Trump Posted Himself as Jesus. Seriously  🔗 **Source:** [Trump Posted Himself as Jesus. Seriously](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHmZlIVbSJM) Okay, take that in. That is real. That actually happened. The president of the United States posted a picture of himself as Jesus Christ on Truth Social right after publicly trashing the Pope. My flabers are agastic. But stay with me friends because we need to talk about this all of it. And I promise you by the end of the video you will understand exactly how we got here because this image did not come out of nowhere. This is the destination of a 10year journey and I've been tracking every single minute of it. I'm Tim Whitaker. Welcome to Tim Whitaker Speaks. Welcome back to the channel. I truly don't know where to start with this one. And that's saying something because I've spent the better part of a decade preparing for this exact moment. I knew it was coming. It was only a matter of time. Now, I didn't know what it would look like exactly, but I knew I knew this moment was going to end up in my lifetime. And here we are. But before I get into this picture, and we are going to get deep into this picture, I need to give you context because this image does not exist in a vacuum. It's the culmination of something that has been building for 10 years. And if I don't show you the foundation, you will not fully understand how catastrophic the structure actually is. So, we're going back all the way back to 2016 because that's where this started for me and it is deeply personal. In 2016, I was a faithful evangelical Christian. I was an all-in volunteer at my church. But by that point, I had some serious questions about my faith. And the questions were not around whether God existed or not. These questions were more around why do I see so many things in the church that are the complete opposite of what Jesus actually taught. Now, I wasn't liberal or progressive. I even still listen to Ben Shapiro occasionally. I held pretty moderate evangelical positions at the time. Like gay marriage should be legal. Sure. Even though I thought that the Bible disagreed. But at my core, I was a person who actually took the teachings of Jesus incredibly seriously. I believed them. I organized my life around them. And that matters because that's what made what happened next so completely disorienting. When Trump came on the scene, and specifically when the leaked Hollywood Access tapes dropped, that was a breaking point for me. Not because I had lost my faith, but because I refused to compromise what it taught. And honestly, it wasn't even a hard decision. I was a Christian. My faith taught me that bragging about sexually assaulting women was wrong. That's it. That's the whole tweet. Women are made in the image of God. They deserve dignity. They deserve respect. They deserve to be treated as fellow image bearsers. Sexual assault is one of the most heinous things a human being can inflict on another. I want to emphasize here this is not rocket science. This is not advanced seminary level theology. This is page one. And to put this in perspective for a moment because I think this comparison matters. Democratic governatorial candidate Eric Swallwell has credible accusations that he's assaulted several women. And not only has he already withdrawn from the race, rightfully so, there has been mass outrage from liberals and progressives calling loudly for accountability, even Republicans in the House are motioning to remove him from Congress based on the allegations, which is wretch considering that the man they have supported for a decade is himself a predator. But that, my friends, is a different video entirely, and I'm not going to touch it here. My point is that when the Hollywood Access tapes came out, I was a Christian. I declared publicly on social media that I would not be voting for Trump. I was already persuaded not to support him. But that was the final nail in the coffin, obviously. And I genuinely thought that what I was saying was common sense. Basic Christianity 101, non-controversial. Love your neighbor as yourself. Basic theology. But then the comments started coming in. We need a commander-in-chief, Tim, not a pastor chief. That was just locker room talk. No one is perfect. God used David even though he was an adulterer. I truly couldn't fathom what I was hearing. These were people that I had gone to church with, people that I had served alongside. People who told me that for years character matters, that integrity is a non-negotiable, that you cannot separate a person's private behaviors from their public leadership. Hello, Bill Clinton's affair. Right? That was a civilization ending moral catastrophe disqualifying without question. And by the way, I agree. But now that their guy is bragging about grabbing women without consent, the answer was that's just locker room talk. I voted third party that year because I was still anti-democrat from my childhood evangelical upbringing. But even so, not voting Republican was still a massively significant step for me on my journey. But it set me on a course that would completely separate me from everything I had been raised in. And here's what I want you to hear because this is important. I didn't leave evangelical Christianity because I lost my faith. I left because I found it. I found Jesus not in the basement of evangelical fundamentalism. I found him above ground in the fresh air in the sunlight. Now I want to stay with 2016 for just a moment longer and I promise we are going to get to this tweet. I have to give you the context first because this point matters