By Tony Lo Presti
A month or so back, Rick Perry, whom Donald Trump chose as his Secretary of Energy, claimed that Trump is God’s “chosen one,” a man “ordained by God” to be president to make America great again.
Perry admits that Trump is a flawed man. But so was the Biblical David, Perry argues, who slew Goliath and was anointed by the prophet Samuel to be God’s future king of Israel. The implication is that God works in mysterious ways and a bad person can be an instrument of God as much as a good person. But if this is the case, surely Trump is a president who serves to teach a cautionary political lesson about the danger that Congressional partisanship in cahoots with a corrupt, unpredictable president can pose to American democracy.
While some evangelical Christians support Perry’s claim, others categorically deride it and question Perry’s motives, suspecting that they may be more profit-minded than prophet-minded.
Specifically, is Perry attempting to ingratiate himself to Trump because he wants to replace Mike Pence as Trump’s vice-presidential running mate in the 2020 U. S. election? Or is Perry advancing an evangelical narrative for the American people that removing Trump from office — whether by the Senate or by the electorate — is going against the will of God?
Whatever his motives, Perry’s claim provokes tough political, moral, and theological questions.
Politically, Perry’s claim raises the spectre of the divine right of kings, the self-serving 16th century doctrine propagated by European kings that they derived their authority to rule directly from God and not from those they ruled. This tenet discouraged rebellion because people were indoctrinated to believe that to overthrow a king chosen by God amounted to opposing the will of God.
Trump, in fact, acts like a king, believing that he can do anything and contending that as president he has immunity from the rule of law. Trump frequently ignores, contravenes, and defies the articles of the American constitution and the intentions of its American Revolution framers.
Trump opponents find it difficult to view Trump as part of some divine and inscrutable political plan for America. Given that Trump has proven to be a corrupt, disruptive, divisive, and autocratic president, they simply cannot bridge the gap between divinely guided behaviour and Trump’s unconstitutional, immoral, and unethical behaviour.
Theologically, Perry’s claim that Trump as an imperfect leader chosen by God disaffirms the Christian belief that human beings possess free will and their physical and spiritual fates are not predestined by God. This belief makes human decisions and actions (not God) responsible for the good or bad things that happen to people — such as winning a lottery by buying a lucky ticket or dying in a car accident by driving distractedly.
Oftentimes, people attribute a good occurrence to divine providence, implying that God is responsible for it: “Thank God, that I survived the bus crash!” But doesn’t that reaction also imply that God must then be responsible for the deaths of those who didn’t survive — thus, making God the author of both good and evil outcomes?
How ironic that insurance and legal clauses refer to unexpected natural disasters like earthquakes and floods as “acts of God” — imputing that God is accountable for them. But how can this be so, if Christian theology teaches that Satan is the source of evil and not God?
Clearly Perry’s claim should not be taken seriously. Trump was not chosen by God to rule America. He was elected by Americans.
Intriguingly, while Trump boasts that America is doing well economically under his presidency, polls show that most Americans feel that such is not the case ethically, morally or politically. And since polls have a margin of error, they cannot be imputed to divine will.
Tony Lo Presti is a former educator and former Hamiltonian.