Donald Trump and the Spirit of Self-Righteousness

If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? – Psa 11:3

As I write, tomorrow will be the day of Donald Trump’s coronation as America’s first king. His “triumph” over the rule of law in America was not because he’s a precious little martyr picked on by the “Deep State” forces out to get him, but by dint of one of the Antichrist’s most prominent clues in the prophecies—that he shall “wear out the saints of the Most High” (Dan 7:25). Donald Trump is not returning to the White House because of the favor of God upon him, but as part of God’s judgment upon this blind, blind nation and especially His own people.

Trump is not just a shameless liar but he has perfected the art of stubbornness, which God likens to being just as serious as “iniquity and idolatry” in His eyes (I Sam 15:23). When he clearly saw that he lost the 2020 election, he single-handedly initiated “The Big Lie” that it was stolen from him, convinced his minions like Giuliani to climb on board that crazy train, and called his gullible brownshirt followers to Washington for the heretofore-perfunctory January 6 certification ceremony, telling them “it will be wild” (i.e., “I expect you to riot”).
 
He then topped it off by an incendiary speech telling them they have to “fight like hell” if they want to “save their country,” from the godless liberals Republicans have never stopped demonizing since the days of Saint Ronald Reagan. He then directed them “like a cannon aimed at the Capitol building,” as one commentator put it. All this he accomplished through the sheer power of stubbornness and wearing people down.
 
Right after that fateful day I wrote an article entitled, “A Nation of Masochists” (i.e., those who never stop loving to be used and abused by this bully/manipulator). Its tagline was, “Had enough?” Had enough you Christian Right-wingers, associating yourselves with such ungodly people? Had enough of this pretended patriotism that attacks the People’s House and assaults policeman in the name of liberty, etc, etc?
 
I got my answer quickly enough. Shocked that a mob would threaten them as well as Democrats, that initial honest reaction by Republican officials quickly collapsed once Kevin McCarthy went down to Mar-a-Lago—yes, Mar-a-Lago, to a man boldly living at home when he should have been in jail at that point!—to kiss his ring. This is what a travesty of justice looks like, when the criminal gets to dictate to law enforcement what the law means!
 
Ever since that point, it’s been one long, slow “wearing down” process from this blowhard, grifting every cheap product he can, to do all he can to degrade the office he claims to honor so much. Indeed, language can and has been depleted trying to explain to his clueless followers that brazen hutzpah and boldness are two different things, which depend upon the establishment of truth and righteousness (God’s values) to discern between them.

Analysis Paralysis

From time to time in my writings I’ve alluded to a term I’ve coined called “Analysis Paralysis.” Having come from an engineering family and somehow taught theology by a handful of engineers, the importance of proper analysis has been pounded into me, especially when you’re dealing with a subject as vague as religion.
 
What we are talking about is, that you can’t fix a problem if you don’t analyze it properly. It’s what the Bible means when it says, “with all your getting [of wisdom], get understanding [as well]” (Prov 4:7). Understanding is discerning the connection between cause and effect. “Analysis Paralysis” happens when you don’t properly discern that connection, or even worse, you come to the exact opposite conclusion to the one you ought to have!
 
The Bible is full of examples of this. One of them is in Jeremiah when the people of Judah kept getting rebuked by the prophet for burning incense to the Queen of Heaven, a clear act of idolatry which is guaranteed to trigger the wrath and judgment of God. But they claimed to know better than Jeremiah:
 
¹⁶ As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee.
¹⁷ But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.
¹⁸ But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.

-Jer 44:16-18

In other words, by going by circumstances and rejecting the clear teaching of the Law of Moses, Judah failed to understand that the cause of famine and the sword they were suffering under was the very practice they thought brought them good times!
 
This is the danger of compounding an error and doubling down on it when you should be repenting and moving in the opposite direction. That’s what is so dangerous about listening to a textbook Bible fool like Donald Trump and his convoluted, inverted sense of reality. Because he is so vain, so petulant, so convinced he’s an expert in everything, so stubborn, so willfully ignorant and uncurious, so unwilling to consider the wisdom of the ages, so committed to upending centuries of legal and other traditions won through hard knocks, so intent on imposing the dictatorial ways of his private business upon government, a completely different institution, he therefore cannot be relied upon to solve hardly any problem, simply because he doesn’t know how to properly analyze it.

Or worse yet, he knows what should be done but refuses to do it unless it benefits himself personally some way. Whereas the entire agenda of God in the Bible is to get people to, at the least, love their neighbor equally as yourself or, better yet, love thy neighbor more than thyself (as in sacrificial love), all such thinking is for “suckers and losers” according to this deeply cynical man.
 
