Following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, many of his religious followers saw his survival as a divine sign. God had protected him and ordained him to be president.
This claim has deep roots in the Christian tradition.
The trope of divine protection traces back to the Roman emperors. The Latin imperator, from which the English “emperor” derives, originally was a term of honor bestowed on a victorious general by his troops. Victory is fundamental to imperator. The Roman Senate conferred the title on Julius Caesar and then Octavian Augustus, making him the first Roman emperor. Subsequently, all the Rome’s chief leaders claimed the title.
An emperor’s victory over Rome’s enemies signaled the gods’ favor and protection. Since without the gods’ favor, Rome could not succeed against its enemies, an emperor had to be victorious. Upon Vespasian defeating the other claimants to the title of emperor and his troops proclaiming him emperor (69 CE), he needed a victory to demonstrate his claim. Titus was dispatched to Jerusalem to finish off the Jewish rebellion, ending in the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Vespasian and his sons celebrated this victory with numerous coins that featured Judaea Capta (Judea Captured) and monuments in Rome—the Arch of Titus and the Flavian Amphitheater (the Colosseum). These monumental structures demonstrated that Rome’s gods had ordained a Spanish general the new Roman emperor. The logic of these monuments was that Rome’s gods had defeated Israel’s god. Roman peace always came with the defeat and an enslavement of its enemies.
When Constantine defeated his fellow claimants for emperor and came out as a Christian, the church historian and bishop Eusebius drew the logical conclusion from Roman imperial ideology. The Christian God had favored Constantine and granted him victory over his enemies. According to Eusebius, this had always been God’s plan. All subsequent Christian Roman emperors needed victories to assure the public that God protected and favored them.
After the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, at the end of the eighth century, Charlemagne made his claim to be the new emperor of the Romans based on his overwhelming defeat of his enemies, establishing his rule over most of Europe. Pope Leo honored this claim by crowning in him emperor at St. Peter’s in Rome on Christmas Day 800 ce.
Before Constantine and Eusebius, Christians had rejected the logic of imperial ideology. They were not convinced by the emperors’ claims that their victories proved the gods favored them. Paul forcibly rejects Roman imperial ideology: “We speak about God’s Anointed crucified! This is an offense to Jews, nonsense to the nations” (1 Corinthians 1:23). From the Roman point of view, Paul’s preaching of Jesus as God’s Anointed is nonsense because the evidence of his crucifixion disproved this claim. Crucifixion means Rome won and Jesus lost. To put it another way: Score: Rome 1; Jesus 0.
In one fell swoop, Constantine and Eusebius wiped away the tradition of anti-imperialism. The power of Roman imperial ideology was more convincing than Paul’s claim that “the Anointed represents God's power and God's wisdom; because the folly of God is wiser than humans are and the weakness of God is stronger than humans are” (1 Corinthians 1:24–25). This piece of rhetoric was overturned by Constantine’s victory over his enemies and Eusebius’ claim that the Christian God was now the Roman imperial God.
When the forces of Islam swept out of the desert and pushed the Christian Roman emperor out of Syria, Egypt, Persia, and North Africa, imperial logic clearly dictated that the Christian God was angry with the Roman emperor and that the God of Islam was on the ascendancy. Syria, Egypt, and North African had been the Christian heartland. Emperor Leo III’s response was predictable. God was angry because Christians had fallen away from the true faith (surely the emperor was not at fault because he had a direct line to God). The emperor’s responsibility as protector of the faith was to defend it. The cause of God’s displeasure? Worshipping false images. The emperor launched the iconoclastic attack on images (icons).
Victory certifies God’s favor. The problem with that logic is, when the emperor loses, what does that mean? Then the logic falls apart. Also, if Jesus was crucified by Rome, how is Paul’s logic not correct? Can you have it both ways? I think not. But Christian have long enjoyed having their cake and eating it.
The image of Trump defiantly jabbing his fist into the air after being shot invokes the Roman imperial logic. He is always triumphant. His religious followers drew the traditional conclusion. God’s hand had protected him. He is clearly God’s favorite, his anointed. But this follows Roman imperial logic, not the logic of Paul’s Anointed. It aligns with Constantinian Christianity, but not Jesus or Paul, or those early martyrs. Post-Constantine Christians have preferred Constantine to Paul.
To argue that God favors those who win is magical thinking. It makes a causal connection where none exists. Making decisions today based on Roman imperial ideology is clearly nonsense, patently false, but it does appeal to faith. Since the Enlightenment, faith has seen itself in opposition to reason. Faith has trained Christians to ignore or deny reason. Evangelicals with their literal interpretation of the Bible have rejected Darwin and evolution, as well as the modern cosmological research with its big bang 13.8 billion years ago. Faith justifies itself as true because it rejects reason. This understanding of faith feeds into Trump’s narrative.
Trump has combined two Christian myths: Christian Roman imperial myth, and the martyr myth, which logically are in opposition. The first presents Trump the triumphant victor in the mode of John Wayne, while the second allows him to present himself as a martyr, a victim of the deep state. Trump has appealed to his followers as suffering persecution for their sake. They are coming for you, he proclaims.
Trump has created a compelling mythos for his Christian followers. Ignoring ethics, Trump makes a compelling claim to be the Christian God’s anointed.
But then, there is always Paul’s view of a crucified Anointed as God’s choice—so easily reduced to a theological idea with no political implications.
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