Image Credit: Lance Wallnau: God is raising up Trump as a Cyrus to destroy political correctness.
Trump’s Wall ‘Isn’t About Mexico,’ it’s About Biblical Prophecy, so sayeth one Lance Wallnau. I hear a chorus of “whos?” In honesty, I don’t know, I hadn’t heard of Mr. Wallnau until today. It seems he’s not a pastor, but a Seven Mountains Dominionist theologian, or so people say. His current attempt at convincing Christians to vote for Trump is that Trump is just like Cyrus in the bible, an unbeliever who was used by god.
Seven Mountains dominionism advocate Lance Wallnau has been one of t he most creative defenders of Donald Trump on the Religious Right, explaining that Trump has an “anointing” from God similar to that of King Cyrus, whom God used despite the fact that he was not a believer.
Wallnau continued explaining his spiritual defense of Trump in two recent podcasts with Charisma magazine founder Steve Strang, explaining that Trump has an “unappreciated prophetic gifting” and that the candidate’s calls to build a border wall are not about the border at all but about instigating a revival among American Christians.
Wallnau recalled that Cyrus issued a decree that “opened a gate in heaven” and led the way for spiritual revival in Jerusalem.
“He opened a gate, Stephen,” Wallnau said, “he opened a gate in heaven with proclamation so that all the prophecies and prayers that were stored up for Jerusalem could suddenly begin to be manifested, beginning with the House of God getting revived and continuing on through Darius and to Artaxerxes until Nehemiah, on the basis of Cyrus’ decree, petitioned to build the wall.”
“And then I started looking at, my gosh, there’s more prophetic dialogue on Trump than Christians realize,” he continued. “This whole thing about building a wall isn’t about Mexico, it’s about in the Bible, from my perspective, Nehemiah’s project was to restore the boundaries around that which had collapsed where God’s people were concerned.
“I think that in the Bible, building a wall has to do with like Proverbs 25, ‘a man without self-control is like a city without walls,’ it’s broken down. Our fiscal situation is broken down, our race relations are broken down, our definitions of sexuality and gender are broken down. I believe that if Trump is allowed to be president, there will be a release of that stored up potential that we’ve been praying, fasting and prophesying into for the past 20 years for revival in America.”
Wallnau went on to describe to Strang how “if God can anoint a secular individual, then they are operating in a sense with God’s wisdom and guidance on them.”
Trump, he said, “has a remarkable and uncelebrated, I think, or perhaps I should say unappreciated prophetic gifting.”
He recalled how Trump told conservative religious leaders at a recent meeting in New York that “leadership is about seeing the future,” something that he said Trump had demonstrated with his predictions about radical Islam, the national debt, the inner cities, terrorism in Belgium and the fact that “he saw the Brexit before it happened.”
Liberals say that Trump’s rhetoric is “dark and dystopian,” he said, but “in fact, he’s merely describing, like a Churchillian gift, what is on the horizon.”
So, there you have it. Trump is an anointed prophet of Churchill’s caliber. Yes indeedy. Via RRW. There’s a bit more information about Wallnau’s nonsense here, but you’ll need a tanker full of salt, and some way to guard yourself from fatal eyerolls. The comments, while depressing, are an interesting insight as to how christians are handling this political mess.
a Seven Mountains Dominionist theologian
Bah, drunken mountebank style is easily defeated by porchupine style.
Trump is an anointed prophet of Churchill’s caliber
I actually think Churchill was a bigger phoney and a less effective executive than Trump. His prosecution of the Dardanelles campaign, which was his idea, cost almost a million lives. The allied assault up into Italy in WWII was also a Churchill idea. And now we find out that his famous appearances in The Blitz were actually an actor -- Churchill was in a deep bunker getting blitzed and smoking cigars -- the only danger he experienced was the risk of choking on the silver spoon that was in his mouth.
Nothing on this nutter in the Encyclopedia of American Loons, other than a tangential reference (in #1585: Johnny Enlow, who is one of wackos responsible for seven mountains terrorism). According to RationalWiki, seven mountains terrorism:
The rabbit-hole goes quite deep here (I’ve omitted a lot). As the above-linked Loons article concludes, “They are really, truly hoping to model the US on Taliban principles.”
OK, I looked at the comments. That was terrifying. Also it seems like there are more of them than there are of us. The polls of the larger public are reassuring on that point, but they still say that something like 40% for Trump. 40% of my fellow citizens are insane?
But the really terrifying thing, is that I kind of get what they’re doing. I remember hearing and occasionally telling the “God might be trying to do thus and such” stories. In the (liberal, educated, Catholic) environment I grew up in, smart was being able to tell a nice, intellectual sounding story that hooked point A up to point B. It really took atheists to show me what it meant to build a platform of evidence for point A.
I also remember scratching my head as a young person trying to figure out how a person got the authority to tell these stories. It needed some assortment of adulthood, maleness, education, or ordination. My god stories sounded just as good to me as theirs, but were more likely to be challenged. Go figure.
Gah! Just realized “insane” is the wrong word. Sorry. Having trouble thinking of a replacement.
Marcus @2: I’m all for pointing out the horribleness of “great” people, and you could have included the Bengal famine of 1943, and the Iran coup of 1953. But…
I’ve read 500,000, both sides. Did I miss something?
Where did “we” find this out?
If the actor thing is true, OK for WWII, but he did actually serve on the Western Front in WWI after the Gallipoli debacle.
Martha:
I know. I’ve been quietly freaking out about this for a long time now. Yes, Trump has all the nationalists and bigots on his side, and the more wacky christians, too. It’s frightening reading about what might be called ‘middle of the road’ christians, and how they are justifying voting for him. It seriously feels like being outnumbered.
