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By Helen Coster
NEW YORK (Reuters) – “That is actually a battle between good and evil,” evangelical TV preacher Hank Kunneman says of the slew of legal fees dealing with Donald Trump. “There’s one thing on President Trump that the enemy fears: It is known as the anointing.”
The Nebraska pastor, who was talking on cable information present “FlashPoint” final summer season, is amongst a number of voices in Christian media urgent a message of Biblical proportions: The 2024 presidential race is a struggle for America’s soul, and a persecuted Trump has God’s safety.
“They’re simply making an attempt to bankrupt him. They’re making an attempt to take every little thing he is acquired. They’re making an attempt to place him in jail,” writer, media persona and self-proclaimed prophet Lance Wallnau mentioned in October on “The Jim Bakker Present”, an hour-long every day broadcast that focuses on information and revelations concerning the finish instances that it says we live in.
“The hand of God is on him and he can’t be stopped.”
In each the 2016 and 2020 elections, evangelical voters staunchly supported Trump regardless of claims of adultery and sexual misconduct, which he denied. With Trump now dealing with dozens of legal fees as he pursues a second time period, some Christian media are bolstering his help by portraying him as an instrument of God’s will who faces persecution by his foes.
Whereas the folks making these claims are largely outdoors the mainstream in Christian media, they’ve amassed vital on-line followings and their messages reverberate throughout radio exhibits, cable TV and streaming platforms that attain tens of millions of People daily.
The claims that Trump advantages from divine assist current a jarring counterpoint to the views voiced by his critics, who denounce him as an immoral grifter set on dismantling democracy and level to his inflammatory rhetoric about immigrants within the nation illegally and opponents he has threatened to prosecute.
The previous president’s myriad authorized woes embody allegations of sexual abuse and monetary chicanery. In Could, a jury determined Trump should pay $5 million in damages for sexually abusing {a magazine} author within the Nineteen Nineties after which branding her a liar. He’s additionally dealing with a legal trial on fees he lined up hush-money funds to a porn star. He has denied wrongdoing in each circumstances.
The barrage of authorized actions have broadly served to rev up Trump’s help amongst Republicans slightly than diminish it, in response to a July Reuters/Ipsos ballot.
The roughly 80 million People who describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Protestants – a couple of quarter of the inhabitants – have supplied the bedrock for his meteoric rise, and their turnout ranges this November might show essential in a good contest towards Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Reuters interviews with 10 consultants in faith-based political outreach, political science, media and faith outlined the contours of a Christian media house broadly supportive of Trump and his insurance policies, although providing differing views about any non secular mission he might need, and highlighting a shift within the messaging on the fringes within the run-up to this election.
Many conservative Christians have lengthy relied on Christian media to champion political causes tied to their religion, like anti-communism and anti-abortion.
However what’s new about this election cycle is the unabashed help for Trump and the frequency he’s depicted as “God’s chosen” chief, mentioned Brian Calfano, a political science and journalism professor on the College of Cincinnati who has researched the proliferation of media-savvy ministers who help Trump.
“Earlier than Trump, there was some hero worship of favored politicians, however the bigger philosophical or ideological causes obtained larger consideration.”
Language that casts Trump in messianic phrases helps to energise his base, mentioned Paul Djupe, a political scientist at Denison College who focuses on faith and politics.
Wallnau and Kunneman didn’t reply to Reuters requests for remark for this text, whereas representatives for FlashPoint host Gene Bailey and Bakker declined to remark. The Trump marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark.
SELF-PROCLAIMED PROPHETS
Christian media consists of hundreds of non secular podcasts, radio exhibits, cable TV and streaming platforms, with a mixed month-to-month viewers of greater than 140 million People, in response to the Nationwide Non secular Broadcasters (NRB) affiliation.
Reveals like FlashPoint and Bakker’s present are comparatively area of interest.