so much. I don't think that people who did not grow up in this world fully understand what it was like to watch the evangelical church respond the way it did. We had been told for years that character matters, that the personal is political, that you cannot separate what a man does in private from what he does in public. And those weren't just throwaway talking points. For a lot of us, those were deeply held theological convictions rooted in scripture. And then we watch the same voices, the same pastors, the same Christian radio hosts, the same evangelical political organizations look at a tape of a man bragging about sexually assault and say, "Me, we have to worry about the Supreme Court." That cognitive dissonance does something to you. Something that's genuinely hard to put into words. It isn't just disappointment. It's grief. It's like watching someone that you deeply trusted reveal that everything they said that they believed was always conditional. It was always transactional. It was always a means to an end. And it didn't happen overnight. And this is the thing that nobody ever tells you. The compromise was gradual. It was incremental, one rationalization at a time, one exception at a time, until you arrive 10 years later at the president of the United States posting himself as Jesus Christ. And while there was widespread outrage, even from Christian nationalists, I'm going to show you how that how that outrage has no teeth to it at all. So, how do we get here? Let me show you the road because I have spent the last decade tracking the white evangelical response to Trump. And I want to give you the full arc of this because context is everything. And the more you know, >> knowledge is power. >> In 2016, the justification was the Supreme Court, right? We need him for the justices. Okay, I found that argument ridiculous, but it's coherent to a degree. It's a political argument, I guess, that you can make. So, that's step number one. Then 2017, Trump is picking fights on Twitter every day. He's mocking war heroes. He's publicly demeaning women on a near constant basis. And the justification shifts. Well, God uses flawed people. David in Bath Sheba. Look at King Cyrus. The anointed leader doesn't have to be personally moral. Now they're shifting into using the Hebrew Bible as a framework that lets them off the hook for Trump's moral misgivings. Donald Trump is a wrecking ball to the spirit of political correctness. The 45th president of the United States will be Isaiah 45. call me crazy, but I heard it right. The Lord said to me, that's the one. So, I go to read Isaiah 45. After you hear something like that, you start you start looking. Thus says the Lord to Cyrus whom I've anointed. Donald Trump has an anointing upon him. The hand of God is on him. Oh, I know a bunch of people say, "Well, how can you say that? He does this and he does that." Cyrus wasn't even a Jew. He was a Persian. God literally took a foreigner and put him in the arena to fight for his own people's sake. And the Bible goes on to say, "Thus says the Lord Cyrus, whom I have anointed, is going to break the two leave gates of Babylon. He's going to start breaking down things, break the bars of iron. He's going to undo the military capacity of all of his enemies. I'm going to release to him the treasures of darkness. And this I will do, though he doesn't even know me yet." I read that, I thought, man, how long has this been in the Bible? And I missed it. In 2019, the first impeachment happened. The evangelical response isn't engagement with the facts. It's the persecution complex. This is an attack on Christians everywhere. They're not just coming for Trump. They're coming for us. In 2020, Trump stands in front of St. John's Episcopal Church, holds a Bible for a photo op right after federal officers used tear gas on peaceful protesters so he could get the shot. And the evangelical response, by and large, is celebratory. He's standing firm. He's defending Christian values, they said. On January 6th, 2021, we had an insurrection. And this was when the rhetoric became overtly spiritual in my opinion. People stormed the capital building carrying wooden crosses, wearing Jesus saved shirts, praying in the Senate chamber, thanking Jesus for the opportunity to try and stop the election certification process. >> Jesus Christ, we invoke your name. Amen. >> Amen. and they were screaming that the election was stolen all throughout the halls of the capital and that God sent them. Now, initially, many Christian leaders condemned the violence, but that was quickly followed by a rational and contradictory talking points. First, it was Antifa did it, then it turned into it was just a peaceful tourist visit. The violence was overblown. They were defending democracy. I mean, which is it guys? What are we doing here? And then in 2024, the assassination attempt on Trump's life is retold in pulpits, on Christian media, on social media, with language so dripping with messianic imagery, it would have made first century Christians uncomfortable. >> What was your first reaction when you heard Trump was shot? >> My first reaction was that God clearly wanted Donald Trump to be president. I'm I'm dead serious because there's no way to watch that take. There's just no way. and see what happened and see how close we came to the president's brains being splattered on a stage on national television and not think that God physically reached his hand down into the world and took President Trump's head and went it scared the hell out of me but in a certain way it was sort of comforting because when you see an open miracle