‘God gave us Trump’: Christian media evangelicals preach a messianic message
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.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/christian-donald-trump-religion-media-b2517035.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
Left out: has real hair.
Doesn't say much good about a person's god if Donald Trump is their envoy. Of all the people god could send, they chose him... 😏
May all pussies--man, woman, and every gender--be fortunate enough to experience the grab of his glorious, tiny, and orange hand.
Amen.
Omg that made my stomach churn
If I believed that an antichrist could exist, I would be convinced it was Donald Trump. He is the opposite of what Christianity teaches yet somehow he's become their Messiah.
https://www.benjaminlcorey.com/could-american-evangelicals-spot-the-antichrist-heres-the-biblical-predictions/
Hilarious to me that trump checks nearly every box for the literal antichrist, and the Christian’s love him.
Dude if Jesus appeared tomorrow the Republicans would line up to burn him. They don’t have real beliefs, just symbols.
I was thinking of this exact thing when commenting! And now we learn that Trump was put here by God for reasons.
That's makes sense actually, anitchrist means the End Times^TM are here. Christians see that as a good thing
But isn’t getting deceived by him supposed to get you an express ticket to hell?
You’d think they’d be a little more cautious
Given the figure that most closely matches the projected boogeyman in something like 2 Thess 2 was Paul himself, they've been deceived for nearly two millennia now.
At this point, gravitating to a narcissist grifter is just par for the course.
Apocalyptic Death Cult.
Wish they would go ahead depart early.
Funnier yet that Jesus explictly warned against false profits like Trump.
*phophets, but he probably does have false profits, too.
Matthew 7:15-20
It's an interesting passage and possibly in the M source. Unless of course you were talking about the Mark passage.
His name is 669 when put into Aramaic and that old Middle East way of counting is applied to the letters?
Teasing. I take your meaning.
WPWJG ...preach
Ooo do me next Jesus kun uwu
So the best God could give you all is a narcissistic, socipathic manchild with a spray tan...? That's a big yikes. These people are delusional.
If god gives you trump, you apologize, because you did something wrong.
My goodness are these people really this deluded?
Isn't donny dump like the exact personification of all the christian sins?
Greed(obviously)
sloth/gluttony (fatass loves Mc D's also obvious)
pride(uh, he's the best at everything according to him?)
Envy probably
Lust obviously
Wrath. I dunno, anger?
They're dumb bro. Or they're evil. Or both
"Biden made grocery more expensive!"
Looks at multibillion dollar corps bribing congress
"I see nothing wrong here"
The book of Daniel lays out what the anti-christ will do and how he will behave. It describes Trump perfectly.
Evangelicals want the world to end so they can be raptured. To them, Trump is a gift from God.
Yes.
God gave us Trump...
... 'cause he ran out of fucking locusts.
Currently, the law prohibits political campaign activity by charities and churches by defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one "which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."
Ehhh, the issue is that's not really well-enforced, and the churches know that. They know that as long as they aren't OUTRIGHT telling people "go down to the polls and vote for Trump", but instead couching it in semi-religious language, they're pretty safe from anyone poking at them for this - the IRS is extremely gun-shy about trying to nab anyone on this anymore.
How are some people so ignorant to all the terrible things he's done? No one ever fact checks on anything and it's seriously depressing
Remember this is not a failure of conclusions (Trump is sent by god), but a failure of proceedings (belief and faith is superior to facts and reality).
They lack the critical thinking skills to even begin to digest and elaborate an argument that relies of evidence and principled thinking. They don't evaluate reality on principles, they evaluate reality on emotion, identity and authority above all else. Therefore, fact checking is not even a possibility.
He was already known as a sleazy conman and the butt of jokes for decades before he won in 2016. How could they not know?
my guess is he's just so similar to the sleazy conmen in American mega churches
Ding ding ding
Maybe the joke went over their heads?
I've heard many say they don't like what he has done but somehow he is still the best thing ever in spite of that.
Maybe it ties into the Christian redemption thing.
From what I gather, many evangelicals who support Trump see him as a fighter against a corrupt worldly government and a champion of their causes.
Then there's the MAGA concept, which plays into their Great Replacement paranoia (the fear that the white Protestant American majority is being replaced by non-whites and non-believers).
The fact that he is about as far from Christ-like as it's possible to be doesn't seem to deter them all that much.
