Donald Trump’s Fatal Weakness
It’s not hard to understand why one third of Republican voters are passionately in favor of a Trump presidency. I will discuss those reasons in a moment.
But as we head toward the finish line in choosing nominees for both the Republican and Democratic Parties, I want to lay out the fatal weakness of Donald J. Trump.
It may surprise you.
I want to be fair about Mr. Trump and discuss why millions of Americans are voting for him. That’s easy to discern after nine months of campaigning
People are fed up with the self-serving and wimpy politicians in Washington, D.C. who are not looking out them. They are scared about the ramifications of liberal/progressive policies that are destroying faith in the marketplace, family values, the economy and national security.
Voters like Trump because he speaks their language about issues that they care about. They don’t mind the brashness and swagger because there’s a lot of angst out there.
For example, Americans are sympathetic to immigration–we are an immigrant nation. But many citizens now realize that both parties have created an open border in the United States–Republicans for cheap labor and Democrats for cheap votes–that is flooding the nation with drugs, criminals and millions of people competing for jobs.
This situation has been exasperated by the Obama administration’s executive orders, lax border security, support for sanctuary cities, unwillingness to deport or lock up illegal felons (think the murder of Kate Steinle), and pushing for driver’s licenses, voting rights, and welfare benefits for illegals.
When Donald Trump bellows “We’re gonna build a wall!” then millions of Yankees say “Yes!”–especially while watching Europe be overrun with immigrants, some of whom are strapping bombs to their mid-section and slaughtering innocent people.
There are other reasons many people love Trump. President Obama can’t seem to stomach stating the obvious about “Islamic terrorists.” He pulled our troops out of Iraq after the Surge had rescued the nation, and left an empty void that ISIS now fills. Libya is in chaos, Syria is hanging by a thread, the Iranians have been given back $100 billion dollars to fund jihad and are building nuclear weapons, and the Democrats don’t seem to care that they are laying the groundwork for World War III.
So when Trump says we should stop all Muslim immigration until we figure out what’s going on, millions of heads nod as they watch body parts fly in Europe and the Middle East.
More recently Trump has been speaking out against the loss of manufacturing jobs. A case in point was the recent decision by Carrier to close their plant in the Mid-West and re-locate it in Mexico–causing the loss of hundreds of jobs. Many Americans believe we are shipping jobs overseas due to bad government policies.
I don’t think they’re right. Rather, free trade means we need to “switch” to what we can do better and cheaper than others. Actually, due to the dropping of trade barriers, more foreign business jobs have come to American than have left. But the “Rust Belt” is still littered with broken dreams of people feeling the pain.
So when Trump says he’ll slap tariffs of the Chinese, negotiate better deals, and “bring jobs back to America,” many hurting people applaud.
Let’s also be clear about other Trump strengths. In our celebrity-obsessed culture, Donald Trump fits the bill as an American icon:
- Money – he was given millions and has made billions. He says that becoming president and riding on Air Force One will be a “step down” because “Trump Force One” is far more lavish–even containing with gold seat-belts.
- Entertainment – He came into the public eye through “The Apprentice” program and his famous firing of those who didn’t fit the bill. That gig made him a TV star.
- Sex Life – he changes wives about every ten years, and because of his many immoral flings and debauched lifestyle, he considers avoiding venereal diseases his “personal Viet Nam.”
I’ve wondered for a long time how Christian leaders can support the moral life of Donald Trump. I was stunned when I watched a group of Christian/conservatives talk about Melanie Trump’s nude photos taken fifteen years ago. They gawked at her beauty, the professionalism of the photo shoot, and what a good mom she is.
She may be a good mom. But the photos were sleazy and intended for one purpose: to stimulate lust in men’s minds. Why does Donald Trump’s family morality get a pass–even from Christian leaders?
To summarize, the phenomenon of Donald Trump’s political rise is rooted in his celebrity-icon status, plain blunt talk, focus on issues dear to the hurting lower and middle classes, and the increasing secular attitudes of Americans.
He is not a professorial narcissist like Barack Obama. He is a celebrity narcissist to a nation in the process of rejecting the Golden Rule for “what’s in it for me?” That message resonates and is highly seductive.
Virginia Hume describes the power of Trump’s seduction:
“If you have ever been truly seduced, you know. You’ll excuse anything your seducer says, the very things you would have always found repellent. Experts who study sociopaths and cult leaders know this.”