which is what I actually think that was there's no way that shot to miss obviously it's a tragedy there are people who were killed and our condolences go to the families and we give money to the families okay but when you see something like that an open miracle like at the first thing that you have to think is God's hand is present in the world and for whatever reason God's hand is on Donald Trump. >> And then this year during Holy Week, Trump's own pastor Paula White stood before our congregation and declared that Donald Trump has suffered just like Jesus suffered. >> And Mr. President, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. >> It almost cost you your life. you were betrayed >> and arrested and falsely accused. It's a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us. But it didn't end there for him and it didn't end there for you. >> Let that sink in for a minute. Now, I made a full video reacting to that crazy speech by Paula White, so you can go watch it after this one. But I need you to understand something. Paula White is not a fringe figure. She is not some random pastor in a small church somewhere. She is the head of Trump's White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative. She has an official Westwing role. She prayed at his inauguration. >> We ask that you would bestow upon our president the wisdom necessary to lead this great nation, the grace to unify us, and the strength to stand for what is honorable and right in your sight. >> She is as mainstream as you get in the world of Trump Christianity. and she said on camera that Donald Trump suffered like Jesus. And then after publicly trashing the Pope, Trump posted this on Truth Social. Take this image in one more time. But given the context, are we surprised that we got here? This is what white evangelicals and Christian nationalists have been trying to do for almost a decade. I am shocked, but I am not surprised because this is not a random act. This is the logical endpoint of a 10-year construction project. Christian nationalism needed a messiah figure. That Jesus in the four gospels was simply not going to cut it. Let's face it, he's way too nice. He's toxically empathetic. Love your enemies. What kind of BS is that Jesus? So, they built one. They built a new Messiah and now he's sitting in the throne that they made for him. Here's what people often get wrong about Christian nationalism. And I say this having been inside the tent for most of my life. They assume that it's about following Jesus. It's not. At best, it uses Christianity as a vehicle. At worst, it uses it as a costume because the Jesus in the four gospels is frankly a catastrophe for their political project. I mean, let's face it, guys. Jesus tells his followers to love their enemies. He tells his followers to liberate the oppressed, to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked. He routinely, consistently, relentlessly centers the marginalized in society. He touches lepers, people whose disease made them ritually unclean, people who were social outcasts. He speaks publicly with the Samaritan women, two categories of person his culture told him to avoid. He welcomes prostitutes and tax collectors, to his table. He heals the servant of a Roman centurion, the occupying military force. He calls Zakius, a corrupt government official, down from a tree and says, "Tonight I'm eating at your house." leading to Zakius repenting by giving back several times what he stole. And I need you to catch something that I think gets missed in this conversation all the time. Jesus himself was part of a marginalized group. He was a first century Jewish man living under Roman occupation. He was not from the halls of power. He was not from Rome. He was from Nazareth, a backwater town so insignificant that when one of his disciples heard Jesus was from there, his response was, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" Jesus was by every sociological measure that we can apply here a person of color living under the boot of an empire that did not view his people as fully human. That Jesus, the one in the actual text, is not a viable mascot for a movement built on power, control, and domination. Christian nationalism believes in defeating their enemies, not loving them. They want their enemies destroyed, humiliated, making them pay. They believe that the sick need to sort out their own healthcare. The hungry just need to work harder. The poor are lazy. The oppressed are complainers who need to take personal responsibility. The immigrant is a criminal. The refugee is a threat. The LGBTQ plus person is a pervert. And the enemy, whoever the enemy is this week, deserves punishment, not grace. Every single one of those positions is a direct inversion of the teachings of Jesus. Not a nuanced theological disagreement about application. This is not a matter of interpretation. This is a direct inversion. There is no way to square this circle. So, with the Jesus of the four gospels not being a viable option, they went looking for a better mascot. Someone who would actually represent their values, someone who loves power, who defines himself by who he defeats. They wanted someone who holds grudges and promises revenge, who rewards those who flatter him and punishes those who don't. They wanted someone who views weakness as a moral failing, who was born wealthy and never meaningfully served anyone beneath him. And after a decade of the evangelical church building this man up, telling him that God chose him, telling him God saved him from the assassin's bullet, telling him that he is a special anointing, telling