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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA shocking number of Americans believe God personally anointed Trump to rule the country
Why do so many evangelical Christians support former President Donald Trump despite his decades of documented ungodly behavior? An in-depth report from The Economist shows that it has a simple explanation: They believe that God personally appointed him to rule the United States.
In fact, the report cites a survey conducted by Denison University political scientist Paul Djupe that around 30 percent of Americans believe Trump "was anointed by God to become president." The Economist traces the origins of this line of thinking to Lance Wallnau, a self-declared prophet who has long been seen as a fringe figure but who gathered a following arguing that Trump was God's personal pick for the White House.
In fact, Wallnau believes that God will use Trump to crush opposition to Christian nationalism and restore Christians as the nation's rightful political rulers. "Adherents believe that God wants them to build his kingdom on Earth," explains The Economist. "Hindering them are demons, who govern vast swathes of the planet. To use a metaphor favored by Mr Wallnau, these demons control seven mountains, each symbolizing a sphere of life: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government."
The article goes on to link this fevered belief in Trump's divine role with the deadly riots at the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021, where Trump supporters broke into the Capitol and sent lawmakers of both parties fleeing for their lives. "Prophets battled the evil spirits embedded in the Capitol by praying, their voices amplified on a PA system," the report states. "Protesters blew shofars, ram’s horns which they believe can summon the forces of heaven. Many protesters brandished flags emblazoned with the words 'An Appeal to Heaven,' the apostles’ rallying cry for a Christian conquest of America."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-christian-nationalism-2666811546/
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bucolic_frolic
(55,069 posts)
SammyWinstonJack
(44,316 posts)
ck4829
(37,682 posts)And remember what they were capable of doing.
MorbidButterflyTat
(4,485 posts)
ProudMNDemocrat
(20,880 posts)are VIOLATING the very Jesus Christ and his teachings they profess to follow and use a a guideline for their lives.
Do they NOT see how HYPOCRITICAL that is? Or they that BLIND and STUPID? They are NOT Christians at all!
ExWhoDoesntCare
(4,741 posts)Because they are following the guy who was all for divisiveness and torturing his enemies. He even thought all those nasty laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy were to be in effect until the earth ended.
I know some christians want to pretend that guy isn't in their big book of bad ideas...but he is. And that guy is so horrible that it cancels out the few good things he promoted. Or as we used to say in the military, one aw sh*te destroys a thousand atta boys.
Anything good the demigod may have said is tainted and rendered worthless because he originated and promoted the ultimate evil of permanent torture. Saying that guy is good or worthy of emulation is like saying Ted Bundy was good and worthy of emulation because he worked on a suicide prevention hotline and chased down purse snatchers.
barbaraann
(9,289 posts)It was influenced by Greek and Jewish thinking.
https://sojo.net/articles/where-did-our-ideas-about-hell-originate
My fundamentalist brother thinks that I will burn in hell just for not being a fundamentalist Christian, regardless of my moral behavior. Yes, he's a Trumper.
Bernardo de La Paz
(60,320 posts)barbaraann
(9,289 posts)Voltaire
RandomNumbers
(19,153 posts)exactly what are the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Somehow those teachings seem to get a bit scrambled in the process. Hmmm ...
Caliman73
(11,767 posts)Reading the Bible will directly will not make things any clearer. The Bible is a series of books written down from oral tradition, put together by groups of men (there are several versions of The Bible containing different versions of those books), and then translated from the various languages to the languages we use today. The different books of the Bible (and even within the same book) contain contradictory passages about the nature of god and man, what is correct and what is punishable, etc...
The teachings were already scrambled to begin with, then add modern peoples' agendas to that and you get what we have today.
RandomNumbers
(19,153 posts)I'm not much of a Bible scholar but if you stick to the red-letter words in the Gospels, the message is pretty clear.
It is also pretty clear that many right-wing evangelicals are not particularly students of the red-letter parts. In fact I have been told by fundamentalist family members that the Old Testament is supposedly just as important as the New Testament. (which I think actually is the definition of "fundamentalist" although to me it makes no sense).
Caliman73
(11,767 posts)Jesus saying that he has come to turn men against each other and family against family. Jesus telling people to "pluck out your eye" rather than look lustfully at a woman (not harass, not touch, just look) or you will burn in fire.
