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By Katherine Fung
Senior Writer
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Evangelical leaders are calling out the danger of endorsing political candidates from the pulpit as the nation witnesses a rise in pro-Trump "prophets," who claim God has anointed the former president as the chosen one.
Kimberly Reisman, executive director of World Methodist Evangelism, warned last week that doing so hurts Christians across the country. And Carl Nelson, president of Transform Minnesota, cautioned that many endorsements from church leaders fail to "hold that candidate accountable to the full spectrum of values we represent."
"God can use leaders from all parties, and to equate God's will with the will of any political party or person is exceedingly dangerous and a threat to the overall witness of Christians in the United States," Reisman said in a July 31 statement.
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In recent years, a number of influential evangelical figures have come forward and spoken about receiving prophecies about former President Donald Trump as a secular messiah who will deliver conservative Christians from cultural exile. Many of them have gone viral, telling thousands and even millions of people that God will reinstate Trump in the White House, leaving their followers hanging on to promises of a second Trump term.
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Matthew D. Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies, told Newsweek, that much of this began with Paula White-Cain, the prosperity gospel televangelist whom Trump chose to be his liaison with the evangelical community in 2015.
Taylor said that while White-Cain didn't know many A-listers on the religious right, she was well connected among prophets and charismatic megachurch pastors.
"Those are the people she starts bringing in to meet with Donald Trump in the fall of 2015, and this is where you start to see this energy and this move of prophecies about Donald Trump really start to surge," Taylor said.
"When Trump wins in 2016, those prophets look like they really hit the nail on the head. They accurately predicted what everyone was saying wouldn't happen," he continued. "This just led to a proliferation, and by the 2020 campaign there are hundreds of these prophecies from different prophets, each claiming that God spoke to them individually and said that Donald Trump was destined to have a second term."
Those include Julie Green, a popular preacher who has risen to celebrity status on former national security adviser Michael Flynn's ReAwaken America tour, MAGA pastor Shane Vaughn and Pentecostal pastor Johnny Enlow, who promised his followers in 2021 that Trump would be restored to power before the next presidential election.
When Trump was grazed by a bullet during a Pennsylvania rally last month, some said the shooting was part of a wider series of prophecies.
Charlie Shamp told his 1,260,000 Instagram followers that he had twice predicted the assassination attempt. Amanda Grace, who has 239,000 YouTube subscribers, went live on the platform to link her prophecies to the incident. Brandon Biggs became popular overnight after an old video of him discussing an "attempt on [Trump's] life" recirculated.
For those who believe Trump carries the Christian vision for America, the assassination attempt "cemented that narrative," Taylor said. These prophets may be amassing large followings, but evangelical leaders are increasingly against the idea of political endorsements.
The National Association of Evangelicals' May/June Evangelical Leaders Survey found that 98 percent of leaders say pastors should not endorse politicians from the pulpit, a nearly double-digit uptick since 2017. That year, 89 percent answered no when asked "Should pastors endorse politicians from the pulpit?"
"This language of spiritual warfare has gotten more and more infused into our politics," Taylor said, adding that the danger of polarizing religious discourse is that it radicalizes the right.
"If you believe that every policy dispute, every election is an arena of constant combat between good and evil, you have no motivation to ever compromise or negotiate," he said. "What negotiation is there with allies and demons?"
Taylor also expressed concern that as yet another extremely polarized election nears, this rhetoric is "at an even higher fever pitch than it was in 2020." With Trump leaning into these narratives of prophecy, he said, "we could be coming into a very harrowing season for American democracy."
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