him that he suffered like Jesus. Of course, this megalamaniac pathological narcissist, this power-hungry manchild, would eventually believe that he was Christ in the flesh. Of course, he would. Christian nationalist built the throne, and now they're acting shocked that he sat down on it. Because here's the uncomfortable truth. Trump embodies all the characteristics of the God that Christian nationalists actually believe. Not the Jesus of the Gospels, but the God they built in their own image. Their God will throw most of humanity into hell for not being on his side. Their God requires endless, ceaseless praise forever and ever and ever. Their God is vengeful and will one day destroy his enemies in spectacular violent fashion. Does that sound familiar at all? At all. This is white Jesus. This is who they made and this is who they got. So let's actually examine what we're looking at because this picture is not random. Every single element of it is a value statement and I want to go through it with you today. This is in the most literal sense a political and theological manifesto rendered as AI generated art. So let's go through it together. First we have the American flag proudly flying in the background. This is the core theological claim of Christian nationalism. Faith and national identity are the same thing. To be a true Christian is to be an American patriot. And to be a patriot is to support the regime. Of course, their regime, obviously. The flag isn't just background decoration here. Okay? In this image, it is a statement. God are one. Then we have an angel holding hands with fallen soldiers, highlighting how the American military is doing the work of God. This is the theological foundation for American militarism. Our wars are holy wars. For the wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion. We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ, king over all kings. And amen. >> Amen. And may the righteous be as bold as a lion. May we pray such prayer for our men and women in harm's way. >> Our soldiers are God's soldiers. The fighter jets in the background reinforce this point. One downed airman evaded capture for more than a day, scaling rugged ridges while hunted by the enemy. When he was finally able to activate his emergency transponder, his first message was simple and it was powerful. He sent a message, God is good. You see, shot down on a Friday, Good Friday, hidden in a cave, a crevice all of Saturday, and rescued on Sunday. America is responsible for 42% of all weapon sales in the entire world. We are a war makingaking empire. And in this image, that empire is being baptized. It's being made sacred by the presence of the Messiah figure standing at the center. On the left side of the image is an ICE agent, the far left over here. And let me say that again slowly. In a picture depicting Donald Trump as Jesus Christ, one of the figures present is an ICE agent. An agency that has been kidnapping people, throwing people, including legal residents with no criminal record, into concentration camps with conditions that are so dire children have been hospitalized. This is an agency that has sent people to countries they have never lived in, that don't speak the language, that have no family there. This is documented on record reporting. This is not partisan talking points. Those are the facts. And and in this image, the ICE agent is present as an agent of God doing holy work, standing in the kingdom. Then there's the young white girl praying, which I have to assume is meant to represent the idea of protecting women and maybe children, which is breathtakingly, almost poetically ironic because the man depicted as Jesus in this image is a convicted rapist. A man who was found legally liable for sexual abuse. A man who bragged on tape about grabbing women without consent. A man who was in the Epstein files. a man who has more credible accusations of sexual misconduct leveled against him than almost any public figure in modern American history. But in this image, he's the protector of women. Of course, he is. And then there's the figure in the center that Messiah Trump is touching. A man who looks, in my opinion, pretty close to someone named Jeffrey Epstein having his head touched by Trump or Jesus or whoever this is being miraculously healed. Wow. And and the most ironic part is that a nurse is looking on, which I think means something that a lot of us have missed. In this picture of Trump as Jesus, Jeffrey Epstein is being healed. And this is an indictment on the war on public health that is happening in real time. RFK Jr. is dismantling the CDC from the inside. Measles, a disease that we essentially eliminated, is making a comeback. The scientific consensus on vaccines is being treated as enemy propaganda. And in this image, we don't need science, right? We don't need medicine. We don't need vaccines because Trump Jesus will heal you with a touch. Why get vaccinated when miracles are available? Every single element of this image is a declaration of value. And Trump posted it as a celebration, as worship, as triumph. And that tells you everything that you need to know. Now, of course, Trump has denied all of this. In fact, here's his latest excuse for the photo that he posted, but has since taken down. And by the way, this is not AI. >> Mr. president. Did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ? >> Well, it wasn't depicted. It was me. I I did post it and I thought it was me as the doctor and had to do with Red Cross as a Red Cross worker there which we support and uh only the fake news could come up with that