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By now, the picture of a bloodied Donald Trump surrounded by secret service agents with his fist held in the air has been viewed innumerable times around the world. No doubt, it will come to define the former President’s legacy. It certainly does speak volumes of his fighting spirit. 

Like many of you, I starting getting texts Saturday evening telling me former President Trump had been shot, but seemed fine. I immediately flipped on the TV and sure enough, it was true. I cannot say I was completely shocked (I have believed that the extremism characterizing both far left and right political zealots was destined to break out in violence for many years now; indeed, it did break out in violence with BLM riots in 2020). I was, however, deeply saddened.

Saddened for the former President and the trauma his family has been and continues to endure. And for the true victim of the assassination attempt, Corey Comperatore, who left behind a wife and two daughters. My heart genuinely breaks for them. I wonder how it must feel for them to keep hearing people publicly thanking God for sparing Mr. Trump’s life, all the while having to bury their husband and Dad. My guess is Corey was more important to them than Donald Trump. It’s almost too much to take in, isn’t it? 

Saddened for our Nation. We truly seem beyond repair. When people take to social media to lament that the assassin missed his mark, we are genuinely doomed as a Nation. Fifty plus years of rejecting God and His Christ, and spurning the authority of His Word, have truly taken a deadly toll on us as Americans. Let’s not kid ourselves, dear Christians, the current political arena is not about friendly disagreements over the nuances of economic policy. Rather, it’s about whether we want to continue to be a people who endorse dismembering babies in wombs, and selling aborted baby hearts, and keeping millions of babies frozen indefinitely. It’s about whether we want to be a Nation that continues to celebrate sexual perversions of every kind imaginable. That endorses young teens self-mutilating. That permits grown men to dance sexually in women’s clothing for young children. That softens pedophilia, calling it merely “MAP” (minor-attracted person). That thinks sodomy is commendable. That dominates women by any means necessary, including endorsing the insanity of a man simply saying he is a woman and thereby enjoying all the rights pertaining thereunto the fairer sex. It’s about whether we want to become a Nation that continues to imprison Christians for praying outside abortions clinics. 

Let’s stop kidding ourselves. “Toning down the rhetoric” will not change anything. Our hearts are sick and deceitful and desperately wicked (Jer 17:9). Only an awakening and revival by God’s grace in the Gospel of Jesus Christ could possibly rescue the United States of America. 

My wife and I, like so many others, immediately began fighting the urge to formulate a conspiracy theory concerning this assassination attempt (which though the intended target escaped, an assassination did occur). How could some dude just perch on a roof with a rifle for 10 minutes without being taken out? Why was the former President even allowed on the stage when the threat was known? So many questions. And I don’t expect any answers. Not truthful ones, anyway.

But my wife and I also noticed something that has not been talked about much, even by conservative evangelicals like myself. As my few readers know, I rarely feel the urge to blog about every newsworthy event as quickly as possible after it happens. I like to wait. Take it in. Hear what others are saying. Pray. Seek God’s wisdom. Ask for the Spirit’s discernment. Our Nation is foolheartedly hasty. Sadly, so are many Christian pastors and bloggers. 

“Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Prov 29:20).

But an assassination attempt on one of our political leaders, and a former President at that, is genuinely and deeply significant. It says so much about who we are as a people, and where we are spiritually. 

But what my wife and I noticed that not many are talking about in Christian circles, or so it seems (admittedly I don’t get around much), is the prevalence of female / women secret service agents. In fact, the picture which is already iconic shows one of those courageous women agents shielding Mr. Trump with her body as they tried to whisk him safely off stage. 

Nobody should question those women’s bravery or ability to do that job. That’s not even a serious debate. Those female agents performed admirably right alongside their male counterparts. But my concern is what it says about our worldview. 

When women are protecting men, shielding them from bullets with their bodies, our world is upside down. God’s design is reversed. Confusion reigns. And our enemies laugh and mock. Perhaps nothing demonstrates the total loss of a biblical worldview and a Judeo-Christian ethic in our society like the scene that unfolded on that stage Saturday evening in Butler, PA. 

Again, this is not about whether women can do that job. It’s about whether they should. And whether a Nation should endorse and celebrate it. Biblically, I think not. It was to Barak’s shame that Deborah led the fight (Jdgs 4-5). 

Sadly, as I say so often to my wife, even among conservative churches and politicians, it seems the most courageous among us these days are women. Thank God for courageous women of Christ who live out their deeply held, Spirit-given, Word-submitted convictions! Thank God for godly women who will not compromise on abortion and the demonic, family-wrecking agenda of the LGBTQ. Thank the Lord for biblical women in homes, schools, churches and political offices all across this land. I am pro-woman! Equal in dignity. Made in God’s image (Gen 1:27). Saved by the same grace and same faith in the same Jesus (Gal 3:27-29). But distinct in God-given roles (Eph 5:22-33; 1 Tim 2:8-15; Titus 2:1-8).

Observe how quickly even Mr. Trump and J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio cow-towed to soften the GOP platform language in matters of abortion and so-called “gay rights” and the LGBTQ agenda. I predict the conservative women in the political arena won’t cave so easily.   

So, consider this a lament. For the famine of true men. In the home. In the Church. In the workforce. In the political arena. In the Nation.               

Awakening and revival, I believe, must begin with men.

“And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. Therefore, I have poured out My indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath. I have returned their way upon their heads,” declares the Lord God (Ezk 22:30-31). 

by Keith McWhorter