What About Trump? | Apologia Radio Highlight

All right, let's talk for a second about Trump. When 2016 hit and Trump was running for president against Hillary, we took a lot of heat. And I mean, I can reflect back on like, we were just getting nailed by people who really loved us.

It really just, the disagreement was so fiery.

It was a split within evangelicalism.

It really was. And look, we were just simply saying, look, I grew up with Trump in the atmosphere and on the news.

As a businessman, as a personality.

I was born in 78. I'm an 80s baby. Grown through the 80s and seeing him on the news all the time throughout the 90s. And I saw he was like this leftist businessman. He was like

Even at home alone.

Yeah, he was pro-choice. He's this New Yorker. And so now all of a sudden he comes out as conservative and he's standing for conservative things. I was a little suspicious. I think so many of us were suspicious.

And I was worried like, well, are we being played? And has there been enough time to say this man really believes these things? Anyway, so 2016 was a rough moment for us. But I will say, of course, I grant.

I'm thankful. I'm thankful for many of the things that Trump did. I like someone who punches back and resists. I like the fact that, let me tell you what I like about Trump. I like the fact that Trump will call you out and he will take the floor out from underneath you and he will say what all of us wish we could say in those positions.

But you'll even have strong conservative leaders that won't say what needs to be said at times and won't punch back. And I like the fact that Trump will just punch back. He doesn't care. He doesn't need your money.

I like the fact that he didn't take a paycheck. I like the fact that he operated

Completely self-funded.

As a president in the United States of America, he never took a paycheck. And that says a lot about his commitments. It really, really does.

And I think, to your point, he's a lot of things, but he's not weak. That's right. He's not weak.

And so he began to grow on me. And he began to grow on me. Now, hold on now before you take Like a pimple? Yeah, before you take that too far, I am not giving a pass to the shakiness of his character.

At times, I'm not giving a pass. To the abusive ways that he handles people at times. What I am saying is I admire a courageous leader that will say what needs to be said when it needs to be said. I admire that.

We've lacked that for so, so long. So I like that. I was very excited early on. And I'll be honest. At first, I was so skeptical. I'm like, can we really do this as Christians? Vote for a guy like this.

And then I started seeing him talking about the issue of abortion. And he bit down. All right, human from fertilization. All right, we got to protect those human beings.

Took it to its end.

And he took it to its logical conclusion.

Alive.

And you're going to see that in a minute here on a news report. He was like, well, yeah, there would have to be some punishment for a woman taking the life of her child. And I was like, whoa, look at that consistency.

Pro-life establishment.

I was like, whoa.

That came from the guy that I was suspicious of.

Right.

And I was just like, I'm having a really challenging time managing this in my own head.

Wait a minute.

Because, yeah, he was saying things that the establishment wouldn't say. And then the establishment comes in and they're like, whoa, hold your horses there. Hold your horses there, Orange. We said at the same time, hold your horses there, Orange.

We don't really believe they deserve to be equally protected. We don't really believe that. We're not there. So there was, you know, the sort of like waffling in the back and forth. And but I was excited.

I was like, yeah, that's pretty good. I love the fact that he says what Christians should be saying in terms of war. That we ought not go to war in an unjustified manner. And then we should not be trying to police the world and start wars.

We should really get our troops home. We have our troops out and we're spending tons of money of taxpayers dollars on wars that we should never have been involved in. They, according to a biblical worldview and just war theory, there are wars that we should not have participated in.

And I like the fact that he was like, look, he brags about the fact that I didn't start any new wars. I was trying to get everyone home. I wish more Christian politicians would talk like that. Because that's what we should be doing.

Like I was all for like, I'm thinking like Ron DeSantis. DeSantis, DeSantis, DeSantis.

Speaking of Ron, he just dropped out of his campaign.

He did.

And he endorsed Trump.

Right.

And he endorsed Trump.

There you go.

And then Trump officially said, I will no longer call him a desanctimonious.

Yeah, there's a little bit of a peace treaty going on there. But I mean, you got to think that he's. Dropping out to make room for Trump because he sees him as the most favored to.

Maybe he'll run in vice president.

That would be.

That would be really cool. Ron Paul.

I don't think they could get along.

Ron Paul was the guy that was always saying and the Fed shut down income tax. And he was saying, pull all of our troops home and get us out of all these unjustified wars. His wars we don't belong in. And I'm just like, Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Ron Paul.

Cost us money.