When we think of the Gospels, we tend to think about the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes where Jesus tells people "blessed are the meek..." but there are some pretty hardcore things in the rest of the tales.
Also, Fundamentalists basically means "literalist". Fundamentalists typically believe that the Bible was written in the "hand of God", that it is historically and morally accurate, both Old Testament and New. Many mainline Christians will discount the Old Testament saying that Jesus' coming closed that book, but Jesus himself (according to the Bible) said that he was not there to erase the old covenant but to fulfill it, which typically means that both the Old and New Testament teachings still stand.
I know in Catholic Mass, we read from both Old and New Testament every week and the priest would integrate the teachings of both into the homily. However, in Catholicism we saw the Bible as more allegorical and moral teaching, not literal and historical.
RandomNumbers
(19,153 posts)I was taking the red-letter words as more allegorical also, as I'm no fundamentalist 
I always understood the "pluck out your eye" and "cut off your hand" stuff as definitely allegorical. For example if having ice cream in the house means you will sit there and eat the whole container in one sitting, maybe stop buying ice cream. If driving to the bar will result in DUI (whether apprehended for it or not), maybe don't go to the bar unless you have a ride home? Those lessons have actually been quite helpful for some of us.
JHB
(38,178 posts)PTL_Mancuso
(276 posts). . . not just read the Bible!
Caliman73
(11,767 posts)All of the actual scholars who have used the academic and scientific methods to figure out where the Bible came from, how it was put together, etc... They don't understand the Bible, only I do!
PTL_Mancuso
(276 posts). . . not to say the books didn't or couldn't embody much of blessings and guidance of a Supreme Being (or Beings), just that over the many hundreds of years, politics has played a part in much of what comes down to us today. Sometimes, it seems kinda like the Santa Claus mythos.
pandr32
(14,244 posts)'The Church' uses ritual and a sanctioned representative to interpret scripture to the faithful. A readable copy of the Bible was not available until the 15th century and then was not widely available. There are many versions of it as well.
The whole thing is meant to control.
dchill
(42,660 posts)onecaliberal
(36,594 posts)Understand they’re the villains. They’re not following the edicts of Christ.
LiberalFighter
(53,544 posts)Did their god get sick at election time? Maybe came down with Covid?
Ocelot II
(130,468 posts)
Arthur_Frain
(2,346 posts)We need to start taxing church property. It’s long past due, and the exemptions have become increasingly abused.
ExWhoDoesntCare
(4,741 posts)Anyone who's actually read it--all of it--knows that nearly everything they believe is in there. Their deities even command them to do awful things, and call those acts a good thing.
But you don't have to take my word for it. Here's a link to some of the more, shall we say, awful verses. Hope you have plenty of time. We're talking literally thousands of them:
Injustice: https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/processlong.php?cid=2&pub=1
Intolerance: https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/processlong.php?cid=4&pub=1
Cruelty & violence: https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/processlong.php?cid=3&pub=1
Rebl2
(17,705 posts)Way past time to start taxing church properties, in particular the large churches with multiple campuses. There is a large church in my area that has a main campus and five other smaller churches in suburbs.
BlueIdaho
(13,582 posts)Hearld the end of the Christian Church. At least in America.
MorbidButterflyTat
(4,485 posts)There is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1: 9)
spanone
(141,544 posts)
AllaN01Bear
(29,438 posts)spanone
(141,544 posts)
AllaN01Bear
(29,438 posts)
AllaN01Bear
(29,438 posts)
former9thward
(33,424 posts)Speaker Pelosi thought God brought Obama.
The candidate was particularly fired up in this speech, confident and assertive, having finally shaken off the vacation dust. He was warmly received by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the hometown gal was neutral during the primary, but wasn’t shy about her Obama affection tonight, calling him “a leader that God has blessed us with at this time.”
https://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2008/08/obama-i-will-win-011040
Obama would be far more worthy of God's blessing than Trump but I doubt God had a role in either.
Happy Hoosier
(9,531 posts)One reason I think the whole idea of such a god is nonsense.
