The Lamp Stand

Donald Trump Jesus Christ and Jonah

How like Jesus Christ is Donald Trump? Throughout all the world everybody knows his name. Many hate him. However, he draws great crowds of the poor – the disenfranchised worker and those who feel that America has abandoned them and forgotten the promise of the American Dream.

Everywhere I travel, the moment I tell someone that I am from Washington D.C. they all ask me ‘so, what do you think about Donald Trump?’ From Rome to Brussels to Krakow, people from all over the world have an opinion of Trump and expect everyone else to as well.

Perhaps this is similar to a man living during the time of Christ in the Palestine region. Everybody knew the name Jesus. He was loved, hated, and a controversial figure the topic of conversation among all the poor and rich.

Let me tell you about a man named Jonah. He does not believe. We met on a side street near the market square of Krakow. I a tourist and he peddling tickets to a burlesque cabaret. We briefly crossed paths when he stuck in my face a risqué graphic with show times.

To simply decline a persistent sales man is not enough, even when language is not common. He walked with me long enough that I indignantly declined his offer and pointed to the bugle tower of St. Mary’s saying, “That’s the truth.”

The moment my message made it across the language barrier, in his broken English, Jonah told me that he knew of the abuses of the church and proceeded in the opposite direction. What he did not expect me to say is that he was right. To acknowledge his objection bought me a few short minutes for evangelization.

Before Jonah’s co-worker arrived and ended our conversation, he told me about ying and yang, the purchase of indulgences, and evolution. I tried my very best to explain the divinity of the church and that belief in evolution requires the same amount of faith in science as faith in Jesus Christ. Turns out, I’ve not been a good enough student of C.S. Lewis to restate under pressure of dialog across language the claims of C.S. Lewis on science and evolution.

Perhaps in the future I should stick to Christ has risen.

What to me was the most shocking, though should not be, is Jonah’s belief that Jesus Christ did not exist and the entirety of Catholicism is made up for the means of medieval rulers to control the population and enrich themselves.

I should not be shocked at Jonah’s belief because at one time I have had these very same thoughts in the middle years of high school trying to rationalize the existence of religion, while at that time I had zero religious education outside of public-school history and science classes. For me, it was an explanation that allowed me to group together and discount all religion in the name of science who teachers told me was truth because of fact.

After sometime spent in a Slovakia mountain side cabin reading the Gospel, it dawned on me that Donald Trump is Christ like in that he is loved by the poor and hated by the ruling elite who try to trap and ensnare him for everything he says. Most of all, everyone all over the world knows his name. What if I had responded to Jonah, is Donald Trump real? How do you know, have you met him?

Perhaps he might say, I’ve only heard about him because of news and gossip and here is what I think.

I do not know how much of an impact I had on Jonah and to my deepest regret I could not remember the name of the church nearby that I had attended mass who was starting RCIA. He refused my literature and I gave him no place to bring his questions. Praise God and have mercy, I tried to give him my precious pocket prayer book and third class relic of Faustina and JPII. Their face is on each cover and inverted half way through with excerpts from each of their writings. I showed Jonah the relic-book and told him one was Ying and the other Yang. My God, have mercy. After, I went to the tourist door of St. Mary’s and l entrusted to JPII Jonah’s continued conversion with a lit candle and a prayer.

Donald Trump is not Jesus Christ. I should not have to write this, but I do not want to be crucified by Trump haters or burned at the stake by the faithful. Christ spoke in parables. Praise God. Christ’s name is holy.