Donald Trump and the 10 Commandments – Baptist News Global
When Donald Trump and his supporters claim that he cares about this very basic, beloved list of divine commands, yet his behavior so starkly contradicts that assertion, it is time that truth be heard and justice dispensed.
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Here’s a look at how Trump and Trumpism stacks up in observance of the Ten Commandments.
1. You shall have no other gods before me. Matthew Henry, the 18th century Welsh minister most famous for his six-volume Commentary on the Whole Bible, explains that this first commandment forbids “giving the glory and honor to any creature which are due to God only. Pride makes a god of self, covetousness makes a god of the belly; whatever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended on, more than God, that (whatever it is) we do in effect make a god of.”
Trump’s narcissism is well-documented. He is egocentric and acts always to promote and protect his own interests. Most egregiously, for Christians, Trump has relished in the idolatrous praise of some sycophants that he is “the chosen one,” “the king of Israel,” “the second coming of God,” or the “savior.” When asked if he had ever asked God for forgiveness, Trump answered that he wasn’t sure he had, stating: “I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.”
With these words, the president puts himself in the place of God.
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol. I first heard “Plastic Jesus” when I was a student at Mississippi College in the mid-1960s. In my immaturity, I heard it as just a joke. Now I believe that the substitution of persons, objects or experiences for the Living God is an insidious idolatry.
The words of the 1962 song recorded by The Goldcoast Singers have been updated by Billy Idol: “I don’t care if it rains or freezes long as I’ve got my Plastic Jesus ridin’ on the dashboard of my car. ’Cause through my trials and tribulations and my travels through the nation, with my Plastic Jesus I’ll go far.”
“We are guilty of idolatry when we seek to control God, making him the means to achieving our own purposes.”
As Roy Honeycutt, Old Testament scholar, noted about the second commandment, “We are guilty of idolatry when we seek to control God, making him the means to achieving our own purposes, rather than casting ourselves into the full expression of his will for us.” Trump uses orchestrated photo ops of conservative Christians gathered around praying for him in the Oval Office, or his holding up a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., as ploys to control God and manipulate God’s people.
But it is the lifelong commitments he has to the pleasures of money, sex and power that are his real idols. It seems clear that, while embracing “the world, the flesh and the devil,” he is using God like a Plastic Deity to give him cover on crowded Pennsylvania Avenue.
3. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God. This command is not simply a prohibition against profanity or swearing falsely; rather, as Honeycutt explains, it is “to take a lighthearted, flippant attitude toward the revelation of God which empties or robs it of its absolute significance.”
I contend that Trump’s whole approach to life — conceived as getting instead of giving — demonstrates his flippant taking of the name of the Giving God in vain. But this observation is not a caveat discounting Trump’s frequent profane speech. He created tremendous backlash, for example, at the 2017 national Boy Scout Jamboree with his cursing and crass attacks against his political foes, turning what should have been a celebration of the boys’ scouting successes into what one critic called a “Nazi youth rally.
And when he denigrates women, immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, Haitians, people from African countries, Democrats, news reporters, scientists and fallen soldiers with despicable words, he is breaking this commandment by denying the image of God in all of these people.
4. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. The sabbath was made for humanity as a gift from God, to give relief from labor that is often difficult and demanding. The problem with this president is not that he works too hard, but not hard enough.
A 2019 Business Insider political report revealed that Trump spends as much as 60% of his working day in discretionary “executive time,” which aides are powerless to shorten or schedule. He typically tweets while watching Fox News before appearing in the West Wing about 11:00 a.m. Daily, he receives a summary of glowing press reports compiled by three staffers in the Republican National Committee “war room.” On many weekends, he travels either to his golf club in Sterling, Va., to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., or Camp David in Frederick County, Md., for golf games and entertaining guests. At the time of this article, he had reportedly visited his golf clubs 166 times during his presidency. By February 2020, his golfing outings had cost taxpayers $133.8 million.
So, it seems clear that Trump is getting enough rest from his labors; but is he keeping the sabbath holy? According to Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, the sabbath is not about doing nothing, but rather the day provides an opportunity for remembering and re-creating. Sabbath enables one to recall who God is and what God has provided. Is this kind of humble gratitude for divine help an emotion the president is capable of feeling?
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