Many Americans are greatly concerned about a President who exhibits king-like behavior. They point to his incessant need to name organizations, buildings, and initiatives after himself; and his compulsion to adorn himself with gold, and lofty titles. They balk at his many highly questionable executive orders – many of which have been struck down by courts, and yet still fail to shift his courses of action. They note the level of effusive sycophancy exhibited by his cabinet, and White House staff toward this man. They reference the manner in which he makes official, public decrees and pronouncements to the nation via social media. They cringe at his wholesale repudiation of accountability. They observe the punitive manner in which the free press is treated when it speaks circumspectly about him, his administration, and his policies. They worry about a leader who daily threatens allies, and other sovereign nation-states with prideful boasting, armed incursions, and conquest.
Historically, the Church has ebbed and waned through all sorts of civil government. She often thrives through eras of great dictatorial pressure, while languishing during long periods of economic freedom. While a democratic, constitutional capitalism is enormously desirable, and offers the gospel many advantages, scripture never promises the Church fruitfulness depending on the form of government it is able to surround itself with. Neither God, nor the gospel is that chained to the machinations of human systems.
What heaven is concerned about, is a Church who exhibits idolatrous behavior. For thousands of years, the people of God, under both the old covenant and the new have needed to watch for the encroachment of idolatry – whether in wealthy and educated societies, or primitive and impoverished cultures.
The Bible warns pagans, Jews, and Christians about the constant danger to lay aside the truth of the One True and Living God, and embrace the temptations of idolatry. The Bible also lays out intricate details about how a nation, family, or fellowship can be redeemed from their idolatrous ways. (I’ve written about God’s definition of idolatry, and His passionate ability to set us free from idolatry, here.)
Throughout the ages, the people of God have universally agreed that when four chief dynamics crop up within a people-group, they are engaging in idolatrous behavior. This is the way idolatry operates within humanity – even in our 21c, wealthy, free, and promotion-heavy evangelical family. We dare not believe we are immune to the lure of this devilish ploy, simply because we don’t bow down to edifices made of wood or stone. Here are the four features of idolatry that are common to every generation.
A. Idolatry tells us what is TRUE and what is FALSE. It determines our perception of reality by advancing certain narratives as factual, and real, and other storylines as specious and deceptive.
B. Idolatry tells us what is GOOD and what is EVIL. It defines the elements within the culture that are beneficial, and life-giving. And they identify what will contribute to corporate destruction, and who the nefarious players are.
C. Idolatry tells us what is WISE and what is FOOLISH behavior. It chooses our course of action, and predicts which ones will produce the greatest good. It determines what righteousness looks like, and what unrighteousness looks like; which attitudes and activities will result in the maximum blessing, and which will lead to ruin.
D. Idolatry can also tell us what god, or God is like. Is He tolerant, or intolerant? Is He vengeful? Is He gracious? Does He respond to sacrifice? What kind of obedience does He demand of us? Is He forgiving? This aspect of idolatry varies widely. It can merely lead us to believe wrong things about the True God. Or it can present us with an entirely different god, who is quite unlike the Living God Who is revealed in the Bible.
Right now, depending on what part of MAGA you’re looking at, the relationship of secularists, religious, and Bible-toting evangelicals with Donald Trump is exhibiting at least three of the four classic marks of idolatry. For the last ten years we have increasingly leaned on him, and the pundits, pastors and prophets that mediate him, to tell us what is, and is not true; what’s good, and who’s evil; as well as what the right, and wrong courses of action are – even when it requires that we distance ourselves from respected relationships with experts in the field, laws, courts, organizations, other conservative thinkers, and even the Word of God itself.
I’ve said it before. No other single individual in our lifetimes has played more of a determining factor in how the church, the covenant people of God in America, view what is real, what is evil, and what is the righteous course of action, than Donald J. Trump. The fact that we have allowed this one individual to hold such sway over our mind, heart and will, makes our relationship with him distinctly idolatrous.
To engage in idolatry is to “go to war with God”. To dismiss, or wink at our idolatry is to be careless about enmity with God. This is why the Lord is calling His sons and daughters to His threshing floor in this hour. What does a people established upon the sure mercy and grace of a loving God have to fear in coming to the light of His intimate counsel?
Beloved. We do well to bring our personal, and collective ways before the Lord, and let Him illuminate where, and how we have inordinately given ourselves, even in small ways, to attitudes and loyalties that diminish our trust in God for truth, goodness, wisdom, and righteousness.
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JSB • April, 2026