A Christian theologian has a stark warning for the evangelicals who support President Donald Trump.
Roger E. Olson wrote in a blog post on Patheos that Trump could turn on the Christian community “in a moment” ― if it serves his agenda. And, he said, that agenda wasn’t necessarily the same as that of the evangelical community, which has enthusiastically embraced the president.
Olson, a professor of Christian theology of ethics at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, said many evangelicals don’t necessarily believe that Trump is a man of faith. But they view him like Cyrus, the biblical Persian emperor who helped to free the Hebrew people and rebuild their temple in Jerusalem despite not being Jewish himself.
“They regard [Trump] as a person who is not one of God’s own people (Jewish or Christian), but an instrument of God to deliver Israel and American evangelical Christianity from persecution,” Olson wrote.
Trump, they believe, was “raised up by God to reverse the trend in American culture toward total decadence and hedonism.” But, Olson warned, that might not turn out to be the case at all:
“Personally, speaking only for myself, I believe President Trump only cares about power. I have not seen any real principles ― other than ‘Make America great again’ (with an implied ‘and me, too’). I strongly suspect that he is manipulating his conservative Christian ‘base’ and would turn on them in a moment if it suited his agenda to be powerful.”
(h/t Christian Post)