Interpreting Providence

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47066659

Sarah Huckabee Sanders assures us that God wanted Donald Trump to be president. Indeed in terms of God's Eternal Decree, it's true, Donald Trump was ordained to win the 2016 US presidential election.

But what exactly does this mean?

Because it's equally true that God wanted Barack Obama to win in 2008, Adolf Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, Nero to take power in 54AD, and for Nebuchadnezzar to take power in the 7^th century BC.

On the one hand it's a basic thing for Christians to admit that God's in control. It's a wonder to encounter so many professing Christians who seem to struggle with this concept.

Now on the other hand if Sarah Huckabee Sanders means that Trump's victory is tantamount to God's endorsement, then we have a serious problem and anyone who thinks or speaks this way had better be careful. At that point they are presuming to speak as a prophet, to speak as one who has heard the Divine pronouncements in the Heavenly Council, in the Glory-Presence of the Throne Room of God.

I am quite certain that Huckabee Sanders is not a prophetess and cannot make such a declaration.

Providence has allowed many evil men to take power and has repeatedly used such evil men to play their part in the greater plan. God uses Assyria, Babylon and Rome to bring judgment and punishment on the nations, even on apostate Israel, and yet these nations are wicked in their motivations and are under God's judgment.

I can just as easily say that Donald Trump is judgment on not only certain aspects of the world system but on the largely apostate and heretical forms of American Christianity. Their support for blatantly evil man is increasing their guilt and a sign of being handed over.

Can I prove this? No, but I could probably make more of a case for it than Huckabee Sanders can for the notion that God endorses Donald Trump... a notion that is patently false to any student of Scripture.

The ruler of Romans 13, even while a minister-servant of God's Providence is an agent of violence and as such is contrasted with the mind-renewed and transformed people of God mentioned in the previous chapter.

It must be remembered that Nero was on the throne when Paul wrote those words. Referring to the state, even the bestial state as a servant of God is nothing new. Once again, the Old Testament is replete with such examples. Cyrus of Persia may have been in many ways a blessing, even in one aspect a messianic prototype and yet at the same time it's clear from Daniel that the empire of Cyrus was part of the Beast system. Revelation echoes this in reintroducing the multiple beasts (including Medo-Persia) as a composite monstrosity in service to the Dragon.

Even the rulers who are placed into power in order to be a providential blessing may at the same time be wicked and evil. This is but another example of duality in Scripture. The Jews who returned to the land after the captivity were undoubtedly thankful for providence putting Cyrus on the throne but there's no indication that they made him into a 'Jew', a member of the covenant. They did not excuse or endorse his paganism and try to pretend it was something other than what it was. Nor did they sacralise Persia and support the policies of Cyrus as he sought to conquer Asia Minor and Central Asia. And they certainly didn't support him when he blasphemously took on titles such as 'King of the Four Corners of the World'.

Rulers serve their providential purpose. They are a key component of the mechanism of delay, the means by which the world is kept from descending into depraved chaos while we await the completion of the Parousia. Obviously they often fail in this task and additionally play no small part in generating said chaos. And yet, an absence of the state has the potential to create an even worse situation. One need only look to places like contemporary Libya and Somalia to understand something of this.

And yet no ruler is in accord with the Church's mission. Romans 12-13 mark this out as impossible and as such this passage alone also dashes any notion of a 'Christian' ruler or 'Christian' nation.

In fact the real danger for the Church, especially post-Constantine is to confuse the bestial state with the Holy Saviour or to confuse bestial culture and politics with the Kingdom of God.

There is no way that Donald Trump can be spoken of as being in accord with God's revealed will. His life is one of godless disorder and unrepented sin... coupled with a severe lack of shame and guilt. I don't think too many Evangelicals have taken the time to look into his life and understand just who this man is and what he stands for. His life is marked by an open and blasphemous defiance of God's revealed will.

Speaking of being out of accord with the revealed will of God, we can speak with confidence of Huckabee Sanders herself. Raised by a heretical father she has chosen to ignore what the Scriptures teach about the role of a Christian woman and has chosen to largely abandon her family in order to serve an evil state and a particularly dubious administration. God has also revealed that His people are to be servants of truth as indeed we are in union with He who is Truth.

Sanders is a serial liar and has sold herself to one who has made a career of prevarication. She is a disgrace and if I might interpret Providence, she along with her master are part of God's Judgment on American Evangelicalism.

