"I am your retribution."
These words have become one of the main themes of Trump's campaign for the Presidency in the 2024 election. He is clearly running, not for the benefit of any group of Americans, including his own base, but to use the power of the Presidency to avoid prison for crimes he has committed, and to get revenge against those who crossed him during his four years in office and who assisted in his losing the election in 2020, something his lack of character and a good dose of psychosis won't allow him to admit.
That's a novel approach to a political campaign. It offers nothing, really, to those who support and follow him, because it's not about them, its about him. Does he really have the kind of contempt for what appears to be a shrinking base that keeps cheering these ridiculous remarks at his rallies? Because that's what it looks like. Is it just political rhetoric to get votes? Or is it really the trauma of an electoral defeat in 2020 that fractured his ego and drove him to commit sedition and incite an insurrection against "We the people," empowered by the Constitution?
It is Taking His Evangelical Christian Supporters Into Heresy and Apostasy
Far right wing politics has gathered a lot of support from among the white, conservative, Evangelical branch of American Christianity for a long time. What that support has become during the Trump campaigns is taking many of those Christians and their churches down a path to the complete destruction of their biblical mission and purpose, leading them to a doctrinal heresy that is separating them from the core values and doctrines of the Christian gospel, and causing them to deny Jesus, the Christ, an apostasy beyond imagination.
There's been a lot of debate, among this white, Evangelical constituency, of the "lesser of two evil" choice in Presidential elections for quite a while now, with a very singular definition of "evil" being applied to candidates who support abortion rights. It's been more difficult to bring in support for the recognition of constitutional rights for those of differing sexual orientation or gender identity, since there is a sizeable segment of the Republican party that doesn't see how denial of those rights accomplishes anything when it comes to their long since abandoned "family values" rhetoric, but generally, that's been the standard they've used to justify voting for candidates who don't always reflect their lifestyle or their theology.
At one point, the personal lifestyles of political candidates were at the top of the list of evidence that the Democrats they didn't want to support were the greater evil. They used the example of former President Clinton until it lost meaning, and until some of their own favored GOP politicians turned out to be just as scandal prone. The man who led the push-back against Clinton, under the "family values" theme of "Contract with America," Newt Gingrich, turned out to be just as morally bankrupt and selfish as they claimed Clinton was. So the "greater evil" has, for the most part, always been the push for support for the pro-choice position, when the GOP's own fallen politicians turned out to be worse than Bill.
Then There is Trump
Some of the same critics of Clinton who emphatically declared that Christians who supported him were denying their own claims to the faith are now some of the more visible, vocal supporters of Trump. There's really no distinction made anywhere in biblical doctrine that defines evil in greater or lesser terms, but there's little comparison between Bill Clinton and Donald Trump when it comes to worldliness and moral bankruptcy. Clinton has been repentant, personally and from a Christian perspective, and even though his critics downplay it, belittle it or flat out ignore it, he has also made restitution that is a demonstration of his sincerity, and acknowledged his faults.
Trump has openly and repeatedly denied his need for any kind of repentance from the womanizing and worldly behavior that he has made his identifying brand, and has made the denials directly to some of the Evangelical "leaders" who support him and desperately want to claim he's been converted. So, since they can't really do that, they give him a pass, risking their credibility every time he says or does something that demonstrates his lack of a genuine Christian conversion experience, including his open denials of the Christian gospel and of Jesus Christ himself.
"I have my own idea of God," and "I've never done anything that I need to ask God to forgive," are among his many statements that, when measured by the biblically recorded Christian gospel, are open denials of being Christian that a six year old in a Baptist Sunday School class can recognize as being anti-Christian.
"I am your retribution," is an open denial of one of the basic principles of the Christian gospel, one of the core doctrines at the heart of both Christian conversion and evangelism.
"But I say to you who listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat, do not withold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:27-31, NRSV.
This same teaching is also found in Matthew's gospel. And where does "I am your retribution" fit anywhere into that?
There are many principles found in the biblical record that are not easily discerned when it comes to their place in the individual practice of Christian faith, in spite of the fact that American Christianity, including conservative Evangelicals, have an abundance of pastors, Bible colleges, theological seminaries, and divinity schools who think they've found the answers others haven't, and fight with each other over who really professes truth and practices true faith. This is one of the more difficult principles to accept, though Jesus makes it very easy to discern and understand, because it goes completely against human nature, and it's not visible among the warring factions and sects of the American church. Many Christians find it difficult to love each other, much less love their enemies and if, according to Jesus, they're not even able to do that, it's no wonder they think an antichrist is a better political candidate than a sincere Catholic.
But, to make it perfectly clear, Jesus didn't make any exceptions to this principle. It's as clear as every other core principle which makes up the body of the Christian gospel, the new covenant in Christ. So, from a Christian perspective, when a politician says, "I am your retribution," it means that those who think he is are following him, and not following Jesus.
Christian Supporters of Trump Must Pick Up and Carry His Baggage
So, be honest. If Trump is a Christian's retribution, then that Christian has failed to acknowledge and practice this basic, core principle of his or her faith. And it means that all of the other evil that goes along with Trump, his adulterous affairs, his pathological lying, his cheating, the hatred and vitriol he spews against those he perceives as disloyal to him, also belongs to those who support him and accept this rhetoric. There's no way around it. And there's no Christian theological or doctrinal argument that can be made from biblical evidence to support this position.
Jesus told his disciples and followers, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." So, in Christian practice, following Trump as retribution is denying Christ as redemption. And it is not taking up a cross, it is taking up the adulterous affairs, greed that perpetrates dishonesty in business dealings, pathological lying, and all of the worldly evil that Trump claims as his identity.
The support this man receives as a candidate for this nation's highest office is evidence that many conservative Evangelicals are no longer sincere Christians, if they ever were, but in believing what amounts to heresy, are in a state of apostasy.
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