God’s Grace and Donald Trump: A Theory

Douglas Wilson, whose musings on Trump have been spot on from the beginning, proposed a Trump Theory on his latest Plodcast. Its premise is based on James 3:11-12: “Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.” This being the case, Wilson theorizes that all of the good things occurring under Trump’s watch are due to God’s grace.

I too have been amazed at (and to Wilson’s point should have given God more glory than I have for) the many scripturally-sound public policies that have emanated from an administration headed by a man whose life to this point hasn’t seemed too grounded in Scripture.

I didn’t vote for Trump, in part, because I thought there was the possibility that he might turn out worse than Hillary. To date, I’ve been very wrong, and am glad to admit it.

There is still the future to consider, though. Wilson made the point that if the next president is a liberal then he will have much more to undo than we could have imagined because of Trump. Or if a conservative then he would be much further down the road toward reigning in government. Yet we are only in year one of either four or eight years of a Trump administration so that prediction may only hold true if Trump continues to more or less replicate the achievements of his first year.

The signs at the beginning of year two are not especially encouraging: tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels (i.e., fair and reciprocal–rather than free–trade), a $1 trillion budget-busting infrastructure package, paid family leave, etc.

God’s grace abounds, so it could be that for His glory He has much more good than bad in store for us during the Trump administration. It will be interesting to see, though, how Wilson’s theory and the Trump administration play out in light of the not-so-great start to Trump Year Two.