I was about ten years old when I first learned about Joan of Arc, the 14-year-old peasant girl who, against all odds, led the army of France against the British in the Hundred Years War. I had checked out from our school library a little cloth-bound book (A Candle in the Sky) that told her story, and I must have read it a dozen times, she so fascinated me. Her audacity, her courage, her unwavering faith was both inspiring and horrifying to my young mind. I am now aged well beyond that point, and she still haunts me.

On May 30th of 1431 Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. The English, who were vying for the throne of France, accused her of witchcraft (a conveniently vague charge). They accused her of wearing men’s clothing -- a suit of armor, evidently a capital offense. Her main flaw was success at what she set out to do -– to lead her army to vanquish the English, and to crown the Dauphin at Orleans. She was just 19 when she died.

On Passover roughly 2,000 years ago Jesus Christ was tried in six illegal trials, and even though the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, exonerated him, Pilate gave in to the mob and crucified him anyway. The Pharisees convinced themselves that Jesus was healing lepers and paralytics and driving out demons all by the power of Satan. If it was true that He did those things because He was God, then He was an existential threat to their power. They couldn’t do those things. Jesus could. He too had succeeded too well and upset powerful people.

On May 30th of 2024 Donald Trump was convicted of 34 counts of unspecified misadventure.  The trial was as illegal as the trials run by the Pharisees and the Romans, as vague and abusive as the tribunal that convicted Joan.

I’m not making a moral equivalence argument here. Trump would lose that contest for sure. Nor am I relegating Christ to mere human status. He was both man and God. It is interesting that the trials of both Jesus and Joan were meticulously recorded by eyewitnesses at times not known for record-keeping. It’s good that we know what happened.

Quite frankly, I’ve never known what to make of Joan of Arc, but the timing and the parallels are quite striking. And foreboding. Are we to take this as a warning of things to come? Is there a way to prevent a similar end for Donald Trump? Is our government now so convoluted, so tangled in its own petty double-binds that it can’t just act on the basis of justice alone?

I am grateful for the fact that we no longer crucify people or burn them at the stake, but Trump will be just as dead if he’s attacked some night by a jailhouse suicide ghost. His family will be just as bereft of him, his country even more so. The Donald, just like Joan, will not rise from the dead. And like both Joan and Jesus, his charisma, his panache, his energy can’t be duplicated by anyone else. He is the man for this time. His name is even appropriate for the task he’s been given.

So, what do we do? We -- as average American citizens -- do what we are doing. Rallying around him in support -- literally and figuratively. Donating money to his campaign. Using every forum to which we have access to express our support for this man and our disdain for the evil forces that beleaguer him -- and all of us. And we must pray.

Is there a civil war in the offing? We all hope not. America can’t really win unless we win via our Constitution and the rule of law. It is lawlessness that plagues us now. Violent reaction won’t cure that; it will only be another symptom of what ails us.

You see, Joan didn’t have anyone on her side. No one came to her rescue. It was a totalitarian time and her army had failed to prevent her capture. Their love for her meant nothing once she was in the hands of the enemy. Neither did Jesus’ loyal disciples come to His rescue. Most of them scattered. Peter denied knowing Him three times, just as Jesus had told him he would. No one on a white horse came riding to His rescue. 

Neither of these people had a bank of lawyers behind them. Neither had senators and congressmen and pundits and podcasters acting on their behalf. Neither had more than half of the most powerful nation on earth demanding justice.

The stakes are astronomically high. Good and Evil are facing off in a jousting match far more pivotal than whether or not the ineffectual French prince got properly crowned.  Of course, nothing was or ever will be as important as what Christ accomplished hanging on the cross. There’s no comparison. What He did for us all is eternal. Trump’s success or failure will only be temporal, but it is hard to imagine a more pivotal situation for the whole world’s 21^st-century welfare.

Already evil forces are plotting ways to break apart the power and effectiveness of the Supreme Court. They are aiming at Alito and Thomas, but it will be the whole Court, and the whole country, that will suffer the damage if this attack is successful.

Those same powers are working to ensure that the 2024 election will be as fraught with fraud as was 2020. Our vote is our most treasured possession and many of us have already lost the power originally attached to that vote. I lost mine back when my state established mail-in-only voting. I have no sense that my vote is ever counted. With mail-in and early voting so easily passed out, many of you will be joining me in symbolic voting. Add to that the presence of millions of illegals having access to voting since few states have cleaned up their voting rolls or require ID to vote -- who knows what will transpire in November.

But we do know this: not since the geopolitical mess that was the Civil War has this nation been in such peril. Government has only one real purpose and that is the maintenance of justice. Not only have the last four years demonstrated our government’s utter failure at that, but these Biden years have shown us what happens when evil -- not just incompetence, but evil -- gets a foothold in the halls of power.  That ordinary citizens have been languishing in deplorable conditions, serving prison sentences that they clearly don’t deserve, is a neon sign declaring the end of American justice, the end of freedom and therefore the end of prosperity. That no one in a position of power has pushed for their release, or rushed to Trump’s rescue, is a humiliation that lands on us all. If we don’t rise to the occasion and demand a return to both righteousness and justice, we will find ourselves without recourse when they come after us.

Donald Trump, for all his faults, is demonstrating almost superhuman courage, dogged determination, and strong faith in both God and America. I pray daily for his safety. Too often successful people have met with untimely ends –- Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, to name a few. Like these men, Trump will not rise from the dead. Nor will he be canonized centuries later. He must beat the historical odds now, or America and her dream will not survive.

Deana Chadwell is an adjunct professor and department head at Pacific Bible College in southern Oregon. She teaches writing, logic, and literature. She can be contacted at 1window45@gmail.com

Image: American Thinker