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Guest Essay

By Thomas B. Edsall

Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.

On Oct. 15, 2020, in a rare display of humility, Donald Trump told a campaign rally in Greenville, N.C., that he was not as famous as Jesus Christ.

“Somebody said to me the other day ‘You’re the most famous person in the world by far.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ They said, ‘Yes, you are. I said no.’ They said, ‘Who’s more famous?’ I said, ‘Jesus Christ.’ ”

This exhibition of modesty was out of character.

Trump, his family and his supporters have been more than willing to claim that Trump is ordained by God for a special mission, to restore America as a Christian nation.

In recent weeks, for example, the former president posted a video called “God Made Trump” on Truth Social that was produced by a conservative media group technically independent of the Trump campaign. He has also screened it at campaign rallies.

The video begins as a narrator with a voice reminiscent of Paul Harvey’s declares: “On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God gave us Trump.”

Why was Trump chosen? The video continues:

God had to have someone willing to go into the den of vipers. Call out the fake news for their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s. The poison of vipers is on their lips. So God made Trump.

The video claims to quote God directly:

God said, “I will need someone who will be strong and courageous. Who will not be afraid or terrified of wolves when they attack. A man who cares for the flock. A shepherd to mankind who won’t ever leave or forsake them. I need the most diligent worker to follow the path and remain strong in faith. And know the belief in God and country.”

The “God Made Trump” video was created by the Dilley Meme Team, described by Ken Bensinger of The Times as

an organized collective of video producers who call themselves “Trump’s Online War Machine.” The group’s leader, Brenden Dilley, characterizes himself as Christian and a man of faith, but says he has never read the Bible and does not attend church. He says that Mr. Trump has “God-tier genetics” and, in response to the outcry over the “God Made Trump” video, Dilley posted a meme depicting Mr. Trump as Moses parting the Red Sea.

The video, along with Eric Trump’s claim that his father “literally saved Christianity” and the image Trump himself reposted on Truth Social of Jesus sitting next to him in court, raise a question: Does Trump believe that he is God’s messenger or are his direct and indirect claims to have a special relationship with God a cynical ploy to win evangelical votes?

I posed this and other questions to Barry Hankins, a professor of history at Baylor and editor of the Journal of Church and State. Hankins replied by email: “Over the years since there has been a growing chorus of voices saying Trump is the defender of Christians and Christianity. Trump says this himself all the time, ‘When they come after me, they’re really coming after you.’ ”

There are photos, Hankins continued, “of evangelicals laying hands on him in the Oval Office, which is something that Christians do when they ordain pastors or commission missionaries, or Jan. 6 insurrectionists carrying large crosses and praying as they attack the Capitol. People at his rallies carrying signs that say, ‘Thank you Lord Jesus for President Trump.’ And on and on.”

I asked Hankins whether Trump’s evangelical supporters “see him as a Jesus-like figure?”

Hankins replied, “I think ‘Jesus-like’ is well put. When the indictments came down during Lent last spring, there were references to the powers of government going after Trump like the Roman Empire went after Jesus.”

Trump’s evolution into a Jesus-like figure for some, but not all, white evangelicals began soon after he launched his first presidential campaign. As David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University explained by email:

Some of Trump’s Christian followers do appear to have grown to see him as a kind of religious figure. He is a........

© The New York Times