Last week I was invited with a group of conservative Evangelical and Catholic “thought leaders” to meet Donald Trump. Many if not most of these people, which included a number of old friends, have been less than supportive of the candidate. The topic was religious liberty, and presumably the meeting’s goal was to gain support for Trump. I don’t know if any minds were changed. My organization doesn’t endorse or oppose candidates. Last Spring I shared my own personal thoughts about this election, which have not changed.
The meeting’s list of participants is off the record but evidently individuals are fine to discuss their own participation. A Dallas minister who supports Trump spoke on O’Reilly Factor about his role at this meeting. A Christian college president on the radio offered his own account.
There were several impressive presenters who addressed various threats to religious liberty, domestically and globally. Trump seemed to listen and responded with questions and comments. He also interjected his thoughts on the latest polls favoring him, aimed gibes at favorite political opponents, and exuded a bravura persona little different from his television performances. He has at times a roguish charm that recalls the 19th century critic of Henry Clay who resisted meeting the statesman lest he be seduced by his famously bewitching magnetism.
To what extent Trump was affected by the conversation on religious liberty can’t be gaged. That night he generated controversy by tweeting about the Venezualan beauty queen whose weight gain he once criticized. It doesn’t appear at this point that religious liberty will be a major public topic in this campaign.
Ivanka Trump briefly visited the room, causing one woman to exclaim,”She’s so beautiful!” Indeed she is. Afterwards Trump as father extolled his daughter’s talents. The meeting at Trump Tower at least confirmed that Trump is just a person, not the supernatural diabolical force described by some critics.
Eight years ago, while attending a White House prayer event with President George W. Bush, I sat across the room from then Senator Hillary Clinton. In between heads bowed for prayer, we repeatedly made eye contact. It turns out she is also merely human and not the supernatural diabolical force whom some critics fear and loathe.
It’s not uncommon in any presidential campaign to both disdain and dehumanizingly elevate political figures to a cosmic status either salvific or luciferian. But they are in the end just people, full of vices and faults often not intrinsically different from our own, except much more in the spotlight. They often fully deserve condemnation, but we should reflect that we their critics are not necessarily very superior in morals or character.
The lowness and banality of this presidential campaign, and to some extent of every campaign, ideally reminds us of our Founders’ spiritual wisdom in constructing a republic of limits and laws that understand humanity is more fallen than angelic. May that wisdom uphold us in the days ahead.
Comment by Kingdom Ambassador on October 19, 2016 at 3:53 pm
The election is but another opportunity to figure out that we’ve been had and that by our own making. If this election doesn’t wake you up to this fact, count yourself among the walking dead.
Both Hillary and Donald are the inevitable consequences of the constitutional framers banning Christian tests in Article 6, thereby
eliminating mandatory biblical qualifications for civil leaders. America has
been doomed to nothing but nincompoops, scoundrels, and outright criminals ever since. Sound familiar?
The 18th-century founders usurped Yahweh’s exclusive election authority
(Deuteronomy 17:15), thereby turning it over to We the People, the majority of whom, according to Matthew 7:13-14, are in the broad way leading to destruction. Talk about a D U M B idea! Just where do you suppose that’s going to get us? Perhaps the precipice of moral depravity and destruction!?!
No wonder following every election, America only becomes more ungodly, less Christian, and further enslaved regardless whether a donkey or an elephant is elected.
For more, see blog article “Salvation by Election” at http://www.constitutionmythbusters.org/salvation-by-election/.
Then find out how much you REALLY know about the Constitution as compared to the Bible. Take our 10-question Constitution Survey at http://www.bibleversusconstitution.org/ConstitutionSurvey.html
and receive a complimentary copy of a book that EXAMINES the Constitution by the Bible.
Comment by MarcoPolo on October 19, 2016 at 6:16 pm
I doubt anyone could disagree with your description of the “scoundrels, etc…” that have been elected.
But it is frightening to think that we, the people of the United States of America, would ever require a candidate to take, (much less pass) a Biblical qualification test.
If you wish to live in a Theocracy, please move to one, and leave our secular society to evolve as Nature and Good Governance allows.
One needn’t be Christian to be American! Just sayin’.
Comment by virginiagentleman on October 19, 2016 at 4:06 pm
I met HRC in a bookstore on the concourse at Ronald Reagan International Airport when she was still a Senator. She entered the bookstore with an aide while all other customers were ushered out and two Secret Service officers stood outside.
I remained alone inside as she came and stood next to me at the magazine rack. We did not look at each other and I made no effort to speak or contact her.
But my interior warning bells that had gone off the moment she entered the store, long before I knew who it was, reminded me of this saying “You know the railway station at Bangalore? I met the Devil there!”
I cannot remember the exact quote or who said it; but I will never forget that meeting in the bookstore.
Comment by MarcoPolo on October 19, 2016 at 6:09 pm
Thank you, Mark Tooley, that was a very nice, polite description of your meeting with Trump, and your earlier encounter with Clinton.
“No harm, No foul!”
I wish us all luck!