The Statue Was the Symptom—Not the Disease

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]It's Sunday, May 10th, 2026. This is not my normal type of recording. Normally, I'm talking about what's going on uh in Ukraine and Russia and maybe Iran and looking at what leaders are doing. But here, I have to talk about leaders within the Republican party and the church and why they're not restraining Trump. And I'm going to be joined by Greg Terry in just a moment, but let me set the stage here. So today, this was a couple days ago, Pastor Mark Burns posted this. Today at Trump National Dural, Miami, history was made. I was deeply honored to lead the dedication event for President Donald J. Trump and the unveiling of the 22 FFT statue created in his honor. This was far more than a ribbon cutting. It was a moment of gratitude, honor, and remembrance.

[00:00:46]Now, this next line was interesting. Let me say this plainly. It is not a golden calf. We worship the Lord Jesus Christ and him alone. You have to say that something seems off. This statue is not about worship. It's about honor. It also reminds us of the hand of God over the president of over President Trump's life. Okay, so he's saying it, but seems like something's misfiring here. Here's how it's presented. Republicans against Trump. MAGA evangelical leaders gathered this week at Trump National Dural Miami to bless a towering gold statue honoring Donald Trump. I think that's a little bit much to bless it. But it sure does feel like some kind of idolatry, doesn't it? I mean, and it also felt like idolatry when Trump was revealing the Trump Bible. Not because he's a deep enthusiastic reader of the Bible. Like, my dad is a Gideon. Gideonss are people that pass out Bibles for free to people that don't have them, right? There's something very different here where he's making money on the Trump version of the Bible with his autograph or his stamp of approval on it or something along those lines. That's not because he's a devout Christian, but because he sees a money-making opportunity. And then we saw this where he was dressed uh looked like dressed like maybe Christ uh and he claimed this was a doctor and then took the post down. It's just it's like he's using Christianity and it it's deeply problematic to me. And let me just show you one paragraph here from New York Magazine. It says a lot about our current president that in response to the news that a giant gold statue of Donald Trump was dedicated this week.

[00:02:23]You have to ask which one.

[00:02:26]Okay. So, here's our discussion, but stay all the way to the end. I have this amazing update for you and I'll show you that in just a just after our conversation. We wanted to talk about something that uh we just saw the other day and we just thought this is this is unbelievable. It's really not our normal kind of topic, but we wanted to talk about it.

[00:02:47]>> Well, I feel compelled to because a lot of people have asked me questions. Um I've received questions on private messages because people know my background. I have a degree in theology and they asked Greg, "What is going on with this statue and Pastor Mark Burns dedicating it." So, you and I were talking about it and I said, "You know what? Let's jump in on this on Mother's Day and share our view of what we think about this and hopefully this will help you guys." That sound good?

[00:03:18]>> It's a kind of a weird followup to our discussion uh last week on creating their authoritarians creating their own health. Yes. uh and talking about that from a philosophical and theological point of view. But here we're we're deeply disturbed about what we're about to show you.

[00:03:34]>> Yeah. Very deeply disturbed. And I just want you to know before we begin, we're going to do our best to give facts, perspective, and just just truth the best we can. Here's what has me dist myself. I'm disturbed by this. Uh this is a 22 foot golden statue of Donald Trump at Dural. His golf course draped in robes of course. Um I it's his golf course. He can do whatever he wants. My big problem is the dude standing at the lectern and his pastor Mark Burns, one of his spiritual adviserss dedicating it and then having to defend his dedication.

[00:04:12]>> Yeah. Burns is actually one of the more level-headed of the evangelical uh pastors that, you know, call themselves one of Trump's spiritual adviserss. Like you have Paula White who's pretty out there and Burns is one who actually takes up for Ukraine now.

[00:04:31]Uh it's a it's a weird thing. This this kind of thing is just >> it's it's just bizarre.

[00:04:37]>> It's it's beyond bizarre. And I'm going to try to lay that out for you. um with an argument and then see your responses.

[00:04:45]But the bottom line is when you have to defend something that means there's something there. Today at Trump National, we witnessed unforgettable moment dedication of the 22 foot statue honoring President Donald J. Trump. Let me be clear. This is not a golden calf.

[00:04:59]We worship the Lord Jesus Christ and him alone. Now, if you have to state this is not something that means that the >> argument like Margaret Thatcher's Thatcher's line about if you have to explain that you're a lady, you're probably not. Right.

[00:05:13]>> That's exactly right.

[00:05:15]>> I could have taken this 12 minutes here and just shown thousands of tweets from a lot of people that we partner with and support and I thought that would maybe be the angle, but they're all saying the same thing. There's just something wrong here. So instead of just reviewing that and nothing personal for Pastor Mark Burns, you you live your life, friend.

