Inside the Evangelical Vision of Apocalypse Driving Trump’s Friendship with Israel
Why do so many Christian evangelicals support Trump? Why are they unshakably loyal to him? And why has the U.S. under Trump aligned itself so thoroughly with Israel, even risking unrest in the Middle East in the process?
He then explains how Trump has rallied support for this base and used U.S. foreign policy to fulfill elements of their prophecies.
As a result, many evangelicals see Trump as an essential religious figure, and support him accordingly.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the world was changing fast; too fast for throngs of people, who felt overwhelmed, disempowered and helpless to the relentless pace of global politics.
Darwin’s theory of evolution, gargantuan wars like World War I, literary criticism of the Bible, exposure to other religions, the sinking of the Titanic, economic crises; all these moments shook millions of protestants in America, who turned to their bibles to try and grasp the fast-changing world around them.
And what they saw sparked a fundamental change in American theology, which has in turn influenced American politics and foreign policy. It may be the reason Trump is president today . This re-reading “promises people a revelation that they can make sense of the chaos they see in the world around them,” Sutton says.
Many became convinced that we were living in the End Times—that the prophesied day of judgement is imminent; that the Second Coming of Jesus will happen in their lifetimes.
According to Sutton, they then used this re-reading of the bible as a lens through which to analyze global geopolitics and estimate exactly when Judgement Day would come and what should happen politically to ensure its arrival.
In the bible, a future battle takes place in the Valley of Armageddon; an actual location in Israel, and there, an antichrist will arise and be defeated, thus prompting the rapture, where true believers (evangelicals) are lifted into heaven while those who refuse to convert are left to rot on Earth. Passages that discussed this, which were once obscure, became critical to evangelical theology.
Evangelicals understand this prophesied battle in literal terms; that this battle will take place soon, and the global unrest taking place in the early 20th century onwards were preludes to that battle. A central requisite to the prophecy was the return of the Jewish people to their spiritual homeland: Israel. So they became Christian Zionists and advocated strongly for mass Jewish migration to Palestine.
They began publishing materials related to this political understanding of Chrisitanity. They held conferences and they traveled widely, speaking with politicians and seeking converts. All the while, they became obsessed with prophecy.
Evangelical preachers sold their apocalyptic vision to the public, saying “everything we told you that was going to happen is beginning to happen. We’re moving to war, we’re moving to chaos. People are defying traditional authority, people are moving away from traditional Chrstianity. So these signs are beginning to appear,” Sutton explains.
Evangelical preacher John Hagee speaking to a crowd (AFP/FILE)
Over time, evangelicals' influence grew and many of their preachers became celebrated American figures, steeping mainstream religious discourse in apocalyptic, prophetic interpretations of the world.
Famed evangelical preacher Aimee McPherson introduced prophetic messages to millions over radio broadcasts in the early 20th century. Billy Graham then brought those same fundamentalist interpretations of the bible into the living rooms of millions of Americans through regular televised broadcasts, emerging as one of the most influential religious figures in U.S. history.
Other popular figures like John Hagee, founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, made sure to communicate the urgency of supporting Israel as the End Days draws ever-nearer.
With a century-long, nationwide campaign to convert people of all faiths to this radical understanding of the bible and global politics, evangelicals became the single-largest religious group in the U.S.
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Eighty-one percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump, which is a breathtaking margin considering evangelicals represent an estimated one-third of the total U.S. population.
Trump has taken note of this support and acted accordingly to cement it: “he has made so many efforts to reach out to the Envagelcials, it’s clear… that he thinks they’re extremely powerful and influential and he’s making moves to make sure he’s got them lined up behind him for 2020,” Sutton says.
He appointed Mike Pence, a hyper-conservative evangelical to be his running mate during the 2016 presidential campaign. During his presidency, he appointed Mike Pompeo, an evangelical who is reportedly devout to the Judgement Day prophecy, as the Secretary of State.
Evangelicals laud the fact that he moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, a sign that the U.S. views Jerusalem as the capital of a Jewish homeland, and that he’s now moving to recognize Israel as the sovereign power over the hotly contested Golan Heights.
To them, Trump is “trying to reclaim what they would see as the land that God gave to the Jews, that Trump is helping restore that land to the Jews—give it back to the rightful owners.” All this appears to them as ways Trump is ensuring Jews control Israel/Palestine and thus fulfill a critical part of the apocalyptic prophecy.
Trump is viewed as a messenger and gift from God who has been adorned with the presidency to cultivate ties with Israel and materialize the End Days.
“A lot of us would admit that it wasn’t by chance that President Trump got into office… There was a spiritual battle going on,” evangelical preacher Billy Crone explained on a radical news outlet called Prophecy Watchers, which is entirely dedicated to demonstrating just how close we all are to Judgement Day.
“But the Jewish people even more so believe, and this is their words not mine, that our president, President Donald Trump, was put there by the hand of God.”
Almost half of Americans polled think the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur before 2050, and many consider Trump and Jews to be instrumental figures in bringing about these prophecies.
Because they are merely tools in the prophecy and are utterly disposable, with most of them prophesied to die violently in the apocalypse, many critics have claimed that evangelical zionists have embedded antisemitism into their support for Israel.
Though contemporary evangelicals dodge or deny the question of antisemitism, Sutton notes that they have not altered this element of this theology and still maintain that Jews are instrumental to the coming of the antichrist and are mostly fated to die in service to the savior of the Christians.
For Sutton, the ongoing appeal that such an apocalyptic vision has, and the reason why it could gain so much political potency, is that it represents an attempt to not only understand world events, but have a say in influencing them.
It speaks to a central disempowerment millions have felt for over a century; a sense that their lives are not controlled by their own actions but over-arching structures and powers moving their lives for them.
Evangelicals praying in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Shutterstock)
“When we look at why evangelicalism went from this very small segment of Christianity… to just dominating American politics and culture today, I think part of it is this apocalyptic theology. Because It motivates them to act. It’s what motivated this army of believers who have gone out to try and change the country and try and change the world,” Sutton says.
“Because the world is a scary, crazy place and unpredictable and there is violence and death and destruction and horror, and they’re the ones stepping forward saying they can explain it,” Sutton says.
For many, they react to this overwhelming feeling of disempowerment by subscribing to broad ideologies that simplify the world’s events into compelling narratives and give them a supporting role to play: some opt for Trump’s America Firstism, or obsess about the Mueller report, or join various socialist movements, or vote for Brexit, or join radical groups, or begin over-emphasizing the importance of charity work and NGOs to be panaceas for the world’s ills. Others yet give up and drop out entirely, focusing their energies on drugs, despair, niche interests, creative self-expression.
For nearly 100 million American evangelicals, they see the pace of politics, and feel as if it cannot go at this rate for much longer without crashing into a wall fated to halt everything and provide a final, binding and transcendent meaning for all the suffering.
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