An Antichrist

September 27, 2020

I’m not a Christian. I don’t believe in hell or Satan. I think that Donald Trump is an Antichrist. Let me explain.

According to Wikipedia, the Antichrist is a person prophesied by the Bible to oppose Christ and substitute himself in Christ’s place before the Second Coming. I don’t believe in the Antichrist or in the Second Coming, so I don’t believe that Trump is the Antichrist. But I do think that the current President of the United States embodies the opposite of the teachings of Jesus Christ, and in that sense he is an Antichrist.

Several years ago I traveled to Israel, Egypt, and Jordan to experience the history, religions, and cultures of those countries. I was especially curious to see what I could learn about the life and teachings of Jesus, so I read several books about him before I visited Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, and Jerusalem. I’m still not sure whether Jesus was primarily a political revolutionary or an enlightened spiritual teacher, or both. I don’t believe that he died for my sins. But whether he was merely an important historical figure or whether he was a messenger from God, my sense is that everything he stood for is the polar opposite of what Donald Trump represents.

When I ponder the message and nature of Jesus, I imagine a man of great humility and compassion. A man who loved people, who wanted to teach them how to access their inner divinity so that they could learn to be one with God. A man who believed in helping others, especially the poor and the sick. A man of integrity and decency, who knew that character and behavior have consequences. A man who was honest and courageous, who honored other people, a profoundly good man. A man, in other words, who had nothing in common with the current occupant of the White House.

Yet many evangelical Christians and Catholics are among Trump’s most ardent supporters. Why? Apparently because Trump, who like Ronald Reagan was pro-choice on abortion until he ran for president, is appointing anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court in order to get the votes of the evangelicals and conservative Catholics. The Bible says nothing about abortion, yet for reasons that are not clear to me, some Christians have decided that the death penalty is OK, as is war, but abortion is against God’s will.

As much as I dislike Trump for his endless lying, insults, corruption, incompetence, abuse of journalists, threats of violence, racial dog whistles, undermining of democratic institutions, denial of climate change, and profound indecency, I have to wonder whether he might actually be representative of our collective unconscious. That is, maybe Trump accurately reflects the perverted state of the human race at this stage of our development. If so, he may be a teacher whose lessons we will have to learn the hard way as a step in our evolution.

For that reason, maybe we need the Adolf Hitlers, Joseph Stalins, Mao ZeDongs, Kim Jong Uns, Vladimir Putins, and Donald Trumps of the world to remind us of what we must not become. Maybe an Antichrist Trump is helping to prepare the way for the emergence of the collective Christ consciousness on Planet Earth by discrediting his antithesis of Christian teachings. If that’s the case, then by definition Donald Trump really is the Antichrist.

Oh wait – I don’t believe in the Antichrist. Never mind.

Although I detest the yellow-haired, orange-faced con man at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I truly feel sorry for him. Imagine being that insecure, that cynical, that cruel and greedy, that responsible for the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of Americans due to his Covid negligence and deceptions. If you believe, as I do, that upon our death each of us will be compassionately helped and guided to review our just-completed life and the positive and negative consequences of our actions in that life, then you can imagine the chagrin, the deep sorrow, the pain, and the despair that Donald Trump will experience at death as he comes to understand how much negative karma he has created for himself and how much harm he has inflicted upon his country and upon humanity.

For now we have the delicious irony that Mr. Trump, who makes a mockery of the teachings of Jesus, is the standard bearer for the Christian right; the delicious irony that a prince of darkness is the champion of many Christian true believers.

Regardless of the outcome of the November 3rd election, it will be interesting to see which brand of Christianity will prevail: the decency of Joe Biden’s version, or the hypocrisy of Donald Trump’s dystopia. Positive or negative, may the best spiritual outcome for humanity prevail.