Wednesday, May 17, 2017

What About Trump?

What about President Trump? I have delayed offering my little piece of comments until he was past his 100 days in office and until we could see a pattern emerging. I am no politician and do not write for a political cause or party or platform. I am not part of a political think tank and resist being identified or pigeon-holed, though I am certain this post will be seen that way. I write out of a conservative, evangelical Christian perspective, though have many friends on all sides of the political perspectives. Another thing is that I did not vote for Mr. Trump, nor for Hillary Clinton, in the last Presidential election for personal, convictional reasons, rather than a particular political point of view. So, what about President Trump?

People either love or hate the President. There are many on the left who simply despise the President. This is obvious and tragic, I believe. They are out to get Mr. Trump impeached for criminal activity of some sort. This has been plainly intimated by many on the political left. And this no doubt applies to some conservative Christians. Believers should read and re-read Romans 13 in the Bible for how we should be acting toward and thinking about officials of the state. They are due our honor, obedience and service. After all, the Apostle was speaking of the Roman Empire and its Caesars. As far as I know, the President has not asked us to violate any biblical mandates. In fact, he has worked to uphold some biblical perspectives and premises. Whether or not we agree or disagree with Mr. Trump, he is the President and is due our respect.

President Trump is anti-Establishment. I went to college in the 1960s. Remember those days? Anti-establishtarianism was rampant and strident in those days, certainly on my college campus and across the nation. The moral standards of the 1950s were being attacked and challenged. Anti-establishment people have always faced ridicule and fearful rhetoric by establishment types. My guess is that many older people on the left today marched, smoked whatever, and rallied against the moral order of earlier days and years. They should understand and even appreciate the anti-establishment stance of this President. Or, have we forgotten our sit-ins and rallies and work to shed the rules of the establishment then?

President Trump is a maverick. His Tweets and actions prove it. He is not suave, sophisticated, patient, or "presidential," whatever images that evokes. He is caustic, impetuous, anti-media and likes to shake things up. But this is the man we elected to be the President. Some may challenge that statement and contend that the election was somehow rigged by the Russians, and that the people were deceived or duped into electing a "bad apple." But he was elected, none the less, by our system of government. But we don't know how to deal with mavericks in the Washington establishment, do we? We therefore get frustrated, angry, upset and put out by this President. What did you expect?! If you think we are a Christian, moral nation, wake up! We have been increasingly secularized since the 1960s, and our biblical values and moral codes have been, and are being, trashed by many. If we expect the President to act "like a Christian," we have been living in a time capsule or are just naive.

What, then, should we be saying and doing about our President? We should be praying for him and all the government officials at all levels, whether they are politically right or left or moderate or extreme. That's what my Bible tells me to do. Are you praying, I mean really praying, for President Trump? That God would so direct his actions and words and Tweets and decisions so that, as the Apostle says, we "may lead a peaceful and quite life, godly and dignified in every way" (1 Timothy 2:1, 2). This doesn't mean we give up or give in to bad decisions or incorrect judgments, but it does mean we depend upon God at the end of the day to judge righteously and well. I am not tying my wagon to the President or Congress for that matter. But I sincerely plead with God for their lives and decisions.