Trump is the Antichrist

As I write this, Trump has moved from domestic and global threats to violent action—first in his own country, then in Venezuela, now in Iran, and is setting his sights next on Cuba.

Meanwhile, we are just over eight weeks away from Trump’s plan on May 17th to rededicate America to God, speaking of renewing America to prayer and the Christian religion.

The Obvious Antichrist (And the Truth We’re Too Scared to Admit)

If you are a Christian looking for the Antichrist, you really don’t have to look that hard. You don’t need to decode secret microchips, parse obscure end-times prophecies, or wait for a cartoonish villain to emerge from the shadows. You just have to look at Donald Trump and the political machinery he has built.

For the better part of a decade—and continuing as he occupies the Oval Office once again—we have watched a political movement coalesce that looks terrifyingly like the Beast of Revelation.

To understand why, we have to look at the word itself. The Greek prefix anti- doesn’t just mean “against.” It also means “in place of.” The spirit of the antichrist isn’t always a direct, secular attack on religion; often, it is a deadly substitution. It is a counterfeit gospel that uses the vocabulary of faith to offer a completely different path to salvation.

When you hold the overarching spirit of this movement up to the light of the Sermon on the Mount, the contrast is so stark it feels like a deliberate, point-by-point inversion of the Jesus we find in the Gospels. Consider the foundational pillars of this modern political ethos:

• The Gospel of Retribution: The driving force of his appeal is not grace, but vengeance. Jesus stood before his executioners and prayed for their forgiveness; this administration has built its entire political platform on the explicit promise of revenge. The Beatitudes tell us that the meek will inherit the earth, but the prevailing ethos of the Trump era mocks the meek, equating mercy with weakness, empathy with fragility, and peacemaking with losing. The anthem of many in the Christian backed Trump admin is the newer eye-for-an-eye slogan: fuck around and find out.

• Contempt for the Vulnerable: At the core of the Christian faith is the belief that every human being is made in the image of God. The Trump ethos is built on a “might makes right” philosophy that systematically degrades the vulnerable. It frames refugees, immigrants, and the marginalized not as neighbors to be loved, but as existential threats to be crushed, cast out, or dehumanized to fuel fear-based political engagement. And Trump is now acting as if he is the god of the world, marching his mighty military around the globe and bragging about its might as he extinguishes God’s image.

• The Idolatry of Absolute Loyalty: A defining characteristic of an antichrist spirit is the demand for a devotion that supersedes moral conviction. We have seen a pervasive culture where loyalty to the leader is the only metric that matters, conditioning followers to abandon personal ethics, honesty, and even the teachings of their own faith if it means staying in his good graces.

• The Weaponization of Christian Identity: Perhaps most dangerously, this movement has hollowed out the actual teachings of Christ and replaced them with a militant Christian nationalism. When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he offered Him all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for a single act of worship. Jesus refused the shortcut of coercive power. The modern church, however, has largely accepted the deal. The faith is no longer a path of self-emptying, co-suffering love; it has become a cultural weapon used to seize and maintain dominance. It offers believers an insidious bargain: I will give you earthly power and cultural protection, as long as you look the other way while I abandon the ethics of Jesus.

If the spirit of the Antichrist is that which exalts itself above all else, demands the unquestioning loyalty reserved for God alone, and swaps out the sacrificial love of the Lamb for the coercive power of the sword, this administration fits the bill with terrifying precision. He has successfully convinced millions of believers that the only way to “save” Christianity is to abandon everything Christ actually taught.

But here is the devastating twist that his fiercest critics completely miss:

Donald Trump did not invent the Antichrist. He is just the most current, honest, unfiltered manifestation of it. If you believe that the spirit of the Antichrist will be defeated by simply voting him out, hoping for a polite Democrat, refreshing third-party candidate, or trusting in the pendulum swing of American elections, you have profoundly misunderstood how the Beast actually operates.

The Beast Isn’t a Person. It’s an Empire.