one. So, I I had uh I just heard about it and I said, "How did they come up with that?" It's supposed to be me as a doctor making people better. And I do make people better. I make people Uh, a lot better. >> Yeah, I can't believe it either. Apparently, the Red Cross dresses like Jesus these days. Oh my god. Okay, I want to get into the MAGA response and show you a few tweets by people that will legitimately blow your mind. But first, if this video is meaningful to you, please smash that like button and subscribe to the channel. It genuinely matters. It's it's how I reach more people who need to hear this kind of message. And please leave a comment below. Were you in the evangelical world when this started? Are you still in it? Are you watching from the outside? Let me know in the comments. Thank you so much. Okay, let's keep going because we're not done. There's so much more to get to here. In fact, I think this is a great time in the video to show you a few examples. So, let's go ahead and do that. So, the first one I want to show you, friends, is of one of my favorites, Alli Stucky. So, Ally, you know, this comes up, right? All Saki, the woman claiming to care about biblical values and the true faith, does she call it evil or wicked? Does she condemn Trump initially? No. No, she doesn't. She posts a meme. She posts this meme of uh who is that? Uh Ben Affleck holding a cigarette, which immediately it puts it in a lighter category, right? Already Alli's like, "Oh, this is annoying. It's not evil. It's just annoying." And then what she does is she tweets this out. That image is what happens when Paula White is your personal pastor and people around you are continually comparing you to Christ. Trump desperately needs to understand the bad news that precedes the good news. You are a helpless sinner in desperate need of a savior as we all once were. So she immediately pins it on Paula White who by the way she still defends. I covered that in my last response video to Ally. But again, no language of wicked. Nothing. This not evil, not even blasphemy. I mean just nothing. Compare that to how she talked about Joe Biden. Biden is an evil decrepit man. I I want to show you the kid gloves they treat Trump with. Trump commits blasphemy. It's a meme. Joe Biden, I don't know, affirms trans people exist and whatever else he might do. He's an evil, evil, decrepit man. And then it gets crazier, friends. It gets crazy. Here's how she when Trump announced his stupid defense that he thought he was a doctor in that picture. Ally really says, "I do believe that he didn't think of this as a depiction of Jesus when posting. Still, there has to be more care and discernment here. The kid gloves. The kid Ally Stucky is a s for Donald Trump. Okay. I mean, how much he my It's a softball. Hey, uh Trump, try not to pretend that you're Jesus anymore. This is like one of the big This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. One of the few things that Christ says is unforgivable. And Trump commits it consistently. This is not the first time he's posted a picture similar to this. And Ali Stucky says, "More care and discernment." I don't think he really meant it. You got to be kidding me. Then we have people just straight up saying things like this. America has been sick for a long time. President Trump is healing this nation. That's Nick Adams. We have Gunther over here. President Trump just posted this powerful painting on True Social. Trump stands radiant in a red robe laying hands on a sick man while surrounded by American symbols, the flag, eagles, fighter jets, the Statue of Liberty, and everyday heroes. What a joke. Then we have one of my other favorites, Megan Basham. Now Megan Basham. Okay, to her credit, she called it blasphemy. I don't know if the president thought he was being funny or if he is under the influence of some substance or what possible explanation he could have for this outrageous blasphemy, but he needs to take this down immediately and ask for forgiveness from the American people and then from God. First off, Trump is never going to say sorry, as we all know. As we all know. And again, when Trump took down the post and gave that stupid excuse, Megan Basham goes, "Glad to see the president has deleted the offensive post. Would be helpful if the administration addressed it." And then she she quote tweets herself and says, "And now he has. The president told the press pool he did not think it was a depiction of him as Jesus, but a depiction of him as a physician or doctor." You've got to be kidding me, right? These are the Mega Basham claims to be a journalist, a hard-hitting truthtelling journalist. and scot-free. You're not going to check him on the obvious blatant lie, Megan. Now, how do you think Megan Basham talked about Biden? Well, I have a I have a tweet for you to read. I am not MAGA. Okay. But yes, I do believe Biden is evil because he has a platform of abortion on demand and mutilating children for the sake of trans ideology. Frankly, if you don't think that's evil, I don't actually believe you're a Christian. Guys, I I I I I pulled these tweets to show you to show you the blatant double standard. Donald Trump can post a picture depicting himself as Jesus Christ and he gets a slap on the wrist. But Joe Biden is an evil, vile, decrepit man who's destroying the country. And you cannot be a Christian and support Joe Biden. Can it be any more obvious? Can it be any more freaking obvious? Now, I need to speak directly to some people watching this, and I need you to hear every word of what I'm about to say. If you were a Christian who cannot