That’s a big part of it, same reason they let rapist pastors stay in positions of authority. The entire belief system is ripe for abusing
Hmm, its seems as if these Christian fellows are quite nieve and easy to fool into believing any old nonsense.
please report this church to the IRS
What happened to Romans 13:1
They sure seemed eager to use that when Trump got into power.
Same thing that happened to Mark 12:17
And yet they do anything they can to avoid paying taxes.
And let's not forget Mark 10:25
Yet they glorify a man who brags about how rich he is.
How is it that I, an atheist Jew, know Jesus better than they do?
Because you aren't following "the Spirit" (aka listen to your religious leaders dogmatically and tell yourself you are correct because you misinterpret your confirmation bias as spiritual guidance).
That's because it was a sidestep answer. In that religion, all things belong to God. Caesar minted the money using their own gold. So, all roman money belonged to caesar and you had to pay your taxes using roman money. The question is then "what exactly is Caesar's and whats gods?" The rabbis couldn't follow up with that question without getting crucified themselves.
That "interpretation" of that story came about after king Charles wanted to raise taxes to raise an army to put down an Irish rebellion. Rightly, parliament didn't trust him to do that and not use the army on them straight after. So, they refused and said the king has no right to force them to do so.
Then, all of a sudden, as if by magic, king Charles was like "you'll never guess what I just found in the bible. Yup, it says so right here. God says you all have to give me money. I know, I know, I couldn't believe my luck when I found it too. Good job I'm a king and wouldn't lie about such things."
The more reasonable christians out there who still believe that aren't dramatic enough for the headlines.
Yeps remember when Jeff Sessions said that to justify kids in cages. The night he said that was my last connection to organized religion.
For the lord sayeth, thou shalt grab them by the pussy.
WPWJG?
People thinking Trump is a Christian symbol is the biggest con ever.
He's literally the antithesis of everything children are taught in Sunday school. Greedy, cheats on his wife, a bully, not humble, etc.
Anti-christ is a Christian symbol, It even fits in the end of time they're jerking off to.
Umm, haha.. I hate to tell you, but you’ve been worshiping satan.
Don't you dare slander Satan this way!
Why can't I escape Dune? Maybe the worse novel I ever read except I managed to get into about halfway into the sequel which is somehow even lower.
The only things I like about the Dune franchise
The original movie. Most excellent. Almost no religious bullshit and plenty of worms
Teasing a friend of mine in IT about how in the Dune universe IT has to "service" the Mentants and clean the tanks of the navigators.
I still can't get over the fact that the book has extra chapters of explanation of the plot in the back. You have to do fucking homework to read the novel!
Couldn't just gradually fill in details as it went along like every sci-fi novel out there?
I was a bit curious how buddhaislam was supposed to work.
Here, here! I fucking hate Tolkeins writing. Hell even Asimov gets into way too much tellling, not showing. I most certainly am not reading some fucking appendix because the author is too much of a hack to write some exposition between a few characters explaining the rules of the story. It's like fucking Niel Stevenson giving a very bland and basic-ass lesson in vocabulary at the start of Anathem. Go climb up into your asshole farther, Niel. If I'm reading sci-fi in English I know how to look up a word, and most certainly don't need you to fucking explain it to me.
Satan with a hair piece and spray-on tan
They do love a useful idiot.
This is all such absolute insanity. So disappointed in the human race these days.
22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name...23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Matt 7:22..., 23 NIV
Lol imagine meeting Jesus and he tells you to fuck off
I mean, yeah. It's happened before. :)
Which is why we blame Christianity for his sorry ass.
Christianity and capitalism
American trail mix
How is this not endorsing political candidates which means their tax exemption should be revoked?
Tell the IRS to withdraw his tax-exempt status stat.
After he croaks itll be, "Trump gave us..." which id argue is infinitely stupider than believing an unseen, unprovable entity being behind Sr. Racismo.
Technically the antichrist is sent by God also
Nothing they need to do about it then. Their God wouldn't be so weak that 90 some court cases and a lack of funds could stop their Chosen One right?
I get the feeling a carpenter-turned-messiah wouldn't choose a dude who is well known for not paying his contractors.
... That's because he's a criminal, love.
The man is the living embodiment of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. And this is the guy God sent? Maybe there is a reason for that.
Jesus would be pissed if he heard this. Too bad he is make believe like his dad.
The historical existence of Jesus is not disputed.
