Donald Trump has long claimed to be a Christian.<\/p>\n
He “proved it” once by showing off an old, worn Bible that he said was his family Bible, and he talked about how as a child it had meant so much to him (presumably including \u201c2 Corinthians\u201d).<\/p>\n
Another time he demonstrated that he was a Christian by standing in front of historic St. John\u2019s Episcopal Church (after having his goons clear the sidewalk for him to get there) and holding up a Bible for a photo shoot.<\/p>\n
When a would-be assassin\u2019s bullet nicked his ear last July, he claimed God had saved him. But he hasn\u2019t explained why God would save him but not Corey Comperatore, who was standing behind him and was killed by the same bullet. Neither has Trump ever commented on why God would save him but let the Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, Trump\u2019s idol and mentor, order the murders of 6 million Jews and a half-million Gypsies. By the way, Hitler also said he was a Christian.<\/p>\n
When Trump did what he had sworn he would never do \u2013 involve the United States in a war in the Middle East — he thanked God for his success. \u201cAnd I want to just thank everybody and in particular, God, I want to just say we love you, God\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Horsefeathers! Hogwash! Bullhockey! Trump is the loudest hypocrite I\u2019ve ever encountered, and that is not a judgment. It\u2019s an observation. Look at him.<\/p>\n
One of Jesus\u2019 two commandments is to \u201clove your neighbor as yourself,\u201d but the Greek language, in which those words were written, contains four words that translate into English as love: brotherly love, familial love, romantic or sexual love, and what has become known as Christian love. The first three of those involve feelings of the heart, but agape, the word Greeks used to express what Jesus meant by love, is different from all the others because it has nothing to do with feelings of the heart and everything to do with acts of the will. Agape<\/em> demands that we do whatever we can to help our neighbors in any way we can. Jesus later made it clear that anyone who helps \u201cthe least of these\u201d helps God. So, how does Trump demonstrate that kind of love that would show he’s a Christian?<\/p>\n First, he has never demonstrated any agape for anyone except himself, and maybe his white male billionaire friends. Case in point: He has never shown one ounce of agape to \u201cthe least of these,\u201d which not only includes the poorest among us but also, as proclaimed on the Statue of Liberty, other countries\u2019 \u201ctired\u2026 poor\u2026 huddled masses yearning to breathe free.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, Trump is trying to get Congress to pass a \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d that would cause each of the lowest earners among us to lose money and the highest earners to gain money. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the bottom 10% of American earners, the very poorest people in America, would eventually lose about $1,600 a year, while each of the top 10% would gain about $17,000.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s only what Trump wants to do to Americans who have less money than he does (and especially to those who have browner skin than he does). It doesn\u2019t compare with what he already is doing to poor people who live in other countries. By abruptly canceling USAID, he is killing millions of children and causing all sorts of medical problems to millions more. That\u2019s Trump\u2019s idea of Christianity?!<\/p>\n