In his second inaugural address, President Donald J. Trump promised that his administration would “forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.” Those were bittersweet words to Pastor Corey Brooks of New Beginnings Church in Chicago, whose editorial in the Wall Street Journal headlined, Trump’s Colorblind Message Energizes Black Americans. Pastor Brooks reflected in his editorial on the question where the African American community would be today if they had followed this blueprint since the 1960s.
 
“During the dark period of segregation African-Americans made the most of our limited freedoms. When Martin Luther King Jr. led the civil rights movement, we believed we were on the verge of entering the promised land – our own ‘golden age’, to borrow Mr. Trump’s term.
 
“We thought we would finally live in freedom and by our own merit. Instead, far too many of us were seduced by post-60s liberalism. We were told by the federal government that bureaucrats would uplift us through social programs, housing, food vouchers, busing, racial preferences, and one education plan after another.
 
“We deluded ourselves into thinking that entitlements were a form of reparations.
 
“What a price we have paid for our delusions. Black Americans have never recovered from losing the culture of opportunity, self-reliance, and meritocracy that prevailed before the ’60s. Today, single-parent households are the norm. Illiteracy in reading and math is sky-high. Street violence remains an ever-present threat. Faith in God has declined. But belief in government as our savior remains, shamefully so.
 
“I want only one thing from Mr. Trump – to come to my neighborhood and tell the people: ‘You are on your own.’
 
“The naysayers warn that some black people will sink. That is true. But people of other races sink as well. We have to learn that we are individuals and stop thinking that we must limit our personal potential out of racial loyalty.
 
“The worst thing black families can do is surrender their children to schools that wave failing students through. The elementary school in my South Side Chicago neighborhood produces graduates who are illiterate and [innumerable]. These children have no future. Their parents should be outraged.”1
 
Pastor Brooks’ Biblical approach is the very antithesis of liberalism, human secularism, and government dependency. It is on the other hand in line with the sage advice in Proverbs 3:5 to Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Nor on that of a secular government, we might add. According to Jewish Hebrew scholar Michael V. Fox the verse tells us that “Trusting in the Lord does not require resignation and passivity. (For example, one may trust the Lord and make war; 1 Chronicles 5:20).”
 
This brings us to DoGE’s discovery of $2 billion in taxpayer funds set aside by the Biden Administration for a fledgling nonprofit, Power Forward Communities. Reported to have accrued a meager $100 revenue in its first 3 months of operation, the nonprofit turned out to be linked to the questionable Georgia Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams.2
 
Abrams’ Power Forward Communities progressive scheme involved such liberal-secular stereotypical slogans as “community empowerment; voter mobilization and civic engagement; economic and social justice; inclusive policy advocacy; alignment with progressive values.”3
 
Not only does all of this fall far short of a colorblind and merit-based standard, it also powerfully shifts backward by steering individuals away from self-reliance, stable families, and premier education.
 
Acts 13 offers spiritual insight into secularism’s battle for cultural control and ideological supremacy in the public square. On their missionary journey to Cypress, Paul and Barnabas encounter a Jewish sorcerer named Bar-Jesus – Elymas in Greek. Notorious for his deceptive practices, Bar-Jesus opposes the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and attempts to turn Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul, against faith in Christ.
 
British Nonconformist minister Matthew Henry [1662-1714] noted that Satan is “in a special manner busy with great men and men in power to keep them from being religious, for their example will influence many.”
 
American missionary C. Peter Wagner [1930-2016] observed in his Commentary on the Book of Acts that alliances between political leaders and the occult are nowadays equally widespread: “They are not simply curiosities of history, as illustrated closer to home by the ongoing relationship that Mrs. Nancy Reagan maintained with an astrologer to advise her in arranging the president’s schedule.”
 
Paul and Barnabas encounter with the sorcerer Elymas was a “clash of two kingdoms: the kingdom of God invading the kingdom of Satan,” Wagner continues. “Because each side shared a common worldview that informed them of the interplay between the invisible world and the visible world, they well knew the rules of combat.”
 
Whereas the clash led to Sergius Paulus’ conversion to Christianity, “spiritually it could have been the opening of perhaps all of Cyprus to the gospel of Christ.”

This brings us to Trump 47 and the disengagement from secularism, the State’s religion. After committing to forging a society that is colorblind and merit-based, the president signed an executive order to remove Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion [DEI] from the federal government, an organizational framework that had simply become a cover for discrimination, exclusion, and inequality.
 
Next was an executive order undoing the weaponization of federal government in its pushing of gender ideology – the progressive assault on the biological reality and traditional religious belief regarding human nature – as well as repairing the damage to religious freedom and conscience rights inflicted by the Biden Administration.4
 
In 30 days, President Trump succeeded in moving the debate of omniscient, omnipresent, and all-inclusive Big Government officeholders from the esoteric and academic to the practical, showing that more government means less individual freedom.
 
As for the battle, Charles Spurgeon [1834-1892], England’s Prince of Preachers, maintained in his Psalm 32:7 commentary that “Trouble shall do me no real harm when the Lord is with me, rather it shall bring me much benefit, like the file that clears away the rust, but does not destroy the metal.”
 
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul deserves to have the last word: “A few people may have noticed that I resisted an enthusiastic endorsement of Donald Trump during the election. But now, I’m amazed by the Trump cabinet [many of whom I would have picked].
 
“I love his message to the Ukrainian warmongers and his DOGE initiative; [it] shows I was wrong to withhold my endorsement. So today, admittedly a little tardy, I give Donald Trump my enthusiastic endorsement! [Too little too late, some will say, but, you know, it is sincere, there is that.]”5
 
Gideons and Rahabs have begun to stand as “a cloud the size of a man’s hand is forming” [1 Kings 18:44] in America.
 
David Lane
American Renewal Project
 
1. www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-colorblind-message-energizes-black-americans-upward-mobility-913b5206
2. freebeacon.com/trump-administration/billions-doge-found-parked-at-bank-earmarked-for-stacey-abrams-backed-green-group/
3. saraacarter.com/lee-zeldin-slams-biden-admin-over-2-billion-handout-to-stacey-abrams-linked-nonprofit/
4. www.ncregister.com/commentaries/trumps-constitutional-triad
5. x.com/randpaul/status/1892364570221584883?s=42