Mr. Trump, Here is Good Advice from the Good Book regarding an Exit from Iran

Although you have frequently claimed to have helped the Christian cause more than any other politician, you have also frequently denied a basic Christian doctrine: the forgiveness of your sins. You have often said you have never asked God for forgiveness because you don’t acknowledge any sins that need to be forgiven. Two passages from the Good Book seem quite pertinent to your situation. The Apostle John wrote, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:8-9) You claim that you are without sin generally, and specifically regarding your decision to go to war with Iran. Just this past weekend, you responded to questions about the war and the increase in oil/gas prices by saying you will “never apologize” for taking us to war nor for the resulting rise in the price of gasoline.

In the Biblical book of James, we read about the origin of wars. “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?” (James 4:1) James provides a general principle that wars are usually the expression and extension of human selfishness. For those who claim that a specific war is an exception, that it is “justified”, the burden of proof lies with them.

Let’s unpack this a bit. When the word “sin” is mentioned, many people think of religious actions against God. On the contrary, the Bible has a different understanding of sin. Precisely because all people are made in God’s image, all human actions against our neighbors, near or far, are also directed toward their Creator. When John the Baptist proclaimed his message of repentance from evil, he emphasized economic sins, whether it was apathy when we are faced with our neighbor’s hunger or poverty, or the sins of bribery and extortion (Luke 3:1-20). This pointing out of human sin is called good news (gospel) because it is an essential component for repentance and forgiveness. The prophet Amos teaches us an additional, important truth, especially for people who rule in public office: many sins are not individualistic, but national. Racism, war, inhumane treatment of foreigners, and national indifference to the suffering of people in other countries, are also denounced as sin against their Maker. (Amos 2:1-3:15)

Therefore, Mr. President, I ask you to look at the following evidence and to examine your heart regarding your war against Iran. I am inviting you to have a political conversion.

Your war with Iran is illegal. Our US Constitution appropriately assigns war responsibilities to Congress, not to the President. No one person, not even the President, is allowed to take our country to war. If a President believes war should be declared, he or she should go to Congress and ask them to make a Declaration of War (as took place in World War II). If the President believes a true emergency requires an immediate military response of self defense, he or she is allowed to do so, but then needs to obtain congressional approval within 48 hours via the War Powers Resolution. You also did not bring the United Nations into deliberations as required for member nations.
Your war against Iran broke your own campaign promises of not taking our nation into war, especially “endless wars in the Middle East”. As a result, your war was not supported by our citizens (about 65% of the public are against this war, according to national polls).
You never presented a clear goal for the war to the American people. You have jumped from one goal to another as if you were grasping for straws (regime change, the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz, deterring the development of nuclear weapons). This last goal is seen as a sham because you claimed you had “obliterated” Iran’s uranium stockpiles a year ago.
Your war with Iran showed woefully little preparation. You said it would last only 2-4 weeks and we are now at the six-month mark. There were no exit strategies and we still have no end in sight. Supply problems on the USS Abraham Lincoln and a significant depletion of defensive missiles were not planned for.
Although the Iranian takeover of the Strait of Hormuz had been anticipated by every presidency during the last five decades, your administration seems to have been caught totally ill-prepared. With some significant control over the Strait, Iran now has more leverage than it did before the war began.
A negotiated and just peace deal is not on the horizon. On at least 38 occasions, you have made public predictions that a peace accord was “at hand”, but then Iran strings your envoys on again and again. Neither the US people, nor our allies, nor Iran believe you and your baseless promises.
You did not consult with our NATO allies before going to war, nor with our Arab friends in the region. In fact, this week you repeatedly threatened to strike militarily our ally Oman for not supporting your war!

For all of the above-mentioned facts, your taking our country into war with Iran was a huge mistake with serious political, economic, and ethical consequences for Americans and for the whole world. This is the bad news. The good news is that you are not beyond hope. While many of your critics think you cannot change, I believe in a compassionate and all-powerful God. While we have breath, there is hope we might experience a genuine change in our lives. This requires true repentance on your part leading to a profound transformation. This will not be easy because you have surrounded yourself with people who tell you how “great” you are. Do not believe them. They are lying.

Now an exit strategy. Bombing Iran has not worked. Bullying other countries with tariffs has not worked either. Inept negotiators have not had success. But if you would truly and publicly confess your political sin, the world would be shocked and amazed! If your conversion were genuine, international offers to negotiate a just end to the war would come pouring in. I suggest the United Nations as a good first place to start. This could become the beginning of a new world order (and perhaps even a Nobel Peace Prize). Mr. President, the ball is in your court.

