Zach Ryan’s Reviews > Donald Trump is Not My Savior: An Evangelical Leader Speaks His Mind About the Man He Supports as President > Status Update

How's this book so far? Reading the description, I'm kind of apprehensive, hehe. ;p

I’m only a third of the way in. I’ve stopped reading until I finish my giant Third Reich book haha. It’s not bad though! It’s written by a Jewish pundit who started off hating Trump, but has come into a place of not full on support, but seeing things clearly through ideology on both sides of the spectrum. I think the main point of the book is that we should never look to any president or king as the one who will solve all our problems, but to Jesus as our perfect savior.

Zach wrote: "I’m only a third of the way in. I’ve stopped reading until I finish my giant Third Reich book haha. It’s not bad though! It’s written by a Jewish pundit who started off hating Trump, but has come i..."

Still, relativizing Trump is, I fear, a dangerous route to take. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but I believe he has bad intentions - he's not just stupid or incompetent, like many people think.

But, I agree with that last part at the very least. ;p It reminds me of Israel in the early Old Testament, when they don't have a king yet, they just depend on God.

That’s s interesting man! From what you’ve observed, what bad intentions do you think he has?

I think he is merely out for power, or something similar. The exact motivations are a bit obscure to me. To me, however, it's clear that he's dismantling democracy for the sake of creating a dictatorship (possibly getting help from Russia, but idk much about that).
Right when the current government shutdown started, I predicted on Twitter that Trump would let it last a very long time to cause chaos, so people will long for a strong leader. I wasn't entirely sure about my prediction, but I thought I'd put the possibility out there. Interestingly, Trump has now stated that the shutdown could last "months, even years", and he is considering declaring a national emergency over the border wall (which would give him a lot of power). I wasn't sure my prediction would be right, but I never even considered it could go this fast. Right now, I'm afraid that the fact he's openly deliberating declaring a national emergency is just a way of getting people used to the fact that he might actually do it, so people will revolt less when he eventually does. America is being eased into a dictatorship, as it were.

If you're interested, I find Sarah Kendzior is an absolutely genius journalist on this topic. Here's one of her articles: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opini... It also links to some other of her articles, which may be interesting.

Yea, time will tell. I hesitate to claim he wants a dictatorship, though I do see many flaws in him. Which, as a Christian myself, my job is to hope and pray for God’s hand to use our President for the good of His heavenly kingdom, which I believe He will, whatever that may look like. But, Trump is a very divisive figure. That’s my main issue. His words divide and dichotomies our people, which does way more harm to our social structure than good. His character with women is obviously out on the table for us to see, and he does not have much tact with the way he addresses the nation.

But, with the moves he is making, and the determination to make those moves, It seems that Trump just sees an economy and a governmental structure that was so broken that the only way to get the nation back to a place that he seems stable WAS to start making drastic moves. I drive for personal gain in him, despite how flawed he is. Sarah’s article also sounds very ideologically driven^^.

Part of being intellectually humble though is admitting that you might be completely wrong about everything, which I might be! Lol

It’s also hard to find an article from the Right that isn’t biased or ideologically driven either, though, lol.

Oh, for sure, I would never say the article isn't ideologically driven.:p I know full well it was. (Also, just now I saw it was actually an opinion piece.) I don't think being ideologically driven is necessarily a problem, though. The book you are currently reading on the Third Reich is probably not too positive about Nazis. Being driven by a certain set of views is OK if those views are correct. I even believe that they often make for better journalism - but that's a story for another time.
What I enjoy about Sarah's articles, though, is that she makes very strong claims, but does back them up by linking to other articles going into it deeper.

Funny you mention he wants to fix the economy and governmental structure, by the way. Originally I wanted to send you an older article by Sarah, which was partially about how he was systematically dismantling the government - but I can't find it anymore, or it's been deleted. I do remember coming across Trump being glad about the crisis though: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016... Here's a quote: “The real estate markets crashed. Now, I don't want to blame the real estate markets, because I always made a lot of money in bad markets. I love bad markets. You can do very well in a bad market.”

It'd be nice if he had good motives, but I really don't think he does.

I too long for personal growth in him, but... I don't think he's going to grow in a position of power. You know what they say: power corrupts.

Oh by the way, I don't mean to offend you or anything. I can come across quite strongly sometimes, but I don't mean to. ^^

Dude I definitely agree about ideology. I think that everyone operates and thinks through a certain ideology, it’s almost impossible not to. I also agree that honest, researched ideology has its place in the world of journalism, and even in the writing of historical accounts, to a degree (Shirer is definitely biased at times in my Third Reich book). I think I’m more so talking about just watching or reading the news. Like, I don’t want your opinion or bias, literally just tell me what is going on in the world, lol. I’ve found Associated Press and Reuters to be pretty centered and dependable.

And yea dude about that article^^^, Trump is just a hard-nose businessman. I don’t doubt that he tried to capitalize on the stock market crash. That’s part of being a hard nose businessman. I hold his character at arms-length, like I said. I don’t pretend to know more than I actually do, and I don’t pretend to support Trump too tightly or closely, I simply have to trust that the Lord is using him for the good of the country, and I believe he is.

