A Special Appeal to Christians in a Time of Global Crisis
Christ calls us to be light and salt—not silent observers of authoritarianism disguised as salvation.
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As a Christian observing from Australia, I understand the powerful appeal of leaders like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Viktor Orbán—especially to believers who see the world spinning off its moral axis. In an age marked by cultural confusion, political corruption, and deepening spiritual emptiness, it’s tempting to place our hopes in strongmen who promise to fight back, restore order, and defend traditional values.
Now that Trump has returned to the presidency, many Christians feel vindicated. After all, doesn’t he oppose the very ideologies that have done so much harm—radical progressivism, moral relativism, globalist overreach?
But this moment isn’t just about Trump. Putin cloaks his authoritarianism in Orthodox symbolism and Russian exceptionalism. Orbán brands Hungary as a Christian democracy while hollowing out the institutions that make democracy real. All three speak the language of faith and tradition—while consolidating power in ways that undermine the very spiritual values they claim to protect.
We are at a dangerous crossroads—not just politically, but spiritually.
This isn’t merely an American issue; it is a global one. Across continents, democracies are weakening, societies are fragmenting, and faith is being manipulated to serve political ends. In our desire for stability, we risk repeating history’s great mistake: putting our trust in men and power, rather than in principle and truth.
It is time to pause. Not to condemn those who support such leaders, but to reflect—on where we are, what we are endorsing, and what it means for the body of Christ in this generation.
And for that, we must return to the wilderness.
The Three Temptations of Christ—Then and Now
In the Gospel accounts, Christ faced three temptations: to turn stones into bread, to leap from the temple to prove His divinity, and to accept dominion over the world by bowing to Satan.
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky described these questions as being at the ultimate spiritual crossroads of human history—questions that every civilization must eventually answer. He wrote:
“By the questions alone, simply by the miracle of their appearance, one can see that one is dealing with a mind not human and transient but eternal and absolute… three images are revealed that will take in all the insoluble historical contradictions of human nature over all the earth.”
In other words, these temptations weren’t invented for dramatic effect. Their very perfection reveals their eternal relevance.
Temptation One: Bread Alone
The first temptation—“Turn these stones into bread”—speaks to our bodily appetites, our desire for comfort and pleasure.
Modern capitalism, stripped of ethics, tells us we are what we consume. The neoliberal worldview proclaims that greed leads to prosperity; the postmodern ethos insists that truth is whatever we want it to be. Together, these ideologies have created a new religion: consumerism.
This is the world many Christians believe Trump, Putin, and Orbán are fighting against. But here’s the tragic irony: their movements do not challenge this false gospel—they embody it. Each of them has built a brand on spectacle, ego, wealth, and domination. They reflect the culture’s broken values while claiming to resist them.
Christ’s answer still stands: “Man shall not live by bread alone.” Freedom is not indulgence. True liberty requires self-mastery.
Temptation Two: Disempowerment
Having failed to tempt Christ with physical indulgence, Satan turns to a deeper question—not just of Christ’s divinity, but of human freedom itself. He suggests that the burden of responsibility that comes with freedom is unnecessary, even unfair. Leap, he says, and God will catch you. A loving Father would never let you fall.
But this temptation is more insidious than it first appears. It is not merely about spectacle—it is about surrendering moral agency.
For freedom is not just the right to choose—it is the obligation to bear the consequences of our choices. It demands responsibility not only for our own actions, but also for the suffering we permit through inaction, the injustice we tolerate, and the silence we maintain in the face of wrongdoing. And this is a bitter pill to swallow.
It is far easier to blame others—our leaders, our circumstances, even God—when things go wrong. Where was God? Why did He allow this? Yet when life goes well, we are quick to take credit or thank God for our blessings—while avoiding any reckoning with the harm we’ve enabled or ignored.
The Old Testament can be read as humanity’s long struggle to grasp the full weight of this gift of freedom. Again and again, God is accused of being absent, arbitrary, vengeful, or unjust. But these are projections—reflections of a people who, like children, desire freedom without responsibility, grace without growth, and protection without maturity.
To lead us into deeper understanding, God became incarnate in Christ. Through His life, teachings, death, and resurrection, Jesus revealed that true freedom is not indulgence, but self-mastery—a life lived in alignment with both conscience and Creator. This is the central lesson of the Book of Job: a righteous man confronting unjust suffering, who moves from protest to peace—not because he finds easy answers, but because he finally grasps the true meaning of freedom.
Even Christ, in His humanity, reveals the depth of this struggle. On the cross He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—not as a denial of faith, but as a window into the agony of taking full responsibility for His personal decision to die so others may truly live.
And in His resurrection, we witness the extent of this gift—life immortal after death.
