simplicity

The People Want a King, Part II: The Idolatry of the State and the Call to Self-Rule

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A decade ago, in “The People Want a King, Part I,” I wrestled with the ancient cry of Israel—“Give us a king!”—from 1 Samuel 8, seeing in it a mirror to our own craving for centralized power. I cast Trump, then a looming figure on the horizon, as a Saul-like pretender—brash, self-absorbed, a king unfit for the throne. The heart of man, I argued, is frail and fearful, ever eager to trade liberty for the illusion of security. Now, ten years on, we revisit that cry, turning the lens inward and upward: what happens when the king we demand becomes a god we worship? And what might it mean to cast down that idol and govern ourselves under a higher law—one that admits no rival?

Let us begin with a heresy: government is not sacred. It is not a divine institution bestowed from on high, nor are its stewards a priestly caste anointed with heavenly oil. Scripture offers no such mandate. The state is a human construct—a tool, a mechanism, a servant of necessity. It is not the ekklesia, the called-out assembly of God’s people, nor the Kingdom of Heaven breaking through the veil. It is, at its core, a business: a transactional entity exchanging services for tribute. When it ceases to serve—when it grows fat and lazy, a Blockbuster Video in a Netflix world—it deserves no reverence, only replacement. To treat it otherwise is to fashion a golden calf from the scraps of bureaucracy.

Yet the cry persists: “The nation is too complex for such simplicity!” I encountered this objection recently, a rebuttal to my call for radical restructuring. The argument, draped in the garb of sophistication, insists that governance transcends mere commerce—that its intricacies demand a permanence beyond critique. This is a shade thrown at those, like the DOGE reformers, who dare to wield the axe of efficiency against the overgrowth of empire. It is a plea for the status quo, cloaked as concern for “public trust.” But trust in whom? The regime that has ruled longer than memory, entwined with corporate titans and special interests, bleeding the commons dry? The trust was shattered long before any billionaire CEO took the helm; it crumbled under tax rates that plunder and wars that pulverize the defiant.

Here lies the theological crux: complexity is not a virtue—it is a veil. In 1 Samuel 8, Samuel warned Israel that their king would take and take—sons, daughters, fields, flocks—until they were slaves in all but name. The modern state has fulfilled this prophecy with chilling fidelity, its mission creep a slow idolatry. What begins as a servant becomes a lord; what promises order delivers oppression. The labyrinthine bills, the thousand-page tomes of legislation—these are not signs of wisdom but of deceit, a Sanhedrin of scribes hiding corruption behind the law’s letter. To call this sacred is to confuse the Temple with the moneychangers’ tables.

Government as business is no mere metaphor—it is a functional truth. It trades protection and infrastructure for our coin and consent, a covenant not unlike the marketplace. Yet unlike the agora, where competition hones the blade of excellence, the state resists renewal. Private enterprise, for all its flaws, bends to the will of the consumer: Sears falls, Amazon rises. Governance, enthroned as monopoly, calcifies. Its priests—elected or appointed—crown themselves with divine right, decrying reform as sacrilege, a “threat to democracy.” But democracy is not their god; power is. And power, unchecked, builds altars to itself.

This is the sin of the political establishment: they have conflated the nation with their institution, the people with their rule. The nation is not the state, nor the state the nation—just as Israel was not its kings, nor its kings Israel. Government should reflect the imago Dei in its people, a stewardship of justice and flourishing. Instead, it mirrors Baal, demanding sacrifice from the many for the feast of the few. How is this sustained? Through a catechism of control—children reciting pledges, citizens taught to venerate the machine as eternal. To question it is to court excommunication.

Yet Scripture beckons us elsewhere. The restoration of governance requires a return to first principles: simplicity as clarity, transparency as righteousness, accessibility as the leveling of pride. The state’s convolution is no accident—it is a shroud for sin, a “you wouldn’t understand” that echoes the serpent’s whisper. To dismantle it is not anarchy but exorcism, a stripping back to the studs to expose what festers. The old guard, like Saul clinging to his throne, shriek at the loss of their sacred monopoly. But their divinity is a lie, and their temple must fall.

The Stagnation of the External, the Promise of the Internal

Consider the contrast: a business that squanders its capital dies; a government that squanders ours endures. This is the curse of external governance—its inertia defies the natural law of adaptation. Were it subject to the crucible of choice, only the fittest form would stand. Instead, it grows sclerotic, a Leviathan too holy to slay. And the people, seduced by its permanence, make it their idol. They crave a king to think for them, a mediator to absolve their agency. Politicians—prostitutes of the soul—oblige, peddling promises they half-believe, deluded into messiahs of their own making. Zelensky’s advisors call him mad with grandeur; Washington’s geriatrics are no different, mistaking their tenure for providence.

