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Trump’s evolution into a Jesus-like figure for some, but not all, white evangelicals began soon after he launched his first presidential campaign. As David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University explained by email:
Some of Trump’s Christian followers do appear to have grown to see him as a kind of religious figure. He is a “savior.” I think it began with the sense that he was uniquely committed to “saving” them from their foes (liberals, Democrats, elites, seculars, illegal immigrants, etc.) and “saving America” from all that threatens it.
In this sense, Gushee continued, “a savior does not have to be a good person, but just needs to fulfill his divinely appointed role. Trump is seen by many as actually having done so while president.”
This view of Trump is especially strong “in the Pentecostal wing of the conservative Christian world,” Gushee wrote, where
He is sometimes also viewed as an “anointed” leader sent by God. Anointed here means set apart and especially equipped by God for a holy task. Sometimes the most unlikely people got anointed by God in the Bible. So Trump’s unlikeliness for this role is actually evidence in favor.
The multiple criminal charges against Trump serve to strengthen the belief of many evangelicals about his ties to God, according to Gushee:
The prosecutions underway against Trump have been easily interpretable as signs of persecution, which can then connect to the suffering Jesus theme in Christianity. Trump has been able to leverage that with lines like, “They’re not persecuting me, they’re persecuting you.” The idea that he is unjustly suffering, and in so doing vicariously absorbing the suffering that his followers would be enduring, is a powerful way for Trump to be identified with Jesus.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, gave voice to this phenomenon when she protested the filing of criminal charges against Trump. On her way to a pro-Trump rally in Manhattan on April 3, 2023, Greene told Brian Glenn of the Right Side Broadcasting Network:
Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government. There have been many people throughout history that have been arrested and persecuted by radical, corrupt governments, and it’s beginning today in New York City, and I just can’t believe it’s happening, but I’ll always support him. He’s done nothing wrong.
The more interesting case, Gushee wrote,
is Trump himself. I accept as given that he entered politics as the amoral, worldly, narcissistic N.Y. businessman that he appeared to be. Like all G.O.P. politicians, he knew he would have to win over the conservative Christian voting bloc so central to the party.
If people wanted to make him out to be savior, anointed one and agent of God, he would not object. It enhanced their attention and loyalty and his power over and in this group. Lacking any inner spiritual or moral compass that would seek to deflect overinflated or even idolatrous claims about himself, he instead reposted their artwork and videos and so on. Anyone truly serious about the Christian faith would deflect claims to being a savior or anointed one, but he did not have such brakes operating. I do not suppose that he actually believed himself to be any of these things, but others did, and it helped him, and it fed his ego, so why stand in the way?
Certain denominations among evangelicals are more willing to believe Trump is God’s messenger than others. John Fea, a professor at Messiah University in Georgia wrote by email that
There are evangelicals of the Charismatic and Pentecostal variety — the so-called New Apostolic Reformation or Independent Network Charismatics — who believe that Donald Trump is an agent of God to rescue the United States from the atheistic, even demonic, secularists and progressives who want to destroy the country by advancing abortion, gay marriage, wokeness, transgenderism, etc.
“This whole movement,” Fea wrote,
is rooted in prophecy. The prophets speak directly to God and receive direct messages from Him about politics. They think that politics is a form of spiritual warfare and believe that God is using Donald Trump to help wage this war. (God can even use sinners to accomplish his will — there a lot of biblical examples of this, they say).
But even this group of Christians does not see Trump as the messiah, Fea wrote: “They will be quick to tell you that only Jesus is the messiah. They do not believe Trump has special powers, but he is certainly an agent or vessel for God to work through to make America Christian again.”
As far as Trump goes, Fea continued, “he probably thinks these Charismatics and Pentecostals are crazy. But if they are going to tell him he is “God’s anointed one,” he will gladly accept the title and use it if it wins him votes. He will happily accept their prayers because it is politically expedient.”
Robert P. Jones, founder and chief executive of P.R.R.I. (formerly the Public Religion Research Institute), contends that Trump’s religious claims are an outright fraud:
Trump has given us adequate evidence that he has little religious sensibility or theological acuity. He has scant knowledge of the Bible, he has said that he has never sought forgiveness for his sins, and he has no substantive connection to a church or denomination. He’s not only one of the least religious, but also likely one of the most theologically ignorant presidents the country has ever had.
Trump, Jones added in an email, “almost certainly lacks the kind of religious sensibility or theological framework necessary to personally grasp what it would even mean to be a Jesus-like, messianic figure.”
Despite that, Jones wrote, “many of his most loyal Christian followers, white evangelical Protestants, have indeed come to see him as a kind of metaphorical savior figure.”
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