Why do evangelicals love Trump? The answer is obvious

Donald Trump has been called a of things. He’s been compared to a mob boss, dismissed as a grifter, and condemned as a bully. They’re all apt comparisons.

But there’s another parallel that’s even closer. In fact, it’s so obvious, a lot of people have missed it — even though it’s right there for everyone to see.

People have scratched their heads and wondered why so many white evangelical leaders had embraced Donald Trump, the heir to a New York fortune who’s spent it on high living and self-promotion.

Because he might as well be one of them. It’s like looking in the mirror. That’s just one of the conclusions I came to in researching my new book, Jesus, You’re Fired! How Evangelicals Traded the Kingdom of Heaven for an Earthly Empire. It covers a lot more than Trump, but he’s the culmination of it.

The Multimillion-Dollar Question

Trump wasn’t the first evangelical favorite to run for president. Pat Robertson tried in 1988, and Mike Huckabee ran twice (in 2008 and 2016).

But Trump was the first one to win it all. Perhaps coincidentally, he came to prominence as a businessman in the 1980s, when televangelism hit its peak. Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979, the same year construction began on Trump Tower in Manhattan.

In 2016, Falwell’s son endorsed Trump for president, and others fell in line after he took office — and so did their flocks. Pundits wondered what self-proclaimed champions of morality could possibly see in someone with Trump’s clear lack of moral principles.

Their mistake was in assuming it was about morality, when it was really about money and power: two objectives they shared with Trump. And it always had been.

Money Pits

Trump demanded unflinching loyalty from his supporters. Evangelists called for unquestioning faith from their followers. They framed it as faith in God, but it also meant faith in them as God’s “chosen vessels.”

They promised the faithful heavenly rewards if they believed, just as Trump promised them earthly ones if they toed the line. Both converted that fervent faith into power and profit. Trump bought Mar-a-Lago in Florida for $10 million in 1985; Joel Osteen bought a palatial home in Houston for $10.5 million in 2010.

Both invested heavily in decadent attractions that went bust. Trump’s casinos and Jim Bakker’s Heritage USA theme park are prime examples.

And both started universities, although Falwell’s Liberty University and Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma earned a lot more credibility than the now-defunct Trump University.

All Faith, No Healing

Trump took a page out of the evangelical book when it came to faith healing, too. He didn’t “lay hands on” anyone during a crusade, but he did promise that the coronavirus would simply go away “like a miracle.” Or maybe with a little help from some bleach.

Needless to say, it didn’t.

Trump, being president, didn’t face any legal action for his bogus claims, but the same can’t be said for Bakker, who was sued after selling a colloidal silver product he claimed would eliminate coronavirus from the body within 12 hours. (Bakker is, of course, a Trump supporter.)

Skeptic and magician James Randi once debunked a supposed faith healer named Peter Popoff for claiming God had revealed personal information about a woman in his audience. In reality, though, his wife had spoken to her was relaying it to him via a hidden earpiece.

Trump didn’t pretend to know things about someone else, but he did allegedly pretend to be someone else: specifically, his own publicist.

Crocodile Tears

When Trump was caught on tape bragging about how famous people could sexually assault women, he reluctantly went on national television to apologize: “I said it, it was wrong, and I apologize.”

But shortly afterward, he was dismissing what he’d said as nothing more than “locker room talk.”

Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart’s tearful 1988 admission that he had sinned and was ready to take responsibility after being implicated in a sex scandal seemed more sincere and far less perfunctory. He said repeatedly that he had sinned, not only against God, but against his parishioners.

Nevertheless, when police pulled him over with a prostitute three years later, he told his congregation: “The lord told me it’s flat none of your business.”

Money-changers

Trump stood in front of a church that didn’t want him there and held up a Bible he didn’t read as part of a photo op. It made him look like a defender of the faith... even though federal troops had just tear-gassed peaceful protesters to clear a path for him to get there.

Televangelists know all too well how to use religion as a prop to make themselves look more righteous than they were — even as they shamelessly seek donations and hawk everything from “Christian” jewelry to DVDs online. Trump’s pitches for money and sale of everything from MAGA hats to Trump T-shirts is no less blatant.

One can only imagine what Jesus would have thought, given his condemnation of money-changers at the Jerusalem temple.

With Trump, as with the evangelists who support him, it’s all about the Benjamins. It has nothing to do with the kingdom of heaven. That’s one reason white evangelical preachers love him so much. But it’s just one reason. There’s a lot more to it than that.

Find out in my book, Jesus, You’re Fired! It’s available in paperback, ebook, and free via Kindle Unlimited at Amazon.