get behind Trump, you were right. You were. Don't let these Christian nationalists gaslight you into believing that somehow you are the heretic, that you were the one who compromised your faith, that you were the one who chose politics over Jesus. The opposite is true. They are the ones who sold their souls for worldly power. They are the ones who don't take the teachings of Jesus seriously. They are the ones who looked at a man bragging about assault and said God uses flawed people. They are the ones who looked at children in cages and said ICE is doing the work of God. And lastly, they are the ones who defended Mike Johnson refusing to renew the Affordable Care Act subsidies that millions of people relied on in the name of Christian values. I am so fed up with MAGA Christians screaming from the rooftop of their social media soap boxes that they are standing for true faith for historic Christianity. the hell you are. You worship an idol. Which reminds me, aren't you Christian nationalists absolutely obsessed with posting the Ten Commandments in public schools and government buildings. You've been fighting for years, right? Filing lawsuits, passing state legislation, getting into culture war battles, all to get the Ten Commandments displayed wherever possible. Some of your states, like in Texas, have actually passed laws mandating it in classrooms. You love those commandments, don't you? You champion those commandments and those values. So, let's talk about them. Let's talk about the ten commandments because your president is openly breaking the first one. Obviously, he's broken all of them many times over, but that isn't my point here. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. News flash, Trump thinks he is God. And you told him he was. You told him God had chosen him. You told him God had saved him from death. You told him he had a special anointing on his life. His pastor told him publicly on camera that he had suffered just like Jesus suffered. And other pastors clapped. Of course. Of course. This maniac, war-hungry, megalamaniac, power-hungry manchild would eventually believe that he was Christ in the flesh. Of course he would. You built that brick by brick, sermon by sermon, prayer circle by freaking prayer circle. You handed him the crown. And no matter what he did, you excused him. He assaults women. Locker room talk. Convicted felon. Rigged system. Best friends with Jeffrey Epstein. Overblown. How about writing a hatefueled profanity laced message on Easter morning. Ah, that's just Trump being Trump, right guys? >> This at this point like you voted in 2024 knowing that he was going to be like this, right? Like we knew that. We've known that since before 2016 that he's going to say stuff. >> I have watched this pattern repeat itself every single day for 10 damn years. And let me tell you something, friends. There is nothing I want to be so clear here. There is nothing Trump can say or do that will cause Christian nationalists to denounce him. You know why? Because whatever Trump says or does, the Democrats are always always a billion times worse in their minds. I know this framework inside and out because I grew up in it. It's what I believed. And here's how it works. The specific reason always changes, but the conclusion is that you can never ever vote Democrat. Never. That never changes. That's the fixed point. That is the north star here. Everything else is just the rotating justification that gets employed whenever convenient. For example, sure, Trump is bad, but what about abortion? Well, then you show them that abortion rates actually went up during Trump's first term. So then they pivot to immigration. Then you show them that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at half the rate of nativeorn citizens. So they pivot to the economy. Then you show them how Trump's policies are actively hurting the working class. So they pivot to the woke agenda and how Trump is eradicating it from society. Do you see the pattern? There is always a lane change. There is always another exit. And that is why I don't take their outrage, their performative, stupid ass, selective, carefully managed outrage seriously. Not for a single second. Because their outrage is a costume. Let me tell you something I know with complete confidence to be true. This will not change Trump's strangle hold on white evangelical support. Not even slightly. If they can watch this administration separate children from their parents at the border. If they can watch Trump publicly boldly lie about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. If they can overlook credible on there witness testimony that Trump assaulted someone when she was a child. They can easily look past an AI generated photo of Trump as Jesus. Easily without breaking a sweat. Most of them by the time this video comes out have probably already moved on. Most of them won't love it. Some of them might make a little bit of noise as I just showed you. And maybe even a handful of prominent voices will issue carefully worded statements. Does that sound familiar? Expressing mild concern, but within a week, it's all forgotten about. It's old news that's buried under the next news cycle. And they will continue backing the regime's goals because their commitment was never to Jesus. Their commitment is to power. And Trump has power. And I want to prove this to you, not with opinion, but with a simple thought experiment. Imagine if, just put your thinking cap on for a minute. Let's use your Mr. Rogers land of makebelieve imagination. Imagine if Barack Obama had posted a picture of himself as