Donald Trump's joke of 'getting to Heaven' shows 'works-based Christianity,' says scholar

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump recently joked that doing good as the next U.S. president might be his ticket to Heaven, but an evangelical scholar has responded by saying that Trump's words portray an incorrect view of Christianity.

Dr. J.T. Bridges, Southern Evangelical Seminary's academic dean and assistant professor of philosophy, pointed out that the GOP party's chief bet for the White House exemplified a "works-based Christianity" on his idea of getting to Heaven.

The 70-year-old real estate mogul addressed an audience of more than 700 evangelical pastors on Aug. 11 during an American Renewal Project event at the Orlando Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, where he joked about how the Oval Office could send him to Heaven.

"So go out and spread the word and once I get in, I will do my thing that I do very well," said Trump. "And I figure it's probably maybe the only way I'm going to get to heaven. So I better do a good job."

Trump made his audience laugh, but the academic philosopher shared a different idea of getting to Heaven.

Bridges quoted the verses Romans 3:21-22 as well as Romans 4:4-5 for the answers.

Romans 3:21-22 states, "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known. ... This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe."

Bridges said that Trump's notion then could be "based in a wrong view of identity."

"There is a mantra common in churches, motivated by genuine piety though false, that in Christ Jesus I am 'just a sinner saved by grace,'" Bridges told The Christian Post.

He explained that those who continue to hold such thinking continue to reject the idea that Jesus Christ already saved them from their sins and so they should no longer consider themselves as "a sinner" or "unsaved." Rather, these people cling to the idea of a "wrathful judge," whom they work hard to appease.

The Federalist's Rebecca Cusey also dissected Trumps Christian theology in an op-ed on Aug. 10 where she lifted a passage from the billionaire businessman's 2005 book "Think Like a Billionaire" that showed he perceived "Christianity as a ledger sheet."

While Cusey contended that Trump's ledger sheet concept might be an attractive ideology, she maintained this as incorrect, a misunderstanding and a common heresy.