Before I say anything critical, let me start by saying that Ann Coulter has made a lot of good sense over the years. I have read some of her books, and they were generally well-written and researched, and contrast somewhat markedly with the blonde brassiness that does the yelling heads television gigs.

Having said that, she recently said something theologically atrocious, and it was something that revealed the disease that afflicts contemporary conservatism. Here it is:

“I don’t care if @realDonaldTrump wants to perform abortions in White House after this immigration policy paper. http://bit.ly/1EvT3Ja”

By the way, I do understand that Coulter is anti-abortion, and that this statement was hyperbolic, intended to praise Trump’s immigration stand. It does not represent what she would be willing to do. Of course not. But it does represent what she is willing to say, and what she is willing to say represents the central confusion of American conservatism.

What are we conserving? America or that which makes America worth conserving?

To say something like this is to say, in effect, “I don’t care that we continue to deserve judgment, just so long as we implement a policy which, in my mind, will avert one of those judgments.”

Put another way, oh, how I wish God would govern the world in ways other than the ways He has revealed to us in Scripture. I don’t care if we sow the wind in the White House, I just care that we don’t reap the whirlwind on our borders (Hos. 8:7). I don’t care if we mock God in the White House, just so long as God does not visit us elsewhere with the consequences of mocking Him (Gal. 6:7). I don’t care if we are deserving the wages of sin in the White House, just so long as we don’t have to actually do any dying (Rom. 6:23).

In short, wouldn’t it be grand if secularism were true, and yet we didn’t have to live with the consequences of secularism?

Consider the image of the head and the tail in Deuteronomy.

“The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail. Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee” (Deut. 28:43–45).

The alien in your midst will be ascendant. That sounds like a problem on the border. Uncontrolled immigration will cause the undocumented strangers to rise up very high, and the natives of Israel would sink exceedingly low. The aliens would become wealthy, and the natives become poor. They will lend to the homegrown, and the homegrown will not lend to them. They will become the head and those who used to be the head will become the tail.

And why? All these curses will come upon you, Moses says, because you would not listen to the voice of God. You refused to keep His commandments. And if you ask “how have we failed to keep His commandments?” I would select one of many examples by simply pointing to the recent vote of the Senate to continue to give massive taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, after it was revealed to the world what kind of ghoulish operation Planned Parenthood is. We are that nation. When an operation like that was uncovered, our first decision as a nation was deciding to give them more money. If we don’t give them more money, who would make merchandise of baby livers then?

Of course as Americans we should continue to plead for mercy, but the diseased conservatism I am speaking of thinks that we should swank along in our prosperity as a matter of birthright justice. But if justice were headed our way it would be in the form of a comet the size of Kansas headed for Kansas, one that would leave the lip of a smoking crater in both Maryland and Oregon.

Donald Trump’s ball cap tells us that he wants to make America great again. Cool. On whose terms? For a certain kind of conservative, the desirability of America being great is a given. Of course we should be great — that’s axiomatic. Why? Follow the argument closely here: because we’re us!

I would much prefer that we meet the conditions of being made great again, and that cannot happen apart from a genuine humbling and bone deep repentance. This contrasts sharply with Donald Trump’s biblical tone deafness on the subject of repentant humility. “I think repenting is terrific.”

Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and He will lift you up. Anything else is seeking out a divine smack down. God opposes the proud, and that would include proud conservatives.