To understand how deeply we have misunderstood the Antichrist, we have to go back to the origins of the apocalyptic language we are using. When the Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation, he was a political prisoner exiled on the island of Patmos. He was writing to a network of persecuted, marginalized Christians living under the suffocating shadow of the greatest superpower the world had ever known, headed up by Nero.

When John wrote of a terrifying, multi-headed “Beast” rising from the sea, his original readers didn’t envision a cartoonish, end-times villain in a tailored suit waiting at the end of history. They knew exactly what John was describing. They were looking directly at the Roman Emperor.

But more importantly, they were looking at Rome itself.

In the biblical imagination, the Antichrist is not merely a rogue politician or a uniquely wicked individual. It is Empire.What is Empire? In the scriptural narrative—whether it manifests as Egypt, Babylon, or Rome—Empire represents any human system sustained by violence, coercion, economic exploitation, and military supremacy. It is the organization of society around the hoarding of wealth and the myth of “peace through violence” (the Pax Romana). It is a system that demands your ultimate allegiance and promises security, but only through the threat of the sword.

Look at the jarring contrast between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Man:

• The Way of the Lamb: Self-emptying love, enemy forgiveness, servant leadership, radical generosity, and a kingdom where the last are first.

• The Way of the Beast: Coercion, military supremacy, the oppression of the weak, and the relentless pursuit of self-preservation at the expense of the marginalized.

When you understand that the Antichrist is fundamentally the spirit of Empire, the horrifying reality sets in: The throne itself is demonic, no matter who is sitting on it.

We have spent decades arguing over which politician might be the Beast, completely missing the fact that the Beast is the machinery of the State itself. The Antichrist is the system. The Antichrist is the superpower, no matter the person at its head.

The Fatal Illusion: You Cannot “Christianize” the Empire

This brings us to the most dangerous lie sold to modern believers across the political spectrum: the idea that if we just get the right people in charge, we can build a “Christian nation.”

History, scripture, and theology all scream the exact opposite. Christianity and the Empire cannot be brought together. The Empire can never be made Christian.

You cannot baptize coercion. You cannot sanctify violence. You cannot make a system built on military supremacy, border enforcement, and the hoarding of global wealth bow to a crucified carpenter who taught his followers to love their enemies, turn the other cheek, and give their cloaks away. The fundamental mechanisms of the state require the very things Jesus explicitly forbade.

When we try to force this unholy union, we lose the pure, unfiltered gospel. The true message of the Kingdom is radical and self-contained: Jesus. And? Nothing. But the Empire always demands an addition. It offers you Jesus and military might. Jesus and economic dominance. Jesus and the flag.

When Christianity climbs into bed with the Empire, Rome is never Christianized. Instead, Christianity is Romanized. Always.

Whenever the church tries to merge with the state, the faith inevitably mutates into a grotesque perversion of itself. It trades the towel of the servant for the sword of the executioner. It stops washing feet and starts demanding tribute. The cross is hollowed out, stripped of its sacrificial power, painted gold, and used as a weapon to bludgeon political opponents.

The moment Christianity achieves earthly power, it ceases to be the Way of Jesus and becomes just another functioning arm of the Beast. It becomes the exact thing it was born to subvert.

A Form of Godliness: The Lamb That Speaks Like a Dragon

The scriptural language of Empire warns us exactly how this abuse happens. In Revelation 13, John describes a second beast that rises from the earth. The terrifying thing about this beast isn’t that it looks monstrous—it is that it has “two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon.” This is the ultimate, demonic subversion. The Empire knows that naked, brutal tyranny is hard to sustain. If a leader simply demands that you bow to a golden statue, the faithful will resist. So, the Empire adapts. It puts on the fleece of the Lamb. It co-opts the vocabulary, the aesthetics, and the symbols of the Christian faith, while fully maintaining the voice of the Dragon—the voice of power, intimidation, nationalism, and violence.

The Apostle Paul warned of a time when people would have a “form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). When Babylon wants to ensure your loyalty, it rarely asks you to outright reject Jesus. Instead, it asks you to domesticate Him. It asks you to make Him a mascot for the state.