Don't worry. These are the same people who think that reindeer and narwhals are also fictional.
Yeah, I totally meant that a man named Jesus never existed.
Really though, Jesus never turned a man unblind nor a river into wine. It's all story time in Gallilee.
Attack ideas not people please. It ought to be really easy for you to present evidence for your Messiah.
We aren't saying Jesus was a messiah or in any way divine, but he was there and did things (probably different from what Christianity claims)
You can dislike and oppose Christianity w/o denying the fact that Jesus exists.
Ok you weakened your claim. Fine, now prove your weakened claim. This really shouldn't be that difficult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus
Don't stop reading there. Wikipedia is biased. I'm making a talk point to remove that line because it's biased and unnecessary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
And? 95% of the humans race believes in some form of God. About 66% of biblical scholars believe the Resurrection was a true historical event as well as the gospel author citations being accurate
Are you being intentionally clueless? The image specifically says "modern scholars", whereas all of your examples are of unqualified people. Moreover, most scholars of antiquity are not Christian.
Yes modern scholars. The typical modern scholar of the bible believes the events really happened and the attributions are correct.
How much longer are you going to continue to use the circular logic of something is true because it is believed to be true and it is believed to be true because people believe that it is true?
Present evidence, not arguments from authority or No True Scotsmen. I can demonstrate vaccines work by data not be invoking some doctor who said something one time.
Bro it's 2024. The sky being blue is disputed.
Are you sure about that?
Nobody’s “sure”, but there are enough records and accounts to be reasonably confident that among the many traveling rabbis collecting followers in Roman Judaea was one from Nazareth named Joshua/Jesus, and that he was executed for political activities.
That’s it though.
Beyond that, his story is largely a creation of his followers, some of whom were apocalyptically charismatic enough in their own right to keep an ember alive, and eventually it sort of spread among the Jewish diaspora and the military, and happened to be in (relative) ascendance with the latter when an Eastern emperor needed to rethink some political strategies.
After that, it’s largely survivorship bias, with every hint of writing about him being preserved, transcribed, recreated, or invented from whole cloth, and anything from his contemporary itinerant preachers being ignored or suppressed.
Not quite. In fact, there's a rather significant survivorship bias around the versions of Jesus. Literally the very earliest primary documents involve someone known for persecuting Christians telling Christians in an area he has no authority to persecute that they should abandon other versions of Jesus they accepted or other gospels in favor of the version he claimed based on spiritual visions of someone he never met in life.
We have nothing but fragments recorded by its critics of the Gospel of the Egyptians, for example, and the Gospel of Thomas we only have because of a single person burying it in a jar around the time it became punishable by death to possess.
The version of Jesus with female disciples that was talking about Greek atomism and Epicurean proto-evolutionary thought is actually super interesting historically given the overall philosophy, but it's barely extant and only is because of archeological discoveries after the church lost effectively mega-monarchal status to just become a mega corporation instead.
And even in the modern era discoveries the church has any purview over like the Mar Saba letter abruptly go missing before it can be further validated by scholars.
The survivorship around "other versions" of Jesus look like they were conducted by Stalin with a two millennia reach. It involved literally burning down the successor to the library of Alexandria (and with it sources potentially related to a "Gospel of the Egyptians").
May I see those records? Contemporary first hand please.
Also I was wondering if you could explain why Paul never mentions Nazareth or anyone else until Mark needs a name of smallest toen he can find in the area. Man, Mark could really set a scene well.
Yes. Was he the son of god or messiah? No. Be he was around and did spread something religious.
Prove it.
The historical existence of several Jewish reformers of the era baked into a singular allegory is not disputed.
Ergo, he's make believe - just like his dad.
You don't have to deny Jesus' existence, which is overtly true, to deny that what he taught was true— or the same as modern day Christianity
It's not worth arguing with the folk that push this narrative.
If they are as poorly informed to make the argument it's likely in large part because of an affinity for the concept greater than an affinity for knowledge of any details surrounding it.
So providing a counterpoint or more details just falls on willfully deaf ears.
To be fair though, the blame falls more on proselytizers deafening so many ears with their bullshit than on the people with such an acquired distaste for the canonical Jesus that they feel the need to throw out historical Jesus with the bathwater. I definitely get the sentiment, even if the historical Jesus became one of my hyperfocus interests over the past few years.
Given that you just saw someone dispute it, you know that isn't true.
