Sermon on the Mount, 2.0

by David Benjamin

“Now and for all eternity, he will stand at his Savior’s side wearing the glorious crown of the martyr.” — Erika Kirk

Shortly after the death of Pope Francis, the president posted a photoshopped picture of himself wearing a golden papal mitre and posing as Pope Donald I. This was only fitting because Donald Trump has cast himself effectively not only as America’s first monarch endowed with the Divine Right of Kings, but also as a Messiah sent by a vengeful Lord to restore to America and the world a religion of muscle and bluster, and to welcome the moneychangers—who’ve been “treated horribly”—back into his personal Temple. Trump has reinforced his godly mission by seeking redemption, like the prodigal son of Luke 15, from a life of “riotous living” among porn stars, pedophiles and sexual predators. Trump has come to be regarded by many of his followers as the Second Coming of Jesus (with better make-up and a nicer suit).

Worship of the reality-TV star whom many believers refer to as the “Orange Savior,” has been amplified by the death of his disciple, podcast evangelist Charlie Kirk, whom his beauty-queen wife has declared a “martyr” of his faith. This weighted word enshrines Kirk among a community of heavenly forebears that includes Jesus of Nazareth, as well as John the Baptist, Saints Peter and James, Paul, Matthew, Thomas, Jude and Luke, Joan of Arc, St. Thomas More and Sebastian, the pin-cushion patron saint of the gay and transgender community.

(Not to mention the six million Jews of the Holocaust? No, better not go there.)

Donald Trump leads a new generation of prophets who have modernized Christianity in ways that thrive neither on meekness nor poverty, neither on peace nor quiet submission to persecution. The new Christianity embraces the powerful and selfish as its allies in the struggle against Evil, seeks wealth because conquering Satan is expensive in 21st-century dollars and finds holiness in waging war against enemies who refuse to recognize the sanctity of MAGA devotion.

Our new Christianity requires a fresh liturgy and a revision of Scripture that recognizes the terrors that God’s children must face from this day forward. For instance, today’s post-modern Christians dare not follow the wishy-washy Beatitudes as they appear in Matthew: 5-7, or else they’ll get their necks blown open by agnostics with high-powered rifles! Consider, instead, the text below—which I originally offered to the Vatican in 2007—as a first draft of the Sermon on the Mount, Version 2.0.

“Blessed are the obscenely wealthy, for they can afford to grease the angels, bribe St. Peter, slip the Old Testament Hebrew God past the old-boy membership committee at Augusta National, dress the Virgin Mary in Dolce & Gabbana, and buy up the entire Kingdom of Heaven, lock, stock and Pearly Gates.

“Blessed are they that rise up, kill and set fire to the infidels’ temple in devotion to the cause of the Lord, for they shall be thanked for doing a heckuva job, hustled out of custody and provided with glowing references, a fat severance package and lifelong immunity from prosecution, while all traces of their ‘zealous actions’ will be erased and all witnesses either paid off, silenced or ‘disappeared.’

“Blessed are the pushy, for they shall inherit the big contracts, the fancy cars, the private jets, the daughters of tycoons, the best seats at the Super Bowl, the red carpet at the Oscars, the front pew at the cathedral, the personal friendship of the King, the President, the Premier, the Pope, the Patriarch and the Ayatollah, the indulgence of the High and Mighty and a banquet seat on the right hand of God.

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after privilege, perquisites and undeserved advantages, for they shall be filled to overflowing and glutted with the fat of the land, for they are realists in a world where those who hunger and thirst after righteousness are destined to be crushed, again and once again, like the insects that creep and crawl upon the earth.
“Blessed are the merciless, for they will be given the right to disdain the weak, play golf with the powerful, cast aside any and all who stand in their way, render their enemies into dark, secret places, there to conceal, degrade, defile, desecrate, humiliate and torture them even unto death, in the name of the Lord who pays them to do things the Lord prefers not to have on his own resumé.

“Blessed are the pure in fiscal accountability, even if they must move vast amounts of cash into numbered offshore accounts, for they shall see God-knows-how-much in profits while the taxman, unable to touch their millions and billions, ends up blessing the poor in spirit with actual, spirit-crushing poverty.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God—with the stipulation, of course, that God prefers children with Special Forces training who know how to kill the ungodly in seven different ways with just their thumbs, and who know that real peace—with honor—can only be achieved at the end of a gun, preferably a .40-caliber automatic with a thirty-round clip full of cop-killers and an RPG capability (and maybe one of those flamethrower attachments that Sigourney Weaver had in Aliens).

“Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the short end of the stick that beats them to a pulp, thus clearing the way for the winners, visionaries and all-state quarterbacks who can then move into their houses, pacify their neighborhood, indoctrinate their children, corrupt their politics, seize their oil fields, squander their resources, pollute their environment and leave behind nothing but scorched earth and used condoms—after which they’ll have the Kingdom of Heaven all to themselves.

“Blessed are ye, when envious, poor and unsuccessful men shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for so great is your reward on earth that Paradise will probably be an anticlimax.”