godanddonaldtrump.com DONALD TRUMP WAS not my first choice for president—I was my first choice. But as we know, Trump not only received far more votes than any Republican in the history of the primaries—more than Ronald Reagan, the Bushes, John McCain, and Mitt Romney—on November 8, 2016, he went on to win one of the most un- precedented presidential elections our country has ever experienced. Every prediction about the 2016 race was wrong. Those of us who brought years of experience and effective governing to the race found that voters were not interested. They blamed everyone from Washington for the mess and even blamed those of us who had never worked in DC. Knowing who to vote for doesn’t always come easy for the Christian, and this past election was no different. Many struggled with the fact that Donald Trump’s stance on pro-life issues, same-sex marriage, and Israel didn’t necessarily come from a deep conviction either politically or biblically. You can think whatever you like about Donald Trump, but there’s no denying that he broke the code, owned
the media, and inspired the masses. And when he became the nominee at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, I predicted then and there that he would defeat Hillary Clinton and become the forty-fifth president of the United States. Some wondered how I could get behind a candidate like Trump, but you see, I went into the 2016 race knowing Hillary Clinton better than the other sixteen Republican candidates. I served ten and a half years as governor of Arkansas, where the Clintons lived and served. It was the Clintons who left behind the gov- ernment I inherited. I left the 2016 race still knowing her better, but also knowing the other GOP candidates, including Donald Trump. I was—and still am— convinced that Donald Trump is our best hope of turning the tide of the insider political nonsense that has left people seething and that would have continued if Hillary Clinton had won the election. The growing support Trump gathered from many leaders in the evangelical community along the way shows that they too saw the value of coalescing behind him to defeat Clinton and change the course of our nation. And the results of the election show that Americans did not want to continue in the direction in which
eight years of the Obama White House had taken us. Since his election I’m encouraged by the way President Trump has surrounded himself with a number of evangelical Christians, starting with Vice President Mike Pence, and genuinely desires their counsel. I believe his continued openness to input from Christian leaders shows that he wasn’t only pandering for votes but that he truly understands and welcomes godly advice and he sees the value of prayer. Trump once said, “Imagine what our country could accomplish if we start- ed working together as one people, under one God, saluting one flag.”¹ I believe that is still his dream, and he intends to see it through as he leads our country from the Oval Office. In this book, God and Donald Trump, Stephen Strang gives us an insightful look back at the events that unfolded during Donald Trump’s election. Over the years I’ve gotten to know Steve and the passion he has in his heart to impact our culture through his faith and to see biblical values restored in our society. From Steve’s unique vantage point at the forefront of Christian media for the past four decades, he is able to pull back the curtain and show us inside the minds and hearts of Christian leaders and share with us their journey to support the most
unlikely GOP candidate in American history. I believe you’ll enjoy reading every word of this book, and as you do, remember to pray for our president. As he undertakes the pressures and responsibilities of governing our nation, he needs the wisdom and strength that can only come from heaven through the power of a praying people. Remember also to pray for our country. I believe Trump’s historic battle for the White House in 2016 metaphor- ically reminds us that America too is in a historic battle not only for its political future but also for its very soul. —MIKE HUCKABEE GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS FROM 1996 TO 2007 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN 2008 AND 2016
INTRODUCTION ★★★★★ NEWS REPORTS IN the wake of the 2016 election revealed that evangelical Chris- tians backed Donald J. Trump more than any Republican presidential candidate in history. What makes this remarkable is that few Evangelicals supported him in the beginning. For Bible-believing Christians, Trump would be the most unlikely candidate anyone could imagine. He fathered children by three wives, made some of his wealth in the gambling industry, and was well known for using some of the most vulgar and degrading language imaginable. Even though he made it known during the campaign that he’d never smoked cigarettes and didn’t drink alcohol, he was no one’s image of a choirboy. But at some point, to everyone’s surprise, Donald Trump managed to win the confi- dence of enough voters to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. And in the process he persuaded the largest number of Evangelicals in history to vote for him on Election Day, which was nothing short of a miracle. While all of that is compelling, I should make it clear that this will not be
merely another book about how Donald Trump became the forty-fifth president of the United States. The campaign tactics and political drama are really a small part of the story. Instead, my purpose has been to explore the spiritual dimensions of the 2016 presidential election and to determine what role faith and the religious impulse may have played in Trump’s unlikely win. In the interest of full disclosure I have spent most of my career as a journalist, author, and publisher in the Christian community. I have met and written about most of America’s well-known religious leaders, and I believe the spiritual aspect of life is vitally important. But like most people who followed the political gym- nastics of the 2016 campaign, I wanted to know why Donald Trump was elected. I wanted to look closely at the religious and spiritual dynamics of the race and to find out what impact they may have had. The “faith factor” was brought up repeatedly throughout the campaign, often to the amusement of Trump’s critics in the media. Not only did the candidate make his faith an issue, but he went to the trouble of creating a faith advisory board of pastors, evangelists, and ministry leaders years before he entered the race. Trump obviously believed that religion was an issue, and he understood that the