FlashPoint for example pulls in a median month-to-month cable TV viewers of roughly 11,000 households, in response to Comscore information, whereas the Victory Channel it seems on has greater than one million followers on YouTube and Fb mixed. Trump participated in six interviews with FlashPoint between 2021 and 2023.
Many preachers ply their very own commerce and command vital on-line audiences. For instance, Wallnau has his personal podcast and greater than 1.3 million followers on social media. Kunneman, one other self-styled prophet, has near 250,000.
Many Christian voters credit score Trump with a collection of coverage victories, together with the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s resolution in 2022 to overturn the constitutional proper to abortion after he appointed three conservative justices to the courtroom, plus the transferring of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
“There’s lots of evangelical conservative Christian voters which have some challenges with some elements of his persona, however after they have a look at his insurance policies, what he did, juxtaposed to what we’ve, and what’s proposed by these on the opposite facet, it is a no-brainer,” mentioned Tony Perkins, president of the Household Analysis Council evangelical advocacy group.
His “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” airs each week day on about 100 Christian TV stations, numerous streaming channels and 800 radio stations and attracts a median month-to-month cable TV viewers of roughly 5,000 households, in response to Comscore.
Whereas Perkins, a extra mainstream voice in Christian media, steers away from any messianic messaging, the previous Louisiana lawmaker mentioned on his present in December that efforts to kick Trump off the Republican major poll had been a part of a “battle between good and evil”.
“You’ll hear the truth that we do consider that God calls folks to completely different walks of life, together with into the political realm,” Perkins informed Reuters in an interview.
A lot of the Trump content material on Christian media appears on the former president by means of the lens of the Bible, he added, for instance drawing a parallel between him and Cyrus the Nice, the pagan ruler of the sixth century BC who liberated the Jews from Babylonian captivity and enshrined non secular freedom.
On Trinity Broadcasting Community, a Christian outlet that reaches greater than 100 million U.S. households, former Arkansas governor, TV host and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee says Trump needs to be judged by his deeds.
“He proved to be probably the most pro-life president in American historical past, by not simply by what he mentioned, however by what he did,” Huckabee mentioned in December.
Huckabee and Trinity Broadcasting Community didn’t reply to requests for remark.
‘SO GOD GAVE US TRUMP’
It is tough to get a precise depend of how a lot of the Christian media is explicitly pro-Trump, as a result of like different elements of the fragmented media business, it has ballooned in recent times over TV, radio, podcasts and social media.
NRB President Troy Miller mentioned Christian media was turning into extra politically targeted, though political programming nonetheless represented lower than 3% of general content material.
Nonetheless, he added, it’s filling a vacuum for conservative evangelicals who really feel mainstream media protection would not mirror their values or pretty cowl a candidate who of their eyes understands them and the problems they care about.
“You are programming to your viewers, so Trump’s going to be a significant a part of that,” he mentioned in an interview.
Miller mentioned the view that Trump has been anointed by God displays the perimeter of Christian media however that the notion of religious warfare enjoying out within the U.S. is extra mainstream.
Trump himself has leaned into the battle.
In a speech to an NRB convention final month Trump vowed to defend Christianity and urged Christians to vote for him within the Nov. 5 election, a contest he depicted in non secular phrases and likened to the good battles of World Struggle Two.
“I do know that to attain victory on this struggle, identical to within the battles of the previous, we nonetheless want the hand of our Lord, and the grace of Almighty God,” he informed the gathering to applause.
The previous president has began some rallies with a messianic video made by social media influencers which opens with the road: “On June 14, 1946, God regarded down on his deliberate paradise and mentioned: I want a caretaker, so God gave us Trump.”
He has additionally shared on the Fact Social media app a sketch of himself in courtroom, sitting subsequent to what seems to be a rendering of Jesus Christ.
Written above the drawing: “No person might have made it this far alone.”
(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York, extra reporting by Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco, modifying by Ross Colvin and Pravin Char)
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