{"id":16093,"date":"2022-11-02T17:11:54","date_gmt":"2022-11-02T21:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=16093"},"modified":"2022-11-03T12:06:32","modified_gmt":"2022-11-03T16:06:32","slug":"is-donald-trump-the-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/11\/is-donald-trump-the-christ","title":{"rendered":"Is Donald Trump The Christ?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gage Skidmore \/ Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m not much into self-help literature. Who has time to help myself when I\u2019m too busy helping others?\u00a0But the gurus say that life truly begins just outside your comfort zone.\u00a0And so I did something that caused me extreme discomfort this week.\u00a0No, I don\u2019t mean watching John Fetterman debate. Though when the aphasia-sufferer\/senate hopeful opened with \u201cHi, goodnight everybody,\u201d I felt a little less alone in a misery-loves-company sort of way: he couldn\u2019t wait for it to be over, either.<\/p>\n

Neither did I do something truly zany, like reporting for my side hustle as a Shabbos goy in my Kanye line of Yeezy Adidas sneakers. I\u2019m virulently anti-antisemitism.\u00a0And I\u2019m not just saying that because I\u2019m a member of the media, which, according to Kanye, is controlled by The Jews.<\/p>\n

But I did do something rather radical \u2013 I read a book.\u00a0 This is not to suggest reading a book is in itself a radical act. (Though now that the Beavis-and-Buttheadification of America is nearly complete, reading a book is something that 51.5 percent of the country hasn\u2019t done in the past year.) Rather, it\u2019s the book I read that is radical. For a good lukewarm Christian like me, it\u2019s a real lapel-grabber.\u00a0It appears that the subject of it – the same guy who reimagined our politics – is now reimagining our religion. Politics and religion for many, having become indistinguishable. Because Donald J. Trump isn\u2019t just a twice-impeached ex-president with a suspicious combover who has a taste for Quarter Pounders and overturning elections. No, think bigger. Donald John Trump, it turns out, is The Christ.<\/p>\n

It says so right in the title of Helgard M\u00fcller\u2019s new book,\u00a0President Donald J. Trump, The Son of Man \u2013 THE CHRIST<\/em>. (The all-caps are his.)\u00a0 While it\u2019s something of a major revelation that the writers of the New Testament missed the boat, this is not what publishing types would call a major release.\u00a0 The book was published by Outskirts Press \u2013 I guess Zondervan took a pass when learning that J.C. would have to share a marquee with D.J.T. \u00a0–\u00a0 which is to say, it\u2019s self-published. (Outskirts Press guarantees that you too can \u201cpublish your book, your way.\u201d)\u00a0 But that hasn\u2019t kept it from garnering 57 customer ratings – average: 1 \u00bd stars – and ranking #671 in the \u201cChristian commentaries\u201d category. (#328 on Kindle!)<\/p>\n

Always eager to Make The Messiah Great Again, I plunked down my $17.76, plus tax, and waited for the second coming to arrive.\u00a0The book was flagged to my attention by a subscriber, Dwight Chappell \u2013 a retired Christian educator and missionary to Russia and Ukraine, who doesn\u2019t even believe Trump was a good president, let alone the Son of God. But he\u2019d read about it in news accounts, as flyers advertising the book started popping up at Trump rallies, like the one he campaigned at on behalf of J.D. Vance in Ohio last month, where Trump brought his own peculiar brand of gospel truth, offering that Vance\u00a0 (once a Never-Trumper, now a pretend-disciple) \u201cis kissing my ass.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s no evidence that Trump has read the book (he\u2019s not a big reader, some doubt that he\u2019s even read the books he\u2019s \u201cwritten\u201d), Trump has drawn comparisons to Christ before, including by himself.\u00a0 Just last month, one of the users of Trump\u2019s failing social media\/Twitter knockoff wrote, “Jesus is the Greatest. President\u00a0@realDonaldTrump<\/a>\u00a0is the second greatest.” Trump \u201cre-truthed\u201d it on Truth Social, meaning tens, maybe even hundreds of people saw it.<\/p>\n

