Trump as the new King Cyrus

[_Gunnar]

Mak, thank you for this thread. Your OP really resonated with me. Since quite a long time ago, I have been coming increasingly aware that the hard core, evangelical Christian right are not really very interested (if at all) in any secular efforts to make the world a better, more socially just and more environmentally sound and healthy place to live. They tend to view the current evils and violence and environmental problems and degradation and even the prospect of nuclear war as fulfillment of apocalyptic prophecies and necessary harbingers of the second coming of Christ and the end times that must come to pass. The worse things get, the more hopeful they seem to become that these long awaited prophecies will shortly, and finally be fulfilled. I think that some of them even feel it is somehow blasphemous for we humans to even try to engage in resource conservation efforts, climate mitigation (whether AGW is real or not), reducing poverty and social injustice, or try to reverse adverse conditions on earth by our own efforts. This is all supposed to wait until Christ comes again to remove the evil, and transform the world to its former paradisiacal glory.

[_moksha]

I wish Christian Nationalists would drop the word Christian from their name. Let them be Fundamental Nationalists or something similar.

King Cyrus? Trump is more like Ming the Merciless from Mongo!

[_huckelberry]

Chap, I think this is discussion a multibranched heresy of a serious sort. I am inclined to believe it grows out of dispensationalism. Is this a primarily American affair? I suspect it is but you would know more about the other side of the pond.

My theological experience is of the kind you would perhaps call Episcopalian. I never met anyone who identified themselves as a dispensationalist, and I had to look it up to remind myself what that meant.

Very, (very) oddly, I now realise that my first encounter with the term 'dispensation' in this sense was at the age of about ten, when I read an account of a world tour by three British cyclists. They visited Salt Lake City, where they were informed that the world was currently under the dispensation of Joseph Smith Jr.

Chap , that is a good reminder that what dispensation ends up meaning can vary quite a bit. My first hearing of the idea was in a Mormon contaxt. The context of Dallas Theological, Moody Bible institute, Fallwells organization is what is having the pro Trump political influence. The book I remember reading from this school of thought made a point of separating dispensation of Law and Church and placed the sermon on the mount under Law. This sort of idea clearly decreases the influence of Jesus thinking about how to live.

I checked google to refresh my memory of history asn was reminded of the variety of viewpoints which have been generated in America. Not all of these would encourage the same attitude about the sermon on the mount.

Perhaps even though I do not like dispensational thinking, I may be missing something in blaming it for the weird evangelical attachment to Trump. I will perhaps stick with the simpler idea that some people long for power authority figures. This fits with literal Bible interpretation to enforce its authority and a desire for political leaders who say they can fix everything and project an image of power.