I know. And but I was like, oh, that's nice. Trump's there, too. And I really appreciate that. And people were like, busting his chops that he went and tried to make peace with Russia and China and North Korea.

And I'm like, isn't that what we're supposed to be doing? We want to be at war with the world. You can have a position of strength without trying to bully the world or put everyone under your boot. It's kind of a nice thing to try to make peace.

Blessed are the peacemakers. Someone said that.

And North Korea, too.

And so I was like, I was really thankful. I was like, these are good things. And I'm not saying we give China and North Korea a pass when they're wicked and sinful. I'm not even saying that. I'm saying for a leader to say with strength, right?

Like, you know, we'll hurt you if you hurt us, but let's talk. Like, let's not be at war with each other. Let's be at peace.

I'm like, I think other leaders, other leaders obviously respected that, too. The fact that he wasn't weak, that he was also wanting to build that bridge in a sense of peaceful relations. I very much doubt that the other nations external to the United States right now are looking from the outside in at the man who currently occupies that residency with respect.

President Biden?

Yeah, no one's no one respects him. He has no strength. He's not even coherent. He can't find his way off the stage. He's clearly not the person running the country.

Not in his condition that I don't know a lot, but I know that much. Yeah, whoever is in charge. It's not him.

Yeah, that's right. And so you've got Trump winning now, like Iowa. He just won New Hampshire. DeSantis pulled out of the race. And yeah, it's looking like it's going to be Trump that gets the nomination.

And so it'll be Trump versus Biden again. And I think we should talk about it as Christians and say, like, OK, like, what does that mean? And how do we really change things? But, you know, I told you last week that I really, really struggled.

I was like, I wanted to throw up in my mouth as to like the landscape you had. Like, I think I remember some kind of juxtaposition of Donald Trump and Jesus on the cross. And it was gross, gross, gross.

And it was all of this conflating of Jesus and Trump.

And it was like sending the message that he is the savior of America.

Yeah. And then there was other ones that was like, oh, it was like, oh, it was like Trump being held like a baby in Jesus's arms kind of a thing. And it was just like, oh, this is so gross. And I defy anybody to demonstrate that as a faithful Christian position on this issue.

And so, you know, I struggle with that. And I think we all share that idolatrous nature and that Christless conservatism that.

Cult of personality.

Yeah.

Cult of personality puts the salvation of America into the hands of like it's in the hands of Donald Trump. No, it's in the hands of Jesus. And it's in the hands of his church in many ways and the faith of proclamation, prophetic proclamation of his word.

I'm not saying and I want this to be really clear. I'm not saying that between Biden and Trump, I don't want Trump to win. I want him to win because I think that it gives us a space. You say a few minutes ago, like a window or no, as Isaac said, it gives us room to work.

It gives us room to work. And I want the room to work. We're going into straight tyranny. And I want that space to work. And I think we would get more of it with Trump. So between the two. Yeah, I hope that is the case.

Like the invasion that's coming across the border right now, price of goods and services.

Across the border across four years.

I don't think Trump has a truly biblical worldview when it comes to the economy. I mean, like a capitalist idea of personal property and work and all that stuff. Yeah, he's got the nuts and bolts of it, but not a truly biblical economic position in terms of money being real money and taxes and what that would look like in a godly society to have taxes that were a godly form of taxation.

I don't think he has that worldview, but I think we'd be a lot safer, a heck of a lot.

Safer.

And so I'm all I'm all for it. So I'll announce that ahead of time. Like I between the two, I certainly hope we get space and Trump wins. But let's play this clip. This is from CNN. And this is a montage that shows sort of like this is the problem of a Christless conservatism.

It will waffle like this. And they see it, too. These are the leftists. These are the pro-aborts. And they see it, too.

I'm I'm very pro-choice. I hate the concept of abortion. I hate it. I hate everything it stands for. I cringe when I listen to people debating the subject. But you still. I just believe in choice.

But I'm pro-life.

You're pro-life. But you do think that there should be exceptions for rape and incest.

Yes. And life, you know, the health of the mother, the death. Do you believe in punishment for abortion? Yes or no? As a principle. The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.

For the woman.

Yeah, there has to be some form. We got it back to the states. We did the Roe v. Wade thing, which they've been trying to get it done for 50 years. I got it done. I believe in the three exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.

I believe in that. Without the exceptions, it is very difficult to win elections.

And there you go. See, Christless conservatism is all about political expediency. It's what will work for us.

