In a WorldNetDaily column on Friday, anti-gay activist Scott Lively took on those who question the sincerity of Donald Trump’s embrace of Christianity, explaining that by facing “persecution” from “Marxist elites” on the campaign trail, Trump has “walked in the shoes” of Christian conservatives:
Many of the people announcing an intention to vote for Donald Trump are adding a disclaimer to distance themselves from his unsavory comments or actions of the past. I’m not going to do that. In my view Donald Trump is today a far different and better man than the one who threw his hat in the ring at the start of this election cycle. I credit that to the unprecedented level of public vilification – the “borking” of Donald Trump – he has endured and appears to have been transformed by.
Whatever his worldview and the context of his past experience might have been, and regardless of the level of his sincerity at the beginning of his campaign, this man has made himself the spokesman for numerous positions and values that Christian conservatives (at great personal cost) have advocated for years. He hasn’t just pandered to us, he has walked in our shoes these past months, going far beyond the minimum necessary to align himself with us, and he has learned firsthand what we have endured at the hands of the Marxist elites. And through it all he hasn’t been intimidated into caving and pandering to the left like every other champion we’ve put our hopes in – including the otherwise stalwart Mike Pence in the Indiana RFRA debacle. Trump’s transformation is the best example of personal growth and maturity in a public figure that I’ve seen in my lifetime.
What more could Christian conservatives hope for than to watch a man of Trump’s wealth, power, acumen and courage discover the truth of the culture war and the utter corruption of the left by personal experience on his path to the White House?
…It is certainly possible that after the flame and fury of this election has subsided, a President Trump could drift back into his old ways of thinking and acting, but I doubt it. For those who face it with courage and fortitude, persecution is the “refiner’s fire” of character. This has been true of Christians throughout history and appears to be true of rapidly maturing Donald Trump, who has openly and unashamedly claimed Christ. In the great tide of American history, it might eventually be recognized that the borking of Donald Trump – intended for evil by Crooked Hillary and the elites – was the very thing that made the former New York libertine deserving of the presidency of the United States and a place of honor alongside Ronald Reagan.
Lively also claims that Jeb Bush’s presidential run was a globalist plot to throw the 2016 election for Clinton: “And I believe the Bush/Clinton agreement for 2016 was always a Hillary presidency, with Jeb Bush playing the part of the amiable loser (a la Bob Dole) who would then hold the post of ‘heir apparent’ for four or eight years.”
