Last month Trump vowed to defend Christianity and urged Christians to vote for him

“This is really a battle between good and evil,” evangelical TV preacher Hank Kunneman says of the slew of criminal charges facing Donald Trump. “There’s something on President Trump that the enemy fears: It’s called the anointing.”

The Nebraska pastor, who was speaking on cable news show “FlashPoint” last summer, is among several voices in Christian media pressing a message of Biblical proportions: The 2024 presidential race is a fight for America’s soul, and a persecuted Trump has God’s protection.

“They’re just trying to bankrupt him. They’re trying to take everything he’s got. They’re trying to put him in prison,” author, media personality and self-proclaimed prophet Lance Wallnau said in October on “The Jim Bakker Show”, an hour-long daily broadcast that focuses on news and revelations about the end times that it says we are living in.

  • seth@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    In that warped eschatology subculture, a common belief is that the antichrist will be raised in the church and come to power by deceiving the church into thinking he’s a prophet or messianic figure. Basically any authoritarian they choose to follow is the perfect figure to fit their beliefs. With Trump, for instance, they can point to “Christian” actions like blind support for Israel as the representatives of the original “chosen people” or his role in anti-choice enforcement or any us-vs-them conflict action that makes them feel like they are the current chosen people. Then if he turns out to be just another bad person who deceived them, they’ll mark it off as a fluke, immediately forget all the evil they helped him do, and look for the next antichrist candidate.

    Evangelicalism is a very sinister belief system. They literally want the rapture/tribulation to come about as soon as possible, preferably in their lifetime. They don’t actually care about any of the people they think are non-chosen. I would say the Calvinists/Reformed Protestants are even worse, because they believe the verses about some people being ordained before birth to be “elected” by God to be saved without any say of their own, and the vast majority of people are also predestined for eternal destruction (https://www.learnreligions.com/five-point-calvinism-700356).

    And they all vote.