Video from Big Think
As to the reason many (not all) self-declared white-evangelicals have become devoted Trump supporters much ink has been spilt. If we look at those who vocalize their admiration, we find many people who have started worshipping the man. Do they want someone to think for them and to save them? If they are a Christian that would be Christ!
So the question can be asked is Trumpism a cult?
“Cult leaders may seem crazy, but they are cunning masters of manipulation, employing an arsenal of these techniques to render their followers dependent and obedient. I have learned that mind control is not a vague, mystical process but, instead, is the result of a concrete and specific and systematic set of methods and techniques. Cult leaders may seem crazy, but they are cunning masters of manipulation, employing an arsenal of these techniques to render their followers dependent and obedient. It’s what I call the cult leader’s playbook.” – The Cult of Trump book
The Cult of Trump is written by one of the leading experts in cults and mind-control, Steven Hassan.
Ben Zeller, a professor at Lake Forest University who focuses on new religions and Daniel Shaw, a New York-based psychoanalyst spoke with Ali Breland of Mother Jones in April 2020. In that interview Zeller, Hassan, and Shaw noted that the coronavirus’s threat to Trump’s power and presidency and his willingness to sacrifice the lives of his followers is not dissimilar. But while over 900 people died at Jonestown after drinking fruit-flavored punch spiked with poison, Trump’s plan would likely result in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of deaths, many of which would come from one of the president’s core bloc of followers, the elderly. Article link here.
Texas Governor Don Patrick made this strange statement: “No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that America loves for its children and grandchildren?’" Patrick said on Fox News Monday night. “And if that is the exchange, I’m all in.”
Many other similar statements have been made as many have decided that certain people can die to save the economy. Are we all in for greed to the point we are willing to sacrifice or fellow citizens?
“The designation of Trumpers being cultish is insignificant,” Shaw said. “If we accurately describe their behaviors, the evidence is overwhelming that there is a delusional leader who believes themself to be omnipotent with followers who are delusional and believe he’s omnipotent. And that’s a problem.”
Now it should be noted that not all people, Christians who support Trump have these extreme views and many are appalled at Trumps’ behavior yet have bought into it for transactional reasons.
And we must also realize that Trump—unlike Jim Jones, Koresh, and Heaven’s Gate mass suicide leader Marshall Applewhite— has no interest in harming himself or anyone close to him as he prefers to have others make sacrifices for him.
Right now as our country reaps the sowing of the 1960’s onward we search for answers. As Dr. David Brown said recently: Trump is not our savior nor is Biden the devil, paraphrased.
There is little doubt that God’s passive judgement is upon this nation. Can e stave off his active judgement? To do that is going to require most of all by America’s Christians is repentance of sins and obedience to Christ. Where are you in the scheme of things right now before your Lord?