President Trump’s Most Dangerous Error

Dr. Lively speaks to the serious theological and political implications of President Trump’s increasingly more emphatic endorsement of homosexuality in light of his self-identification as a Christian. Watch the video HERE. The article on which this commentary is based is published at WND.com and below.

I’m been about as strong a Trump supporter as you can find. From the point in mid-2016 that I concluded he was being steadily transformed by God into a genuine Christian conservative, I’ve been a stalwart Trump defender and apologist even when others wavered. When I ran for governor of Massachusetts against Romney protégé and uber-RINO Charlie Baker, my campaign slogan was “Pro-Life, Pro-Gun, Pro-Trump.” Again, this was in Massachusetts! My repertoire of articles on WND is heavily salted with Trump-lauding columns, and on countless radio interviews I’ve consistently asserted that I believe Donald Trump is God’s man in the White House – adding the caveat that he is NOT in the mold of modern evangelicalism which expects its candidates to be morally pure as the driven snow (which is why we have so few in office) but more like an Old Testament Judge from the pre-monarchic Israelite republic (every one a flawed man).

So, I can overlook the warts and wrinkles of a man being a real man and not a cardboard cut-out from the public relations department. In fact, it’s very refreshing to see a real man fight the culture war like the real war it is.

HOWEVER, the one issue that calls everything else into question, is President Trump’s apparent spiritual blindness on the question of homosexuality. Now I’ve mostly given him a pass on this issue over the past three years, rationalizing that he’s just being politically savvy in a dangerous area of public policy that is (not accidentally) extremely emotionally inflammatory to the youngest generations of public school graduates and the most passionate of the street activists of the left. He’s also been working diligently to peel away voters from all the constituencies of the Democrat Party, including the “gays,” and I’m actually glad to see that many self-identified homosexuals are now pro-Trump.

My argument is not that he is being politically strategic, but that he is doing it in a way that unnecessarily serves the very Marxist agenda that he’s trying to defeat.

President Trump could easily maneuver the LGBT minefield without endorsing homosexuality itself. But he is purposefully approving it. On Jan 21st , in the build-up to his upcoming rally in India, he praised “Bollywood,” its film industry, for releasing its first movie promoting homosexuality. What is the message to the world when the President of the United States – a self-proclaimed Christian – applauds a morally conservative nation for abandoning its principles to celebrate homosexuality? What kind of mentality justifies the normalization of homosexuality to an entire nation’s children as a political tactic? I feel nauseous just thinking about it.

Is this a partial payoff to openly homosexual Richard Grenell for his willingness to be the president’s hatchet-man in the house-cleaning of the intelligence agencies? If so, it’s a devil’s bargain he never should have entered into. It would unfortunately fit his pattern with Grenell. Last year when Grenell announced a campaign to decriminalize homosexuality globally (a top Obama priority), I assumed this was a stunt by the notorious climber Grenell to put Trump into a corner on LGBT issues and ensure the renewal of his plum diplomatic post as Ambassador to Germany. So I gave Trump a pass when he did endorse the Grenell plan – but I offered the president an alternative approach that would not serve the Obama Marxist agenda that Grenell was pushing.

Of course, President Trump probably never saw my article, but he shouldn’t have had to, since my arguments should have been no-brainer, intuitive deductions by anyone with a genuine Biblical worldview in the Trump inner circle. A simple policy pivot from an emphasis on decriminalization to an emphasis on ending violence against homosexuals would have sent just as powerful a message without endorsing the regressive leftist view that discouragement of sodomy through public policy is a bad thing. Discouraging the public health and morals menace of sodomy through law was an unassailable conservative policy position less than a quarter century ago in our country! Now we’re supposed to flip 180 degrees and embrace Obama doctrine instead??

This brings me to Vice President Pence, and a worry I’ve had about him from the beginning. It was five years ago next month that Indiana Governor Mike Pence caved to the “gays” when the Indiana legislature passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to, among other things, protect businesses from attack by LGBT activists and preserve free speech rights for Christians. Governor Pence, who had been ready to sign it into law backed down, requiring the act to be amended. I don’t remember the details, but I remember it was a big victory for the homosexuals that I wrote about in an article titled Indiana Meets the Borg. I went easy on Pence in the article, but I’ve never really trusted him on LGBT issues since.

As the highest ranking Christian in the Trump administration, Mike Pence should be educating President Trump on the critical importance of this issue and even publicly dissenting (in some respectful way) on the “Bollywood” incident, which I consider a moral scandal far more serious than any alleged personal behavioral failings by the president.

Every Christian sins in matters of personal conduct, and we have a remedy from God for that called confession and repentance. In contrast, taking public policy positions that directly contradict the clear instructions of God is a spiritual problem of a much higher magnitude. Every Christian leader with access to the president and an opportunity to do so has a duty to speak that truth to him.

His endorsement of homosexuality even raises the question of whether Donald Trump is actually saved. There are lots of “religious leftists” running around saying they’re Christians based on belief in a non-Biblical Jesus who condones and even approves what the Bible condemns. I argue that one can’t be saved by belief in a false Christ. Which Jesus does the president put his faith in?

My first allegiance is always to God and when the president sets himself at odds with God, I have no choice but stand with God and apart from the president. Not everyone who calls themself a Christian is as committed to the Biblical worldview as I am, but there are enough of us that the president should be very concerned of the consequences of the path he’s taking.

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