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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nPolitically, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u2014 such as winning a lottery by buying a lucky ticket or dying in a car accident by driving distractedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u2014 thus, making God the author of both good and evil outcomes? Clearly Perry’s claim should not be taken seriously. Trump was not chosen by God to rule America. He was elected by Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tony Lo Presti is a former educator and former Hamiltonian.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[45,41,44,42,43,39,40],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-authority","tag-god","tag-kings","tag-man","tag-politics","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/towncryyers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/7c97e4730a334776bbb418bed4d563f2_18.jpg?resize=800%2C450\")
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\nHow ironic that insurance and legal clauses refer to unexpected natural disasters like earthquakes and floods as “acts of God” \u2014 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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/towncryyers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/trump-family-1-2000x1333.jpg?resize=1024%2C682\")
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