Obviously there are fringe cases. His existence (not his role as Messiah— you seem to be conflating the two) is not disputed by modern scholars of antiquity.
Argument from authority
Ha ha ha, Jesus never existed. Stop living in the Bronze Age.
You don't have to deny Jesus' existence, which is overtly true, to deny that what he taught was true— or the same as modern day Christianity
Jesus did not exist, which is overtly true.
Yeah! And neither did Pontius Pilate! \s
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilate_stone
Contemporary physical evidence of Pilate. Please produce some for your Messiah.
Our messiah? accepting Jesus' existence historically does not mean we are Christians
I don't give a flying fuck about a "messiah." I just don't see any good reason to deny the existence of a historical figure (in this case, a Jewish carpenter who pissed people off and got executed for it) out of pure delusional spite.
exactly. no one is delusional enough to think he was real.
You don't have to deny Jesus' existence, which is overtly true, to deny that what he taught was true— or the same as modern day Christianity
extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof by those making the claim. good luck.
How is "some guy existed and said something about religion but idk what he said" extraordinary?
Very well. Explain where all the traditions about his acts and sayings came from. There is evidence of attestation and you should be able to address that.
Because the whole thing is a con explanation does address that. They were running a grift and that was it. Of course the stories and sayings are all mixed up, liars need amazing memories. And of course the Jerusalem church was doing well they could draw in the crowds each week with yet another amazing adventure of Jesus.
The Moron Messiah, King of the Assholes, Hero to the Stupid
Per their beliefs…kind of, right?
God also gave them Biden
Speaker Mike Johnson said God appointed Biden as president
You know when religious apologist say "Why would so many believe it back in the day if it was fake???"
Tell them it's 2023, we have the internet, video, photos and morons still believe the shit Trump says....
"And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also.
Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not back."
No I don't think God hates us that much
If there is a God he probably rarely thinks about us.
Think about it. How often do you think about ants? Probably close to never, and if you do it's probably because they're in your shit or because you accidentally killed a bunch of them.
But what do you do when you accidentally kill some ants? 🤷♂️ oopsies
It's interesting how over time the known universe keeps growing so as you put it any god out there keeps getting more distance from us.
At one point earth was it and the stuff in the sky moved under a dome. Also monotheism wasn't a thing yet so your god was basically just some dead warrior that sometimes took human form. Like Spawn or something. That is a god you can sorta relate to.
Now they are saying there is at least 2 trillion galaxies possibly 8 trillion and also the universe might be a lot older than the 13 billion number. That is a lot less relatable.
God: stop bothering me for a cure for your cancer, I am busy making elementary particle strings do probability wiggles things in like 15 spacial dimensions on a single rock 12 billion light years from you.
Well shit, you make it sound like wiggling elementary particles on a lifeless iron-silicon based planet 12 billion light years away sound like a waste of time!
"Evangelicals demonstrate that their beliefs aren't not, in fact, closely held."
In a sane world the blatant hypocrisy would be a slam dunk in terms of removing any protections or privileges they enjoy as a "religion."
I covfefed a little reading this.
They should all move to Russia to show their dedication
Kids, doing drug is bad!
Eucharist, not even once.
"as punishment"
Not my God. I'm an atheist.
Something something, this sounds like the prophecy of the coming antichrist
Jim Baker cheated on his wife too.
She was always more Christlike but he’s always been more pastor like
well, in that case fuck you so very much god
He’s their Lisan al Gaib.
Yeah thankfully that’s the only part of the metaphor that holds… american evangelicals are about as far from a hardened warrior society as you can get…
… so the evangelicals love trump because he represents everything they are?
At his next rally, I imagine he'll waddle onstage to Jesus, He Knows Me.
Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV, Cross, Bible.
Please stop him
The good lord actually gave you everything and everyone, dumbass, stop picking and choosing
I was these many years old when repubes mocked Obama by calling him “ThEir MesSiaH”. Every fucking thing is a projection.
'True' Christianity was probably something radically different from what survived the filter of initially Jerusalem's influence and then later Rome's.
At this point, it's just a grab bag of "pick your own Christianity" with a high likelihood none of them are 100% a reflection of the original.
I don't agree. Christianity exists today because of the institutions that Paul built not because of any given Gospel that they had. Institutions always win out over ideas. The "true" Christianity was the church. Even if something Gnostic had worked it's way into the Bible it isn't like there would be a major difference in how the religion operates.