Trump and Democrats Drop To All Time Lows in Approval Ratings: What Should They Do?

According to the Gallop poll released last week, President Trump hit an all-time low in approval ratings. Only 37% of Americans approve of Trump’s performance in his second term. Even on his best issues (immigration, tariffs, national debt) his poll numbers are negative. As a political party, the Democrats find themselves in a similar situation. A Wall Street Journal poll shows that 63% of the American public view the Democrat party unfavorably (the Republicans polled slightly better). I don’t believe Trump and party leaders are suffering low ratings due to their moral righteousness or great policies. No, they are due to their ethical and political failures. Everyone needs a deep dose of repentance, a significant change in attitude and actions. I respectfully suggest the following areas that merit attention.

President Trump

Stop your lying – You have a troubled history with the truth. You dilute and distort it with multiple falsehoods. Some of your lies might play well with your base, but they are not true. For example, let’s look at your comments on tariffs. Tariffs are essentially taxes. You have frequently claimed that billions of dollars will flow into our country as foreign countries pay the cost of the tariffs/taxes. That is a lie. Foreign countries do not pay the tariffs that the U.S. government charges on imported goods. Foreign companies do not pay the tariffs. U.S. companies (think Walmart) pay the money. This is an additional cost added to the product. Walmart might absorb some of this cost, but to maintain their profits they need to pass on the major part of these costs to the consumer. (Even my beloved Hershey‘s Chocolate has recently announced a double digit increase in their prices.) Let me summarize. Mr. Trump, neither foreign countries nor foreign companies pay for your tariffs/taxes. American companies and we, the consumers, pay these taxes. Stop lying about your tariffs.

Some of your lies are just plain weird. Two weeks ago, you told a story about your uncle, John Trump. He was a beloved professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). That part is true, but then you fabricated a tall tale that linked your uncle with the late terrorist Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. You claimed that your uncle taught Kaczynski at MIT and that he told you Kaczynski was a good, although arrogant student. The truth is that your uncle died in 1985 and Kaczynski was not publicly revealed as the Unabomber until 1996. In addition, there is no record of Kaczynski ever studying at MIT. Your fluid movement from reality into delusion seems to be a psychological/mental liability rather than an asset. I suggest you get help to stop these delusions.

Admit your mistakes – We all make mistakes because “to err is human”. Many people have difficulty in accepting responsibility for their actions, but you seem to have a lot of trouble in acknowledging your mistakes. Given the power of the presidency, your mistakes are amplified and can cause great harm to millions of people. For example, you promised to cut waste and fraud from the federal government, but Elon Musk/DOGE used a chainsaw instead of the necessary scalpel. The gutting of USAID, with the resulting stoppage of medicine shipments and the rotting of food at ports around the world, has caused the premature deaths of tens of thousands of women and children. Hundreds of essential federal workers (ex. meteorologists) have been fired which increased the loss of life in the recent floods in Texas. Mr. President, be mature enough to take ownership of your decisions and these tragic results.

Mr. Trump, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t take credit for the positive aspects of the economy and, at the same time, blame Biden or Powell for the negative results. Six months into your presidency, you “own” this economy. If inflation continues to rise, you are responsible.

Your initial evaluation of people (both friends and foes) has been quite flawed. That is why you fired a record number of cabinet members during your first term in office. Your current cabinet has people who are woefully unqualified (like Hegseth and Gabbard). You praised the Russian “president” Putin for being an honorable, strong leader. What a naïve, horrible opinion! You should have listened to Marco Rubio who denounced Putin as a tyrannical authoritarian with the blood of thousands of Ukrainians on his hands. Mr. President, acknowledge your naïve mistake, and use economic sanctions to bring about a just, lasting peace in Ukraine.

