Donald Trump’s religious-right allies have not been shy about claiming that he was anointed by God to lead the United States. It’s been going on since Trump’s first presidential campaign and gained new intensity since Trump survived an assassination attempt last year. Trump has been happy to amplify his supporters’ claim that he was chosen—and saved—by God to carry out a divine mission as president.
Now Trump, a relentless fundraiser, has adopted a fundraising tactic employed by his spiritual and political adviser, White House aide Paula White. White is a proponent of the prosperity gospel, with a track record of promising supporters that they can obtain spiritual blessings by sending her money. Prosperity preachers call this “sowing a seed of faith,” and many Christians consider White and the prosperity gospel heretical.
But it seems to bring in the bucks, so it’s not entirely surprising that Trump has decided to borrow the rhetorical device. In an email sent to MAGA supporters today, Trump tells supporters, “I need you NOW” and urges them to send him money to defeat the “radical left” on which he has declared war:
And remember this – when you give, you are not just contributing to a political cause. You are sowing a SEED OF FAITH into the future of our Nation.
The Bible tells us faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. And together, our faith will move America back to GOD. Back to TRUTH. Back to GREATNESS.
Trump’s email opens with the kind of rhetoric employed by religious-right operatives who portray those who disagree with them as enemies of God:
Since the day I returned to the White House, I have felt the mighty hand of God guiding this movement. His Word reminds us: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
The enemies of freedom thought they could break us with lies, with courts, with endless persecution – but they were WRONG.
The virtual merger between the evangelical right and the MAGA movement was on display at last weekend’s gathering in honor of the murdered MAGA activist Charlie Kirk, which was partly an evangelical worship service, partly a MAGA rally, and partly a call to war against “the left,” the “forces of evil,” and the movement’s enemies. While Kirk’s widow and successor as head of TPUSA Erika Kirk said she forgave his killer and talked about the Christian imperative to love one’s enemies, she was followed to the microphone by Trump who, in addition to his typical litany of grievances, directly contradicted her when he said he does not love his opponents but hates them, thus giving the event’s massive audience permission to ignore her call to Christian conscience and embrace his call to war.
