by Michael Grosso:
Evangelicals in the USA are a key part of Donald Trump’s
base—it’s hard to imagine a more unlikely conjunction. What secret sympathy binds these strange
bedfellows together?
The Book of Revelation
is a favorite of right wing believers, in part because of the violent imagery
that promises to wipe out all the bad guys. The word love is nowhere
to be found in this book. If you
go through the text in Greek, line by line (I have), you’ll find no words that
refer to love or any of the reputed Christian virtues such as kindness,
patience, or forgiveness. That of
course is consistent with Trump’s vindictive, loveless persona.
The word that does recur in this adored text is dynamis, or “power.” The Book of Revelation is not about love but
power, which also says something about the affinity between Evangelicals and
Donald Trump. Evangelicals believe
in the power of the Biblical deity to orchestrate the climax and final battle
of human history. In Donald Trump,
Evangelicals have a man whose talk of using atomic weapons and obliterating
whole nations suggests real apocalyptic potential. Someone like Trump is necessary to proceed with the divine
plan: according to which, we end not at the peace table but with Armageddon.