• wise_pancake@lemmy.ca
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    10 个月前

    Sometimes I think Trump is the biblical man of sin (or “man of insurrection”, depending on your bible) who heralds in the end days. He tricks followers into abandoning religion, calls himself king, puts himself before everything.

    He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

    The Catechism of the Catholic church even has this to say:

    675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

    I feel like under trump the religious are losing their minds.

    It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — “turn the other cheek” — [and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the response would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.

    https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192663920/southern-baptist-convention-donald-trump-christianity

    That’s exactly what the Catholic antichrist and end times look like. Christians trade the teachings of Jesus for convenient solutions, and decide to follow the antichrist who promises the world.

    I don’t know what I believe, but if I were a Christian boasting that my guy will bring about the biblical end times and make everyone suffer, but also that Jesus is a liberal pussy, I might be finding myself as the one smote.

    • Calcipher
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      10 个月前

      I appreciate you pulling all of this together. My only issue with it is that it ascribes a religious reason for Trump and such reasoning denies the, very scary, human reason for Trump. Religion, here, is providing a reason and that reason is so much more comforting than the reality that we’ve allowed fascism to take over our country and religious institutions.

      I wish it was the “end of days”, but, in reality, this is just more human suffering and more to come. I wish we weren’t capable of this.

      • wise_pancake@lemmy.ca
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        10 个月前

        I don’t personally believe in it. For what it’s worth, I think it’s generally accepted there are multiple antichrists, and the catholic church believes the end times will just happen randomly, not triggered by any specific person, or event, etc.

        • lazylion_ca@lemmy.ca
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          10 个月前

          I always thought revelations would be more subtle. Like my dumbass would trouble recognizing the signs. Trump is just too obvious. Still amazes me how people are infatuated with him.

          • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world
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            10 个月前

            It’s the obviousness of it that almost makes it feel biblical. Like those awful left behind movies in the early 00s. At least they picked a classically attractive (if entirely untalented) actor to play the antichrist. Even back then, though, he wasn’t the US president. He was the leader of the UN… Even back then, American Christians refused to accept that America today plays the role of Egypt in the OT and Rome in the NT.