“When we’re seduced we grow emotional, lose the ability to think straight, act in foolish ways that we would never do otherwise. We are more pliable and easily misled. For all practical purposes, a seduced person is a crazy person.”
“If you’ve never been in the thrall of a seducer or a narcissist, maybe you still can’t relate. Well, travel back a little farther, to high school, or even grade school. Remember that popular kid? The seductively popular, charismatic one, the one who might have, say, casually mocked a disabled classmate?”
“Remember when you laughed?”
Welcome to the cult of Trump. Which brings us to Donald Trump’s fatal weakness.
We have mentioned the strengths that have propelled him to the top of the Republican nominating ladder. There are many weaknesses that I could also mention including his high unfavorable ratings. lack of political organization compared to Ted Cruz, and his rude and childish behavior on Twitter etc.
But one, more than others, will be fatal to Trump the candidate, president, and human being.
In the past nine months, the most revealing statement I have heard Donald Trump utter took place on July 19, 2015 in Ames, Iowa during an interview with pollster Frank Luntz.
Here’s what the Donald said:
“I am not sure that I have ever asked God for forgiveness. I just go on and try to do a better job from there…If I do something wrong, I think I just try to make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.”
I almost dropped my drink when I heard his words. He doesn’t ask God’s forgiveness? He never apologizes or asks other people for forgiveness? (That also came out in the interview.)
A vital human trait for all human beings is humility–the willingness to be honest about ourselves and admit sin or error. It’s how we cleanse our hearts; How we keep a clear conscience before God and people; How we heal broken relationships. It’s how we learn, grow, become more like our Creator.
This morning I got an e-mail from a student. She pointed out that some words in her course syllabus were confusing, contradictory. I looked at it, realized I’d made a boo-boo, and e-mailed her: “Sorry, Stephanie. That was my fault. I’ll correct it. Thanks for pointing it out.”
Primary to that little communication, I’d had my morning devotional time, which included asking God to forgive a careless attitude from the day before. On Sunday our pastor gave a great sermon on the keys to an effective prayer life. One of the points was “Confession.”
I can also remember many times tearfully confessing my faults and sins to God, my wife, and others. Most weeks I say I’m sorry for something, either in thought, word or deed. As Mother Basilea Schlink wisely taught: “Repentance is the joy-filled life!”
Donald Trump’s failure to have any degree of humility over his failures is his Achilles’ Heel–his fatal flaw. It may cost him the Republican nomination because of his inability to pivot, change, even reconcile the splintered Republican Party to himself.
If he becomes president, it dooms him to make incredible mistakes that could set off nuclear wars, destroy international relations, splinter the American nation.
And when he dies, it will separate him from God. The Bible says, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
Sin is our first flaw. Unwillingness to confess and repent is the second.
Proverbs 28:13:
“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper. But he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”
Pray for Donald Trump’s fatal weakness.
And don’t make the same mistake yourself.
Pre-Revival Winds of Prayer?
This week I taught a college course in Tacoma, Washington which focused on God’s global plan of salvation over the last 4000 years.
Yes, God has been directing history–His Story–from the very beginning.
I pointed out that in every generation there are five undercurrents–key factors–in God’s Kingdom enterprise. One of those factors, which can grow into a spiritual tsunami in nations, is a growing wave of desperate prayer that proceeds an outpouring of God’s Spirit.
In the United States, this spring, is God launching pre-revival winds of prayer?
Chapter Four of my book, The Fourth Wave: Taking Your Place in the New Era of Missions (available in e-book and in paperback), is called “What Causes Rising Tides?” When I first began researching mission movements and expansion over the past two millennia, I focused on the people that God used in various time periods. To name just a few:
- Peter, James, John and Paul in the Early Church era
- Willibrord and Boniface and Patrick during the Middle Ages.
- Count Zinzendorf, William Carey, David Livingstone and J. Hudson Tatlor during the first and second waves of modern missions.
- Loren Cunningham, Bill Bright, and Luis Bush in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Yes, God uses people to advance His work on earth “There came a man sent from God whose John was John” (John 1:6).
But He also works through five other key factors that unleash, sustain, and grow His waves of redemption.
1. Unity – among believers, the fruit of humility and prayer, is a key proponent in the advancement of God’s kingdom. Unity is the main focus of Jesus High Priestly Prayer in John 17–that his people “would be One as I and the Father are One” (John 17:21).
2. Revival – this is God’s people coming back to “life” through the power of His Spirit. Charles Finney said that “revival is nothing less than a new beginning of obedience to God.”