This is not governance but bondage, a learned helplessness masquerading as piety. The privately employed know their limits—life persists beyond their shift. But the state’s acolytes preach indispensability, as if only they can wield the scepter. Contrast this with self-governance: a people ruled not by fleshly lords but by principle, by the law written on their hearts. Jeremiah 31:33 whispers of such a day; Hebrews 8 seals it in Christ’s blood. At the civic level, this need not mean chaos but discernment—shuffling roles, pruning branches, trusting that micromanagement by fools yields only thorns.

Why, then, the sanctity of the status quo? It is the coward’s theology: easier to bow to mystery than to wrestle truth. As Israel preferred a king to the uncertainty of judges, so we prefer bureaucracy to responsibility. Samuel’s warning rings anew: the king takes, and we cry too late. External governance is not our salvation—it is our stagnation, a false god promising safety while forging fetters.

The Myth and Monuments of the Federal Cult

To cement this idolatry, the Federal government has woven a mythology and erected monuments rivaling the temples of old. Consider the Capitol, that domed sanctum of marble and myth, its steps ascending like an altar to a civic deity. The Lincoln Memorial, a brooding Parthenon, gazes over a reflecting pool as if to baptize the nation in its own reverence. These are not mere buildings—they are shrines, designed to awe, to whisper: “This is eternal, this is beyond you.” Like the ziggurats of Babylon or the temples of Rome, they fuse power with divinity, demanding obeisance from the pilgrim and the peasant alike. The Founding Fathers, recast as demigods, stare down from friezes and statues, their words carved into stone as if they were Moses descending Sinai. Big Brother is not God—yet here he looms, a surveillance state cloaked as savior, its all-seeing eye promising protection while its fist tightens the leash.

This cultic architecture is no accident—it sells the lie that the state is sacrosanct, its form immutable. The pledge of allegiance, recited by schoolchildren, is a liturgy; the flag, a totem; the Constitution, a holy writ too sacred to amend save by the high priests of amendment. Yet this is a sleight of hand. The Constitution, for all its brilliance, is a human document, not a divine oracle—its framers knew it, urging vigilance against its abuse. The Federal cult inverts this, turning a tool into a god, a means into an end. As the temples of Baal housed idols to blind the masses, so these monuments obscure the state’s frailty, its susceptibility to rot.

Enter January 6th, 2021—a day branded as a desecration, a violation of the “sacred ground” of democracy. The narrative drips with priestly indignation: rioters stormed the Capitol, profaned its halls, threatened the holy order. Politicians clutched their vestments, decrying the “insurrection” as an assault on the nation’s soul. But let us parse this claim with a smirk—how many have died at the hands of this government, overseas and at home, in the name of “protecting democracy”? Millions, if you tally the wars and drones, yet the single death of that day gets the sackcloth and ashes. If the Capitol is sacred, what makes it so? Not its service to the people—its corridors have long echoed with the clink of corporate coin and the murmur of self-interest. Not its fidelity to justice—its laws have sanctioned plunder at home and terror abroad, not least against Argentina, whose people still bear the scars of U.S.-backed meddling and economic strangulation. The sanctity, then, is a projection, a mythos guarding the idol. January 6th was chaos, yes—ugly, reckless, and lawless—but to call it a sacrilege assumes the temple was holy to begin with. It wasn’t. It was a house of power, not of God.

The true violation predates that day: the slow consecration of a bureaucracy into a deity, the elevation of marble over morality. Ancient temples hid their emptiness behind splendor; the Federal cult does the same, crying “blasphemy” when the curtain is pulled. January 6th didn’t defile a sacred space—it exposed a hollow one, a monument to a king the people demanded but never needed. And here’s where Argentina’s President Javier Milei enters, grinning like a Cheshire cat as he handed Elon Musk a chainsaw in 2025, etched with “Viva la libertad, carajo” (“Long live liberty, damn it”). Milei, who’s taken his own chainsaw to Argentina’s bloated state, wasn’t just gifting Musk a tool for bureaucracy—he was practically dancing with glee to see Musk turn it on the U.S. regime that’s bullied his nation for decades, from IMF debt traps to covert coups. It’s less a symbol of shared efficiency and more a middle finger to the empire, wrapped in a libertarian bow.