Democrats

Learn from your mistakes – It was not so much that Trump won the 2024 presidential election (with under 50% of the vote), but that the Democrats lost it. By and large, Democrats went too far in emphasizing gender issues at the expense of bread-and-butter economic topics. Take for example, the issue of trans women competing in girls/women sports. Many Democrats felt they had to defend the trans women even though they knew they had an unfair advantage in body size, strength and speed over “biological women”. Many voters were persuaded more by “what is fair” than by “what is politically correct”. Democrats need to relearn the wisdom of the old advice, “it’s the economy, stupid”. For the 2026 mid-term elections there are many economic issues that are of vital importance to voters due to the one Big Beautiful Bill: 10 million Americans will lose their health insurance, hundreds of rural medical clinics and hospitals will close, and food will be taken away from mothers and children. This will done in order to transfer funds from the poor and middle classes to the wealthy. Democrats, raise your voice for those who have no voice!
Make unlikely alliances to defend freedom and democracy – As the old adage affirms, politics makes “strange bedfellows”. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not my favorite kind of politician. She is an inconsistent, extremist firebrand who says weird stuff that I do not share. Nevertheless, she does have guts. Recently, she had the courage to denounce Israel’s actions in Gaza for what they truly are: genocide. She uncovered Netanyahu for who he really is: a politician with blood on his hands who has used war to in a failed attempt to bolster his sagging poll numbers among voters in Israel. Democrats, work with MTG to stop starvation in Gaza. Work across the aisle to apply economic sanctions on the murderous Putin. Work with Republican MAGA representatives in order to bring transparency to the Epstein case and to bring justice to those young women who were victimized in his sex trafficking atrocities (and by his friends, regardless of how important they might be).

We the People

We need to promote the truth, whatever the cost – more than pledging “loyalty” to a political party, or even to a president, we need to be people of the truth who seek the common good. May we rise to the challenge of this high civic calling.

John the Baptist: Repentance, our Toxic Hyper-individualism, and economics

We take a break from partisan politics in this blog. Nevertheless, I do want to address religious, economic and cultural themes. During this Advent season of the Christian faith, it is common to read a Biblical passage about John the Baptist. John´s mission was to prepare the way for Jesus the Messiah by preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. His understanding of repentance was much more than mere regret for our sins. He urged a transformation in all areas of our lives.

Let´s look at Luke´s narrative where John preaches from a passage of the prophet Isaiah which announces God´s salvation for all humanity. The multitudes responded to his message and came to be baptized, but he saw through their hypocrisy and cut through their superficiality.

He told them, ¨Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown in the fire.” What should we do then?” the crowd asked. John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” (Luke 3:8-14)

John was asked by three different groups (the crowd, tax collectors, and soldiers) what they should do to demonstrate “fruits of repentance”. His three responses have two aspects in common. First, they all deal with material possessions: shirts, food, and money. We misunderstand Biblical spirituality if we think that it only refers to the non-physical world. Godly spirituality is expressed in this materialistic world (Jesus, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us). John proclaimed the beginning of a new era where we no longer worship money and material things. In a demonstration of the Kingdom of God erupting among us, these material possessions are utilized to bring about our neighbor’s wellbeing.

The second common aspect is that repentance towards God includes just interpersonal relationships. All humans bear God’s image, whether they are the poorest of the poor, tax collectors or taxpayers, soldiers who oppress others or ordinary citizens who suffer oppression. As God’s representatives, all people deserve the love and respect we want to extend towards God.

A radical, but reasonable, standard for our society.

John the Baptist’s message calls into question the toxic hyper/individualism of our culture. According to the Bible, I am not the absolute “owner” of “my” possessions. God wants me to steward the items under my control in such a way that all of my neighbors have enough to live with dignity. This is the ethical norm of ¨Enough¨. No one should have more than they need while others do not have enough. This is radical teaching and I certainly do not live up to this goal. Nevertheless, it is quite reasonable. Good parents practice this ¨enough¨ ethical system with all of their children.
We tend to think that our individualism is good as long as it doesn´t intentionally hurt others. In our culture, individual happiness is perceived as determining the difference between right and wrong. John the Baptist challenges our apathy. Our indifference to our needy neighbors definitely harms them and perhaps leads to their premature death. Sins of omission can be just as deadly as sins of commission.
Our ¨advanced¨ society, at times, argues about how much is a ¨fair¨ minimum wage. For all of its many faults, the Roman Empire knew that all workers should earn a wage that could support a family with dignity. John the Baptist implies this when he claims that soldiers provide for their families with their ¨pay¨.
In their desire to emphasize God´s grace and forgiveness, many churches have downplayed the Biblical teaching regarding repentance, especially these economic and interpersonal dimensions. But God doesn´t merely want to forgive us our past. He wants to free us from the idolatry of money and the tyranny of toxic hyper-individualism. True repentance opens us to God´s grace. (I heartily urge readers to do a word study of repentance in the New Testament to see how it is intimately connected with life and salvation.)

John the Baptist is one of the most unusual characters that emerge from the pages of Scripture, yet his message is more necessary than ever before.