What the F is going on!?! Part Six: Biblical Proportions

Recently, President Trump has mused to reporters about his prospects of getting into heaven, mentioning that he doesn’t think he is currently on his way there but may have a chance. It’s a very strange way for a president to be talking, however he is the oldest inaugurated president in US history at 78 in January, having survived a very real Covid scare in his first administration that followed the death of his brother. He is pondering his own mortality, and although we have seen many politicians working to ages much older than himself, he has hit an age where mental and physical decline can be expected. It seems as though Trump feels as though he has not just his worldy legacy on his mind but also judgment in the afterlife with a focus on peace deals and settling conflict in the Middle East. Unfortunately, although it seems to be very much on his mind, he also struggles with being distracted, unprepared, interest in personal enrichment. He is interested in tallying 7, 8, 9 peace deals, but he doesn’t seem to understand what they are, where they are, or how to maintain peace. 

Seeing the recent ceasefire deal between Israel and Hammas, I couldn’t help but think about biblical figures, especially as they are investigated in film. While Jesus is the figure that is alluded to by the Religious Right in the US, he was a spiritual leader and not a leader of a whole people in his documented lifetime. It seems that Trump wants tallies next to his name that he might get awards like the Nobel Peace Prize or the Michigan Man of the Year. There isn’t a sense that any of the good things he attempts to do are for others rather than for himself, and the vast majority of the endeavors he chases are either to better his name or to personally enrich himself or his family… or even to be done in revenge with those that he views as “The haters and the losers.” The Last Temptation of Christ is a great example of a biblical film where it teaches a lesson of self-sacrifice for the redemption of everyone, but it isn’t necessarily about leadership. 

Moses is kind of the ultimate leader in the bible, the leader who breaks away from the ultimate ancient empire of the Egyptians, freed the Jews from slavery and established a country of people, even if they were nomadic, wandering for 40 years in the desert. The choice is whether Moses will be in with the royalty of the Pharaoh of Egypt or give up everything to live in the wilderness in order to save those that are the most vulnerable, the Jews who are the slave class, and through that sacrifice to be a leader he finds that he speaks with God. Exodus Gods and Kings is the Ridley Scott telling of the Moses story which gives a blast of special effects, filling out the ancient civilization with cities and monuments and the parting of the Red Sea as a destructive event of escape that killed a lot of people so that many others could survive. But the crux of it is that Moses is making hard decisions not because they are impressive but because they are the right things to do. 

With the rise of the Religious Right as an acceptable political arm of Conservatism it has become somewhat acceptable for people to run for President and say that God told them to do it. This is a pretty laughable statement to make in public but it worked for George W. Bush so several candidates have made the same claim ever since. Oddly, even though “God” has told several others that they should run for President, it doesn’t seem to pan out for them in the actual elections. For Trump, he has always struggled to talk about God or his own religious beliefs, stating that God observable in the beauty of a golf course or that he must be doing the right things by God because he is popular with Evangelicals. He has had popular Christian figures claim to be spiritual advisors, or have people pray over him, and the QAnon believers have used internet nonsense as spiritual justification for some higher purpose of a Trump presidency. Darren Aronofsky’s Noah tells the story of the biblical arc and flood, but focuses on the individual struggles of Noah as he follows what he believes to be the directions of God to save his family and the animals of Earth. He is a flawed person, much as he is in the bible, but the film shows some of the logistical issues that he could have faces like eating animals for food, dooming those animals to extinction. He struggles with what he believes God is telling him to do, to commit infanticide. The movie hinges on Noah deciding that he isn’t sure if that is what God has really asked of him, and unlike the building of the arc, he does not follow through on what he had believed was expected of him. It is through this mercy that humanity is allowed to continue. We have to ask whether humanity will be allowed to continue under Trump because of mercy, or because he is trying to find a way to heaven or if it will be despite self-enrichment.

I grew up going to church. I loved the stories and lessons of the bible but many years ago I realized I did not believe in the spiritual side of religion, but I have always found the lessons of doing the right thing, humility and morality to be quite important. It seems that Trump grew up in a church led by the author or The Power of Positive Thinking that would preach the gospel of prosperity, that success is holiness, but doesn’t seem to believe the spirituality of his followers until that aligns with his own high view of himself. Perhaps he has a sense that one must do good things to get to heaven, hence his doubts, but nothing else in his actions throughout his life seem to show this. I have my doubts that he will be like Lee Atwater on his deathbed bringing in clergy from as many religions as possible to repent for the sins that he knew he committed in his political life.