When Sarah says that he’s dismantling the government^^, I just see a dichotomized view of what a good government is. Sarah sees Trump dismantling a good gov’t and turning it into a bad one, whereas Trump sees himself dismantling a bad government to reestablish a good one…you know? I’m just amazed at how our polarized view of the state of the world has led all of us to believe very different things. It sucks. That’s why I love having conversations like this one with you, because it humanizes us again, like Garrett talks about a lot. I think we forget that we all tend to want the same things, no matter what side of the aisle we’re on; we just have different views on HOW to get there…

I do like the moves that Trump has made to support and befriend Israel, though. I do not believe for a second that Trump is an anti-Semite.

You can’t offend me bro, it’s impossible lol

Ohh right. Yeah although ideology has its place, like you say, it's good also to have some outlets just report straight facts. AP and Reuters are pretty unbiased as far as I can tell, yeah. :)

As for the business stuff: it still seems strange for a man who is glad about a bad market to want to fix the market.
In any case, I find it interesting that you say you "have to trust that the Lord is using him for the good of the country". I don't know if you chose that choice of words purposely, but it struck me as interesting that you feel you "have to" do that. Why do you feel that way? Do you think it is impossible God would let something too terrible happen? Or is it something else?

And interesting polarization yeah! I think the American system has always been a bad one, but it can always get worse - hence why one political candidate could be worse than the other, and dismantling the government as it is could be a bad thing, depending on what it is replaced by. Bernie Sanders would... probably... have left America in a better state than Trump, even though I still don't support Sanders.
By the way, are you familiar with Christian anarchism? That's what I support; maybe it's worth looking into. Each time someone (like you just now) says that Trump is used in some way for God's plan, or that people need to support the president even if they don't always agree with him, I'm fairly suspicious, because I don't believe the state is part of God's plan in the first place. I read the book "The Kingdom of God is Within You" by Leo Tolstoy, if it sounds interesting to you. It's basically an account of why being a Christian necessarily entails anarchism.

I definitely love having good conversations like this too. :) Even if I don't budge an inch, it's always good to be reminded that people are more than just labels and stereotypes. There's more to people than just "that person doesn't believe Trump is trash".

Yes, to clarify, perhaps instead of “for the good of the country,” I should have said: “I have to believe that God is using Trump for the good of His heavenly kingdom.” Slight miscommunication on my part! Because, I believe God works EVERYTHING together for the good of His kingdom. Nothing is left out, and nothing happens without reason. So, by extension, God has to be doing something with Trump. I totally agree that he might be using Trump to judge America. Kind of like how God used King Nebuchadnezzar to judge Israel. That’s very much a possibility. Or, He could be using Trump to somehow “restore” America, like He used Cyrus of Persia to rescue Israel. I don’t think I know enough to tell which is true ;) Im just sitting back, fascinated at the state of the world. It is truly an interesting time!

And no i haven’t heard of Christian anarchism! I will do my research soon.

Oh man, looks like I disagree with you bigtime. ;p I don't think everything is part of God's plan, because it would mean one of these things is true:
1. Sin doesn't exist
2. Sin does exist and therefore it must be part of God's plan

Nor am I comfortable with the idea that a lot of pain and suffering could be part of God's plan, you know?

It truly is an interesting time though, as you say. Kind of terrifying to me, but interesting nonetheless. It feels weird to grow up during this time, trying to figure out my place in a world that seems to be on the edge of some major transitions.

Haha no worries man. Yea that starts to get into stuff about God’s sovereignty that I wish we could discuss over coffee and cigars rather than typed messages, lol. I just got done reading back through the book of Job in the Bible though, which is a great glimpse into how there can be sin and suffering, whileGod still remains a perfect, sovereign God.

If you want we could video chat sometime! Right now I'm sick and don't have a voice, but maybe sometime next week?

That’d be awesome man. are you currently in the Netherlands?

Yes, I am. I usually don't have a lot on my schedule though, so I hope picking a time won't be too difficult. Where are you from, actually?

Good deal! I am 30 minutes north of Atlanta, Georgia! I’m usually good to talk around 6 or so in the evening on weekdays.

6pm for you is 12am for me, so it's probably better if we can find some time in a weekend. ^^

Haha I figured. Probably on a Sunday. I will get back to you about this Sunday maybe?

Alright, I hope I'll be better by then! :)

What kind of sickness are you dealing with right now?

Not sure. I have a sore throat, I'm coughing, and I have diarrhea, which is kind of a weird combination of symptoms.

Dang dude…yea the throat and coughing just sound like a fever…usually a few days of bed rest and like 5,000 gallons of water each day will clear most of it out. My wife has this clove essential oil that she drops on the back of my tongue which helps too.

That's the weird thing: my temperature is normal as far as I can tell. I'd say it's a common cold, but there's nothing wrong with my nose. :')

I've been hearing a lot about essential oils for the past few weeks for some reason, but never really checked it out. It sounds cool tho, I'll look into it. For now, I'm just sticking to drinking a heckload of tea with honey.

Well, I’m praying you get better man. Yea, the FDA will never officially test essential oils for how effective or useful they are, because the pharmaceutical industry would lose too much money ;) Thats why you just gotta research which oils are commonly known for what use, and try them out yourself. But yea dude keep taking it easy! I love hot tea!