[00:05:36]But let's take a look a little bit deeper. And this is what we have. My opinion, and we'll see if it's Prof's opinion. This is not, ladies and gentlemen, biblical honor. That is political idolatry dressed in religious vocabulary. Why? The Bible commands proper honor for governing authorities.

[00:05:57]No problem. And we're talking about this for a reason here because now you have evangelicals. It's not just because this is a Bible lesson or something. It but you have evangelical pastors talking like praising this thing and saying, you know, Trump like they they treat Trump like he's the Messiah when he's not.

[00:06:15]Like you gota be like we get really uh we cross the lines probably way too much or we see these kinds of people cross the lines way too much and when they're and they're talking the reverence about Trump when you know if you can't call out the bad things. You can't really discuss the whatever positive things they might be seeing.

[00:06:34]>> Paul said to say no to Trump would be to say no to God. I can show the video.

[00:06:39]>> That's not okay.

[00:06:40]>> It's not okay. And you know our dear friend my uh Jake Bro, he posted just a picture of the thing of the image and said cult. Um you know this is what unfolds. Um it so scripture does not command people to create golden images of rulers. It does not authorize clergy pastors to gather for religious dedications of golden statues to leaders. And it does not sanction calling a statue the sign of a movement.

[00:07:12]Those are >> and it's a weird sign if there's a sign to the movement. This is Trump with his arm up like fight fight fight right after after the ear shooting in the ear thing. Yes.

[00:07:23]>> So it's it's a very awkward look for religious folks to be trying to defend.

[00:07:30]And uh I just something is just deeply unsettling about this. It's it's as deeply unsettling as the Trump Bible, right?

[00:07:40]>> It's the same.

[00:07:41]>> I mean, Trump vodka. Okay. I mean, you know, it's a it's a brand of something that you can slap a label on. Trump on a building, Trump Bible, like something just is misfiring somewhere. And >> please don't misunderstand me here, but even these Bibles that are being endorsed now that put the Constitution of the United States in the Bible, it's called the Constitutional Bible, the Patriot Bible. You know, I get what people are trying to do, but you are taking God out of his position and and bringing scripture down to the level of our constitution. So, this is just the wrong perspective, folks, completely.

[00:08:17]Now, th this is going to go right in line and we're going to come back to the fight fight because it's the key to understanding this. So when you talk about a golden image, it's a ruler- centered golden image framed with God language and religious vocabulary dedicated by gathered religious and political leaders and it functions as a visible loyalty and movement symbol. So the bottom statement here, this is the exact political theological mixture scripture actually teaches believers to stay away from.

[00:08:49]>> Yeah. I no in their defense they're not falling down and worshiping in front of it or something like that but it's just a little bit too and and the upside is it's on private land on his golf course.

[00:09:00]It's not like set up in DC, you know, like across from the Lincoln Memorial or something. It's so it it's not quite as far or bad as it could be, but it just seems it's it's just unsettling.

[00:09:15]>> It's very unsettling. You know, of course, it's nothing like the Golden Ballroom, the Arc Day triumph that's coming, the uh Trump image on the passports, um the Trump signing the $100 bill that's coming. Of course, the golden statues.

[00:09:32]>> You don't want to have your name or your face or your image on everything though.

[00:09:36]I mean, >> think it's a >> like most people don't want to do that.

[00:09:39]>> No, no, completely agree. Let's go to the next one. The danger of movement signs. So here we come to the fight fight fight. So visible signs are never neutral when they gather loyalty around something other than God. In the church in Christianity you have the cross, you have baptism, communion, the goth gospel, fruit of the spirit, care for the poor. But a nationalist sign is a golden statue of a political ruler. This has happened all throughout history.

[00:10:08]This statue looks actually just like a lot of the statues in North Korea. A golden statue of a political ruler is not a Christian sign. It's a nationalist icon, period.

[00:10:18]>> Okay. So, it it might be a little bit too much and you don't want to be the first person to rush to call your opponent Hitler. And you know, that image looks a little bit too Hitler-ish to my to my mind, but when you have statues of rulers that are still living or in office, it's usually a bad sign, right? Like I I get that. Um, I think the the UK has done that for constitutional monarchs and they have like a history of that, but set them aside and generally like where do you see these kind of things in authoritarian regimes like North Korea, uh, China, maybe Saudi Arabia or Jordan or that sort of thing, Barus, you'll see some kinds of things in a limited scale.

[00:11:02]Uh, but generally like nobody nobody has an issue with a statue of a former US president like after he's out of office or dead. A statue of Eisenhower or JFK.

[00:11:14]Okay. I mean, they're long gone. They served. Okay. Like a Reagan National Airport. Okay. Trump airport while he's Trump in in office currently.

[00:11:26]>> Highway Trump airport new logo. Trump calling in during the dedication thanking everybody for attending the dedication of his statue. I'm not even wasting people's time to see the video.

