{"id":3739,"date":"2026-03-11T17:08:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T17:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=3739"},"modified":"2026-03-12T15:48:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T15:48:06","slug":"the-last-temptation-of-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=3739","title":{"rendered":"The Last Temptation of Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

By RAHN ADAMS<\/b><\/p>\n

SALEM, N.C. (March 11, 2026) \u2013 Yesterday I wrote more than a dozen paragraphs \u2014 around 750 words \u2014 about our lying president and the hypocritical evangelist who helped put him in office 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

I trashed them both good \u2014 and I was only halfway done. But even writing that much wore me out.<\/p>\n

So this morning I decided to trash that column and start all over \u2014 and to keep it simple this time.<\/p>\n

One of our problems now is having to deal with the president and his men constantly \u201cflooding the zone with shit<\/a>,\u201d as one stated years ago when this madness began. It’s overwhelming.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
THIS POST on 3\/1\/26 doesn’t support the air attack but does suggest that the war is connected with the end of the world.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So today I want to address in simple terms just one thing that’s bothering folks \u2014 the idea that the war in Iran is the start of Armageddon<\/a>, the last big battle prophesied in the Bible.<\/p>\n

Even the aforementioned evangelist got in on the act last week by posting on social media his support of the attack that, among other things, killed 150 innocent schoolgirls in the Iranian city of Minab, nearly 700 miles south of Iran’s capital of Tehran.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
BART EHRMAN\u00a0 avoids answering my question about QAnon (at 52:45 in the linked video).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To prepare for this column, I finished reading theologian Bart Ehrman’s 2023 book, Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End<\/em>. I had bought my copy through Dr. Ehrman’s talk and book signing three years ago at Malaprop’s bookstore and cafe in Asheville<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Simply stated, the book of Revelation wasn’t written about us and our times. The author \u2014 John of Patmos<\/a>, not John the Apostle \u2014 lived in the late 1st century and was writing for Christians of his day about the Roman Empire.<\/p>\n

As Dr. Ehrman points out, John says five times that his prophecy would happen \u201csoon,\u201d not 2,000 years later. But through the centuries to follow, predicting the end of the world has become a cottage industry for some so-called Christians.<\/p>\n

Why \u201cso-called\u201d? Because the violent, fantastical prophecy itself isn’t consistent with the peaceful Jesus’s down-to-earth teachings in the Gospels \u2014 like, for example, his Sermon on the Mount<\/a>.<\/p>\n

John’s apocalypse<\/a> isn’t about love and forgiveness; it\u2019s about hate and retribution. Sounds familiar, huh? Especially over the past year in America.<\/p>\n

The New Testament prophet’s revelation also deals with wresting wealth and power away from others, not learning to live with them in peace.<\/p>\n

I do recommend Dr. Ehrman’s book, if you want a detailed but easily understandable study of Revelation. His books are all enlightening, as is his personal story and, now, his podcasts on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My biggest takeaway, though, from reading Armageddon<\/em> is what it says indirectly about our president and that evangelist who supports him and his Republican minions through thick and thin.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
POSTERIZED IMAGE of the white Jesus that hung on our living room wall when I was a child and that I recently found in our attic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was reminded of another Bible story, one that isn\u2019t in Revelation and that Dr. Ehrman doesn’t even mention in his book. (He also doesn’t mention any modern political leaders by name.)<\/p>\n

Do you remember Jesus’s three temptations in the wilderness \u2014 specifically, the third temptation (in Matthew<\/a>) when Satan whisks Jesus to a high mountaintop and shows him “all the kingdoms of the world,” promising them to him if Jesus will just worship him?<\/p>\n

“Nope,” my own personal Jesus<\/a> would have said, “I ain’t worshiping the likes of you. Get behind me, ol’ Scratch.”<\/p>\n

That evangelist I mentioned earlier? He gets behind our demented president every chance he gets. After the bombs started falling on Iran last weekend \u2014 even as innocent Iranian children were dying \u2014 he posted three separate times on Facebook his support of the unprovoked and unconstitutional attacks.<\/p>\n

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THE TESTAMENT that my late father used as a ministerial student in the late 1940s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I mean, honestly, what kind of Christian worships wealth and power the way that rich preacher does?<\/p>\n

I’ll tell you. One who Jesus said won’t<\/i> get to heaven no matter how hard he tries to thread his needle and sew together what he calls faith and good works (Matthew 19:24<\/a>).<\/p>\n

No, Donald Trump isn’t the only person being tempted in these latter days. And many of us are saying yes<\/em> to a personal lord and saviour who isn’t Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By RAHN ADAMS SALEM, N.C. (March 11, 2026) \u2013 Yesterday I wrote more than a dozen paragraphs \u2014 around 750 words \u2014 about our lying president and the hypocritical evangelist who helped put him in office 10 years ago. I trashed them both good \u2014 and I was only halfway done. But even writing that … Continue reading The Last Temptation of Donald Trump<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3739"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3773,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739\/revisions\/3773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}