President Trump and the Citizen Christian

In these days of insta-shaming, where everyone has a networked mouthpiece to deliver their diatribes, we are constantly assaulted by hateful opinions and faulty assumptions. How is the Christian to respond to such malevolence, especially when leveled against his/her president?
It can be confusing, and downright scary. But there is hope. But there is comfort.

2 Corinthians 13:11 provides this beautiful exhortation: ‘—Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.’
America is tearing itself apart by allowing itself to be dictated to by the hateful tales of those who love not each other but dissension. Romans 16:17--18 urges us to: ‘—note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly, and smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.’

It is clear that a minority has decided it should have the right to dictate the fate of America. Hatred feeds hatred. Social media, spurred and encouraged by mainstream media, has decided to declare war on our President. I take offense at this. Whenever anyone in the world verbally bashes my president, they attack my nation, the land that I love. Not only is it damaging the perception of us as a united people in the eyes of the world, it also smacks of un-American sentimentality.

If people don’t agree with his policies, so be it. But boycotts of his very existence are not doing anything good for America. Does it not seem strange that a small minority has the largest voice? A majority of American voters elected our president. Where are the voices of these voters? Have the haters driven them to silence? Have they cowed the majority into a tragic case of social laryngitis for fear of being attacked simply for voicing support for our President?

In our Declaration of Independence we find this wise and relevant passage that gives us insight into the ironic hate-filled fervor of protestors: ‘—and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.’

For sixteen years our once great nation was beleaguered by such ‘government’, in this case from those corrupt officials from within our own government—the bureaucrats. Through long years of abuses of power and thieving of authority to which they had no right, those in our government twisted the Constitution and vied to take for themselves what was not conducive to a healthy America. They did not represent our best interests, but rather sought their own interests.
Right now protestors are proving the relevance of these passages. They have grown accustomed to suffering under the tyranny of a bureaucracy; and now that we have a president who is trying to abolish this abusive variation of our once great government they don’t know how to respond. They are afraid. They fear it might backfire. They fear it might upset the status quo.

But we voted for a man we believed could help ‘throw off such government’. We elected a business man because we were tired of suffering under the agenda of abusive politico. And already, unlike those who came before, unlike politicians, this president is working to fulfill the promises he made to us, and for which we elected him. However misguided or extreme his positions and actions may be at times, it is clear that our president is deeply concerned for the safety of ‘we the people’.

We don’t need any more protests, which do nothing but sow the seeds of dissension. We need to show the world a united front. We need to show them that we stand behind our president, whom we elected. Because these rifts in our nation are openings, invitations for anti-American infiltrators to come in and hatch their nefarious agendas among our hateful protestors. God knows we don’t need another Citizen Genet. What we need are Christian citizens, who live, act, and breathe love.
1 Corinthians 13:4 tells us this timely fact: ‘Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, is not provoked, thinks no evil . . .’