Men of God in the City of Man, Pt. 5: Epidemic
July 10, 2023·158 comments·Politics
A collection of obscure prophecies about Donald Trump circulated within charismatic Christian networks for years with little effect. But between 2015 and 2016, something shifted. The same prophecies, retold with different language and presented through new channels, became evangelical common knowledge. Not because the claims changed, but because the narrative infrastructure supporting them had matured. By November 2016, millions of evangelical voters felt they were participating in divine will rather than political choice.
• Prophecies don't spread through force, they spread through environment. Kim Clement predicted Trump's presidency in 2007, but his words sat dormant for nearly a decade. The same prophecy, repackaged by different messengers in 2015 and 2016, suddenly became urgent and shared. The facts didn't change. What changed was whether people needed to believe it.
• The infrastructure was already built. For 15 years before Trump entered politics, charismatic churches had constructed a three-part narrative about ancient covenants, cultural conquest, and apostolic leadership. This framework lay waiting for a focal point, a real-world tactic. When Jeremiah Johnson connected Trump to that infrastructure in July 2015, he provided the missing vector.
• Adaptation determines transmission. Charismatic prophecy language doesn't work for non-charismatic evangelicals. So when evangelical leaders like Jerry Kaifetz and Janet Parshall encountered the same memes, they stripped away the prophetic language and rebuilt the argument using Cyrus, biblical broken vessels, and the separation of character from fitness for office. The belief system stayed intact. Only the vocabulary changed.
• Consensus can form without coordination. By June 2016, evangelical leaders across dozens of independent networks were using nearly identical language about Trump as a Cyrus figure chosen by God. They weren't copying each other or following orders. The meme itself enforced linguistic consistency across unconnected speakers, creating the appearance of unified conviction.
• Belief systems don't require truth to become mainstream. By the 2016 election, millions of evangelicals held a coherent narrative about why voting for Trump fulfilled American covenant theology and spiritual destiny. That narrative arose from prophecies that had been wrong about nearly everything they predicted, adapted through layers of reframing, and spread through networks designed to reward conformity. What began as fringe became inevitable.
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Comments
Nine parts. I can only imagine how many hours of discussion went into this. Looking forward to all of it.
@rguinn I was wondering: did you use the narrative machine retrospectively, whether wholly or in part, to identify the sources here?
As someone raised Catholic and currently attending an evangelical Baptist church I audibly guffawed at this paragraph. Absolute perfection.
As a socially liberal and fiscally conservative Presbyterian who is probably more agnostic now and (yes a run-on sentence) am fully ingrained with the fact that our country’s laws are based on Presbyterian polity, I too laughed out loud at this statement.
Levity, a good carrier for important considerations.
Rusty,
Curious to see what attention, if any, the doctrine of biblical innerancy will get in this series.
As a teenager, I was baptized in and eventually pastored at a wonderful Foursquare church in Oregon. Additionally, for several years during that time, I lived with 4 Calivinist buddies of mine.
During my years-long exposure to both charismatic Pentecostalism and Calvinism, I found over and over again how fundamentally problematic the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and literalism is for all churches, regardless of whether it’s the reformed Eric Metaxas/Wayne Grudem/John Piper type or the charismatic Pentecostal Benny Hinn type.
In my experience, the “charismatic norms” (like prophesy), can be a really beautiful thing. But it’s when the charismatic norms (like prophesy) are connected to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy/literalism that things can go super sideways and do anything but “edify”. As I see it, inerrancy is the core virus that has been wreaking havoc in the churches (you name the tradition) and the world for centuries.
Anyway, really looking forward to reading these notes.
Three of the mentioned fellows will make at least a cameo appearance, but it isn’t necessarily a focus of the series. I agree that it would also be fascinating to see how that narrative - the soul of American evangelicalism, really - emerged and became common knowledge, but that would be a different series.
In part, although as I think you’ll discover as we go along, our aim was to be thorough enough not to have to be stingy in our source selection.
Man, fascinating stuff. Can’t wait to read the rest.
I was raised mainline Protestant in NY in the 80s. Never even heard of Charismatics until I moved to TX as an adult.
I think I understand why it is the fastest-growing branch of Christianity. Vs the stuff I was raised with, my first impression as an outsider is the level of passion and… hmm… immediacy.
I’m assuming that this is the basic story we’re discussing, I had not heard it yet. It explains what some prophets need(ed?) to be true and why.
This was a great and insightful read, @rguinn.
“Like the Widening Gyre, the most effective vectors for effective astroturfing campaigns may focus not so much on changing common knowledge but on changing What We Need to Be True.”
Inoculation against direct responsibilities is one of the fundamental traits of human beings’ proto-centralized religions. In a context of apparent lack of control, agency was projected outward.
Witchcraft was the reason for pain without feeling guilty and gods’ (God) wrath for pain when feeling guilty in ancient cultures.
In this context of apparent lack of control (post 2008), changing what we need to be true is an escape from direct responsibilities when focusing on the excuses that explain the individual or collective failure as an out-of-control external factor (spiritual: evil-witchcraft- the devil or kind of real threats: immigrants - woke - deep state), that apparently has agency and goes directly against you as a cosmic good vs. evil fight. So, it’s the perfect context for this phenomenon to emerge in the American-style, spirit-filled charismatic Christianity.
Low locus of control (direct control over outcomes) + belief in miracles (indirect control over outcomes) + best in class already system of memes (Christianity).
You’ve got it nailed. Only I think that we will discover that there are many more areas of our society and culture which exhibit very similar traits in very different wrappers.
Really interesting start…as someone who has walked among the movements you reference, I’m looking forward to your reflections and observations.
I’ll just observe here that the role of discernment has always been the weak link when it comes to Pentacostal/Charismatic movements.
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