In Texas, evangelical Republicans rally to keep Trump: He’s part of ‘the Divine Plan’
To hear some Republican insiders — including a few preachers — President Donald Trump will invoke martial law if Congress doesn’t overturn the Electoral College Jan. 6 and re-elect him president.
It’s God’s will, they say. Christians can’t afford to lose a president who was anointed to carry out a heavenly plan.
Never mind the election. Or the electors. Or that the incumbent’s actual court claims challenging Joe Biden’s role as president-elect have been thinly grounded and poorly argued.
“The bottom line is, there are many people in the evangelical community who are deeply concerned that there were substantial numbers of inaccurate results, and maybe fraudulent activities that may have affected the outcome,” said Dave Welch of the Houston-based U.S. Pastor Council activist group, which is “hoping and praying” for reversal.
Some faith-and-values Republicans accepted the outcome of the election as divine plan. But others are preaching a QAnon-like conspiracy theory about Trump’s plan for an imminent reversal.
A few are even investing time and money in what has become the perpetual Trump campaign, complete with fundraising and ongoing rallies.
A Dec. 12 “Jericho March” for Trump in Washington ignited a national debate over whether evangelical Republicans’ worship of Trump has become outright idolatry.
Trump further stoked the conspiracy craze Saturday, writing on Twitter: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” (That’s the day Congress meets to count the Electoral College results.)
At Southern Methodist University, associate political science professor Matthew Wilson studies religious conservatives.
His email comments were chilling.
“There is a certain segment of evangelical Christianity that is all-in for Trump,” Wilson wrote via email.
“ ... Some evangelicals really do see Trump as an instrument of the Divine Plan. How could such a person possibly be defeated?”
Trump has more evangelical support than any American political candidate since William Jennings Bryan, Wilson wrote.
“It stems in large part from the fact that evangelicals see their ideal of America as a godly commonwealth in existential danger,” Wilson wrote.
“Desperation tends to produce radicalization, and push people to extreme measures (like denying electoral reality and indulging in bizarre conspiracy theories).”
Conspiracy theories were on view again Saturday at yet another “Stop the Steal” Trump rally in Dallas, organized by a Colleyville aloe vera marketing executive and featuring an outspoken independent Baptist pastor from Tennessee.
Pastor Greg Locke wrote on Facebook last week: “I do not believe for one second that Joe Biden is going to be the President. God is NOT finished with Donald Trump and I refuse to shatter peoples hopes in that regard. It is far from over and we are still very much in this fight.”
(Locke has also preached against wearing masks and called COVID-19 a “fake pandemic.”)
Welch, the leader of the conservative Pastor Council, described the split among evangelicals as between “those who want to see the process work in court” and those who want stronger action.
Congress will meet Jan. 6 to officially count the 306-232 Electoral College decision for Biden. Any objection to a state’s vote would be decided by a majority vote in each chamber, with Democrats holding a House majority.
Apparently that also is the day when the “big protest” will be “wild.”
Welch’s message to evangelical Republicans: “Obviously we don’t agree that there’s a need to become inflammatory or step over the line, or promote civil disobedience or outright violence. We need to respect the constitutional process.”
We can only pray.
This story was originally published December 19, 2020 at 2:47 PM.
