Give Us A King - Trump Re-Elected
I wrote this the day after Trump was elected. I’ve posted it mostly unedited as I wrote it then.
For most people, their identity is not who they voted for. However, a few people have made their candidate their identity. I want to speak to and about those who have made President-elect Trump their identity. Christian theology has something poignant and sharp to say to those who claim to be followers of Christ and MAGA, Christian Nationalists, or whatever term you want to use.
I want to trace a thread in scripture that is often ignored yet plays a pivotal role in understanding the grand narrative of the Old Testament. If the Old Testament is an arm, Abraham is the shoulder, The Exile is the wrist, and 1 Samuel 8 is the elbow. The entire Old Testament revolves around the moment when the leaders of Israel tell Samuel, "Give us a king to govern us." (1 Sam 8:5)
This request did not come out of nowhere. If you read from Genesis 1 to 1 Samuel 8 in one sitting, you would see this thread and be able to predict the outcome. Let's trace the thread from Deuteronomy through Joshua and Judges and then end with 1 Samuel.
Deuteronomy retells the story of God's salvation from slavery in Egypt. It is written from the banks of the Jordan. Just before the people cross into the promised land, YHWH reminds them who he is and who they are as his people. In Deuteronomy 16-17, God begins priming the idea that the people will ask for a king once they are in the land.
YHWH, the Lord, explains what will happen to them. The end of Deuteronomy 16 and the beginning of 17 makes three points. Deuteronomy 16:18-20 warns judges to execute justice blindly so that the innocent are not trampled. If the people follow justice, they will live and possess the land. Second, they can't worship other gods in the land (Asherah and the Pole). The third set of verses, 17:1-13 describes courts and how to help the people who turn to evil to return to the Lord.
Then, in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, YHWH tells the people, when you enter the land, you will ask for a king. In a moment of foreshadowing, the Lord tells his people, don't let your king gather many horses, or he will go back to Egypt for more (and you are not supposed to go back there; God rescued you from there). He will also try to have many wives, leading his heart astray. He will try to accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. If you were to follow the rest of the story from 1 Samuel 8 through 2 Chronicles, you would see all the kings who do these things are the ones who do what is wrong in the eyes of the Lord.
The king, though, in Deuteronomy, is given a way out: take the scroll, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, and hand copy it. He is supposed to take his copy and keep it with him all his days so that "he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law." (Deut 17:19) Think about what King Josiah does when he finds the scroll of the law in 2 Kings 22.
Deuteronomy leaves a question in the air – how will the people respond, and how will the people and the kings act?
The next book following Deuteronomy is Joshua. I'm leaving Joshua short for brevity, not because it doesn't contain the thread. (As an exercise for the reader, consider Joshua 8:30-35 and compare with Deuteronomy 17 and King Josiah in 2 Kings 22). We could spend a significant amount of time comparing the stories of Joshua internally (Jericho and Rahab, with Ai and Achan) and externally. Externally, Joshua and Judges should be read against each other – compare the last two chapters of Joshua with the first two of Judges and see how, under Joshua, the Lord is king, while in Judges, the people do what they want.
The book of Judges has a rhythm that begins by saying the Israelites did what was right in their own eyes, and they did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot their God and served the gods of the Canaanites. The rhythm is established in Judges 2:10-19:
Israel serves other Gods
YHWH is vexed
YHWH gives them over to enemies
The people cry out
YHWH raises judges to help them
Peace until the judge dies
The rest of the book follows this pattern. As the book continues, the saying of doing what is right in their own eyes evolves. In chapter 18, it becomes, "In those days, Israel had no king."
The Hebrew word for judge (shophatim) is connected with judgment or decision and is related to the word justice (mishpot). There was no king in Israel, and the people did what was right in their own eyes. The stories show a lack of justice when there is no judge. Remember that Deuteronomy 16 says judges are to provide justice blindly so the people will not be trampled.
The Book of Judges is full of stories that are difficult to read. There is violence, not only physical but sexual. As Christians, we understand that all scripture is God-breathed and useful for equipping us. (2 Tim 3:16-17) So the question is not if these stories are useful, but how.
Coming face to face with these stories somehow equips us to view the world as it is. We see people who do what is right in their own eyes. The challenge of the Book of Judges is to ask ourselves what it means to be faithful rather than assuming we already are. It reminds us that we can be unjust and that unjust people can become powerful leaders. Solsyzntsyn said, the line of good and evil does not pass between us and them, but straight through every human heart.
The last Judge is Samuel. He sees the people call out for a king. Robert Bergen says, "The people's demand for an earthly king represented the political manifestation of a spiritual problem."[1] Spiritually immature people who fail to trust God call for a king.
The true king of Israel is the Lord God. The elders of Israel told Samuel in 1 Sam 8, "Give us a king to govern us." God tells Samuel the people have not rejected you; they have rejected me. The Lord reminds Samuel of Deuteronomy 17. Samuel tells the people that when they have a king, he will take their best from them and use them for himself. Their best horses will drive his chariots, while their best young men will run in front of the king (and their own horses). He will take their daughters. He will take their fields and harvest. Then they will have nothing, and they will be slaves to the king that they asked for.
The people refused to listen and said, "Give us a king so that we can be like the other nations with a king to lead us and go out before us and fight our battles." So, the Lord relented and told Samuel, "Listen to them and give them a king."