Martha @ 5:
No worries. All I can come up is lunacy, and maybe fanaticism.
Martha@#5, Caine@#8:
“mountebank”
“carnie”
“faker”
“grifter”
He’s not crazy -- he’s doubtless promoting himself for a book or something (and you’re helping him!)
“gilded fleecer”
“man with the oleagenous tongue”
“gargler with fragrant grease”
“bare faced liar”
“overproduced pisspot”
…
“shit hit the fanatic”
The whole “an actor (usually said to be Norman Shelley) read Churchill’s wartime speeches” thing seems to be an invention of holocaust denier David Irving, albeit as Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge says, “It is difficult to prove or disprove Irving’s claims.”
Also, teh trum-prat has not been in the position to start or meddle-with a war. We have no idea what harebrained ideas and mistakes teh trum-prat would make; comparing him to anyone else on that basis seems absurd.
Rob Grigjanis:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/bookchapters/WSC/Observer291000.html
also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_War_Rooms
that’ll get you started; do you own research beyond that.
WRT Dardanelles campaign, I quoted that from memory; I recalled it from one time when I tried to roll up both civilian and military casualties into an estimate, plus the casualties of the ill-fated attempt to run the strait. Admittedly, those were a handful -- a few thousand.
There were a lot more civilians killed in Italy, and heinous casualties on both sides. Of course if the Italy side-show hadn’t happened, it would have just meant the Red Army would have had more work to do on the Western Front.
he did actually serve on the Western Front in WWI after the Gallipoli debacle
Are you thinking of the Afghan side-show in 1879? A nice “shoot down the darkies” sort of affair, just his thing. You should read some of the charming things he had to say about the people whose slaughter he was enjoying.
blf@#11: if that’s true, then I’ve fallen for misinformation :(
Marcus @ 9, those won’t work. Martha and I were referencing the 40% of people who support Trump.
@Caine and Martha, how about “credulous bigots”? “Misled xenophobes”? Don’t get me started…
Interestingly the whole Brexit thing seems to have been led by a sense of xenophobia as well. The old “they are taking our jobs!” stuff. Even though I’m pretty sure none of those people want to do those particular jobs and it’s not clear to me how you take something away from someone who does not have that particular thing.
Our fiscal situation was broken by modern conservatives. Our race relations continue to be broken by modern conservatives. Our definition of sexuality and gender are approaching civilized with means, of course, that modern conservatives want to return them to being broken.
Then why does Trump seek to return us to a mythical past, a Golden Age that never existed (except for middle- and upper-class white men)? That is not the future.
martha @4:
If one approaches politics from fear, from terror, from xenophobic bigotry, from a biblical viewpoint, from black and white fanatacism, the 40% are not batshit nuts.
=========
Regarding the Churchill conversation — yes, sometimes a double did play Churchill but it was used most often to disguise him being out of the country for conferences. And yes, he did serve as an officer on the Western Front during WWI.
Marcus @12: We obviously differ as to what constitutes good research. Your first link references David Irving, holocaust denier, as a reliable source. The current status of Shelley as stand-in for Churchill’s speeches is “unproven”. Rumour is not history.
The Cabinet War Rooms are nothing new. Was he supposed to conduct the war from a kiosk in Trafalgar Square?
No, I actually wrote “WWI” and “after the Gallipoli debacle”. And I’m well aware of many of the things he said. The point is that, if the truth is damaging enough, why embellish it? All you achieve is undermining your own credibility.
Caine@#14:
Martha and I were referencing the 40% of people who support Trump
Oooooh, mis-parsed that. It never occurred to me that someone would use ableist insults at 40% of a population.
“The fooled”
“The gullible right”
“Followers of the racist pied piper”
“The trumpenproletariat”
“Aspiring bootlickers”
“Fascists in training”
Rob Grigjanis:
We obviously differ as to what constitutes good research. Your first link references David Irving, holocaust denier, as a reliable source.
The Guardian also linked it; I actually was following from there. So -- whatever. Hey, I got fooled.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2000/oct/29/uknews.theobserver
No, I actually wrote “WWI” and “after the Gallipoli debacle”. And I’m well aware of many of the things he said. The point is that, if the truth is damaging enough, why embellish it? All you achieve is undermining your own credibility.
Whatever.
I actually _did not know_ that Churchill went into the trenches. I did know he putzed around in Afghanistan. I wasn’t trying to be clever, so please don’t build any elaborate conspiracy theories, ok?
Interesting stuff. Churchill appears to have spent a lot of time mugging for pictures and took a nice bathtub along with him to the front, showed up at an area where the fighting was largely done and took over a unit that had been mauled earlier. Certainly he could hear the guns from where he was; just as he could hear the bombs from down in his bunker. Well, good for him.
I’m more concerned with his military incompetence than anything else; most of the personal stuff I know about him I picked up in passing while studying the wars. I was unimpressed with him as a person and continue to remain so.
Marcus: Sorry. I shouldn’t have used “embellishment” since that implies deliberate fiddling.
Even in a history of a religion littered with some poisonous theologies, Dominionism stands out as a nasty, authoritarian, intolerant theology. It has a frightening amount of influence in the thinking of US white evangelicals these days. And Dominionism in turn is influenced by an even uglier theology -- Reconstructionism. RJ Rushdoony founded that school of ‘thought’ was once a missionary of some sort at Fort McDermitt Paiute Reservation. How come Natives always get stuck with the worst religious crackpots? Argh. I would love to know if there are any stories from Ft McDermott about this guy -- he was there decades ago. I am sure he was a real bundle of fun. Hah
Patricia @ 20:
Because we are such savage Savages!