UNBIBLICAL AND UNHEALTHY COMPARISONS

I was listening to the news this past week, and something caught my attention, not in a good way! When I saw this headline below, my jaw dropped, and my eyes bulged slightly; not a pretty picture.

Trump arrest prompts Jesus comparisons:

Jesus Comparisons, how so? After all, they are nothing alike, so how will they play this out? That was my first question. The second question to enter my brain was, “Why does it matter?” I will seek to answer that question a bit later. I posted some of the articles below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For the most devoted Trump conspiracy theorists, there are no coincidences, and timing is everything.

So when ex-President Donald Trump was arraigned Tuesday on charges that he falsified business records to obscure hush money payments in an effort to influence the 2016 election, some of his most ardent followers quickly noted the court appearance came during Christianity’s most sacred week, Holy Week, when many Christians commemorate Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.”

“Seems there was someone else who was tortured and crucified this week,” read one post on Gab, a platform popular with Trump supporters. A similar post on Telegram put Trump’s case in apocalyptic terms: “Good vs Evil. Biblical times. Divine timing.”

SOMEONE ELSE? Is Donald Trump being “tortured and crucified” like Jesus? I don’t see the comparison. But these kinds of stretches and unfounded parallels are more and more common in our day, aren’t they? The article went on:

Comparisons likening Trump to Christ were among the top online narratives about the Republican former president and his criminal charges circulating in the last several days, according to an analysis of online and social media content conducted by Zignal Labs, a media intelligence firm, on behalf of The Associated Press.

But it didn’t stop there, not by a long shot. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene, who traveled to New York City to protest Trump’s arraignment, noted the timing of the arraignment during a broadcast interview before bringing up the Christ comparison.

“Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government,” she said. “There have been many people throughout history that have been arrested and persecuted by radical corrupt governments, and it’s beginning today in New York City.”

As troubling as these statements are, it is even more disturbing that so few pastoral voices speak out against them. Ironically, one dissenting voice mentioned in the article was from an Episcopal Bishop.

“The comparison was denounced by Episcopal Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, who oversees more than 500 churches in Greene’s home state and called her comments blasphemous and disgusting.

“While Marjorie Taylor Greene may put her political loyalty ahead of God, Christians do not,” Jackson said. ‘Those of faith believe Christ always has, and always will, stand alone!'”

Another article takes the unnerving comparison to a more troubling place.

The Blasphemy of Comparing Trump to Jesus Christ

“Two millennia later, a nearly identical bond has been forged between conservative American Christians and MAGA Republican politicians like Trump, Greene, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Under the blessing of conspiracy-theory preachers like Franklin Graham, Mike Huckabee, and Paula White-Cain, these politicians use and abuse religious imagery to create a culture where disagreeing with them is no longer seen as civic discourse, but as an act of blasphemy. To them, indicting a corrupt Republican politician like Trump isn’t an example of a healthy democracy, but a demonic attack on a holy figure anointed by God.”

It shouldn’t take a lot of reading to realize that this writer is coming from a slightly different perspective, which should greatly concern those of us who are bible believing Christians. He goes on:

“This is part of what academic scholars and Christian activists alike mean by the term “Christian nationalism:” The heretical merging of American and far-right Christian identities to proclaim that only conservative Christians count as “true Americans” and that only right-wing Republicans can be considered true Christians. This authoritarian political ideology seeks to rewrite colonial history, erase the separation of church and state, and declare America a theocratic “Christian nation” where only conservative Christians hold power and other communities lose their legal rights.” 

That label, “Christian Nationalism,” is an intense and broad label that is getting attached to Christians who don’t hold such a view or have even heard of it.

I want to dissect this in two ways:

1. 1. Is such “typology” of Donald Trump acceptable? After all, we see various people throughout the Old Testament called “types of Christ?”
2. 2. Why should biblically based Christians be concerned with being labeled as a “Christian nationalist?

To understand what typology is from a biblical perspective, we must define it.

“The idea of typology has to do with New Testament indications of patterns and people in the Old Testament who were, in a sense, created to serve as pre-figured shapes of what Christ would do” (Ligonier.org).

“Not only does the Old Testament reveal the coming messiah through prophecy, it also reveals Him through typology. Typology refers to historical people, places, objects, or events which foreshadow Christ and His work in the Old Testament.”

So, typology, as understood from a “biblical” frame of mind, has everything to do with a foreshadowing of patterns and people from the Old Testament that PRE (before) figured Jesus Christ, not future events or people that appear to be similar to Jesus Christ and what He went through.

Some examples of this would be:

Adam is a type of Christ. He is the head of the human race, our representative head before God. Adam fell into sin, and we all fell through him. But how is he connected to Christ? Jesus is the “head” of the new creation at salvation. He is our representative, and we are raised and redeemed through Him. 

So also, it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living person”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:45

Since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man. Just as in Adam, all die, so in Christ, all will be made alive.

1 Corinthians 15:21-22

Abel is a type of Christ. Adam had two sons, Cain and Abel. Abel, the younger, was murdered by his older brother for being more righteous than him (Genesis 4:1-24). Likewise, Jesus was killed by his brethren (the Jews) for being righteous. 

Here is some helpful advice for us to consider as we read or listen to pundits today seeking to apply typology to some political figure or if we are studying our Bibles. “My advice is to have good controls on the way you do typology. The best way is to begin with the clear teaching of the New Testament rather than to start making up types from the Old Testament.” I would add to that counsel not to fall into the error of implying that anyone in our day or days to come a type of Christ “Ex post facto,” making up Old Testament type such “types” throughout the Old Testament. 

Now to my second point, Christian Nationalism

Why do we need to be aware of this?

Because this label is broadly defined from the KKK to a Christian that enjoyed saying the pledge of allegiance in school, you are now fitting into that label if you are somewhere within that spectrum. That means you are dangerous, out of your mind, and an enemy of the state and its ideologies and philosophies.

This “moniker” Christian nationalist has been automatically deemed a bad thing. The definition has changed often and will continue to change depending on the day of the week or month. The point is that we need to be aware of the danger of such a view and its moniker and the possibility of it being attached to us, personally, in the future.

The danger of such a moniker is that one group of people, political or otherwise, can paint with a broad brush and label large groups of people, from a broad spectrum, under that category, thereby making them all evil or enemies. This is what liberalism and Marxism always seek to do. Marginalize and then demoralize dissenting beliefs. And then brand them as “dangerous.”

I have included a linkhttps://youtu.be/C8SvP_O1fY8 to a YouTube video by Todd Friel on this topic. It’s only eleven minutes long but a good primer on this topic.

Bible.org

Wretched on YouTube (Todd Friel), What is a Christian Nationalist, and why you better know about it.