Religious rhetoric surrounding Trump and the assassination attempt is likely to become supercharged at this week’s Republican National Convention.
WASHINGTON – A failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has only strengthened the belief of some of his most faithful supporters that he is chosen by God to lead the country.
After a 20-year-old gunman opened fire at Trump’s rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania, Saturday, injuring the former president in his right ear, Trump said in a Truth Social post that it was “God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.”
“We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness,” he added.
The assassination attempt and growing political turmoil in the country permeated religious services across the nation in the hours after the shocking Pennsylvania shooting, with many leaders calling for unity in a troubling national moment.
Religious rhetoric surrounding Trump and the assassination attempt is likely to become supercharged at this week’s Republican National Convention as tens of thousands of the party’s faithful, many of whom are evangelical Christians, gather en masse in Milwaukee.
“It’s going to ramp up, and there will be certain types of evangelicals who almost see this as a sacred event when he gets up there in Milwaukee,” said John Fea, a religious historian at Messiah University in Pennsylvania. “It’s an example of an extreme patriotism that animates some Trump followers with Christianity. There’s no separation of the two.”
The messaging could embolden Christian nationalist discourse that the former president and his allies have used to portray Trump as a Messiah-like figure on the campaign trail.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that “God is not through with President Trump.” Conservative commentator John Sabal, who runs The Patriot Voice Truth Social account, posted that Trump was “MADE for such a time as this to be God’s vessel to restore America in her darkest hour. He will NOT leave you or forsake you. EVER” – a post that garnered over 12,000 likes.
Experts warn that this rhetoric is likely to spill into the Republican National Convention this week as the former president gears up to officially accept his party’s nomination.
“I expect to hear people saying that this was a warning about how America needs to turn back to God, that (the Republican Party) is the right party, and this is the right vote because it’s clear that God is on our side,” said Anthea Butler, chair of the department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Growing movement toward Christian nationalism
Religion has long been intertwined with politics, but a growing movement pushing for an effective Christian theocracy has found something of a standard-bearer in Trump, according to Andrew Whitehead, executive director of the Association of Religion Data Archives at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University Indianapolis.
Whitehead is one in a long list of experts raising alarm about the growing influence of a Christian nationalist movement spreading across the country.
“Christian nationalism is a cultural framework – a collection of powerful narratives, symbols, identities, and policy preferences – that idealizes and advocates for a fusion of a particular expression of Christianity with American civic life,” Whitehead said.
At its roots, the movement asserts that a certain view of Christian values must be the law of the land, guided by “moral traditionalism” backed by “populism and conspiratorial thinking,” added Whitehead.
The contemporary Christian nationalist movement is often traced back to The Moral Majority, a political group founded in 1979 by the late televangelist Jerry Falwell and championed by conservative Catholics and evangelicals.
Falwell’s group was a response to the liberal and progressive policies prominent through the 1960s and 1970s, seeking a return to Christian Fundamentalist values in various facets of American life.
Although Trump has become an almost messianic figure to some, Whitehead said the former president hasn’t changed the movement so much as he’s found a way to wield it.
“If anything, he has only come to recognize the power of Christian nationalist rhetoric over the years,” said Whitehead.
For instance, in February, Trump claimed at the National Religious Broadcasters International Christian Media Convention in Tennessee that the left “want to tear down crosses where they can, and cover them up with social justice flags.”
An investigation continues into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Bulter, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
“But no one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration, I swear to you,” he said.
He has also slammed Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw Trump’s hush money trial, saying that Merchan “looks like an angel, but he’s really a devil.”
Emily Crews, the executive director of the Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School, said that Trump using “FEAR NOT” in his Truth Social post after the shooting is an “intentional rhetorical choice.”
“There are many moments in the Bible when people are told, ‘fear not,’ often when the divine appears to them after tragedy or opposition or in moments of promise… I think this biblical language will be meaningful to Trump’s Christian supporters when they read his comments,” she said.
One of the core differences that set Christian nationalist rhetoric apart from politically involved Christians is the relationship between the country and God, said multiple experts.
Christian nationalists tend to hold that the nation is part of God’s divine plan and so a failed assassination may be taken as a sign to some that Trump was saved as part of some prophetic design.
“If you’re a Christian nationalist, you believe that God’s hand is on this nation, that God has a plan for America and that this nation was set up to be a Christian nation in the first place,” Butler said. “If you’re Christian nationalist and you are also for Trump, you believe that God moved that bullet.”
News of shooting theme of Sunday services
News of the shooting peppered many Sunday sermons, mirroring mainstream religious calls for unity and prayers for the Pennsylvania victims. In Tennessee, Bishop Joseph W. Walker III, senior leader of Nashville’s Mt. Zion Baptist Church, a historically Black church, called on both sides of the political aisle to unify.
“We need to pray for our country,” Walker said. “It doesn’t matter what your political position is, your stances, etc. Nobody, no one running for office in a free democracy deserves to have an assassination attempt levied against them. Nobody.”
At an interfaith rally on Sunday in Milwaukee, organizers worked to shed light on what they saw as the dangers of Christian nationalism.
Richard Shaw, a pastor at St. Matthew CME Church and president of the Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope, said the event was necessary to show the world that “there’s a group of religious leaders who do not stand for white Christian nationalism.”
Dennis Jacobson, a founding pastor of MICAH, said privileging Christianity would “destroy our multicultural democracy and kill the dream of a beloved community for which so many people are striving.”
“If white Christian nationalism prevails, you may soon know what it’s like to live in an authoritarian society,” Jacobson said.
Still, other experts say while some Christians may view Trump as divinely appointed, it is not uncommon or a radical belief in Christianity to pray for leaders.
“It’s not partisan to pray, it’s actually a scriptural command for all Christians – in this case, whether they support a candidate or not,” said Ed Stetzer, dean of the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, in La Mirada, California.
“I am joining with countless others of millions of Christians, some whom support and some who didn’t support (Trump), in praying for him and praying for our country,” he added. “This is a dangerous time.”
Several dozen people gathered at Zeidler Union Square Sunday afternoon in Milwaukee for a prayer vigil for Trump. The gathering was hosted by conservative group Turning Point Action.
A handful of pastors from across Wisconsin, including Milwaukee pastor Marty Calderon, prayed for Trump’s recovery and thanked God for saving his life. At times, they encouraged praying for the safety of President Joe Biden and elected officials in Congress, whether Republican or Democratic.
“I was asked to come pray for our nation, for our country … I don’t care if you’re Democrat, Republican, I don’t care who you believe in,” Calderon told the Journal Sentinel.
