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Donald Trump could surprise everyone and be a great American president. He is by
no means an empty suit. The nation would not be leaderless. Trump would be a
president with convictions — some of them actually right. He would be decisive and
ready and willing to act. This was sent to me a few days ago. I have not forwarded it
before because some might not like to read what this teaching pastor has to say.
I have decided to go ahead and forward it on as it might make some people take
a breath and think about a few things that just might be very important and that
they may would like to see or just delete from their mind if not.
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Political Season Critique - the Nimrod Chronicles !!!
Thanks - forwarding beloveds John Rolls and Doris Parker
Trump's Tower of Babel: A President for the Selfie Age ?
Trump's Tower of Babel:
by Pastor Wallace Henley
Part 1
To whom shall we liken Donald Trump ?
Now that we have seen The Donald in a debate environment where the Great Singularity has had to match his immense gravitational exertion with the forces of other personalities, how do we perceive him?
The Himself? If we refer to Hillary as the "Herself," fairness mandates we call the other mighty personage vying for the presidential nomination as the "Himself."
Ronald Reagan? Rudy Giuliani thinks so.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin? Ben Stein offers that possibility.
Donald Duck? Various pundits have so characterized Trump.
Teenage bully? That's John Fund's proposed description.
For me, Nimrod comes to mind. So does Teddy Roosevelt.
The Bible presents Nimrod as "the first heroic warrior on earth ... the greatest hunter in the world" ... or "Nimrod... a mighty conqueror on whom the Lord kept a close eye" (Genesis 10:8-9). (Translation of the Hebrew text suggested by Vernard Eller, War and Peace: From Genesis to Revelation, 35.)
"The beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was Babel," the land of the Tower, the ground upon which was built Babylon, the prophetic symbol of the world-system organized without and in defiance of God. It is also the kingdom where people do not often feel the need for forgiveness.
On the Plain of Shinar in the Land of Babylon, humanity, fresh from the Fall and the Flood impose their own will on God's. Rather than obeying His command to scatter and bless they will do something to halt their spread. They construct a tower to be at the core of human existence, rather than God.
The Babel-builders make their own stone, and whip up their own mortar. The tower is human-made and artificial, a poor substitute for the "mountain of God" where He is highly exalted.
The tower is actually a perch where lofty humans love to roost.
Trump's tower has three tiers, which we will examine in this series. The first is populist progressivism, the second judgment-impairing presumption, and finally solipsist selfism. Trump's penchant for tower-raising prompts the Nimrod comparison, and his populist progressivism brings to mind Teddy Roosevelt, America's 26th president.
Stylistically, the two men were cut from the same mold: Aggressive, boldly-spoken, visionary, and wrapped in bravado. Philosophically, too, they shared traits, except that Roosevelt was a populist who went after big corporations while Trump is a corporate builder with a populist streak.
There were two types of progressivism on the American political landscape in the early 20th century, as there are now — the populist progressivism of Teddy Roosevelt, and the doctrinaire progressivism of Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs. The populist style might not shun a conservative label, while the doctrinaire variety would be anything but. Woodrow Wilson was around, trying a mix of the two, as are some of Trump's competitors for the Republican nomination.
Dems would win more popular votes for a Socialist in a presidential race than ever before. Debs' present-day ideological descendant, Senator Bernie Sanders, is surprising everyone with the strength of his campaign. Nevertheless, as Roosevelt was the looming figure in 1912 so Trump dominates today.
Trump declares he has "bought" politicians on both sides to help him advance his projects, showing that populist progressivism is pragmatic enough to traffic with the other side if necessary. Think Huey Long. Think George Wallace. Think Ross Perot. Think Donald Trump. It should be no surprise Trump leaves the third party run an option. He may, in fact, be as serious as Teddy Roosevelt was in 1912.
The crucial question now facing the American electorate is this: Do we want a progressivist of any type as President of the United States? Trump as Nimrod is a casting director's dream. Trump as Teddy Roosevelt comes clearer when you stand them side-by-side. The nationalistic fervor in 2015 would be recognized widely in 1912. Roosevelt introduced a "New Nationalism," and Trump's aim is to make America "great again."
"I feel Roosevelt's strength is altogether incalculable," said Woodrow Wilson in 1912. In the August 6, 2015 presidential debate, one could sense the others trying to measure Trump's muscle.
Too bad Carly Fiorina was not in that main event. She has Trump's number.
The 2015 presidential race has been described as a "circus." If that's the case, it's a paltry one-ringer compared to the big show of 1912. In 2015 the primaries are packed, but in 1912 there were four notable candidates in the general election — Republican nominee William Howard Taft, Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt, and the Socialist's nominee Eugene Debs.
Roosevelt's and Wilson's platforms were twins at crucial points. While Wilson was advocating "living political constitutions" as "Darwinian in structure and in practice," Roosevelt was proclaiming that government must be used "as an efficient agency for the practical betterment of social and economic conditions." Further, "the administrative officer should be given full power" to do "the people's work."
