Public Comment

When It Comes to the Holy Bible,
Both Trump and the Pope Are 'Off the Wall"

Gar Smith
Friday February 19, 2016 - 10:15:00 AM

Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and Pope Francis have recently exchanged barbed comments about what it means to be a "Christian"—especially when it comes to the matter of walls. 

Trump famously promised to protect the US by building a wall on the southern border to keep out unwanted Mexican "drug runners, criminals and rapists." 

Pope Francis, fresh from visiting that border—and lending succor to desperate refugees fleeing poverty and death squads in their own countries— spoke of the Christian duty to "build bridges," not barriers. 

Here are the salient quotes. 

The Pope: "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel. . . . I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and I will give him the benefit of the doubt." 

The Dope: "For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian and, as President, I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current President . . . . No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's religion or faith." 

Also from The Dope: "I've never seen anybody that lied as much as Ted Cruz. And he goes around saying he's a Christian. I don't know. You're going to have to really study that." 

If Mr. Trump is claiming that he has been called out for his "religious beliefs," he needs to cite scripture. Just because one claims to be a Christian doesn't mean that everything one spouts is inherently the gospel truth. It needs to be rooted in longstanding religious practice and "biblical truth." 

So what does the Holy Bible actually say about "walls"? 

The most famous wall in the Bible is the one surrounding Jericho—the one that God Almighty helped Joshua destroy. 

Here is the relevant "chapter and verse": 

Joshua 6 

2—Then the Lord said to Joshua, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.  

3—March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.  

4—Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.  

5—When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in." 

Postscript: God then went on to direct Joshua to kill every man, woman, child, donkey, cow, and goat in the city and burn Jericho to the ground—but not before grabbing all the gold, silver, iron and bronze. God instructed that all these earthly treasures should be promptly delivered "into the treasury of the Lord's house" (Joshua 6:24). The only residents of Jericho who were spared were Rahab the Prostitute and her family—owing to the fact that Rahab had sheltered two of Joshua's spies. 

Is there a message for Trump's critics in the book of Joshua? 

If so, when planning future acts of public protest, Trump's critics might draw some inspiration from the Biblical story of Jericho and its walls. 

Perhaps, someday soon, we may see critics of the billionaire developer showing up at Trump rallies brandishing trumpets instead of protest signs. 

Maybe if Trump's enemies circled his rallies seven times while blowing on trumpets and then called out to the Lord, they might witness the collapse of Trump's entire presidential campaign! 

(A more likely scenario: Trump's supporters would seize the metal horns and use them to smite the skulls of the protesters.) 

And how does Pope Francis fare when it comes to citing Biblical truth in the defense of bridges over walls? 

Well, the Holy Bible has little-to-nothing to say about bridges, one way of the other. It appears that Pope Francis wasn't quoting the Bible: He was just riffing. 

And it turns out that The Donald (if he actually were to read the family Bible that he totes around as a stage prop) could actually trump the Pope by citing Scripture in defense of his Wall-that-he-would-make-Mexico-pay-for. 

It's right there in the King James Version of the Holy Bible—Zechariah 2:5: 

For I, saith the LORD, will be unto her [Jerusalem] a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her. 

This is a verse that's custom-made for The Donald's outsized brand of triumphalism. He could claim that building a wall of fire around America is a God-sent promise and that He, Donald J. Trump, is destined to rule America and "be the glory in the midst of her."