Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:11 pm
Donald Trump’s religion has been a big question mark ever since his “little wine” and “little cracker” remark. Some Evangelicals have warmed toward Trump. Others are less certain. The latter may be proved right, if some recently leaked emails mean anything.
The Des Moines Register reveals that “evangelical conservative activist Sam Clovis said in an email just 35 days before he quit his job as Republican Rick Perry’s Iowa chairman and signed on with Trump’s campaign,” that,
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“(Trump) left me with questions about his moral center and his foundational beliefs. … His comments reveal no foundation in Christ, which is a big deal.”
Donald Trump has no foundation in Christ. Can you imagine that?
In one email, we are told, “he [Clovis] praises Perry for calling Trump a ‘cancer on conservatism.'”
Perry backers shared the inconvenient emails with the Register Wednesday, because hell hath no fury like a Republican scorned.
And yes, that “little wine and cracker” remark of Trump’s had an effect on Clovis:
I ran for office on the same pretense that a person ought to be held accountable for not only what they say but also what they do. If that is the case, why should I not be suspicious of an individual who was pro-choice until he decided to run for president? Why should I not be suspicious of a person who advocates for universal healthcare? Why should I not be suspicious of someone who says he hates lobbyists and yet has spread millions of dollars around to Republicans and Democrats to enrich himself? Why should I not be suspicious of someone who cannot come to say that he believes in God, that he has never asked for forgiveness and that communion is simply wine and a cracker.
We can’t know, unless Clovis tells us, what changed for him, what Trump said to him to convince him he was real, or what he took in exchange, as some Republicans have suggested.
One person who has zero reservations about Trump is Ann Coulter. She told a crowd in Dubuque, Iowa, when she introduced him Tuesday night, that she has “felt like she’s dreaming” ever “since Donald Trump announced that he’s running for president.”
Now keep in mind, nothing about Coulter’s support has been overtly religious. As Right Wing Watch reminds us,
Coulter, who once gushed about serving as Trump’s secretary of Homeland Security, has boasted that the GOP frontrunner read her latest anti-immigrant book, praising his plan to deport every single undocumented immigrant and undermine the 14th Amendment as “the greatest political document since the Magna Carta.”
“I love the idea of the ‘Great Wall of Trump,'” she said. “I want to have a two-drink minimum, make it a big worldwide tourist attraction and every day live drone shows when anyone tries to cross the border.”
Watch her comments courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
It may not be possible for her to love the “Great Wall of Trump” more than does Trump himself.
Unlike holy communion, he literally waxes poetic when speaking of it, as he did Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation:
“We’re building a wall. And it’s going to be a great wall. And, by the way, Mexico will pay for it. It’s going to a great wall, because I know how to build. And it’s not going to cost nearly as much as what they’re saying for a crummy wall.”
That “crummy wall” would seem to be higher in Trump’s estimation than anything to do with Christ. After all, he dubbed the 1,954-mile-long monstrosity the “Great Wall of Trump” while on FOX Business’ Mornings with Maria last week.
This was a variation of what he called it while in New Hampshire: “I want it to be so beautiful because maybe someday they’re going to call it the Trump wall.”
Yes. It must be beautiful and deadly. When Jorge Ramos asked him about the practicality of his wall Tuesday, Trump said he’s a “builder,” and that it’s more complicated to build a “building that’s 95 stories tall.”
I suspect this is as close to religious fervor as Trump gets, when he’s talking about himself and all his accomplishments. For Trump, even bankruptcy is an accomplishment.
Coulter loves the wall too, as she made clear, perhaps less for the wall itself than for all the talk about immigration. We can’t call it immigration reform, because neither Trump nor Coulter want to reform anything.
It’s more of a hate-fest, and that’s right up Coulter’s alley. And the fact is, as this example shows, Trump spends more time talking about his wall than he the Religious Right’s culture war agenda. Sure, he says he’s “pro-life,” sure he has come out in support of a 20-week abortion ban (because that’s the minimum expected), but what are his Evangelical bona fides?
Well…Coulter seems to think he’s a sign from God. Does that count?:
Now I think it’s like Joseph in the Bible. He had to be sold into slavery, imprisoned, betrayed so that eventually he could save the Jews. Maybe Mitt Romney had to lose and maybe we had to give Republicans one more chance in 2014 and maybe Mitch McConnell and John Boehner had to betray us once again to pave the way for President Donald Trump. God hasn’t given up on America yet.
Right. Because Jesus so loved rich men that he said they had no more chance of getting into the Kingdom of God than a camel did squeezing through the eye of a needle. He said to get in, rich men had to give up everything they own to follow him.
Clovis sure didn’t give up everything to follow Trump. He told the Register Wednesday, “I was recruited and hired because of my skills and my abilities. … I’m an employee of the campaign. I’m not going to talk about how much money I’m getting paid – it’s just not going to happen.”
Jesus didn’t believe in paydays. And if you believed in Jesus, you didn’t either. Both Trump and Clovis, however, are big supporters of paydays. Trump has bragged he will spend a billion dollars to get elected. That’s more than the Koch brothers said they’d spend to get somebody other than Trump elected.
Big sloppy piles of money don’t spell Jesus. Herod the Great might have spent the money to build a big wall and name it after himself. He built a city for Augustus, after all.
But Jesus wasn’t a big fan of the Herodians.
No. Ann Coulter is wrong. And Sam Clovis was probably right the first time. If you take what Jesus said and take what Trump says, Trump does not qualify as a Jesus guy. So, contrary to Coulter’s assertion, if Trump becomes president, it is absolute evidence that Jesus has given up on America.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
