Whitewashed Tombs

A response to Christianity Today’s call for Donald Trump to be removed from office.

When I think of past U.S. presidents, scenes flash through my mind of Bill Clinton and George Bush walking to church on Sunday, carrying their bibles. The media have made much of the religious practices of past presidents. Oddly, many of the scenes that come to my mind when I think of Donald Trump are ones where he has used profanity. The media have always been careful to present presidents in their best light. Partly due to broadcast laws and partly out of respect for the office, they’ve refrained from showing presidents using crude language.

I don’t subscribe to cable TV. What I see of Donald Trump comes through social media. When Trump is viewed today, for millions of people, his comments are unfiltered. The uncensored perspective we see of the 45th president is unlike the way his predecessors were presented. It is no surprise then that Christianity Today chose to vilify Trump over public displays of what they deem to be immoral behavior.

No one would argue that Trump is a paragon of virtue—at least not as far as one’s morality can be judged by observing their outward behavior. And that is where I differ with CT’s assessment of Donald Trump.

It is almost exclusively by observing outward behavior that people of faith judge presidents. If a president attends church regularly, if they mention God in their speeches, if they’re on good terms with church leaders and if they oppose abortion, they’ll check the required boxes for most Christians. Since at least as far back as World War I, most presidents have been perceived outwardly as moral men, while inwardly, they have behaved like demons.

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the world was in a near-constant state of war. While France, Spain, Austria, Prussia, and Britain battled for supremacy in Europe, their colonies around the globe revolted against taxation without representation. One family rose to power during this time; their prominence being owed to lending money to nations who were at war. By 1850, the Rothschilds had become the wealthiest family in the world. It was difficult for any nation to go to war without first receiving financial assistance from them.

The way the Rothchilds amassed their fortune, whether by luck or design, in the 18th and 19th centuries became institutionalized in the 20th century. The creation of a private central banking system made available an almost infinite supply of money for war. It funneled taxpayer money into the hands of a few elites, and it virtually guaranteed that the world would be engaged in continual armed conflict. The two World Wars of the 20th century (the first of which began immediately after the creation of the Federal Reserve) stand as stark reminders of what is possible when powerful people set their minds to making money off human suffering.

The CIA pulled off its first coup of a foreign leader in 1953 when it deposed the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran. Since then, the agency has toppled one regime after another in an endless desire to control the geopolitical landscape and ensnare unsuspecting people in a diabolical money-making scheme. Plants used for illicit purposes grow in certain countries. Do you believe it was a coincidence that marijuana became popular during the war in Vietnam in the 1960s? Was it a coincidence that cocaine became popular during U.S. military interventions in Central and South America in the 1980s? Was it a coincidence that heroin exports from Afghanistan surged, and opiate addiction became an epidemic during the Afghan war? The CIA knows that war is good business. Though a few administrations have put up some resistance, most of the presidents of the last 70 years have done the agency’s bidding.

The 2010 earthquake in Haiti showed the evil that is possible in a corrupt political dynasty. The Clinton Foundation took in millions in donations, ostensibly to relieve the suffering of an impoverished nation. But even the Clinton supporting media criticized the way friends of Bill Clinton received lucrative contracts while the people of Haiti were left no better off than before the Clintons came to their rescue.

President Obama drew us perilously close to nuclear war with North Korea and Iran. His predecessors did little to prevent these nations from developing nuclear weapons, but Obama did more to enable them than any previous administration. Obama’s decision to deliver planeloads of cash to Iran puzzled many people, but the practice had been established long before he took office. One report said the U.S. airlifted $40 billion in cash to Iraq between 2003 and 2008. In some cases, the money shipped to Iraq came directly from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. The money was never accounted for. Knowing the nature of politicians and the people who control them, it isn’t hard to imagine that teams may have been on the ground waiting to receive the money so it could be diverted into the bank accounts of those who sent it.

Jeffrey Epstein’s plea deal in 2008 demonstrated that our nation has a two-tiered system of justice. Average citizens are punished for their crimes but those in positions of power often go free. Reports from those who knew Epstein claim that he entrapped politicians and powerful people in sexual encounters with underage girls. The encounters were videotaped. The unsuspecting victims were then subject to blackmail and control by agencies like Mossad and the CIA.

Into this landscape of depravity, debauchery and corruption walked Donald Trump—a man who uses potty language.

Trump signed an executive order on December 21, 2017, authorizing the Treasury Department to seize the assets of people and organizations found to be engaged in human rights abuse, human trafficking or corruption. Since then, thousands of CEOs have fled their companies. Eric Schmidt resigned from Google’s parent company Alphabet the day the executive order was signed. A month later, the Rothschilds auctioned off an estate in Austria that had been in their family for 143 years. (Fire sale?) The arrest of Harvey Weinstein and the subsequent arrest of other Hollywood A-listers put Tinseltown on notice; its culture of sexual predation would no longer be tolerated. The prosecution of members of the NXIVM cult confirmed that things were changing. The re-arrest of Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year and the DOJ’s investigation of his accomplices suggests that the two-tiered system of justice is being reformed under Donald Trump.

Saudi Arabia, which previously exerted control over many U.S politicians, was the subject of a sweeping corruption crackdown in November of 2017. With the backing of Donald Trump, Mohammad bin Salman has brought many reforms to his nation, including changes to the barbaric practice of adult men marrying child brides.

Pundits expected Donald Trump to escalate the war in Syria, but he has shown only a desire to bring our troops home. He has repeatedly insisted that we must end the war in Afganistan, even when it cost him the support of key military leaders. The media insisted before he was elected that Trump would get the U.S. into a war with North Korea, but through the use of backchannel communications and cool-headed diplomacy, he was able to set up meetings with Kim Jong-un, and may eventually sign a peace agreement with the hermit kingdom.

The true character of a man is not revealed by his words but by his deeds. Trump has, through his deeds, displayed more godly character than any president of the last century. It is a sad commentary on the wisdom and discernment of church leaders when they judge a man’s character, as the Pharisees did, by their outward behavior and not by their accomplishments.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.”