In all the sturm und drang of the Kavanaugh-Ford hearings, a Religion News Service story by Steve Rabey (an early GetReligion contributor) on a new Christian film about Donald Trump escaped many peoples’ notice.
Which is unfortunate, in that secular America doesn’t get how vehemently many people believe that God orchestrated President Trump’s 2016 victory. And what’s more, many of those people believe God has mandated another victory for Trump in 2020.
You’ve not heard this? Folks, you’re not reading the right web sites. More below:
(RNS) — Mark Taylor is sure he knows why Donald Trump became president.
Forget Hillary hatred, white anger, Russian interference or voter turnout. Trump’s victory was God’s will, said Taylor. Taylor said he knows this because God told him so.
In 2011, while watching an interview with Trump on TV, Taylor says he heard a voice saying, “The Spirit of God says I’ve chosen this man, Donald Trump, for such a time as this.”
And the Almighty is just getting started, said Taylor, a former firefighter who has published 23 “prophetic words,” many about Trump’s presidency.
The presidential prediction is detailed in “The Trump Prophecy,” a new film produced with the help of faculty and students at Liberty University — some of whom later rejected its message — that will be shown in some 1,200 theaters on Oct. 2 and 4.
It’s not so much evangelical Protestants who are pushing this idea, but a daughter movement made up of charismatics and Pentecostals (linked up with Liberty University film people). I’ve been amazed over the years how few religion reporters follow these folks, even though this demographic was instrumental in getting Trump elected. Plus, a growing percentage of world Christianity is Pentecostal/charismatic (see this classic major Pew Forum study). Visit Brazil, if you don’t believe me. And much of Africa.
The film is part of a small but influential “Trump prophecy” movement that proclaims the current administration is divinely ordained and condemns its critics as servants of Satan.