What good is it to get Republicans elected if they're not principled, strong Republicans that will stand on their values and actually against evil? If the strategy is, well, we just need to get our team on the ballot and we need to get them elected.

And this is going to disrupt that process and that strategy. What good does it do if they don't actually do what they say they're going to do?

Yeah.

Well, and that's it. So you see the standard for Trump there. And that was in Iowa, by the way. He just said that. The standard for Trump there is if it's not going to win us elections, we're not going to do it.

That's not principled. And one of the things I've admired about Trump in the past is where he takes a principled stand and he wins. Hey, lo and behold, it takes the courageous person who is not going to compromise, who is principled and says what needs to be said to get the American public to vote for you and support you.

Why is everybody so rabidly committed to Trump? Because they like the fact that we finally had someone to be willing to just say what needs to be said and just confront stuff and say no.

As William Wallace said, men don't follow titles. They follow courage.

That's right. Exactly right. And that's why everybody has just fallen in love with him in many respects. That's my opinion. So I think that's the case.

Despite all of his many shortcomings, his soul damning pride, his obsession with himself, all those things like notwithstanding.

Right. Notwithstanding that.

I wanted to ask you, bro, because I mean, we're talking about in this episode a lot like not being afraid to call out our own, like people on our side that supposedly represent our values and that are running on our platforms, saying what appeals to our ears in order to get elected as well, which Trump and the other politicians like they're going to do that.

Oh, for sure.

But I mean, historically, why, in your opinion, do you think it's been so hard to call out our own? I think that we pick our favorite pundants, people that are talking heads in the conservative movement, especially, and they say all the things that we want to hear.

But then they're so off, like so terribly bad in this area, and we won't hold them to any kind of consistency or accountability. I know we've kind of experienced that with the Kirk thing and doing that.

But why is it that like our side seems so reluctant to hold accountable the people that we look up to and value?

That's a good question. I mean, a lot of it, I just think it's like it's like almost like sports teams, right? Like you have your guy, your team, and you'll just defend your team.

You're all in.

Like, I'm a fan. You're like, you're all in no matter what sort of a thing. And, you know, and so that's not a biblical answer, but I'm just trying to think through that. You know, so it's like pragmatism, right?

Right. Be very pragmatic.

Yeah.

We think it's going to lead to the desired outcome or result we want. So we're willing to overlook these things.

Yeah, exactly. You know, you want a biblical answer. Here it is. It's idolatry, right? Because we become what we worship. I keep saying this. I've been saying it. But, you know, if what we're seeing, especially with people that are team Trump, there are Christians, is they're willing to overlook the flaws and, you know, have scripture bow down to Trump because that's ultimately their idol.

You know, that's what they're worshiping. And so I think from our perspective, we're saying, no, we're Christians first. And yeah, I'm going to support that guy. But if he missteps, if he says or does something that doesn't align with scripture, I'm going to call him out on that because he's not what I worship.

Yeah.

Or not who I worship. Christ is who I worship. And his word is my objective standard. And I think Christians just fail to have that objective standard. You know, again, it falls back to the pragmatism.

They're like, well, you know, but we need him to win so that we can do this, this and.

This.

So if he is wrong in this area, that's not as important as this area. So, you know, I'm going to give him my support sort of thing.

So, yeah.

And I think, you know, we're talking about here to Christians, like thinking through these issues and trying to wade through, you know, their principles and understanding, like, just because I'm supporting this guy in the sense of the alternative is so horribly awful that I dare not because I love my nation and I love the foundations it's built upon.

Yeah.

And this choice will give me room to work more room like conservatism is going towards the cliff slower. But at the same time, you know, we want that as Christians think through this, I think what you said is so important because if we compromise our standard, if we don't have the ability to criticize the people on our side, then like you said, we run the risk of going the route of the manga extreme, you know, where we're erecting these pieces of art depicting Trump as the savior.

Yeah.

It just just because we believe that this might be the best choice politically, you know, doesn't mean we're going to hold not going to hold someone's feet to the fire in terms of what God says.

I can I can say because I can chew gum and walk at the same time. I'm thankful for the things I'm thankful for.

Thank you.

I'm thankful for the stands that Trump has had that are consistent with the Christian worldview and for the boldness and at the same time, condemn and confront the inconsistent anti-Christian positions that he holds or he promulgates.

And so I think we need to be willing to do that. If we're not willing to do that, if we're not willing to confront that, then I think they were engaging in idolatry.

Yep.

And that's not good.