Donald Trump’s theological acumen goes about as far as an M1A1 tank being driven into deep water.
No one can fairly fault the former president for how he stumbles over questions about God, faith, Church, and State.
Theology isn’t his thing.
Trump is campaigning for president, not interviewing to be a pastor.
This said, there are times when the former President manages to skim that heavy M1A1 across the water, answering a theology question like a pro.
He recently told scientist turned podcaster, Lex Fridman, “If you’re religious, you have, I think a better feeling towards” your own mortality.”
Trump was answering Fridman’s questions about death, and how often the former president thought about being here one minute and gone the next.
“I have a friend who’s very, very successful,” Trump replied.
“He’s in his 80s, mid-80s, and he asked me that exact same question.
“I turned it around and I said, ‘Well, what about you?’ He said, ‘I think about it every minute of every day.'”
Unprompted, Trump discussed his views on faith, adding a lament about the erosion of restraint.
“I think our country’s missing a lot of religion,” he said.
“I think the United States really was a much better place with religion.
“It was almost a guide. To a certain extent, it was a guide. You want to be good to people.”
The former president and 2024 Republican candidate then concluded, “Without religion, there are no guardrails. I’d love to see us get back to religion, more religion in this country.”
As Trump has explained, his eldest brother’s addictions influenced the former and potentially future president’s moral compass.
Consequently, Trump rejects drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, with a raw ferocity reminiscent of Johnny Cash preaching on stage next to Billy Graham.
In something I once summarised as his 8-point guide to the dad life, Trump’s kids view him as a normal dad, with an abnormal public life.
Don Jnr and Ivanka credited Trump’s guidance – for “keeping them from becoming train wrecks, like the children of other famous public figures.”
“None of us are saints. We all like to have fun,” Ivanka explained at the time.
“I think our parents have just been pretty tough with us.
“They’ve always made sure that we lived within some realm of reality.”
This is not a carefully scripted publicity stunt.
Neither is it an appeal to the “religious right.”
Trump’s consistency here is genuine and well-documented.
What does Trump mean by religion?
He means moralism – albeit, mixed with a small salute to God’s objective morality, and a hint of nostalgia for church-going, Biblical literacy.
Moralism aside, Trump’s lament at America’s loss of Biblical restraint is on the right track.
The late great, R.C. Sproul once explained freedom as natural ability, and moral ability.
Post-fall humanity remains naturally free, “but is morally enslaved.”
Building on Jonathon Edwards’ and Augustine’s framework for freedom, Sproul said, post-fall “man lacks the moral disposition, the desire, or the inclination for righteousness.”
While humans still have free will, we’re “morally predisposed” to abuse liberty, because we’ve lost “something profoundly vital to moral freedom.”
“Appetite for sin” corrupts free will, because men and women are not “totally free in the moral sense.”
Moral failure isn’t because of too much freedom, it’s because humanity has lost the moral freedom that once co-existed alongside natural freedom.
Freedom is the ability to choose what we want, therefore, desire and disposition have to be governed, and the “mechanism for sin” restrained.
“God’s sovereignty does not extinguish that [free will] dimension of human personality, but certainly rules over it.”
Trump blaming the rejection of religion for social decline has merit.
It’s either Christ or chaos.
To paraphrase Chuck Colson, humanity’s moral compass has lost its truth north.