[00:11:38]You can see it everywhere.

[00:11:39]>> But again, a golden statue while you're in and power just seems Kim Jong-ish.

[00:11:46]That's correct.

[00:11:47]>> Now, let's go here. So, this also all confirmed facts. Ladies and gentlemen, I did a huge deep dive on this today.

[00:11:56]religious language was there. Pastors blessing the event, then defending the event that it's oh, it's not worship of a golden calf. But that statue has a $60,000 gold leaf upgrade. Fine, no problem. Whatever you want to do.

[00:12:12]$450,000 reported base cost. Fine.

[00:12:15]That's your statue. They created Patriot Memecoin was promoted during the event.

[00:12:22]crypto investors, financial gains, political power promoted as a movement symbol. The conclusion, this is exactly the kind of corrupt mixture that prophets in scripture condemned.

[00:12:35]>> Well, that's an interesting angle that uh yeah, so it looks like it was more of a business event than anything else. It was meant to drum up some some revenue.

[00:12:47]And so it's and again there's this weird nexus here in in the Trump administration where you see in Trump 2 administration Trump one administration I don't think we saw this nearly as much um maybe that's just my memory but in the Trump two administration you see like Steve Witoff and uh Jared Kushner and you see them going to do diplomatic work. Oh, it's on their own dime, but they're also making their own money while they're doing that overseas while they're on behalf of the US. Those two things shouldn't be mixed at all. And you see the same kind of mixing here.

[00:13:21]And and it's three-part mixing here, including the the religious element, which is somewhat frustrating to watch.

[00:13:29]Especially, you know, I know for you, for me, it's disgusting. I I I don't know how to say it any better. Now, one of the big arguments out there in the Christian world, especially the hard Christian right, a lot of the um charismatic movement, prophetic movement, is this.

[00:13:48]God saved his life. God preserved him.

[00:13:54]God caused that bullet in Butler to move over half an inch. And that's why we have the fight fight. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to take that argument now and flush it down the toilet. The God preserved him defense is wrong. A human life is spared if God preserved the life. Great. The Christian response should be humility and repentance, gratitude and worship and thankfulness to God alone. But the res distorted response we're seeing.

[00:14:25]>> Okay. Before I get to that, Before you get to the next, >> I'm ready to roll, man.

[00:14:29]>> Oh, I know. I know. and and you're already in preacher mode. Okay, but hold on. Even if you don't agree, even if you're not from a biblical kind of orientation, you're not a you don't identify as a Christian, just listen to what Greg's saying as he says this, like wouldn't this work out with like, okay, let's say that God spared your life.

[00:14:49]Wouldn't you see go back through that Christian response again?

[00:14:53]This would be like how you would react like, "Thank you, God. You spared me.

[00:14:57]>> Thank you, God, for saving my life. I'm so grateful to you. You know, worship directed to God alone. That's the proper response.

[00:15:07]But we've seen such a distortion. And ladies and gentlemen, it just continues day by day by day. It's like a snowball now, especially after we're seeing further suspicious events happening around President Trump's um events. Okay. the distorted response.

[00:15:28]Instead of humility and response, pride, God saved him. He is unstoppable. It begins the construction uh or or the the construction of a movement now moves to the construction of a monument. And now we're visually centering the survivor as the object of devotion. So if God spares a man's life, worship God. Do not build a golden image of the man.

[00:15:54]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the pride isn't just pride from the movement. It's like this weird extra pride uh in Trump. Now, I'm going to compare that to Reagan because on my bookshelf over my shoulder, you'll you'll see well, yes, I guess it's over that shoulder. Um Desh Dus's book on Reagan and I have actually quite a few biographies on Reagan. And Reagan was the a of a victim of an attempted assassination uh attempt uh in the 80s. And like from that point forward, he Reagan was different. Reagan was like, you know, God spared me. Maybe he has a purpose for me. I'm not sure what that purpose is, but I want to try to, you know, live for that like and try to fulfill whatever that is. Why did he spare me? Trump doesn't seem to have registered in the same way. And you know, I >> instead of it's just like I mean really Prof and everyone watching, thank you for watching this um and getting our opinions, but I put a lot of work into this and the reality is this should be a response of humility when you go through something like this in life and you are, you know, spared or you escape, you know, and I think about even soldiers in in the horrible war in Ukraine right now and the drone misses them, you know, I promise you the first thing they're saying is, "Thank God preserving my life." They're not going somewhere and building a statue of them miss being missed by a drone, you know, and I know it's a different, but it's just the principle. So, I have a warning um that I think is fair and I want to see if you kind of agree with it. This is a this is a warning sign, guys, for American Christianity. I've been in this for over 30 years. My father's been as a pastor for over 50 years. My grandfather 70 years ago started pastoring. There's a lot of lot of decades here. The scandal is not only that a golden statue was made. The scandal is that pastors stood beside it and called it Christian honor to dedicate it. This is not a harmless tribute. It is the confusion of political loyalty with faithfulness to God.