At first, the elders want a king to govern, but then it comes out that they want a king so they can be like the other nations, with a king to fight their battles. They wanted a human king because they could not trust that God would fight and win the battles for them. They traded faith in God for trust in a man.
The call for a king is a political manifestation of a spiritual problem.
The rhetoric around Donald Trump from my Christian brothers and sisters has become grotesque. Christian Nationalism is a retelling of the story of Samuel. I hear my dear brothers and sisters calling out for a king who will make them strong so that they can conquer their enemies.
What may have begun as a thoughtful political position that was anti-immigration has turned to language that is hate-filled anti-immigrant. There is more concern with owning the libs than with owning my neighbor's spiritual condition. They want Trump to overcome enemies with force rather than overcoming evil with good.
The call for a king is a political manifestation of a spiritual problem. As Christians, we have failed to disciple ourselves well and have turned from God as our leader to Trump as our man. We have traded faithfulness in God for trust in a man. The Christian National, MAGA hope is that this man will overcome and defeat our enemies rather than be reconciled with them through the love of Christ. Trump has said he wants to turn this country around and make it strong. At the same time, he also says that he doesn't need to ask for forgiveness. Dangerous is the man who feels no shame, no need for forgiveness, while on a vengeful path.
Deuteronomy 17 explicitly warns against a king who gathers many horses (an army), wives, and riches for himself. Trump represents all three. Yet, these are the reasons men have flocked to Trump. Young and older men have flocked to Trump as a symbol of a mighty army – they stormed the capital for him 4 years ago. The man cheated on each of his three wives and was found guilty of paying to cover up an affair with a porn star while his third and current wife had recently given birth. He is a well-known grifter who sells Trump shoes, NFTs, and coins.
The call for leaders is to execute justice blindly so that the innocent are not trampled. We saw in the first Trump administration that children were separated from their parents and held in cages at the border. God cares about immigrants - read Deuteronomy 10:19. Trump has committed numerous felonies and tried to use the justice department in his attempt to overthrow the nation and install himself as president on Jan 6 after the last election. Justice will likely be denied as he will likely go unpunished for his crimes. It seems to me that Trump is more interested in executing Lady Justice than in implementing justice for the innocent.
It is one thing to be a Republican or a Democrat. People can be thoughtful and arrive at different opinions on political issues. We can thoughtfully and prayerfully land on opposing views of how best to run our nation and navigate our faith and politics. I believe there are thoughtful, prayerful, sincere people who are faithful to God in both the Republican and Democrat parties. Both parties have Christians in them, and neither party represents Jesus. We can support political candidates, but there is a point when our faith is no longer in God and placed in man. We can see this in statistics – more people consider themselves evangelicals even as church attendance declines. The definition of evangelical has shifted away from classic theological definitions to a political one. The definition of evangelical has been separated from faith in Christ and replaced with a far-right ideology. Not every Christian who is a Republican has turned from Christ to Trump. While I may disagree with their choice, I can still recognize that many Christians held their noses and voted for Trump.
But that is not the case for the Christian Nationalist and MAGA ideologues. The Christian Nationalist and MAGA movement is not grounded in Christian ethics, including love. Instead, they have corrupted Christ's name and traded Christian ethics for a king. They desire a strong man who will fight the right people. Their rhetoric matches that of the elders of Israel, who wanted a strongman to fight their battles. Trump himself famously rejected loving his enemies at a prayer breakfast, instead focusing on taking an eye and for an eye as his favorite Bible verse.
The United States is not the nation of Israel. It would be theologically wrong to say that the United States will suffer the same consequences as Israel when they turned from God. It would be wrong to read the outcomes of Israel taking a king (destruction for the people) as the same outcome for Christians in the United States leading the charge in calling for Trump's support.
The cry for a king is a political manifestation of a spiritual problem. There is a deep spiritual problem inside of the Christian Nationalist MAGA movement and America as a whole.
The books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and Samuel are not a story but our story. I believe there is hope. There is hope for two reasons. First, God is raising prophets to speak into our situation today. Second, there is providential hope since God is supreme and enthroned.
When the people rejected God in the time of the Judges, God raised prophets. We need prophetic men and women to listen to and observe the spiritual condition of our world today and to speak God's words into our lives. Nearly all the prophets begin with the same message as Jesus: repent.
When we call out for a king, any king, including Trump, we miss Jesus. The Christian Nationalist movement has traded Jesus for Trump. The call must begin with repentance. As a culture, we have difficulty saying, "I was wrong." I'm wrong now.
I'm writing this the day after Trump was re-elected. I should have written this months ago and posted it. I was and am wrong. I feel gross that my friends have traded Jesus for Trump. Lord, help us to repent and to turn towards you.
There is hope. Regardless of whether we ask for a king or not. Irrespective of whether we repent or not. Even when we trade Christ for Trump, the fact remains God is still the one true king. God will lead his people for his purposes. The story of the Judges, Samuel, and the prophets after him is the story that the faithful will remain. God is not done because Trump has been elected president. God's kingdom does not revolve around the United States. God will work despite the fact that these people have turned from him to Trump. I hope those who claim to represent Christ and have fully turned to Trump for help will see their error and turn back to Christ.
I pray that Trump will find the scroll of the law and that it will be written on his heart. I pray that he, the one who has never asked for forgiveness or repented, will find the Lord, forgive his enemies, and seek to be forgiven by those he has wronged. I pray he sees the Lord and repents.
[1] Bergen, Robert D. 1, 2 Samuel. Vol 7. The New American Commentary. (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers) Logos Edition.