We have only one Savior

While filling shopping carts for the needy last Christmas, I served across from a perky little retiree who was over the moon about the election. Just think, she said: Four years of Trump would get America back on track, and Vance would stay the course for the next eight years. Then it would be Don Junior’s turn, and when his two terms ended Barron would be old enough to run. She was only half joking, but optimistic from her sparkly cattleman’s hat to her high-heeled boots. Not unlike Lara Trump, who promised a euphoric crowd at the preinaugural rally that her father-in-law “is the one who will save, not just our country, but will save the entire world!”

Wow. Let’s everybody lay down their golden calves and back away slowly. Reality awaits.

For the record, I’m ambivalent about Donald Trump, and the apocalyptic language of his most fervent supporters gives me the willies. On the other hand, I don’t share the apprehension of theologian John Piper, who posted on X last November, “Presidential election results. Having delivered us from one evil, God now tests us with another.” I get it: Our president is a man of questionable character, neither a conservative nor (judging by available evidence) a Christian. He’s a pragmatist who vows to govern by common sense. Common sense is a useful tool with no moral center, and pragmatism can cut either to the left or to the right. But evil?

The swing to the right is real on some political fronts. Americans are fed up with DEI, racial quotas, and trans ideology; common sense can only be insulted so far, and we generally don’t like being told how to think.

At the same time, Americans have made their peace with normalizing homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Polling data indicate we’re not comfortable with late-term abortions but also unwilling to tell our neighbors what to do. Morally, the goalposts have shifted, and moving them back to a more Biblical standard will take a lot of heavy lifting. Might not even be possible.

While grateful for election results, many thoughtful Christians see the Trump administration as a mere reprieve in a long-term slide. As Grant Castleberry, pastor of Capitol Community Church in Raleigh, N.C., posted on X: “One argument for voting for Trump is that he will give the church four years to prepare for a completely secular and hostile world.” Or as author Aaron Renn calls it, “Negative World,” an anti-Christian culture for the foreseeable future.

They may be right, of course. Or they may be overthinking. On a recent Sunday, I arrived at church for the adult Bible class to find that I was a week early—classes wouldn’t resume until the following Sunday. Another family had made the same mistake, which turned out to be happy for me because it gave me a chance to catch up with the wife. I already knew she had grown up in Kazakhstan and married an American missionary; over the next hour she shared more of her story.

She’d come of age during the fall of the Soviet Union, when Soviet propaganda was abruptly pulled from state-run classrooms. Teachers filled the gap with whatever they could lay their hands on, including pirated science videos from Moody Bible Institute. These led my friend to question, for the first time, the materialistic worldview drilled into her from childhood. Eventually she found her way into a Christian church, and so did many others. But a gray pall still hangs over her country, making its citizens whiny (her word) and cynical.

We Americans don’t know what real pessimism is. We can put ourselves in a funk if we try hard enough, but we haven’t been ground down by centuries of poverty, oppression, and soul-crushing godlessness. Our future is still fluid. Thank God Kamala Harris is not president, but her party will regroup and field a better candidate eventually. Secularism may spread and hostility may continue to grow against the church—or the Lord will send revival and more Americans will turn from their worthless idols.

Preparing for the worst may be prudent, but pessimism isn’t a Christian attitude for the long haul. While political theater dominates the headlines, a true Golden Age is waiting offstage. Donald Trump won’t save the world. But we know Who will.