This was breath-taking statism from both Roosevelt and Wilson, and a shocking naiveté in the light of our experience since 1912. In the end, Roosevelt's and Wilson's combined votes clobbered the conservative candidate, Taft, and put Wilson in office.
Their perhaps unwitting collusion shows that ultimately progressives of both types meet at the tower. Populist progressives talk about God as an add-on. Doctrinaire progressives — especially in our secular age — speak more of God as relic. All progressives inevitably convene at the tower in their reluctance to concede human fallibility and humanity's capacity to build utopia. The utopian world of one is capitalist and the other is socialist, but in the end they rally at the tower.
Thus Trump's tower is Roosevelt's roost. With Trump in the race the winner will possibly be today's counterparts of either Roosevelt or Wilson. Either way, as in 1912, that would mean victory for progressivism and a defeat for constitutional government.
Part 2
To whom shall we liken Donald Trump ?
Nimrod, founder of Babel, and Teddy Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States, we suggested in Part 1. All are noted tower-builders — Nimrod and Trump in a literal as well as figurative sense, and Roosevelt politically. All three were enthusiastic proponents of populist progressivism.
In this installment we examine a second Trump characteristic evidenced in the August 6 Republican presidential debate and other statements: judgment-impairing presumptuousness.
Donald Trump could surprise everyone and be a great American president. He is by no means an empty suit. The nation would not be leaderless. Trump would be a president with convictions — some of them actually right. He would be decisive and ready and willing to act.
Just like John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, and Barack H. Obama. And King Saul.
The son of a leading family in ancient Israel, Saul was "a choice and handsome man" — in fact, the stand-out in the whole country (1 Samuel 9:1-2). Samuel the kingmaker, under the Lord's command, makes Saul the ruler. People are impressed. There's a new day in the land, with much promise.
Before Saul is done, his stature and office have gone to his head, and presumptuousness has robbed him of judgment. Like the judicial branch in our time presuming to the legislative role, or a president usurping both the courts and the Congress, Saul, at one point, imposes himself in Samuel's prophetic position. After Samuel is dead, and his counsel no longer available, Saul presumes to consult a medium, trampling the prohibitions given in Deuteronomy. Slowly Saul's presumptuousness strips him of his capacities for good judgment. He loses his kingdom.
As Kennedy, Nixon, Obama and King Saul reveal, great promise is shattered by judgment-impairing presumptuousness, described in Proverbs 21:24 as "boundless arrogance" (New Living Translation). King David may have had Saul, his predecessor, in mind, when David prayed, "keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins ... let them not rule over me ... Then I will be blameless" (Psalm 19:13 NASB).
Presumptuousness leads to a serious lack of judgment, causing leaders to presume their own estimate of things is right, to shun wise counsel, and lead nations and other corporate entities into disaster.
John F. Kennedy and his inner circle were clouded by presumptuousness. He jousted with Nikita Khrushchev almost immediately, on the heady conviction he could master the wily old Soviet boss. Khrushchev saw through the flim-flam and eventually the whole world was at the precipice of nuclear war.
Richard Nixon, my boss, wounded the nation and brought down his own presidency because of presumptuousness. It was evident one day when a fellow White House aide apologized to Nixon for a press-gaffe. "Don't worry about it, because the people forget in six weeks," said the President.
Barack Obama would be repulsed by being categorized as a latter-day Nixonian. However, many can see what he and his cloistered sycophants cannot, that his judgment about the nation, the state of the geopolitical situation, and much more is terribly clouded by his presumptuousness.
In 2008, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank was covering the first Obama campaign, and gave an inside look at the presumptuousness behind it.
"This is the moment the world is waiting for," Obama told a congressional group, reported Milbank. "I have become a symbol for the possibility of America returning to our best traditions," said the presidential candidate. Later, Obama tried to tone down the presumptuousness. "It has become increasingly clear in my travel," he said, "that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol."
So much for humility.
And so now we have Donald Trump. He reminds us that he doesn't have to go around with his hand out begging for campaign funds. "I don't care," he says. "I'm really rich." Further, he can solve the Mexican immigrant problem by walling off the borders. He would expect Mexico to pay the tab, but if they didn't, "I would build it. I'm very good at building things."
Donald Trump is appealing because he is confident, and believes in the America of his own vision. So were Kennedy, Nixon, and Obama. All presumptuous presidents are confident in the rightness — if not the righteousness — of their causes, and not easily dissuaded from them.
In 1972, when, simultaneously, the Watergate scandal and Nixon's lead over George McGovern were widening daily, several White House aides, including those on the lowest levels, like the one I occupied, wrote memoranda to the President, urging that, for the sake of the nation as well as his presidency, he personally take the lead in reforming his own campaign.
Nixon perhaps never knew there was a movement within his staff to urge him to take the point. This was because when a chief executive is presumptuous he creates an atmosphere of presumptuousness. All the memos had to go first to Bob Haldeman, White House chief of staff. Rather than being forwarded into the Oval Office, they were trashed. The presumptuousness had convinced the inner circle the problem wasn't that critical.