3. Providence – God has plans for peoples and nations in every generation. The key is finding what He is doing and flowing with His wise and righteous desires.
4. Technology – Using the tools of the time to share the Good News, whether it is the Roman roads and Greek language of the 1st century, the ocean-going ships of the age of exploration, the Gutenberg printing press of the Reformation, or the airplanes, sound systems, and Internet of the modern world.
5. Prayer – The fifth and maybe most important factor in God’s reviving nations is the power and dynamic of prayer. I call it either the fire or fuel of revival and missions. In fact, I normally put it first on the list because it seems to be the essential human activity that sets everything in motion.
When God’s people pray, then supernatural things happen. Chinese missionary Jonathan Goforth once explained: “There’s no secret to revival. Revival always comes in answer to prayer.”
As 2016 enters its fourth month, it appears that the God of the universe is launching some pre-revival winds of prayer that could certainly affect the United States and beyond. I not only want you to be aware of what He is doing, but also encourage you to join in–either on location or in your own home and community.
Something is afoot this spring. Desperate prayer is rising in the world’s leading missionary-sending nation. Here are a few of the encouraging signs.
East-West Revival Sandwich?
Amazingly, God has led two different spiritual movements to call strategic prayer gatherings on the same day–this Saturday, April 9, 2016–2600 miles apart. One is in the east in our nation’s capital. The other is in the west in the city of Los Angeles.
Washington, D.C. is the “city of authority”–where our laws are enacted and enforced. Los Angeles is the “city of influence”–the cultural and artistic hub of the United States of America.
On the same day and time, on two different coasts, in two of the most important urban centers of America, God is leading his people to gather to Him and pray desperately for our nation and world.
Here are the two God-inspired events.
1. Azusa-Now
This prayer gathering is an invitation from Lou Engle, leader of The Call, and a prophetic voice to this generation of youth. Lou says:
“Believing that decades of globe-spanning prayer have saturated the heavens, we will boldly ask God for the rain of revival on April 9th, 2016. We will consecrate an entire day — 15 hours — for the purpose of unity, miracles, healing, and the proclamation of the gospel. Our rally cry: Come, Holy Spirit! Instead of 120 in the Upper Room, we seek to gather as many as 120,000 in one place and one accord to simply exalt Jesus. And for inspiration, we turn to the most powerful expression of revival in modern times: the historic Azusa Street Revival of 1906.”
If you are anywhere near LA this Saturday, don’t miss a once-in-a-generation clarion call to the Church to embrace and receive a 21st century outpouring. If you live elsewhere, here’s how you can participate in Azusa Now:
- Phone apps: Apple – https://appstore.re/us/Ydnjbb.i. Android – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.doubledutch.the call
- Webcast: www.AzusaNow2016.com
Azusa Now is primarily a call to the Millennial Generation. We need another Azusa Street visitation from God. Will you join your heart and prayers with Azusa Now?
On the other side of the nation, at the same time as Azusa Now, up to 30,000 pastors and spiritual leaders will also be crying out to God to bring a nation-shaking revival to America. United Cry DC 16 is a broad movement of groups of pastors and leaders.
“Gathering in our Nation’s Capital has been of historical and spiritual significance. It has been a major gathering place for Christians to come together in solemn assembly to pray and repent for their nation. Each time thousands of Christians gathered to pray in Washington, DC, our nation encountered significant events and God intervened.”
“Throughout our American History pastors have also always played a significant role in bringing about spiritual and social transformation in our nation. We need our pastors to rise up, teach us how to pray, and lead all of us within the Body of Christ back to a relationship with the Lord! Strong times call for strong measures – It’s time to gather again and pray!”
So while the youth are crying out to God in the west, the pastors and leaders will be crying out to Him in the east. “From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, the Lord’s name is to be praised” (Psalm 113:3).
Maybe God will use April 9, 2016 to fulfill Malachi 4:6: “And He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.” That’s the last verse of the Old Testament–and it’s loaded with significance.
The coming of Jesus follows.
3. National Day of Prayer – May 5, 2016
One month after Azusa Now/Cry Out DC16 comes the annual National Day of Prayer for the United States. Some 40,000 gatherings for prayer will take place around the nation on that date. This year’s theme is “Wake Up America” which seems to line up with the building crescendo of prayer that God is inspiring.
I will be in the nation’s capital that week for a variety of meetings with the National Prayer Committee and the official prayer meeting on Capitol Hill and the evening city celebration.