But, instead of being brought to justice, Donald Trump has now managed to wear down at least half of a foolish people with his Big Lie. Instead of being brought to justice, he is now the fox in the hen house. All that proceeds from this point forward will be complicated by more and more confusion and disarray, compounding our problems because basic epistemology is being violated.

And The Self-Righteousness

“Analysis Paralysis” is not a Biblical term even though it describes a Biblical principle. So is it likewise with self-righteousness. It too is not a Biblical term, but it is certainly a Biblical principle, and one that Christians often discount.  It was a prominent feature of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day (still is), and the reason why Christ levied a greater condemnation in His time on the religious leaders of Judea than even the “publicans and harlots” (Mt 21:31, etc).
 
“Self-righteousness” is a theological concept that refers to a righteous of one’s own standard rather than God’s, often tinged with more than a hint of “huffiness” or outrage attached. It can incorporate attitudes of hypocrisy, censoriousness and over-doing one’s sense of outrage (Eccl 7:16), but in its essence it means a standard of one’s own making. It can be a standard a little bit off, or it can be the complete opposite of God’s standard! But it simply refers to something that is off, and often accompanied by a sense of outrage.
 
Self-righteousness therefore can be somewhat innocent when you go off on a subject or situation you don’t fully understand, or it can be committed with bald-faced hypocrisy, knowing what you’re alleging is a lie but doing it all the same for intimidation or deception purposes. Its antidote is a big part of God’s plan for all of us—training us to develop a greater sense of judgment and fair-play with others.
 
This phenomenon is something you could call a universal human problem. Every one of us struggles with self-righteousness, with some of us having a greater proclivity for it than others. If you were here right now, you’d see me raising my hand as Exhibit A bearing witness to this. Given what strong opinions I have and how often I’ve found myself to be both factually and attitudinally wrong, I am a great example of the problem. In fact, I’ve wondered what I would have thought about Jesus Christ in His day, his claims and the pressure of my colleagues if I too were a Pharisee.
 
Obviously, Donald Trump is not the only person around today guilty of this attitudinal sin. Yet I have rarely seen anyone in my lifetime with such a casual disregard for the truth than this man. Of all the dangers he represents to me at this point in history it’s that he has not only gaslit an entire party, but is about to embark on adding “drunkenness to thirst” (Deut 29:19) by building upon his “Big Lie” and its implications. To wit, he’s not guilty of 34 felony counts of business fraud in the service of covering up the Stormy Daniels affair lest it cost him the 2016 election. No, no, he’s the victim of a witch-hunting judge persecuting him, don’t you know? No mind that Judge Merchan had nothing to do with the charges against him (they were handed down by a grand jury), nor the verdict (rendered by another jury of his peers). Yet Donald Trump feels entitled to threaten and smear the man, because demagoguery is his specialty.[1]
 
And that January 6 investigative committee? No, they weren’t just doing their oversight responsibilities; they’re the real criminals, the Deep State/New World Order minions out to stop The Great One from saving us all from this sinister conspiracy. They all deserve to be in jail while the J6 rioters must all be pardoned.
 
This is where placating bullies like Trump gets you. A world where justice is perverted and inverted, a world where propaganda and fantasy narrative is disseminated to justify dictatorship and explain away reality. A world where 27 people in Los Angeles are burned to death, $200 billion in property is lost to fire, and cynical Republican officials insinuate they don’t deserve any help unless blue state Californians cave to their extortionist demands. It’s what the Bible means when it says of the last days that men will be “trucebreakers” and “false accusers” (II Tim 3:3). They break the agreement between the states that the federal government promises to come to the aid of any state when it’s in dire straits.

This is what the “tender mercies” of “the (cruel) wicked” look like when you’re hurting (Prov 12:10). I know. The house I was living in was burned to the ground on January 7 along with so many others.’ I escaped with the bare essentials of my life.
 
It is also why I don’t hold out hope for any of this to be rectified short of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. When people become such deceivers that they end up believing their own b.s. themselves, they too become their own victims (II Tim 3:13). Trump may brag he wants to make America great again, but what I’m expecting is what he’s best at—rewarding the wicked and punishing the innocent. It’s what he’s obsessed with, it’s what comes out of his mouth (Mt 12:34), and it’s what he does best. Give it little more than a couple of years, and tell me I’m wrong.

Notes:

[1] The term “Devil” literally means “false accuser.”