Donald Trump makes more news during a week than most presidents do in a month. His ability to command a media narrative may be the only aspect of his presidency that finds almost universal agreement among fans and critics alike.
Whether it’s an unorthodox policy proposal or a racist Truth Social post, he knows how to work a news cycle. This week has been no different. Amid his flurry of nonsense, including chiding the Smithsonian for talking too much about how bad [checking my notes] slavery was and referring to himself as a war hero, Trump caught the attention of some of his most ardent evangelical supporters with a rumination on the afterlife.
In an interview with his fan club over at Fox & Friends about his attempts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, he suggested that saving “7,000 a week from being killed” may boost his resume for getting into heaven. “I’m hearing that I’m not doing well,” he said. “I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”
As Mark Wingfield wrote in Baptist News Global, Trump’s high-profile evangelical court jesters like Robert Jeffress and Franklin Graham have so far remained silent about his works-salvation view of the world. But Trump’s statement was chum in the water for pastors and theologians with a less prominent national profile, but with large and active social media followings.
Trump’s musing allowed them to crack their fingers and take to the keyboard to exhibit their mastery of the Romans Road. But as people who love to shout “I’m not in a cult, I’ll critique Trump any time!” but rarely do, it also gave them a rare chance to appear outside the fray of partisan politics.
They’re with him on his racism, authoritarianism, and his anti-LBGTQ+ and anti-immigrant policies, but misunderstanding salvation is a bridge too far. (Although most of them treated his theological faux pas with kid gloves, saving their harshest critiques for the pastors and faith leaders who have surrounded him for years.)
But their appeals to the Protestant “solas” miss the point. Trump’s eternity problem isn’t that he has no clue about Paul’s letter to the Romans, but that he’s never had any intention of taking the teachings of Jesus seriously. Is there a more on-the-nose scripture that speaks to Trump’s Fox & Friends confession than the story of the rich man who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life?
Jesus’ answer? “Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21).
Later, in Matthew 25, Jesus expounded on this teaching when painting a picture of sheep who will join him in heaven and goats who will be cast out. The determinative factor on who made the cut wasn’t whether they held an appropriate atonement theory. It was their actions or inactions toward those without food, clothing, housing or freedom.
I will not pontificate (pun intended) about the state of Trump’s soul more than I already have, and I confess I am among the masses who find it challenging to hold out much hope. But for the sake of the world, I pray he has a Damascus Road experience and comes face-to-face with the God of Abraham, Amos, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. William Barber.
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Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.