[00:18:11]>> Yeah. And that's that. Yeah, that that that's problematic in many ways. Uh what you're seeing here is the same kind of thing as what So why aren't Republicans stopping Trump? Le let's look at it like that, right? Republicans in Congress could stop Trump, but they won't.

[00:18:28]They're they're doing the same. Why aren't these religious leaders who are should be saying the thou shalt not absolutes of the scripture to to them to Trump wherever he's if he might be going wrong somewhere be saying that to him, but they're not. They're mute. They're just saying, "Oh, he's he's doing a great job." Well, not on everything.

[00:18:46]Where's it? Where's where are the uh so like with the prophets in the Old Testament, they would bring covenantal lawsuits to the leaders of the land saying, "God says this, but you're doing this and he's saying this is wrong." You don't see any of that here. You just see like he's being just affirmed and oh, you're the best and your leadership is awesome and and that sort of thing. And that's that's not healthy. This is there's something wrong. And look, they should say it to to who whichever president of either party of this is wrong. This is not >> right.

[00:19:22]>> That takes us back to last Sunday's episode of authoritarianism. You know, this just is another step exactly what you're talking about. And ladies and gentlemen, if you've happened to notice, it's two weeks in a row. We have a noon video out on Sunday. this is something we're trying to to work with and and bring in other topics that are a part of our ecosystems and what we're trying to address. So, um you know, even if you would like deep dives on something, maybe drop a comment there because we try to touch things um just in a little different perspective here. And this week it was the statue.

[00:19:59]>> Well, this one jumped out at us, too.

[00:20:01]Like the other one we were noodling on like the idea. This that was kind of my idea. And then you had this like, hey, you got to see this. Have you seen this yet?

[00:20:10]>> Um, but it's something's wrong. It's not it's not okay. And I'm very frustrated.

[00:20:17]Like I'm I'm a practicing Christian. I I consider myself to be a very faithful practicing Christian, right? But there's something misfiring within the church that's just wholesale taking in anything that Trump does as okay. And that's not okay. You didn't do that with Clinton or Obama. So you could see certainly that there was something there. So but you shouldn't be it shouldn't be political.

[00:20:40]So you should see that there's a problem here.

[00:20:42]>> I think scripture says it very clearly what you just stated. They exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship created things instead of the creator.

[00:20:53]>> Yeah. And that's what we're witnessing.

[00:20:55]>> Yeah. And that that is Yeah, that's right. We right now in 2026 as a as a church in the United States are are kind of derelct in our duty. We we need to be doing better than what we're doing. And >> you know, I just don't hear the pastors complaining about it like they ought to be saying like this isn't right. We shouldn't be glossing over and saying that this is okay. And that >> let's be fair. I I I chose to go this path with this deep dive, but when I went to grab Pastor Mark Burn's tweet below that, I do have to say there were hundreds and hundreds of pastors saying, "What on earth are you talking about?"

[00:21:32]Good. Good on them.

[00:21:33]>> It It was there, but it's this is why we're doing the headines. It's not the headlines, and we want to get this message out that this needs to be addressed. So, thank you. Now, it might not be about worshiping the golden calf, but it is about the worship of Mammon.

[00:21:50]Trump sculptor slams MAGA crypto bros after a bitter fallout. Why? Because they were using this in order to make money on cryptocurrency. I'm not making it up. This is what's happened. The sculptor behind the 22 foot golden statue of Donald Trump, he says it was chaos behind the scenes. Catrell's giant gold leafed effigy was erected by the Trump National Dural Golf Course in Miami on Thursday and unveiled during an emotional ceremony led by Pastor Mark Burns, who was seen as the president's informal spiritual adviser and was allegedly involved in the process. Now, get this. In an exclusive interview with the Daily Beast, the artist revealed that the Crypto Boys used images of the sculpture to launch their token, which he said constituted copyright infringement. So the cryptocurrency is going to be related to or have this image or something is related to it. So that's the play they're making money. So it's not Golden Trump, but Golden Mammon may be motivating the crypto boys behind this. Scott Catrell increased the total cost of his creation from 300,000 to 450,000 after pitching the idea of adding gold leaf finish to the bronze statue. So, it's not pure gold, it's bronze on the inside for an additional $60,000, eventually charging $90,000 for the alleged copyright infringement. So, that's the rest of the story. Tell me what you thought about what you saw here. Put that in the comments below.

[00:23:22]Thank you for your time, the likes, the shares, and the subscribes. And thank you for being the kind of person who cares about the world we live in.