The American Right and the GOP are anti-Christian. The DNC is anti-Christian. Though many have been fooled (and love to have it so) Trump is anti-Christian, an enemy of Christ.

Christians who support these political parties are in sin. Christians who support Trump are in sin. Those pictured in the article are apostates, and clearly figures like Pence, Sanders and Pompeo have a lot to answer for. They have abandoned Christ and bought into a regime of lies, murder, theft and idolatry.

Watching the State of the Union I thought about all the Evangelicals also watching the speech. I knew (because I used to be one of them) they would stare at Nancy Pelosi and view her as this evil and corrupting shadow in that triadic and iconic image of the president, vice-president and speaker. Pelosi is just a lost person, a Catholic and a bad one at that and she certainly stands for some evil things. But is she a threat to the Church? No. She is a threat to those who have confused America with the Church but at that point those very people who are defending a warped of the Kingdom are (to me) the greater threat. In the end Pelosi is nothing, meaningless. She has nothing to do with me. Can she tax me and harm my wallet? So what. The New Testament hardly presents a picture of Christian financial prosperity or middle class prosperity. Once again it's the false teachers and their system who are threatened. Can she promote sodomy in the public sphere? The culture is rushing after it anyway and sodomy goes hand in hand with the economic and political ethos of this country. Its rise was to be expected and Evangelical leaders continue to exhibit blindness in understanding its rise and increasingly in how to deal with it. As far as abortion, I've addressed that issue elsewhere and will only say that Evangelicals do not stand for a culture of life and thus their supposed piety when it comes to abortion is little more than politics.

Returning to the imagery during the State of the Union, Trump's profession can't be taken seriously though he is dangerous in that he strokes and tickles the Evangelical ear. He's a deceitful salesman but no one immersed in the Scriptures is taken in by him for a moment. I groaned listening to his speech because I knew it would strongly resonate with his Evangelical base... and clearly it did as the speech was lauded throughout the week.

But then there's Pence. To me, he (along with applauding Pompeo near the front of the chamber) are the real threats, the real agents of Satan clothed as servants of light. I'm not sure if John Bolton was there and I remain unclear as to his Evangelical attachments but clearly he is appreciated by many of them and yet I can say just as clearly he is a dangerous and evil man – who doesn't have a Christian ethical bone in his body.

We are called to pray for our leaders and that would include Donald Trump. But praying for them is not the same as asking God to bless them. It is not a Divine Call for us to endorse and support them. We obey the laws, render them the coin representative of their system and yet we live among them as strangers and pilgrims with no allegiance but to Christ. Our earthly citizenship is no more than to pay taxes and obey laws. We are not part of their project. We are not flag wavers. We don't fight in their wars, participate in their political order, call on their courts for justice or seek prosperity and status in their system. We do not honour their 'heroes' or those who have killed in order to build and defend their kingdoms and empires. We are called to live as foreigners, ambassadors proclaiming the Day of the Lord. Our words and our meetings proclaim to them the Day of Judgment draweth nigh. Choose whom you will serve, the Lord of Life and Grace or the prince of chaos, death and the bottomless pit.

In a pinch we can appeal to their own laws to escape punishment, we call out and expose their hypocrisies and injustices. But our motives are not political. Rendering to Caesar was nothing to do with being 'good citizens'. The words of Christ and Paul have been twisted by myriad false teachers. Christ was drawing a contrast between the kingdom of Caesar and what is rendered to him as opposed to the Kingdom of God where we lay up real treasures.

Maybe the reader does not fully agree with what is being said here. But consider for a moment, if what I'm saying is right... then think about the implications of what Dominion Theology and so-called Christian patriotism have done to the Church and to its understanding of ethics. It has led to the worship of wealth and status, support for war and a demand for war in order to defend said wealth and status. This has led to lies, prideful deceit and the shedding of blood. The ethics and ethos of the New Testament are turned on their head. Black becomes white, white becomes black. Evil becomes good and good becomes evil.

In the end Huckabee Sanders' statement just brings more shame on Christ's people as the unbelievers snort in disgust. They're actually right to do so but of course their revulsion is for the wrong reasons. The prince of this world loves to sow chaos and his many servants in the Evangelical fold have done just that. Thanks to these folks it's almost impossible for us to get lost people to understand what a Christian even is.

These people are glorying in the 'triumph' of the moment but their glory is really in fact their shame.

Interestingly I've met more than a few non-Christians who seem to know that there are some folks out there who are different, who aren't like these sell outs who dominate the television and radio. That at least is a cause for some hope.