Sky Jewels
(9,148 posts)exists in the first place. Nobody has ever produced a shred of evidence to support the argument that magic and gods and other supernatural creatures are real.
I’m glad, because if a being with the power to control events on this planet and all others actually existed, you’d have to conclude it’s a murderous asshole. For example, it caused or allowed the Holocaust and other genocides, slavery, famines, wars, natural disasters, pandemics and diseases, including childhood cancer, and on and on and on.
Kingofalldems
(40,271 posts)There is no Obama cult claiming God sent him.
Walleye
(44,731 posts)Like saying we were endowed by our creator, it’s really a figure of speech, meant to say we were born with it. Of course I have no problem with that, because I consider my creator to have been my mom
progressoid
(53,161 posts)While It's not as severe as the Trumpers, the "Obama sent from God" contingent does (or did) exist.
EAST POINT, Ga. — The day after Barack Obama was elected president, Larry Younginer knelt in front of the congregants at his suburban Atlanta church and offered a prayer of thanks.
"Lord, we have again come to you in prayer, and you have heard our cries from heaven, and you have sent us again from the state called Illinois, a man called Barack to heal our land," said Younginer, a 62-year-old retired information systems worker at Coca Cola in Atlanta. "We pray that you will build a hedge around him that will protect him from those who would do him harm."
Younginer, like many others, is convinced that Obama was destined to be president. The mere fact that he won the presidency against the odds has caused some Christians, particularly African-Americans, to see the hand of God in his victory after so many years of struggle.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2008-11-29-0811280239-story.html
https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Chosen-Vessel-Change-President-ebook/dp/B079K4C8C3
hatrack
(64,839 posts). . . to rephrase slightly.
republianmushroom
(22,304 posts)NameAlreadyTaken
(2,301 posts)You would think they would choose a preacher, or at least someone who actually goes to church.
GoodRaisin
(10,893 posts)
DBoon
(24,973 posts)Trump is the best example of it
Emile
(42,210 posts)
ClimateHawk
(360 posts)They think he stole the election from trump who was sent by God. I can't make it make sense.
Emile
(42,210 posts)RKP5637
(67,112 posts)I wonder if they will feel the same when Trump crashes America and there is no rapture to carry them to heaven or wherever the fuck they think they are going.
LetMyPeopleVote
(179,571 posts)Hopefully these nutcases are too small in numbers to re-elect TFG and to destroy our democratic form of government
Link to tweet
Initech
(108,700 posts)And also fuck Lance Wallnau to the hottest of hells. Satan has a special circle in hell waiting for these cretins. 
Walleye
(44,731 posts)Eternal life, man’s most sincere desire. I can’t say whether it’s the big lie or not, but people definitely believe it. Of course they can believe in Trump if they believe that won’t die
MorbidButterflyTat
(4,485 posts)I don't want eternal life. Eternally suffering with MAGAt idiots seems more like a "hell." 
Walleye
(44,731 posts)Sky Jewels
(9,148 posts)I think and hope it's just "lights out" once we die.
But I know that I'm in the minority and that most (?) people want to go on and on and on, with no end in sight.
kimbutgar
(27,238 posts)They are all suckers in my opinion.
When I was going though my first divorce and very down a co worker invited me to her church which turned out to be evangelical. They really tried to convert me but I resisted. I finally got away by telling them I was catholic and wouldn’t change my religion and they gave up. But years later I realized they were trying to convert me during my lowest point in my life. And I suspect a lot of people get hooked into that community that tries to take over your life and money!
Tree Lady
(13,269 posts)tough family stuff, they did get me and I was all in for about 10 years. Only reason I voted for Carter was because he was born again. I was so brainwashed at the time. In my late 20's I went back to school and back to work after having two kids and my mind was opened up and clear and I quit the church, never went back.
Unfortunately I met my first husband in that church, why I had kids young and didn't attend college.
But your right they prey on people at their weakest and lowest place in their life.
kimbutgar
(27,238 posts)I was working at a bank and one of my co workers invited me to attend her church one Sunday. I went for three weeks and realized they were trying to indoctrinate me into their evangelical church. Once I realized I told her I was still catholic and wouldn’t change my religion. We still stayed friendly but I never accepted her offer to go to her church again.