John Kennedy returns from Vienna and his meeting with Khrushchev like a spanked little boy. Nixon ultimately speaks to the nation, not announcing he's reforming his campaign and cleaning out the White House, but to resign. We have yet to experience the full impact of Barack Obama's presumptuousness: Will it be the collapse of the America economy, or a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv?
"So the people will pay the penalty for their king's presumption," said Hesiod, the Greek poet. That's why Trump's tower and his dizzying presumptuousness are so troubling.
Part 3
Donald Trump might be the apt president for the selfie age. This is not a good thing.
In this series we have been asking: To whom shall we liken Trump? The primary character is Nimrod, revealed in the Bible as the founder of Babylon, and the father of tower-building. We have explored comparisons of Trump with presidents embracing populist-progressivism and judgment-impairing presumptuousness.
In this installment we have to consider which of the current candidates would be most likely to get snared in the dangerous trap of selfie-solipsism. A "solipsist" in its extreme form is an individual who thinks he or she is the only existent being in the universe. The really sick solipsist believes all else is sheer delusion produced by the solipsist's own mind.
Selfie-solipsists know better, but think and act as if he or she were the only game in the universe. They recognize the existence of others, but see them as existing only for the needs of the solipsist.
Monarchs are the living and breathing manifestations of selfie-solipsism. This gave Patrick Henry nightmares as he thought about the proposed American Constitution. It has "deformities" that are "horribly frightening," declared Henry, the anti-federalist, on June 5, 1788, at the Virginia ratifying convention.
Among the "deformities" was "awful squinting ... towards monarchy." "Your president may easily become king," Patrick Henry warned.
Thus, prime among questions the American electorate must ask in 2016 is: Which candidates would be more likely to get intoxicated with being a king — or queen?
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both come quickly to mind. Michael Barone believes we already have in Barack Obama a president who suffers from "solipsistic narcissism." Should Obama's successor be another solipsist?
All solipsists are self-focused, but not all are self-loving. Some are consumed with self-hate, and their solipsism is misery. They are trapped in a self from which there is no escape. The purely narcissistic solipsist is perfectly content without others, self-adulation being sufficient. The selfie-solipsist ironically needs others to meet his or her needs.
Still, a solipsist is a solipsist, and the question remains: Does the country need another monarchical solipsist in the White House? Solipsist chief executives end-run Congress, seat themselves as law-givers, and delight in the edict mentality that drives executive orders.
It is a dangerous thing for a solipsist to be alone in the palace. Recall that dusk-time when aging King David walks out on his balcony and spots Bathsheba bathing. David, at that moment, is a selfie-solipsist if ever there was one. He dreams and envisions in solitude, devises schemes in solitude, and executes plans in solitude. But it affects everyone else.
Scary. One thinks of selfie-solipsist Bill Clinton exploring the hidden annexes of the Oval Office environs in search of trysting nests. To run for the presidency requires a hefty ego, and those who seek it must have reality about themselves. The only way we get a truly accurate view of ourselves is in relation to God. "Coram Deo" — "in the presence of God "— we grasp the positive personal understanding of ourselves in the highest form imaginable: the very image of God. But perceiving ourselves in relation to God also gives us the frank and ugly truth that we have all sinned and come short of that glorious image. Thus we need redemption from the selfism that distorts God's glory in and through us.
This is where Donald Trump's selfie-solipsism is of such concern. He identifies as a Presbyterian who loves God and his church. However, it appears he does not need to think much about asking God's forgiveness, and is not sure he has ever done that, according to an interview with Frank Luntz at Iowa's Family Leadership Summit.
"I think if I do something wrong ... I just try to make it right," said Trump. "I don't bring God into that picture."
This is the essence of babelism. Nimrod couldn't have said it better.
Timothy George, writing in First Things, was struck by Trump's words. Something is missing, said George, because "the call to confession and the need for forgiveness are so central to the entire Christian tradition, and particularly to the Reformed and Presbyterian versions of it, that it is hard to see how it could have made so little impression."
That is, of course, between Donald Trump and God. But it is important to the nation if he becomes president. Even Richard Nixon, in the deepest of his agonies, found a place for repentance.
Once, while I was an aide in the Nixon White House, I was assigned to sit in on an Oval Office meeting between evangelist Oral Roberts and the President. At the conclusion, Roberts said he wanted to pray for the President, and then, to my shock, wanted Nixon to pray for him. Nixon prayed as one might on a ceremonial occasion. Later, though, as Nixon passed through the deepest darkness of the Watergate and his resignation, those who were with him, like Henry Kissinger, report that Nixon went to his knees weeping before God.
The nation and the president would have been spared much travail if he had learned to pray that way daily through his nearly two terms in office. Because in the end, "The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower." (Psalm 18:2)
We need, not a tower-builder for president, but one who himself or herself resides under that "high tower" of the transcendent God.
Article URL -
http://graphic.christianpost.
Wallace Henley, a former Birmingham News staff writer, was an aide in the Nixon White House, and congressional chief of staff. He is a teaching pastor at Second Baptist Church, Houston, Texas. He is a regular contributor to The Christian Post.
Pastor Wallace Henley
http://www.second.org/
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