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Andrea Rota: Hello everybody and welcome to the IKOS – Religion and Politics podcast. Our guest today is Hanne Amanda Trangerud. Hanne completed her BA in Archaeology and her MA in the study of religion at the University of Oslo. She also holds a degree in Nursing. Hanne is an expert on the interaction between religion and politics in the United States and she is currently pursuing a PhD in the study of religion at the University of Oslo. Hanne, thank you for being here to tell us about your research.
Hanne Amanda Trangerud: Thanks for having me.
Andrea Rota: I think that it's fair to say that for most people the first name that comes to mind when thinking about American politics is Donald Trump. In several recent articles you have discussed various aspects of the relationship between Trump and the Evangelical milieu in the United States. If Trump hardly needs an introduction, this Evangelical milieu might be less known this side of the Atlantic. Could you explain to us who the American Evangelicals are and what role they play on the American political scene?
Hanne Amanda Trangerud: Well, the term Evangelical can be a bit confusing, but in the United States today it usually describes Christians from various denominations who may adhere to different doctrines but have in common that they believe in Jesus as a personal savior, consider the Bible as the most important source of authority, are engaged in spreading the gospel and have a conversion experience, which is typically referred to as being born again. So, just like the term Christian or Protestant, the term Evangelical refers to a very diverse group which has some traits in common. Most Evangelicals are Protestants, but also Catholics and Orthodox Christians may consider themselves Evangelicals. When it comes to politics, the majority of Evangelicals today are conservative, and for the last 50 years or so the Evangelicals have been an important constituency for the Republican Party. And in this period, it has become increasingly common for Republican candidates to target this group by making references to God and to the Bible and to causes that are important to many Evangelical voters, such as anti-abortion, traditional family values, support for Israel and the right to own guns. Evangelicals, on their side, have been aiming at influencing society through politics at least since the mid-1900s, and today there is an increasingly influential group that works to make the United States a Christian nation by dominating various societal spheres of influence, like legislators, courts, school boards, the entertainment industry, and so on. So, they kind of want to run the nation on God's behalf.
Andrea Rota: In your publication you discuss a number of books by Evangelical authors. These books were released shortly before or in the wake of Trump's election in 2016. They present a report on a number of prophecies associated with the 45th American president. What kind of prophecies were these?
Hanne Amanda Trangerud: In the 2016 election, the Evangelicals that were most closely together with Trump to support his campaign were Charismatics. This is a group of Christians who emphasize spiritual gifts and other phenomena that they believe are caused by the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues, healing of diseases, and sometimes uncontrolled laughter, crying, or bodily movements. In this milieu, it is also quite common that individuals, both laypeople and leaders, receive prophecies or revelations from God. So, this has nothing to do with the prophecies found in the Bible, but are present-day individuals who claim that God has given them information about something that will happen in the future. And prior to the 2016 election, some prophecies began to circulate which described Donald Trump as God's chosen instrument to save America from moral, economic, and cultural destruction. One of the earliest and most influential was a revelation allegedly received in 2011 by a retired firefighter, Mark Taylor, where God said he would use Trump to make America the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth. And according to Taylor, God told him to go public with the prophecy about the same time as Trump announced his candidacy in 2015. And during the presidential race, Taylor received several other prophecies which helped to frame the election as part of a much larger cosmic or spiritual battle between good and evil, that is, between God and the forces of darkness. And in this battle, God had chosen Donald Trump to save America and restore it as a Christian nation.
Andrea Rota: I can imagine that these prophecies were not very convincing for many electors outside the Evangelical milieu. Why was it so important for the Evangelicals to hear them?