Go to the NDP web-site and find out what’s happening in your area. If there’s nothing nearby, why not schedule your own prayer meeting at school, church, or in your home?
4. Together 2016 – July 16, 2016
In July, God has initiated another national gathering of youth to call out to God for revival in America and around the world. Called Reset or Together 2016, it follows the legacy of past Washington For Jesus, Promisekeepers, and The Call movements to mobilize this generation to seek God’s face.
The leaders of Together 2016 want America to reset–a great modern word for repentance. They are praying for one million young people to join them on the National Mall on 7-16-16.
Can you come? If not, can you join in prayer?
A final prayer focus of note is Franklin Graham’s Decision America Tour 2016 where the evangelist is traveling to the capital city of all fifty states this year to lead gatherings for repentance and prayer. Please go to the web-site and look up the date for your state–then go in person or pray right where you are.
There are many things to intercede for in America and world. Broken families. Back-slidden cultures. A slumbering Church. Racial division. Millions of aborted babies. Economic malaise. Floods of refugees. The scourge of terrorism.
Columnist Steve Berman believes that God could even use our prayers, like he did during the dark days of the Revolutionary War, to bring a change of godly leadership to America:
“We, however, like George Washington, can submit ourselves to prayer. Those who do pray and seek God know His power and that He can conduct 9,000 troops to safety under the eyes of the red coats. He can certainly change the hearts of disaffected and estranged voters.”
“So when the time comes to unify, God can be in our midst to draw us together. There’s a more powerful force than politics (thank God He is) at work here, and the answer to our unity problem is found in Him, not in polls, or personal insults, or accusations.”
Exactly right–through God’s power.
Will you join God’s pre-revival winds of prayer?
Mormons Show Evangelicals the Way
For two hundred years, Christians in the United States have viewed the Mormons (LDS) as a cult.
The reasons for this are many, including the suspect life and practices of the its founder, Joseph Smith, the acceptance of extra-biblical revelation (the Book of Moromon), many questionable doctrines and edicts of the LDS Church, and especially a “works” orientation toward salvation.
I agree that the church’s origins and some practices are cultish.
However, after seeing the results of the Republican caucuses in Utah, it may be time to re-evaluate whether the Mormons are more Christian than Christians.
In their voting, Mormons are showing evangelicals the way.
First a few thoughts on the Mormon Church and religion in general.
I met my first Latter Day Saints when I was a teenager. They seemed like normal people who shared my values but didn’t demonstrate a personal relationship with Christ. They had “religion”–but it didn’t appear to go deep.
They were easy to understand because I was also raised in a religious home–without the power, conviction, and intimate knowledge of Christ. When I became born again in 1968, that experience changed my view of religion and what people need to do to get right with God.
The Bible was clear on the subject: We must be born again through repentance and faith by the work of the Holy Spirit. Salvation is a gift of God based on grace, not works.
In fact, during Jesus’ day there were two groups of religious folks who also failed the salvation test. One was the Saduccees. They were the religious liberals of the day, and didn’t believe in spirits, angels, or life after death. The other was the Pharisees. These were the religious work-a-holics that Jesus condemned at many points. They were the fundamentalists of the time.
Jesus told one prominent Pharisee named Nicodemus that people needed to “re-start” their spiritual lives by turning way from self (repentance) and put their faith in Him. The most famous Bible verse ever was given to this seeking Pharisee: “God so loved the loved that He gave his only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
I learned early on that religion–going through the right motions–is not enough. Salvation is about heart change that comes through our yieldedness and the work of God’s Spirit.
Which brings us back to the Mormons. Not only were they similar to my religious background and that of the Saduccees and Pharisees, but they also believed some pretty strange things that put them outside the bounds of mainstream biblical faith.
On the other hand, many Mormons displayed solid Christian virtues including strong and supportive families (with many children), a powerful sense of community, great work ethic and business principles, and a giving, generous spirit.
Thus, many Mormons may not be born again (heart), but they practiced many Christian principles they understood (mind).
I wrote my first book in 1976 on the reverse of that phenomenon–that a person can be Christian in heart but not in mind. The subject was former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter who was running for president. I know that in his heart he said and appeared to be born again. But in his policies, his “mind” didn’t line up with Scripture.
He was pro-abortion, pro-Big Government and weak on national defense.
Jimmy Carter was the opposite of the LDS Church–biblical in heart but weak in practice. The Mormons were weak in heart, but strong in principles.