Freethinker65
(11,203 posts)You need to be conditioned early on to be non-critical thinking and thus easily manipulated to believe anything a human charlatan says. Destroying public education of the masses is an essential component.
Caliman73
(11,767 posts)I used to practice. I went to Catholic school from 2nd to 12th grade. That meant weekly mass and mass on holy days of obligation. That meant Catechism Monday through Friday. I was pretty devout, until my early 20's, even though I was definitely not exemplary in following the doctrine.
One of the things that was always in the back of my mind is that in the same school, I was taught Math, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, History, etc.... which required a grounding in evidence, logical argumentation, and sourcing; in order to practice my former faith, I had to compartmentalize. I had to suspend logic, evidence, and sourcing to believe that some eternal being that I had no direct evidence for, sent his son, who was also Him, who also had a 3rd entity, who was separate but the same; to Earth, to live and die for sin committed by the first two humans, who that god created perfect, but who that god allowed to be tempted to disobey god (mind you, if god is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent then god knew this would happen), that perfection would be lost and a blood sacrifice would need to be made. I had to believe that this man, who was 100% man and 100% god died then rose from the dead, and would come back at some point to judge everyone and decide who would go to eternal happiness and who would be tortured for eternity.
Now as humans we are prone to all kinds of weird and contradictory thoughts. Being non religious doesn't confer special powers of logic. However if you are to truly follow the faith, you have to believe things you have absolutely no evidence for.
Christians will mock Mormons and everyone mocks Scientologists because "their religion is stupid and made up" but what I described above is foundational to Christianity. Sure it isn't Xenu having some space war and planting Thetans in volcanos, or Jesus coming to America and preaching to the Natives between his death and resurrection, but Christians tend to act like their beliefs are logical and Mormons and Scientologists are just weirdos.
In almost every religion, you have to shut down your logic and reasoning and believe in fantastical stories. You have to believe in things that no one has ever witnessed and take the word of ancient people who appeared to be simply trying to understand and explain their world without the modern advances in science and the accumulated knowledge we have today. Those ancient stories are the basis of action of so many people today. We mock people like this Wallnau, or the people who think that Trump was "chosen by god", but that is a matter of degrees for people who still practice most (at least theistic) religions.
yellowdogintexas
(23,693 posts)We will spend several classes studying the Mythology of the Jews (Genesis). By Definition, Mythology is the attempt of primitive peoples to explain things which they do not understand " He had a great way of debunking all the Fundamentalist theology too : "balderdash, claptrap, hogwash, gutter rubbish and poppycock" I loved that class!!! (all this current stuff would have him raging too) He is probably rolling in his grave right now
This was at a United Methodist college in Kentucky, and he was an ordained UM minister with a Divinity degree and Doctorate from Vanderbilt,
If you take a serious look at the existing big religions around the world. there are a number of common threads. I consider this amazing since they all sprung up in such a scattered manner. Step back from the religions of today into the various mythologies and many of those threads exist there.
A Chief Deity Whether God, Great Spirit, Zeus, Odin, etc. Big creation. Fall of mankind (or a certain deity in the myths)through an act performed by a few ( The Apple, sharing fire with humans etc; Epic destruction story (the Great Flood appears in many mythologies); Rebirth, whether through agricultural symbolism, reincarnation or resurrection. Big ending far in the future; Valhalla, Heaven, Nirvana. etc.
chowder66
(12,228 posts)yellowdogintexas
(23,693 posts)Watch one or two and you will get suggestion after suggestion. Well worth the time to watch/listen to them
Not all of them are anti-Christian Nationalism but the majority are, and are very well documented. The ones which defend it are few and very easy to spot after about 5 minutes.
Eduardo Cruz's father is a big cheese in the CN/7 mountains theology.
A friend here has done a deep dive into Christian Nationalism; he gives talks on it and the immense amount of money being poured into Repuke candidates from an apparent endless flow by a pair of oil barons out in West Texas. He focuses on the financing of these groups, and his wife is practically a missionary on the political impact of the subject.
Takket
(23,705 posts)a political party more than a religion, replacing the tenants of Christianity with right wing fascist beliefs.