Hanne Amanda Trangerud: Like many Republican presidential candidates before him, Donald Trump targeted the Evangelical constituency. But Trump faced a greater challenge in that many conservative Christians were reluctant to vote for him because they felt his character was morally at odds with several basic Christian principles. For instance, the way he addressed his political opponents and his relationship to women. So, a major goal was to make sure that these Christians did not abstain from voting because they felt there were no good candidates. And the prophecies contributed to making Trump more acceptable to conservative Christian voters. On the one hand, the prophecies asserted that God wanted to use Trump, and they also explained why God could use someone like Trump. On the other hand, they brought more attention to Trump and to particular causes that he could then address. And the prophecies also made it clear, either explicitly or implicitly, that those who were true Christians had a responsibility to do the will of God and vote for Trump.
Andrea Rota: One kind of narrative that I found particularly intriguing is the one connecting Trump with the figure of the emperor Cyrus. Could you break down this narrative for us? Maybe you could start by telling us who Cyrus was.
Hanne Amanda Trangerud: Yes. Cyrus the Great was king of the first Persian empire in the 6th century BCE. In the Judeo-Christian context, he is best known for conquering the Babylonian empire, and by doing so, he ended the captivity of the Jews who had been taken to Babylon. So, in the Bible, King Cyrus is described as a liberator for God's people as he let the Jews return to their homeland and rebuild their capital and their temple.
Andrea Rota: And how is this biblical figure associated with Donald J. Trump?
Hanne Amanda Trangerud: Well, in the final months before the 2016 election, some of Trump's charismatic Evangelical allies began to spread the idea that Trump was a modern day Cyrus. And this idea first came in the form of a prophecy, presented by Lance Wallnau, who is an Evangelical political strategist working for Christian dominion in society. And according to Wallnau, God had revealed to him that he wanted to use Trump to save America as a Christian nation, the same way as he had used king Cyrus to save the Jews from their Babylonian captivity.
Andrea Rota: Why is it important for Evangelical authors and broadcasters to make this link between the two figures, Cyrus and Donald J. Trump?
Hanne Amanda Trangerud: In the Bible, King Cyrus is described as chosen by God to deliver his people. So, Cyrus was a pagan instrument that God used for the benefit of his people. And by being presented as a new or modern Cyrus in the context of the election, Trump was linked to the idea that God can use anyone to fulfill his plans, including secular and imperfect people. And this was an important argument to present to Christians who did not feel comfortable in voting for Trump because of his character and past. So, the comparison with Cyrus signaled that Trump had God's approval, and it also worked as a theological justification for voting for a somewhat unchristian person. The bottom-line message was that Trump may not be perfect, but he is still the right candidate, and he is God's candidate. So, Christians should therefore get out on election day and vote for him.
Andrea Rota: Another aspect that I found really fascinating while reading your articles was the use of various media to spread these prophecies. Could you paint us a picture of the Evangelical media landscape in the United States?
Hanne Amanda Trangerud: A bit simplified, you can say that Christians, and especially those who are engaged in evangelism, have a long tradition of utilizing various media to spread their message. First came prints, then the radio, then television, and then the Internet. And many leading Evangelicals have established such channels through which they can communicate their ideas to large audiences, both nationwide and globally. And just to give an example, both Mark Taylor and Lance Wallnau participated in podcasts and presented their Trump prophecies on the shelves of well-known televangelists prior to the 2016 election. Wallnau had just written a book to encourage Christians to vote for Trump, and the show gave great publicity to his book. And Taylor later published his own Trump prophecy book, which was later made into a movie and showed on more than thousand theaters prior to the midterm election in 2018, and also prior to the presidential election in 2020. So, Evangelical media companies and networks function both as approval or acknowledgement of ideas, and as effective means of spreading those ideas.
Andrea Rota: Thank you very much, Hanna, for joining us today on the podcast and for sharing your expertise with us.
Hanne Amanda Trangerud: Thanks for having me.
Andrea Rota: I want to remind our listeners that Hanna Amanda Trangeröth is a PhD candidate in the study of religion at the department of cultural studies and oriental languages at the University of Oslo, and you will find the links to the publications that we discussed today in the podcast description. Thank you for listening, and goodbye.