This is what makes the second temptation so cunning: it offers a way off the cross.
It whispers: Leap. Be saved. Demand a miracle. If God truly loves you, He will intervene. This remains the plea of many Christians today: Show us a sign. End our pain. Prove Your love.
But Christ refuses. “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” In that rejection, He affirms a foundational truth: God does not grant us freedom only to revoke it when life becomes difficult. He has already given us the capacity to live it—through the moral life, which leads to a peace that transcends understanding and touches the deepest parts of the soul.
This peace explains the end of Job’s story—not as divine compensation, but as spiritual transformation. Job no longer rails against injustice because he has glimpsed the deeper meaning of freedom: not escape from suffering, but the courage to bear it faithfully until peace emerges as its own reward.
Yet today, many Christians have embraced the second temptation—not from Satan, but from leaders who offer the same false promise: salvation without sacrifice, power without accountability, certainty without conscience.
They excuse moral failure with empty platitudes like, “God uses imperfect vessels,” while evading their duty to hold those vessels to the standards of truth, humility, and justice. They pray for revival while propping up leaders who mock the Gospel through cruelty, corruption, and deceit.
In Russia, the Orthodox Church blesses war in the name of divine mission. In Hungary, faith is reduced to nostalgic pride rather than a living moral witness. In America, the cross and Bible are wielded not in service, but as props in political theatre.
This is not revival. It is disempowerment draped in religious language.
Disempowerment leads to faith without responsibility. Faith without responsibility becomes idolatry, which always demands a sacrifice. It sacrifices truth. It sacrifices justice. And the first to be betrayed are always the most vulnerable.
Temptation Three: Trading the Cross for the Crown
Having failed to tempt Christ with appetite and false faith, Satan turns to the greatest lie: “Bow to me, and I will give you dominion over all the kingdoms of the world.”
Now we see what this really means. On a personal level, it is the invitation to surrender our conscience for unrestrained pleasure and power—the sly deception that hedonism and domination are the same as true happiness.
On a broader level, it is the promise of raw power: the belief that the ends justify the means, that if we can only control the courts, capture the institutions, and crush dissent, then righteousness will somehow prevail.
This is the temptation Christians face globally today: to trade the cross for the crown.
Trump speaks of “retribution.” Putin silences critics while draping himself in the language of Christian civilization. Orbán rewrites laws to eliminate opposition, quoting scripture to cloak injustice. They promise moral certainty, national greatness, and religious protection—but they demand your conscience and your obedience in return.
But Jesus said no. His kingdom cannot be found in coercion or false promises. It is not in hedonism, which leads only to despair. It is not given by strongmen who claim salvation through submission. It can only be found within the heart—cultivated daily through moral living until it blossoms and reveals the kingdom of God.
The Deeper Danger
These temptations have not just returned—they’ve been rebranded as virtues. Freedom is now framed as license. Faith becomes a political identity. Power is seen as righteousness.
And the most dangerous lie? That the only solution left is divine intervention. That only God can save us—so we can abdicate responsibility. But that too is a temptation: the temptation of fatalism, of surrender, of blind allegiance to those who claim to speak for God while behaving like kings.
The Path Forward: A Global Christian Response
We cannot go on like this. The global Church must offer more than partisan politics and culture war slogans. We must model something better.
That begins with rejecting the three temptations—just as Christ did.
It requires us to affirm that freedom is sacred and moral; that power is to be shared, not hoarded; and that peace is built through conscience, not coercion.
That vision is embodied in the Freedom Declaration for Peace—a global call to rediscover the moral foundations of civil society. Not a political program, but a spiritual and philosophical realignment for a world that has lost its story.
It declares that cooperation, not conquest, is the path forward. That freedom, rightly understood, is God’s gift to all humanity. And that the role of Christians is not to dominate nations, but to serve as moral exemplars in every society.
Let the Kingdom Begin Within
Christ said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” That’s where our revolution begins—not in Washington, Moscow, Budapest, or Canberra, but in the quiet conviction that we are called to a higher standard.
Not to win at all costs, but to live with moral clarity.
Not to impose truth, but to embody it.
Not to seek kings, but to follow the King who knelt, who washed feet, who forgave His enemies.
A Final Word
To my fellow Christians around the world—whether you live under liberal democracies, fragile regimes, or rising autocracies—this is our moment.
The world is hungry for something deeper than strongmen and slogans.
It is hungry for peace rooted in principle, for truth spoken with grace, and for freedom grounded in virtue.
Let it be said that when the temptations returned, we chose Christ again.
Join the movement not of kings, but of conscience.
Sign the Freedom Declaration for Peace — and let the world see that followers of Christ still stand for humility, responsibility, and the true meaning of freedom.
