![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/321\/2021\/01\/FailStamp.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Today is Joe Biden\u2019s inauguration as the 46th President of the United States. According to many, many influential Christians, this was supposed to have been impossible.<\/p>\n
In the months leading up to November 2020, a horde of self-appointed prophets declared in no uncertain terms that God had assured them of Trump\u2019s victory. Most came from prominent figures in \u201ccharismatic\u201d Christianity \u2013 those cultish sects which teach that God routinely grants miraculous powers to the faithful, like faith healing, exorcising demons, speaking in tongues<\/a>, and of course, receiving prophetic visions of the future. <\/p>\n To be clear, these figureheads of the religious right didn\u2019t say they were guessing<\/i> or hoping<\/i> that Trump would win. Each and every one of them presented this as a revelation direct from God, foretelling how events would turn out. Here\u2019s just a partial list of the hall of shame:<\/p>\n \u2022 John Whitman<\/b>, author of Trump\u2019s Prophetic Destiny<\/i>, wrote in May 2019<\/a>: \u201cGod has made it plain as to why Trump is His choice for president now and in the upcoming years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Kris Vallotton<\/b>, a leader at Bethel Church (this Bethel Church<\/a>) said in December 2019<\/a>: \u201cI believe the Lord\u2019s gonna give him [President Trump] another term. I believe it because\u2026 the Lord wants it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Mark Taylor<\/b>, coauthor of The Trump Prophecies<\/i>, said in December 2017<\/a>: \u201cThere is going to be no doubt he is going to sail right in for a second term.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Frank Amedia<\/b>, founder of Touch Heaven Ministries and Trump\u2019s \u201cliaison for Christian policy\u201d, said in March 2018<\/a>: \u201cDonald Trump will be the next president of the United States again in 2020. I think you feel the power of God releasing on that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Author Kat Kerr<\/b> predicted a two-term Trump presidency on numerous occasions, including April 2019<\/a> when she said, \u201cTrump is going to win again in 2020. People have their own opinions, I don\u2019t have one; I say what God says.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Hank Kunneman<\/b>, pastor of Lord of Hosts Church, said in January 2020<\/a> that Trump would win two terms \u2013 and, to top it off, that Mike Pence would be elected in 2024.<\/p>\n \u2022 Jeremiah Johnson<\/b>, founder of Heart of the Father Ministry, said in October 2020<\/a> that he had a prophetic dream which showed him that \u201cDonald J. Trump would be re-elected and would confirm that the spirit and power of Elijah is resting upon the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 James Goll<\/b>, president of God Encounters Ministries, said in April 2020<\/a>: \u201cI believe it is the will of the Lord for President Trump to be reelected.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Denise Goulet<\/b>, pastor of the International Church of Las Vegas, said in October 2020<\/a>: \u201cThe Lord said to me, \u2018I am going to give your president a second win.'\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Pat Robertson<\/b>, who\u2019s bumbled his prophecies so many times<\/a> that having him on your side should be viewed as a bad sign, said in October 2020<\/a> that Trump would win \u201cwithout question\u201d, after which there would be five years of peace and then an asteroid would strike and bring about the apocalypse (?!).<\/p>\n \u2022 Televangelist and Trump \u201cspiritual adviser\u201d Paula White<\/b> said just after the election<\/a>, in a semi-coherent ranting-and-raving speech, that God was sending angels from all over the earth to assure Trump\u2019s reelection: \u201cI hear a sound of victory, the Lord says it is done.\u201d<\/p>\n (There are many more I could have named here. See this video<\/a> for more of them.)<\/p>\n In fact, Oklahoma pastor Curt Landry<\/b> said that the chorus of prophets predicting a second term for Trump was the most unanimous he\u2019d ever seen<\/a>:<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019ve been operating as a prophet for 30 years, and I have never in my experience as a prophet seen every prophet I know and respect \u2014 and some I respect and don\u2019t know \u2014 all on the same sheet of music. They are all saying Donald Trump is going to serve two terms.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So.<\/p>\n When the election was called for Biden, there was much confusion and dismay. Kris Vallotton posted an apology<\/a> for his false prophecy, then took it down. <\/p>\n But even that swift retreat from honesty made him an outlier. Few of the \u201cprophets\u201d wavered in their belief. <\/p>\n Instead, most of them swiftly embraced the conspiracy theory that the election had been stolen, and preached that if Christians prayed enough, massive fraud would be uncovered and Donald Trump would be proven the rightful winner. Some of them, like Hank Kunneman<\/a>, raged at weak-kneed believers who dared to suggest that the winner of the election had won the election:<\/p>\n \n\u201cGod is looking from the throne room, and he is saying, who is conceding and who is standing strong, believing me, God, that I will and I can turn this thing around, and I\u2019m exposing fraud and crime.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A Christian group called the Elijah List put all its chips on the table<\/a>: <\/p>\n \nOn the spiritual side, either a multitude of prophetic voices have been jointly misled, prophesying in total unison that Trump will serve a second term.