Ilsa
(64,345 posts)
Celerity
(54,336 posts)
Orrex
(67,093 posts)They could catch him in the act of violently sodomizing their own children, and they would still mortgage their homes to help fund his legal defense.
They will worship him until the last of them has died.
uponit7771
(93,532 posts)
Mariana
(15,623 posts)The Bible is stuffed with stories about utterly despicable men whom God showered with his favor and his blessings, and whom God put into positions of great power over people. It's not the least bit out of character for the Christian god to choose someone like Trump to rule over the US.
Maxheader
(4,419 posts)told them that. parroting junior shrub...
spanone
(141,544 posts)patphil
(9,043 posts)Trump has no love in his heart. Fundamentally, he is a mean-spirited, angry, hate-filled, violent, self-serving person.
A true satanic creature of darkness.
And that makes his worshipers lesser creatures of darkness who embrace the evil that Trump exudes. They are in thrall to him, and revel in the hate he gives.
They will not abandon him no matter what he does.
yardwork
(69,352 posts)It has created a lot of tension in their marriage. She's deep into it.
MutantAndProud
(855 posts)Just wondering 🤔
I know a lot of people claim god has a sense of humor but that particular anointing would certainly take the Marie Antoinette cake 🎂
I can never tell how serious they are or when they want to joke but I feel like this should be on the table
Goonch
(4,994 posts)
Traildogbob
(13,010 posts)This time of year. Planning a huge birthday party and selecting one God praising football player over another that prays just as hard for a win and a good stat day as the winner. So he needs trump to pick up the slack and answer some on the prayers on his X account.
Trump is a loyal assistant to the real throne, waiting his turn.
He don’t even have time to celebrate with his third wife and all his spawn. But they all embrace the sacrifice, for Gawds work.
moondust
(21,284 posts)~
Some do believe that Jim Jones is God or something close to God and they worship him and if he says "do this" they're going to. Others don't believe Jones is a god, but they believe in their cause, and they have bought into his preaching that the rest of the world is coming in to get them.
~
https://www.npr.org/2017/04/11/523348069/nearly-40-years-later-jonestown-offers-a-lesson-in-demagoguery
LetMyPeopleVote
(179,571 posts)
SarahD
(1,732 posts)Just when He has me convinced that He is on the side of peace and justice, He pulls a bone head stunt like electing Trump.
tavernier
(14,437 posts)that their new ruler, Lord Vladimir, has no interest in their God. If they don’t kneel down to him exclusively, they will no longer be friends. And P.S. … Don the Con will be out of the picture so quickly, he won’t even have time to glue on his hair bits.
elleng
(141,926 posts)TheKentuckian
(26,314 posts)The shocking part is that the 30% can even breathe without life support becauae their brains are so damaged.
GreenWave
(12,626 posts)Celerity
(54,336 posts)God(s) are the oldest, biggest, most tragic, most destructive, deadliest woo ever invented in human/hominids' millions of years on the planet.
All things good in human endeavour, in human life, happen despite their invention, not because of it.
Firestorm49
(4,544 posts)Ironically that’s always around the number of staunch number that’s considered his “base.”, or “deplorables, as Hillary so aptly applied.
Sibelius Fan
(24,801 posts)After that, it’s just cherry picking self-serving bromides in a hubristic exercise in self-aggrandizement.
dalton99a
(94,095 posts)
sakabatou
(46,124 posts)spanone
(141,544 posts) 
SWBTATTReg
(26,253 posts)is pathetic and shows just how deranged, sick, and misguided these people are. They all pretend to belong in Church and are Christian in nature and such, but in truth, they are all liars and worshippers of all things gold (note, tRUMP has got a golden toilet, how ironic can you get?).
These are the present-day equivalent followers of the modern day 'Moses'/tRUMP.
Either they're ignoring what's in the Bible or listening to idiots who profess to know the word of God and the Bible (plenty of these idiots). In truth, they don't know the Bible, they don't know what a church is or the concept of a church, they don't know the cautionary words that the Bible puts out, to be beware of false prophets and such, and others who profess to know all, be all. These are not the ones to follow. You would think that someone that has a gold toilet would be the clearest clue of all, to definitely avoid like the plague.