Think about how this plays out in the halls of earthly power:

• The Empire will happily use the cross, as long as it can stamp it on a bomb or paint it on a fighter jet.

• It will proudly hold up a Bible, as long as it can use the text as a prop to justify closing borders, building walls, or exploiting the poor.

• It will host national prayer breakfasts, invoking the name of God while quietly funding proxy wars and expanding the military-industrial complex.

The Empire abuses the form of Christianity to anesthetize the masses. It strips away the radical, self-emptying power of the gospel—the power that actually heals and liberates—and leaves behind a hollow, nationalist skin-suit. This counterfeit religion demands your worship and your vote, promising that if you just hand over the keys to the kingdom, it will protect your cultural dominance.

But a dragon wearing a lamb’s skin is still a dragon. And a state that wields the cross as a sword is still the Antichrist.

The Sword Behind the Back

This brings us to the most uncomfortable truth of all. If the Antichrist is the machinery of Empire, then any leader who stands at its helm is, by definition, participating in an antichrist system. It does not matter if the person wielding the power is a conservative, a progressive, an independent, or a third-party idealist.

No matter who rules the Empire, the Empire runs on one fundamental mechanism: power over and against others.

This is the direct, unyielding opposite of the way of Jesus, which is defined entirely by co-suffering, self-sacrificing love. We can dress the state up in the language of human rights, national security, or traditional values, but behind the back of every empire is the sword of violence. Every law, every border, every tax, and every geopolitical mandate is ultimately backed by the threat of lethal force, coercion, imprisonment, and death to enemies.

• A polite president launching a “surgical” drone strike with or without acceptable collateral casualties is still wielding the sword.

• A progressive leader enforcing domestic policies through armed federal agencies is still relying on coercion.

• A conservative leader securing borders with razor wire and tear gas is still operating by the logic of the Beast.

When you strip away the partisan rhetoric, the state is simply a monopoly on violence. And you cannot use the Devil’s tools to build God’s house.

Dropping the Ring of Power

So, where does this leave us? It leaves us with the stark realization that we cannot defeat the Antichrist by simply electing a better one.

The Kingdom of God can never be ushered in on the back of the Beast. When Jesus walked the earth, He didn’t try to seize control of Rome to mandate His teachings or pass better legislation. He offered a completely alternative way of living. His message was entirely self-contained: Jesus. And? Nothing. No earthly throne required, let alone allowed. No military backing needed, let alone permitted.

As long as we place our ultimate hope in the ballot box, believing that the right earthly ruler will save us, we are still bowing to and serving the Empire. The call for the Christian is not to try and seize the ring of power to use it for good. The ring of state power is forged in violence; its very nature is domination. It will always corrupt the one who wears it.

The call is to recognize the ring for what it is, reject its demonic allure, and step out of Babylon entirely.

“But the Empire Would Collapse!”

When you present this reality, the immediate, panicked objection from modern believers is almost always the same: “But if we actually governed the country according to the Sermon on the Mount—if we turned the other cheek, disarmed our military, loved our enemies, and gave away our wealth—the Empire wouldn’t survive! It would be conquered!”

To which the only honest theological answer is: Yes. It would.

Empires cannot survive on Christian values. To be an empire is to be fundamentally antichrist.

The early Christians understood this perfectly. For the first three centuries of the faith, believers widely recognized that you could not hold a seat of earthly power and still faithfully follow Jesus. You could not be a Roman magistrate who sentenced people to death, or a Roman soldier who slaughtered enemies, while claiming to follow the Savior who died for His enemies. The two realities were mutually exclusive.

If the Empire demands coercion, and Christ demands co-suffering love, you cannot have both. The early church knew that to hold a place of power within the Empire was to willingly give up one’s place within the local church.

The local church was never meant to be a voting bloc, a lobbying group, or a chaplain to the state. It was designed to be a true prototype of communion—a radically alternative society living out the peace, generosity, and self-sacrificing love of Christ right in the middle of a violent world.

The question isn’t whether we can save the Empire. The question is whether we are finally willing to let it go.