Trump’s Mandate and the Singular King

So where does Donald Trump fit in this unholy pantheon? In Part I, I cast him as a flawed Saul—brash, impulsive, a king more enamored with his own mirror than his people’s good. I stand corrected, or at least refined. Trump is no savior, nor should he be—Christians have but one King, enthroned above all earthly powers (Colossians 1:16-17). Yet he wields a mandate, both legal and theological, to tear down these idols, and therein lies his purpose—not as messiah, but as iconoclast.

Legally, Trump’s authority stems from the Constitution itself—a document that vests executive power in a president elected by the people (Article II, Section 1). His 2024 victory, a roar against the entrenched cult, grants him the democratic right to wield that power against inefficiency and corruption. The Federal government, swollen beyond its constitutional bounds, has no divine charter to resist pruning. The framers envisioned a lean state, not a Leviathan; Trump’s DOGE-inspired axe—however blunt—aligns with that original intent. He can shutter departments, slash budgets, and fire the high priests of waste, all within the law’s letter. The shrieks of “threat to democracy” from the old guard are the death rattles of a dethroned idol, not a defense of principle.

Theologically, his warrant runs deeper. Scripture abhors idolatry—Exodus 20:4-5 commands no graven images, no bowing to crafted gods. The Federal cult, with its temples and myths, is precisely that: a false deity usurping allegiance owed to Christ alone. When Jesus declared, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:21), He drew a line—Caesar gets coins, not worship. Trump, for all his bombast, serves as a wrecking ball to this blasphemy. He need not be pious to smash Baal’s altars; Gideon was a coward before he toppled the poles (Judges 6:27). If Trump’s tenure exposes the state’s hollow sanctimony—January 6th as symptom, not sin—then he fulfills a divine irony: a flawed vessel breaking a greater folly.

Yet here’s the correction to my 2015 take: Trump is not the point. I overstated his flaws as disqualifying, missing the forest for the trees. He’s no king to crown—Christians must reject all earthly thrones save one. “My kingdom is not of this world,” Christ said (John 18:36), and Paul echoed, “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). Trump’s role is transient—permitted, not ordained—to dismantle a false god, not to replace it. The Christian’s allegiance lies with the King of Kings, whose rule brooks no rival, be it Trump, Biden, or the marble gods of DC. Self-governance, then, is not just civic—it’s spiritual, a refusal to outsource our souls to any throne but His.

The Eschatological Hope

The people want a king, but the King we need refuses a throne of stone. To cling to the state as sacred is to repeat Israel’s folly, to trade the Spirit’s freedom for Saul’s spear. Self-governance is not utopia—it is obedience to a higher call, a shedding of idols for the stewardship God demands. Complexity is a liar’s refuge; trust is a martyr of our making. Let Trump tear down the temples—legally, he can; theologically, he should—but let us not crown him in their place. Overturn the tables, tear the veil, and build anew—not a kingdom of men, but a commonwealth of the free, under no crown but His.

What Trump’s Popularity Says About Amish And Mennonite Priorities 

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​The whole Trump phenomenon has been amazing to see.  It has caused many lifelong and intellectually grounded Republicans to second guess their party affiliation.  It has also caused a divide in the conservative Evangelical movement.

One thing for sure, most conservative Mennonites I know (who vote quietly, if at all, and tend to be motivated by social issues like abortion and lean right) have been politically orphaned by Trump. 

Most, but not all…

Some Mennonites and Amish love the brash billionaire businessman.  They are loud and unapologetic in their support.  There is an ‘Amish PAC’ paying for billboards to urge our religious brethren to come out in favor of their man.

This post is about why some might be tempted.  It is not a political post so much as it is a diagnosis of how a man as contentious and vile as Trump could have any appeal with members of a Christian sect (Anabaptism) historically known for it’s peace position and repudiation of excess wealth.

I would chalk up Trump’s appeal with some raised in Anabaptist tradition to several things.  All of these things having to do with the way those raised in our communities are taught to think (or rather taught not to think) and what we fear.  I write this post as a warning to those with ears to hear it.

1) We like simple concrete answers.

Trump speaks in crude, unrefined and basic terms.  There is little nuance to his language and, even if he contradicts himself twice in the same day, his answers come off as assuringly absolute.