evangelical community of more than sixty-five million to eighty million potential voters¹ was an audience he needed to know more about. As he gathered advisers and strategists to his side, he discovered that the peo- ple in the so-called flyover zone (how people on the East and West Coasts refer to middle America) were profoundly angry with Washington. They were tired of the government’s lurch toward globalism in the Obama administration. They were concerned about the impact undocumented immigrants were having on their communities, and they were rightfully afraid of the threat of radical Islamic ter- rorism. I believe Donald Trump shared those emotions, but how much of what he promised on the campaign stump was merely tactical, and how much was in- spired by a genuine concern for the future of the nation? Since the election I have been intrigued by the public reaction to Trump’s vic- tory, and I’ve been surprised by the comments of people who say they have a sense that God had something to do with it. Some posted comments on the Internet saying they had never thought about the possibility before, but maybe there was a God, and maybe He was doing something nobody understands. I thought of Benjamin Franklin’s surprising declaration during the Constitutional
Convention of 1787, when he said famously, “God governs in the affairs of men.” And it struck me that a lot of Facebookers and chat room prowlers were starting to come to the same conclusion. So that’s the real reason for this book. I want to tell the untold story of why Donald J. Trump, the flamboyant outsider who broke all the rules and shattered political protocol, became the forty-fifth president of the United States. This book is neither biography nor commentary but delves into issues and trends in society, looking at where the country is going and the degree to which the actions of the evangelical community may have influenced Trump’s election. In short, where was God in all this? And what difference does it make? THE REST OF THE STORY There are a number of little-known stories that proved to be critical in helping to turn the tide of this historic election, and those stories need to be brought to light. So I have written about not only the enormous evangelical support for Trump’s campaign but also the early support of some charismatic leaders, an angle few have written about thus far. I examine how Trump has attempted to
reach across the racial divide and how a California pastor wrote an amazing arti- cle giving a rationale for voting for Trump, especially for those who didn’t like him, and wound up with more than 4.1 million shares on the Internet. I have also spoken with several religious leaders identified as modern-day prophets. Many of these individuals prophesied well before the election that God was raising up Donald Trump like the ancient Persian king Cyrus the Great, a pagan chosen by God for a purpose only he could accomplish. The prophets told me they had cer- tain knowledge that Trump would win. And, lo and behold, he did. I confess that, like most Evangelicals, I supported Trump only after Ted Cruz dropped out of the race in May 2016. But once I was on board, I did whatever I could to help elect this most unlikely candidate. I became involved behind the scenes, meeting for strategy sessions with Christian leaders, posting more than one hundred articles on our CharismaNews.com website, and writing columns about the stakes in this election. We devoted the entire October issue of Charis- ma magazine to what I considered to be the most important election of my life- time. That issue included my exclusive interview with Donald Trump, from Au- gust 11, 2016, and I’ve included that conversation in this book.
I know, of course, that Trump made some unwise public statements and at- tacked others when he should have held his tongue—he could have been more diplomatic in his replies to critics. But I’m reminded of the words of my friend Archbishop Russell McClanahan of Tallahassee, Florida, who said recently, “Trump’s strength is he’s not a politician. Trump’s weakness is he’s not a politi- cian.” For all his abrasive words and deeds, a near majority of the American peo- ple, and an overwhelming plurality in the electoral college, were willing to over- look the negatives and accentuate the positives to give the political outsider from Manhattan the victory. Since the election I think even those who had their doubts are coming to believe they did the right thing. I can’t begin to imagine what life would have been like with four years of Hillary Clinton in the White House. Pundits of both the Left and the Right have sug- gested it would simply have been Obama’s third term, and that would have been inconceivable. During the campaign I got to know some of the people you will meet in these pages—people whose credibility I readily vouch for—and they pro- vided insights on what was happening behind the scenes that few people could have known. I soon realized those stories of what was happening on a spiritual
level needed to be included in this book, so that’s part of what you will find in these pages. In 2003 I had the privilege of publishing The Faith of George W. Bush, which was Charisma House’s first New York Times best seller. Time magazine wrote about the impact of the book on the evangelical community. Yet as appealing as the story of President Bush’s spiritual journey may have been, I believe the story of Donald Trump’s journey to the White House is infinitely more interesting. Donald Trump is certainly no theologian, and he has been described by some ob- servers as a “baby Christian” at best. But Christian leaders I respect have told me he is a chosen vessel being used by God despite his flaws. Like General Patton, they said, he is a man with a heaven-sent mission, and the rough edges, crusty language, and arrogance are essential aspects of his character and force of will. By the time I flew to New York to attend the election evening party at the New York Hilton on the evening of November 8, 2016, I had already come to believe Trump was going to win. If I didn’t believe that, I would have stayed home. But I believed God had spoken, and I wanted to see this amazing part of history as it unfolded. There are other books about Donald Trump, and reams have been
written about the election. But most of them ignore the God story, and I’m con- vinced that is not merely part of the story—it is the biggest part of the story. Maybe you’re a skeptic. Maybe you don’t like President Trump. You don’t have to like him to realize this has been an exceptional election, and there are appar- ently forces at work we barely understand. As you read this book, I hope it may cause you to think that perhaps God really does get involved in the affairs of men, and better yet that the turn taking place in this nation under Donald Trump’s presidency will prove to be a turn in the right direction. —STEPHEN E. STRANG ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA JULY 4, 2017