Which brings us to 2016 and the Republican presidential race.
I personally believe that as goes the Church, so does the American nation. In the past few political cycles. we have elected a number of poor national leaders and allowed massive disintegration in our culture because many evangelical Christians–even though they have born again hearts–do not have born again minds.
It’s a failure of discipleship. The Evangelical Church has led millions to Christ (heart faith) but have not taught and discipled them into a Christian worldview about government, economics, and the issues of the day.
Evangelicals either don’t vote, or they don’t vote for biblically principled people.
In this presidential election cycle, I am grieved by the ignorance of many evangelical leaders. I don’t need to mention their names. You know who they are. They have bought into the power and charisma of Donald Trump and have provided him the cover to attain victory in a number of states.
Donald Trump is extremely questionable of both heart and mind. He is essentially a billionaire opportunist who is riding the ignorance of Christians to victories in numerous states where the evangelical vote should have gone to the principled Christian conservatives in the race like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or others.
Instead, a mind-less Church has put Donald Trump in the driver’s seat toward becoming the Republican nominee.
It’s such a wasted opportunity that one is almost led to weep.
Gary Randall reports that The Christian Post says that while 78% of evangelicals characterize the outcome of this year’s presidential election as “extremely important to the future of the United States,” only 20% of evangelicals are paying close attention to the election process.
Among non-Christian faiths—including Islam, Buddhism and Judaism— 41% are closely following the election campaigns.
Even religious skeptics, which includes atheists and agnostics are more engaged, with 38% paying attention to the elections. Also 38% of Catholics are engaged compared to 26% of Protestants. This is a reversal of the last four presidential elections.
Shame, shame, shame on us.
George Barna shares this concern about unengaged and ignorant evangelicals. About 38% of Americans are self-declared evangelicals, but Barna used the term only to identify persons who are evangelical in their fundamental biblical beliefs–what I call being Christian “in mind.”
By his criteria, only 8% of Americans are truly evangelical.
Not surprisingly, self-declared evangelicals are all over the map politically, some Democrats, some Republicans, but how many are voting biblically? Very few. The sad news is that just 8 percent of the people most capable of influencing America for righteousness are paying attention to the elections as compared to others. (Barna Report; Who Qualifies as an Evangelical?).
To sum up, God’s people in this nation are asleep and ignorant as the United States faces its greatest challenges.
But the Mormons seem to get it.
Glenn Beck (a prominent Mormon broadcaster and author) recently suggested that GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump is incompatible with Christians who take their faith seriously.
“No Christian, no real Christian – I don’t mean a judgmental Christian, I mean somebody who is living their faith – no real Christian says, ‘I want that guy, that guy is for me,’” he said during a broadcast of his radio show. “Nobody, nobody.”
Beck also argued America is moving away from its Christian underpinnings, causing myriads of moral and social problems nationwide.
“I honestly don’t know what else to do,” he said. “We have got to be a people of principles. We are a Christian nation.”
“Are we really?” Beck asked. “Then why are we in so much trouble? Why do we have the same kind of problems that non-Christian nations do with pornography and drugs and everything else?
“We should be setting an example if we’re actually living our Christian faith. The problem is we all say we’re living our Christian faith [and] we’re not living our Christian faith.”
Beck additionally vowed he would challenge any religion or denomination he believes is ignoring its own guiding principles.
“I’ll take on the Jews, and I’ll take on the Lutherans, and I’ll take on the Catholics, and I’ll take on the Mormons,” he said. “I’ll take them all on. You’re damn right. Where are you? You’re not living your principles.”
Where have you heard that prophetic call in the evangelical churches?
Meanwhile, the Republican presidential sweepstakes arrived in Utah–a Mormon bastion–on March 22 after giving Donald Trump ten-to-fifteen victories in the Bible heart-land of America. How did the Mormons vote? The way evangelicals should have:
- Ted Cruz, a principled Christian conservative – 69%
- John Kasich, an evangelical governor – 17%.
- Donald Trump – 14%.
If evangelicals had been as wise as Mormon voters in Utah, then right now Ted Cruz would be well on his way to wrapping up the Republican nomination and going against a weak Hillary Clinton or Socialist Bernie Sanders in November.
Many people believe that Ted Cruz is the closest thing to Ronald Reagan in a generation. Yet, an unengaged, mindless, unprincipled Church is not practicing its faith in the voting booth.
Mormons are showing evangelicals the way. Maybe we need to be born again more than they do.
And show our faith by our works.