Baker’s Dozen Fantasy: Trump Opens a Bible, Finds Actual Moral Teachings

President Donald Trump’s anger at criticism for sheltering in a bunker during protests spurred him to stage a photo op. Monday night he held a Bible in front of St John’s Episcopal Church, just across the road from the White House.  

His interest piqued, Trump asked aides to read him some biblical passages. Stunned at what the Bible contained, the President and his staff worked all night to draft a legislative program based upon the teachings of Jesus Christ. Today, at a Rose Garden press conference, Trump stated, “My base, Evangelicals, Born Agains and Fundamentalist Christians don’t want policies based on secular humanism. Therefore, I have formulated policies based directly upon the words of Jesus Christ.”   His 13-point program to implement the teachings of Jesus Christ, with Biblical citations, follows: 

1. Triple the capital gains tax.  Increase the top marginal income tax rate to 80%. 

“Happy you who are poor, for heaven’s reign is yours…But dire your plight, you who are rich, for your time of comfort is over.” (Luke 6.20-24) 

2. Raise the estate tax rate to 90%. 

“It is easier for a camel to get through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into God’s reign.” (Matthew 19.24) 

3. Use the additional tax proceeds to fund massive welfare programs 

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25.35-40) 

4. Increase tax credits for charitable gifts 

“Sell all you own and give what it yields to the poor” (Luke 12.34) 

5. Outlaw hedge funds 

“You cannot serve both God and Greed” (Luke. 16.13) 

6. Reduce credit card interest rates to zero 

“If you lend only where you calculate a return, what mark of virtue have you?  Sinners, too, lend to sinners, calculating an exact return.  No, rather love your foes, treat them well, and lend without any calculation of return.” (Luke 6.27 – 38) 

7. Abolish the Department of Commerce 

 “Look at the birds in the sky—they don’t plant seeds, or harvest crops, or collect the harvest in barns.  Your Father in heaven tends them….Take a lesson from the lilies, how they spread over the field.  They do not toil at, they do not spin their own fabric.  But I tell you that Solomon in all his splendor did not outshine them.” (Matthew. 6.24-34) 

8. Continue to ban prayer in schools 

“When you pray, be not like the pretenders, who prefer to pray in the synagogues and in the public square, in the sight of others. In truth I tell you, that is all the profit they will have. But you, when you pray, go into your inner chamber and, locking the door, pray there in hiding to your Father, and your Father who sees you in hiding will reward you” (Matthew 6:5-6).  

9.  Introduce more lenient criminal sentences.  

“But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:38-42)   

10. Adopt a compassionate, understanding foreign policy 

“I say to all you who can hear me: Love your foes, help those who hate you, praise those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” (Luke 6.27-30)

11. Limit jury awards 

“Dire is your plight, Scribes and Pharisees, since you….seal up men’s access to the heaven’s reign….devour the inheritance of widows…scour sea and land to acquire on adherent and then make him twice as fit for hell as you are.” (Matthew 32.1 –16) 

12. Make every home a Homeless Shelter 

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors…invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.  And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you.” (Luke 14:1, 7-14) 

13. Radically invert America’s socio-economic structure. 

“Whoever would be first must become the last of all and the servant of all” (Mark 9.35) “For everyone lifting himself up will be abased, and anyone abasing himself will be lifted up.” (Luke 14.11) “Whosoever shall humble himself and be like this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18.4) 

Asked about his positions on stem cell research, gun control, abortion, the pledge of allegiance, and transgender people serving in the military, Trump responded, “Jesus never addressed any of these issues. Apparently, He did not consider them important.”