m having a difficult time getting there.’ And I’m not sure I ever will.’ Or even if I should. I find myself wondering: ‘After two thousand years of endless failures, is it finally time to stop forgiving the Church?’ Especially a Church that seldom confesses its Unfaithfulness and rarely shows fruits of Repentance. It’s a painful and confusing Dilemma.”

• PERSECUTION! Dr. Thielen wisely attached a link to a Video Sermon by REV. DR. BEN BOSWELL at Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Sermon Video, preached on November 10, 2024 (the Sunday after the election), is twenty-three minutes long. ‘It should probably be noted that a week and half after preaching this prophetic message, which seemed to be well received (there was a lot of clapping), Pastor Boswell was terminated from his job.’ I don’t know if the sermon and his termination are related or not. Regardless, I am assigning you all my very first HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT – (See link just below mine).

CODA. America is gone and cannot be regained by Man or God, beloved. That is the Truth. But as Dr. Boswell’s stirring sermon reminded: “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep … as others who have no hope”  (1 Thessalonians 4:13).   

Lovelier still are God’s Words of Promise to the True Remnant Church:

“Though the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, [though] the product of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the [victorious] God of my salvation! The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]!” – HABAKKUK 3:17-19, AMPC

These are the Very Words of our Very God to us all, beloved. Let us resolve in our own lives to honor them and their Author. ‘Unto Life, or unto Death – as He wills! 

DR. KELLY’S YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/GQimPCBGfHs

DR. BOSWELL: https://youtu.be/V4a2W_GgFEo?si=mdi2r-IO6zvpGs1A

ERRATA. Several of you pointed out some possible cautions I need to mention that could lead to confusion in my presentation. (1) The references to Drs. Thielen and Boswell are to be considered in light of some liberal interpretations of the Gospel as reflection of Mainline Church perspectives. (2) My undying support for Ukraine must be weighed against some legitimate criticism of its association with the far-right Azov Brigades that participated in the war against Russia. (3) I claimed that I was posting campaign stickers on telephone poles (not “telegraph” poles; not that old!) in 1952 from my dad’s 1957 Ford. Um, quite a trick. Apologies. DK