Jesus. As black Jesus. Just imagine that. Barack Obama as Jesus right after publicly mocking a dying pope. Do you think that the people who are giving Trump a slap on the wrist would be like, "Eh, guys, it's a mistake. He should be he should be more careful next time. We need just more discernment next time." No. The exact same people who are defending this image or being very quiet about it would have called it the end of civilization. They would have called it blasphemy. They would have called it proof that he was demonic. They would have run this clip on Fox News every single night for the rest of his administration. It would become a defining cultural moment for the culture war. Hey guys, remember when Obama made himself Jesus? Heretical, right? That's how we knew he was evil. And then here's the thing. they would have been right to criticize it because that's blasphemy because it's wrong. It is wrong. But the standard doesn't change based on what team you're on. Unless, of course, you don't actually have a standard at all. All you care about is power and control. And this this right here is the false gospel of Christian nationalism. The good news of Christian nationalism is not the good news of Jesus. It is the good news of empire. And empires, and I want to be very clear about this, empires are never good news for the people they target. History does not have a single example of an empire that was good news for the marginalized or the displaced or the conquered or the poor. Not one. And America is an empire. That's not a partisan observation. That's a historical one. And it's true regardless of who holds power. But there is something uniquely and catastrophically different about what happens when the most powerful religious group in America decides that only one political coalition represents the values of true historic Christianity. Because when that happens, when you wrap a flag around a cross, you don't make the flag holy. You make the cross worthless. When you tell a generation of young people that Jesus and American military power are the same thing. When you tell them that ICE agents are doing God's work when you tell them that stripping health care subsidies from the working poor is consistent with the gospel. You are not preaching Christianity. You are preaching empire. An empire has a consistent unbroken track record throughout human history. It always always comes for the vulnerable first. The poor, the immigrant, the sick, the different, the disabled, the outsider. Empire always needs an enemy. And it always addresses the enemy in the language of spiritual danger. Are you paying attention? Have you followed the past decade since Trump has risen? Heck, have you followed the moral majority at all? This is what they're built on. They're always scapegoating a new out group. It's trans people. It's gay people. It's DEI hires. It's woke. It's CRT. It's immigrants. And on and on it goes. When I look at that image, Trump as Jesus, here's what I see. I see the logical conclusion of everything the American evangelical church has been constructing since 2016. I see the idol that they built now fully revealed in all its clarity without the usual plausible deniability. It's out in the open, guys. Your your dude posted it. He that's what he thinks. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, right? I see a movement that has traded the subversive, empire challenging, border crossing, lepardouching, enemyloving Jesus of the gospels for a golden calf in a suit who promises them dominion. And I'm grieved by it. I am genuinely deeply sad and upset by it. Not because I'm surprised. I'm not surprised. I told you. I've been tracking this stuff for 10 years. I knew this moment was going to happen. I knew it was coming. But grief doesn't require a surprise. I'm grieved because there are millions of people in this country right now today who are being spiritually abused by this movement. people who were raised in the church who love God, who are watching their community, their family, their pastors sell their souls in real time, and who are being made to feel like something is wrong with them, for noticing, like they're the heretic for not getting on board with what's obviously heretical. And to those people, I want to say this directly. I want to say it so clearly. You are not the heretic. The fact that your soul resists what you're seeing, that is not a weakness. That is not confusion. That is not the enemy deceiving you. That is your conscience functioning the way a conscience should. The people who posted that image without a second thought, they are the ones who have departed from the teachings of Jesus, not you. The people who have spent a decade rationalizing every act, excusing every excess, suppressing every instinct that told them something was wrong. They are the ones who are compromised. The ones who downplay the Epstein files, the one who refused to look in the mirror and see the bed of lies that their movement is built on. They're the ones who compromised, not you. The Jesus of the Gospels did not look like that image. He didn't look like power. He didn't look like an empire's flag. He didn't look like armed enforcers or fighter jets or the miraculous healing of a man who exploited children. He looked like a person who showed up for people no one else would show up for. He looked like the one who crossed every boundary his culture drew. That's not who's in that picture. That is an idol. And false gods always fall. They always fall. Hey, I can't thank you enough for watching this video. 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