The religious right has made it loud and clear–if you oppose Donald Trump, you risk incurring the wrath of God. After all, to hear America’s so-called moral guardians talk, those who raise their voices against the Donald are being influenced by witchcraft and demons to oppose God’s plan for America. Moreover, the religious right would have you believe that the devil himself is behind the opposition to Trump. For that reason, taking part in it supposedly breaks God’s law and could put you and your family at risk of being cursed all the way to the third generation.
Let’s not beat around the bush. The religious right has made Trump a golden calf. Or rather, an Orange Calf. More proof of this came earlier this week, when a self-proclaimed prophet declared that judges and lawmakers who oppose Trump are opposing God himself and must be swept away.
In May 2011, Mark Taylor, a retired firefighter with the Orlando Fire Department, received what he claimed to be a “word from the Lord” declaring that God had chosen Trump to become president and “bring honor, respect and restoration to America.” He further declared that God would use Trump to “reap the harvest” that this country has sown and “plunder from the enemy what he has stolen and return it seven-fold to the United States.”
One problem–barely a month after Taylor issued this “prophecy,” Trump announced he would not run in 2012. Thus, in a strict sense, Taylor is a false prophet. But such things as details didn’t matter after Trump’s upset victory last fall. Taylor stopped by Rick Wiles’ show shortly after the election and openly boasted that God had “performed everything He said he was going to do.” He had actually been a frequent guest on Wiles’ show during election season.
Taylor has since become the latest big thing in the hypercharismatic world, as evidenced when he dropped by Jim Bakker’s show on Tuesday and Wednesday for a two-part discussion on “four objectives for the Army of God.” On Tuesday’s show, Taylor peddled what has become the standard religious right line on the opposition to Trump–he’s under attack from the devil. Watch here.
Taylor claimed that until Trump came along, all presidents have been “taking orders” from “people behind the shadows”–an obvious reference to the longstanding conspiracy theory that our nation is being secretly controlled by the likes of the Illuminati in an effort to build a “New World Order.” However, he said, Trump is “true leadership on his own,” and it has thrown “the enemy’s timeline” completely out of whack. Uh huh. That “true leadership” has included waging all-out war on the media and judiciary, as well as tolerating a press secretary who plants fake news stories, and a counterterrorism analyst who threatens private citizens at night, among other things.
Bakker lapped it up, asking Taylor whether “the enemies of Christianity” were planning to complete their drive to take over the country. Taylor claimed that the country would have fallen by 2021, but claimed to have gotten an email from a “researcher” who claimed that Trump’s upset victory came exactly 2,021 days after Taylor’s “prophecy.” Taylor took it as evidence that “the enemy’s timeline has been denied by the most high God.”
Really, Mark? God was so determined to thwart Satan’s timeline that he put a guy in office who finds it acceptable to plaster private cell phone numbers on social media, mock the disabled, condone violence at his rallies, degrade women, and blow anti-Semitic dog whistles? Sounds to me that Taylor has a habit of eating things that don’t agree with him. I’ve heard that it’s pretty common for people to eat really spicy food and have dreams that they think are prophetic.
But things really went off the rails the next day, when Taylor talked more about what God’s people have to do now that Trump is in office. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Taylor said that the “army of God” had already accomplished three of its four priorities–getting Trump elected, ensuring that he is sworn in, and covering him in prayer to weather his first four to five months. Now, he said, it was time to move to the fourth objective–praying for God to remove “corrupt judges.” Specifically, he suggested that his followers pray for God to remove any judges who oppose Trump.
“God is purging the land right now. This is a very important, crucial objective is this judicial tyranny, because you see this is the only thing that’s holding—it’s not Trump’s agenda, it’s God’s agenda. That’s what they don’t understand.”
And again, Bakker lapped it up. He blasted the judges who blocked Trump’s travel ban, claiming they were “taking over the presidency of the United States.” If it kept up, Bakker warned, there might be “revolutionary events.” Taylor noted this was exactly why God was telling his people to go to war against “judicial tyranny.”
Wait a minute. For eight years, Bakker, Taylor, and others of their ilk screamed and wailed that we had a radical socialist Kenyan Mooslamb in the White House who would like nothing better than to be a dictator. And now, if the Senate and the judiciary don’t just roll over and do what Trump says, they’re corrupt and must be removed?
Oh, that’s right. To hear these guys talk, no Democratic president is legitimate–whether he or she is white, black, or polka-dotted. After all, this is a Christian nation–and in their view, it isn’t possible for a Christian to be a Democrat. So despite all of Trump’s outrages, the government is supposed to bow down to him because he is pushing “God’s agenda.” Got it.
From where I–a man who is both a Democrat and a charismatic/Pentecostal Christian–am sitting, these guys are so desperate to get their agenda through that they are willing to get behind anything with an R next to it. And that includes recycling a false prophecy.
(featured image: screengrab from YouTube)