This gives some comfort to those raised in an environment where they were sheltered from the complexities of the current age.  For those of less formal education he is less threatening with his broad terms, overly simplistic narratives and unrealistic yet concrete sounding solutions.

Conservative Mennonites and Amish have an anti-intellectual bent.  Many of us (as those who value manual labor over mind work) mistrust academics and professionals.  Providing by the sweat of our brow seems more honest than the alternative.

Unfortunately this attitude can lead us to being too dismissive of intellectual pursuits.  It causes some to ignore the warnings of the better informed and makes them extra vulnerable to charlatans.  

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.” (1 Corinthians 12:21-25)

We need all types to be at our full strength as a body.

2) We equate business success to moral superiority.

Trump flaunts his wealth, exaggerates his self-worth and business acumen.  On the surface this might seem antithetical to a culture that values modesty and simplicity, but in actuality it exposes something about our true priorities.

Amish and Mennonites are both frugal and industrious.  Many are small business owners; some have done quite well for themselves and are proud of their accomplishments.  They see Trump as one of them and the guy they can trust to guard their accumulated wealth.

There is this unspoken understanding (perhaps a result of some denominational cross-pollination or just human tendency) that wealth is always a blessing from God.  Those with money in the church can buy their power and influence over even ordained leaders.

Sadly this is completely out of step with what Jesus taught and the early church practiced.  It grieves me that many in our conservative Anabaptist circles seem to value profits over people and think in terms of bottom line rather than love.  

“Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.   But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.” (1 Timothy 6:9-11)

Be on your guard against the allure of those promising worldly greatness and wealth.

3) We prefer authoritarian leaders.

Trump is an authoritarian.  He promises to take care of business unilaterally and without apology.  With him it is get in line or be run over and this is what many want.  They want their own ideals railroaded even at the cost of consistency or conscience.

Many conservative Mennonite and Amish churches have departed from true brotherhood and rely on the heavy handed leadership of a bishop.  Not having to decide for themselves gives some a feeling of security, a person can find their place without much effort or thought.

Thinking requires effort.  Being involved in a community that disciples requires a huge commitment and added potential for frustration.  Teaching temperance would require time we would rather spend on our own personal pursuits.  So we outsource, we turn to strict rules (and roles) are easier to enforce and look to forceful leaders to impose our values.

This, again, is something condemned by Jesus.  Our leaders are not supposed to be the tyrants of worldly example; they are supposed to be examples of self-sacrificial love and submission.  But, instead of leading in this way, many look for someone to hitch their wagons to and do their work for them.

“Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you.” (Matthew 20:25-26a)

Be different.  Take responsibility and serve as Jesus did.

4) We fear strong and outspoken women.

Trump is many things, but his chauvinism is something that stands out.  His attacks on women who dare question him seem to be especially personal and nasty.  

This, at first glance, seems incompatible with a religious culture that avoids harsh words.  However, some conservative Anabaptist men are unaccustomed to women who stand up to them or question them directly.  It is a threat to them and they see a hero in Trump because he says what is on their mind.

Trump is a chauvinistic like them.  They don’t want a woman who questions or rivals them.  Even highly qualified conservative Mennonite women are treated with too apparent distain by some male coworkers who think all women should be at home, in the kitchen, and raising children.

But this is not reflective of the attitude of Jesus.  Men are supposed to be examples of humility, not entitled selfish brats.  A good man is able to bite his tongue, withstand criticism and treats all people with respect even when they are undeserving.

“Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.” (Luke 8:3)

Women of faith in Scripture did more than sit at home waiting on their husbands tending children.

So, where do we go from here?

Those who disagree or like Trump may have already dismissed me as one of those highfalutin liberal weenies they love to loathe.  However, I want to confession some of my own guilt for not always leading in the example of Jesus Christ.  It is too easy for me to be defensive when confronted and feel justified.

Truth be told, whether you like Trump or despise him, we all can learn to do better.  Life is sometimes complex, sometimes good people suffer while the wicked prosper, but we should avoid running from the challenge and reacting in fear rather than faith.  

Politics is about power and control, that has a strong visceral appeal, but we (as people of faith) should desire something better.  Our fulfilment should come in loving others as Jesus told us to love and our hope built on something more.

This world will pass, but true faith will endure from now into eternity.  Put your investment where it counts, invest in the love of Jesus, forgive your enemies and be good to those who persecute you.

Jesus is the answer, not some bloviating businessman making promises of temporal greatness.  Find security in God not governments and reject politics as usual.

“Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.” (2 Peter 3:17-18)