Donald Trump, Evangelicals and the 2024 MAGA Coalition
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the tower that bears his name. Twice divorced and the former owner of the Miss Universe Organization, the brash and often profane Trump did not extoll the pious values one would expect to ignite the support of an ardent evangelical.
However, Wallnau left that day declaring Trump God's choice for president."I was updating some random social-media activity when I ran across a simple PowerPoint showing Trump seated in the Oval Office with the words 'Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States,'" Wallnau wrote in an October 5, 2016, article for Charisma magazine. "I heard the Spirit impress upon my mind, 'Read Isaiah 45.' To be honest, I didn't recall what the chapter was about.
I opened a Bible and began to read, 'Thus saith the Lord to Cyrus whom I've anointed.'"Wallnau went on to conclude that his experience signified God's plan to anoint Trump like the Bible states God did with the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great, who liberated the Jewish people from Babylon and facilitated their return to the Land of Israel.
As Wallnau reflected on Trump's role in disrupting liberal culture and the institutional values of Washington, he began to see parallels between the non-evangelical Trump and the non-Jewish Cyrus. "It never occurred to me that God anoints secular leaders who are not part of the faith community," he wrote.Wallnau became one of the first evangelical ministers to prophesize Trump's victory as well as one of the former president's early supporters within the faith community.