Though there is fierce theological debate in Trumpster circles whether Jesus was actually greater. After all, the O.G. Son of God merely died for our sins, saving us from damnation, then clocked out at 33 years old. (Nobody likes a quitter.) \u00a0Mr. Trump has accomplished so much more in his 76 years and counting: siring Eric and Don Jr., collecting three wives (one of whom might have been buried at his golf course\u00a0for a tax break<\/a>), building 40 new miles of wall along our 2,000-mile border, and founding best-in-class operations like Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, and Trump University.<\/p>\n

Still, I knew I was in for it when \u201cPresident Donald J. Trump, The Son of Man \u2013 THE CHRIST\u201d arrived, and the opening paragraph read:<\/p>\n

President Donald J. Trump is the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords! The Son of Man who will be seen seated in the place of power at God\u2019s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven! You have read that correctly! President Donald J. Trump is the Christ for this age! The Son of King David! Prophecies of Jesus and all the prophets point to President Donald J. Trump as the Son of Man, the Christ.<\/em><\/p>\n

Further troubling tells appear in the author\u2019s bio. It seems Helgard M\u00fcller, who says his day job is as a property manager in Cincinnati, is a South African \u00e9migr\u00e9 and that \u201cas a young boy, he loved the Apartheid era of South Africa\u2026\u2026\u2026Those were the days, my friend; we thought they would never end.<\/em>\u201d (Helgard\u2019s italics.)\u00a0 Though he\u2019s not a formally trained biblical scholar, Helgard adds \u201cI have read the Bible about one hundred and fifty times in my life, and the New Testament probably double that number.\u201d\u00a0Additionally, he\u2019s studied original Hebrew texts and he loves Jewish Gematria (assigning numerical value to a name or word to explain their cryptographic significance). Though like Trump\u2019s favorite rapper, Kanye, he doesn\u2019t seem all that crazy about the Jews proper: \u00a0\u201cJesus was defeated by the Jewish Leftist Mafia \u2013 just like Trump. What they do not know is that Trump will stand on the right hand of God and defeat and destroy the Jews and Liberals in Washington DC \u2013 for they have made it a den of thieves.)\u201d Jesus was a Jew, of course, but hey \u2013 nobody\u2019s perfect \u2013 and Helgard doesn\u2019t seem to hold that against him. O.G. J.C. was himself big on forgiveness.<\/p>\n

Helgard\u2019s book appears to have been written in a fever.\u00a0Which is not to be confused with a fever swamp (Trump the Christ having drained it.) As Helgard explains it:\u00a0 \u201cAs my hands are wavering literally through the air grabbing words from the sky, I can hear the cicadas buzz in the forest next to my house and I am listening to one of the greatest songs ever written in 1978 by French singer Patrick Hernandez \u2013 \u2018Born to Be Alive<\/a>.\u2019 You just cannot beat this very moment in time for me to write the best text on this day and age about Trump as the Christ. He\u2019s for sure my favorite President!\u201d<\/p>\n

In his introduction, Helgard promises \u201cmy book is not going to be a long and dramatic book. It will be to the point.\u201d Having slogged through all 298 pages of it, I beg to differ.\u00a0 But his working premise is that while Christian theologians often mistake the \u201cSon of Man\u201d in the Bible for J.C., there are actually two Messiahs: Jesus, the Son of God, on the one hand. And the tangelo-flavored real estate branding magnate on the other. Helgard, who is preoccupied with seating charts, holds that Jesus stands in front of the throne of God, while the Son of Man (i.e., Mr. Trump) is positioned at God\u2019s right hand. Though if Trump drops a C-note on God, who knows? Maybe he\u2019ll get to do a shift in the Big Chair.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll skip the 150 pages or so of Helgard\u2019s tortured hermeneutics, in the interest of not causing reader brain injuries. More entertaining is Helgard laying out his evidence that Jesus and Trump, or as some Trumpsters would prefer, Trump and Jesus, are messianic brothers from another mother. (Though both of their mothers were named Mary, Helgard hastens to add.)<\/p>\n

Even as Helgard asserts \u00a0that Trump himself\u00a0 \u201cis the look-alike of Jesus Christ, the Son of God\u201d (give or take 100 lbs.), the \u201ccoincidences\u201d stack up fast. This is far from a complete list:<\/p>\n