Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump waves at a rally at the Westgate Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 14, 2015. Trump will face off with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and six other main stage candidates at the GOP debate on December 15. AFP PHOTO / ROBYN BECK / AFP / ROBYN BECK (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)

Communicate

Donald Trump’s various quotes fall into several categories:

1)  Many Trump quotes are actually common sense expressions of things that conservatives actually agree with.

2) There are self-promotional quotes.  Some Christians have a knee jerk reaction against that because it doesn’t sound humble to them.  But every candidate must self-promote, and people understand that, and they want to identify their candidate’s selling points in no uncertain terms.

12744666_483973575138921_1646759184017243244_n3) Then, there are the provocative quotes.  Some of these are along the same level of brashness as we see from late-night TV hosts, comedians, and entertainers.  If a liberal said these things, there wouldn’t be any attention to it.  Conservatives have been put in a box, and their careers typically end when they say something provocative like Trump does.  They have allowed themselves to be controlled by the liberal political correctness that is ONLY USED to destroy THEM.

Right now, we are at a tipping point.  It really is on the edge of a revolution of sorts.  And even evangelical Christians are willing to give Trump a pass on such statements because FOR ONCE, the liberals are not going to dictate how the conservatives must act and what they must say.  This is a war-time response to a culture gone crazy and the recognition that everything we stand for as a country is at risk, and IT MAY BE TOO LATE.

There is a dynamic to this.

Four years ago, I started sharing with my Christian friends and accountability partners some of my thoughts about the declining state of our country.  I had become convinced that I as a Christian could have no ability to influence the direction of things.  There was recognition of certain hopelessness.  Essentially, it was like I had to throw my hands up in the air, and say that the only hope for America now is REVIVAL, and unfortunately, I wasn’t sure if that was in God’s plan for what might be these last days.

hillary-clinton-obamaThe reason why I felt that I couldn’t be effective as a Christian in combating postmodernist messaging is because of the dynamic I introduced in #3 above.  There is an uneven playing field with different rules applying to each side.  And ONE SIDE (liberals), are willing to use TACTICS that I as a Christian CAN NOT use!  They are willing to name call, and engage in certain types of personal attacks, etc.  Their methods are very effective at demeaning the conservative message, demoralizing the conservative base, and stealing the very children of Christian conservatives to their dark side.

Phil Robertson_1387425894678_1669969_ver1.0_320_240To explain this a bit more so you understand what I mean, Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame had a terrible public relations disaster when he referenced homosexuality in a non-politically correct way.  They were going to pull his show.  He was labeled and joked about and demeaned.  But in reality, he was ACTUALLY expressing something that embodied TRUTH.  But because he was a Christian, stating such truth in such a provocative (realistic) fashion, and actually exposing the act for the inglorious thing that it is, almost cost him his business.  While he managed to apologize, and tone it down, and crawl in a politically correct hole, he was able to salvage his business.  But that was ONLY POSSIBLE because there was SUCH A BASE OF SUPPORT for what he had said among Christian conservatives that the TV network had to cave in after he made the requisite retractions.

946150_555200604637498_4642466314910397913_n (1)I opined that if I could separate myself from Christianity, I COULD ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRESS in beating back the liberals.  If I could only play by THEIR rules, I could whoop the pants off of them.  There were particular issues where I had formulated strategies that I KNEW would totally destroy the messaging of the left.  PROBLEM WAS, I would have to deny Christ, so that the left could not call me a hypocrite for playing by THEIR rules.  I would have to defend conservativism without relying on Judeo-Christian foundations.  I would have to be willing to say things that a Christian would not say.  I could beat them at their own game, but to do it, I WOULD HAVE TO BE LIKE THEM, and I couldn’t do that because it was unacceptable for me to deny who I was.

images (5)I further opined that it would be great if a non-Christian man with great communication skills became available to go into combat with the left, to demean their liberal messaging, to demoralize their liberal base, and to steal the very children of the liberal progressives to the conservative side.  In other words, I fantasized about a man who could beat the liberals at their own game, without becoming a victim of the typical political correctness that the left uses so well to double down and continue to beat the pants off of us.

And then, along came Donald Trump.  He is even better than the fantasy man I dreamed of.  Not only does he get away with playing by the same rules that the liberals do.  But he does it while claiming to be a Christian, and while campaigning for Christian causes.  BibleHe defends “Merry Christmas.”  He attacks the beheadings of Christians.  He claims that Christianity is UNDER SIEGE!  He says he will defend Christianity.  He hails back to the captivating teachings of the “great”  Pastor Norman Vincent Peale, whose teachings Trump took to heart and made central to his life (OK, you may disagree with some of the theology, but it is what it is).  He talks about Christianity as the standard that made America great.  He openly waves a Bible.

angryAND YET, HE MANAGES TO PLAY BY THE SAME RULES AS THE LEFT in a way that only Trump can do.  Finally, there is a man that can talk the way the people on the left do, and whoop their pants off at their own game!  The power of that is ENORMOUS.  As a Christian, I am totally willing to let this man go to battle for me and beat the piss out of the liberal whack-jobs that have destroyed my country!  He may not be the man that I’d vote for to be my pastor. But finally, we have someone that can be effective at beating the leftists, and reversing the train wreck that up till now has been unstoppable. And if he doesn’t fix every issue that I hope for, I’m willing to let him have a shot at it to get SOMETHING ACCOMPLISHED!

And in this process, I have also modestly come to realize that he is also destroying the dogmatic, antagonistic, dominionist, political correctness of the RIGHT as well! That’s why the dominionist Christian right wing is just as angry with him as the socialist left wing.  Before Trump came along, I never really recognized that ugly side of my Christian self before.  Many may not identify Trump as a strong Christian, but I learned something about Christianity from him that I didn’t get from a lifetime in the church pew.

I’m not saying Cruz or Rubio or Bush are the personification of Evil.  I just know that they’re not that fantasy man that will be able to talk like a liberal and beat them at their own game.  They would be classified as hypocrites and be sidelined if they tried to do that, because the left will always judge them by their own standards. PissedInterestingly, the only hope they would have is to adopt the same demeanor as Trump.  And to a certain extent, they have actually attempted to do that.  I watched them in the debates formulate some of their responses and thought to myself that they were actually talking like Trump.  But for Trump, it is natural.  It is in his DNA.  He doesn’t need to think about it.  He navigates without having to constantly figure out who he is.  That can’t be duplicated by imitation – it just won’t work.

So save me the moralizing about Trump not being a Christian or being worldly.  Because even if Trump came out and said he was an Atheist at heart, I’d still vote for him.  And so would his followers.  We are not “Christians for Donald Trump” because Donald Trump is a Christian!  We hold ourselves out as “Christians for Donald Trump” precisely because of our Christian brothers who say cropped-Christians-for-Donald-Trump.jpgthat it is not possible for a real Christian to support Donald Trump.  We are demonstrating that indeed, it is possible for a real Christian to support Donald Trump.  And you and no one else should call our Christianity into question because we exercise our American right to use our God-given wisdom to analyze and select the candidate that we feel is best!

The possibility that Trump is a Christian (and that’s another whole blog that I could do) is just the icing on the cake in our selection of Trump for President!

I even find myself saying, “Thank you, God, for giving us Donald Trump at this time and place.”

Trump talk

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