<\/p>\n Or the words of these prophetic voices will prove true, shocking the nation with the reality of God.<\/p>\n Talk about high stakes!\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Frank Amedia, mentioned earlier, plus another Pentecostal prophet, Dutch Sheets, organized mass prayer in December<\/a> to end the \u201cplot to steal America\u2019s 2020 elections\u201d, decreeing that \u201cthe next four years of Donald John Trump\u2019s presidency\u201d would lead to \u201ca third Great Awakening\u201d in America. Kat Kerr claimed that her false prophecy of a \u201clandslide\u201d for Trump<\/a> really meant there would be a \u201clandslide of exposure\u201d of those who stole the election. Michele Bachmann<\/a> ranted about God\u2019s \u201ciron rod\u201d and begged him to \u201csmash the delusion\u2026 of Joe Biden as our president\u201d.<\/p>\n Many others fell back on the certainty that Trump\u2019s right-wing judges would save them. Sid Roth<\/b> and Michael Murillo<\/b> said<\/a>, \u201cGod has thrown this election into the courts so that corruption will be exposed.\u201d Mike Thompson<\/b> of Word of Life Church released a video<\/a> titled \u201cTHE PROPHETS DIDN\u2019T MISS IT\u201d in which he insisted, \u201cI am very careful to only say what God says when he says it\u201d and added, \u201cThis whole thing will be decided in the courts.\u201d<\/p>\n Christian rapper Marcus Rogers<\/b> insisted<\/a>, \u201cUntil EVERY prophetic word including the prophetic words from last year about the Elections going to the Supreme court fall, I am going to stand,\u201d and added, \u201cWhat God is about to do is so strategic that even atheist [sic<\/i>] are going to doubt themselves and question what they believe.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the subsequent weeks, Trump\u2019s inept lawsuits ran aground and sank, and state legislatures refused to play along with his election-stealing scheme. But the alleged prophets kept steering a course straight toward the iceberg. Well into December and even January, and even after Congress had officially certified the election, many of Trump\u2019s Christian supporters continued to insist that he would remain in office for another four years \u2013 somehow. <\/p>\n This article from the Washington Post<\/a> quotes some of them:<\/p>\n \n\u201cAnyone who think this ends tonight is totally mistaken\u2026 you are still the president and we need you to stay on the front lines, sir,\u201d prophet Mario Bramnick, one of Trump\u2019s faith advisers, said Jan. 7.<\/p>\n \u201cWe thank God for exposing and foiling all the plans of the enemy set against him. We affirm his lawful election and pray for four more years with Donald Trump as our president!\u201d the 24\/7 National Strategic Prayer Call, a 10,000-member Arkansas-based ministry that hosts weekly live prayer calls, told its listeners Monday [Jan. 11].\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Note also that Pat Robertson got it wrong again<\/i>, claiming on January 4 that \u201cthe Holy Spirit\u201d would intervene and \u201cchange the outcome\u201d of Congress\u2019 vote to certify the electoral college.)<\/p>\n Once again, a few dropped away. Kris Vallotton reposted his earlier apology<\/a>, though with a head-scratching insistence that \u201cit doesn\u2019t make me a false prophet\u201d. <\/p>\n Jeremiah Johnson joined the ranks of the disillusioned<\/a>, admitting, \u201cI would like to repent for inaccurately prophesying that Donald Trump would win a second term as the President of the United States.\u201d (He later wrote of getting a flood of hate mail and death threats<\/a> from his co-believers for the grave sin of acknowledging reality.)<\/p>\n These wannabe oracles committed the one fatal error in religion: they made a definitive, testable prediction. Normally, \u201cprophets\u201d keep their message as ambiguous as possible, and hedge their predictions with qualifications like, \u201cTrump will be elected if<\/i> Christians are faithful and pray hard enough and vote.\u201d That way, any failure of the prediction could be blamed on the audience for their insufficient faith. <\/p>\n But the 2020 election was different. It seems that the religious right loved Trump so much that they got carried away, and in their zeal, forgot that they were entering the danger zone of falsifiability. <\/p>\n Now, as Biden is inaugurated and no miraculous intervention has appeared, they\u2019re scurrying around trying to figure out what to do. Via an article on Religion Unplugged, \u201cCharismatics Are At War With Each Other Over Failed Prophecies Of Trump Victory<\/a>\u201c:<\/p>\n \nAt least 40 charismatic Christian leaders predicted Trump\u2019s reelection starting around 2018, according to J. Gordon Melton, 78, the venerable compiler of the Encyclopedia of American Religions<\/i> and an American religious studies professor at Baylor University. <\/p>\n \u2026Many NAR prophets foretell vague events that are hard to disprove, Melton said, but the specificity of these election prophecies are impossible to live down.<\/p>\n \u201cKat Kerr and others have really painted themselves in a corner,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a very serious problem for the prophecy group.\u201d<\/p>\n James A. Beverley, a research professor at Tyndale University in Toronto, went further in calling the matter \u201cthe most significant crisis in the history of modern charismatic prophecy\u201d that he has seen in 40 years of studying the movement. <\/p>\n \u201cThe fight over the Trump prophecies has brought a deep division in the charismatic and Pentecostal world and it has given that branch of the Christian church a serious credibility issue,\u201d he said.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Michael Brown, a Pentecostal himself, has an idea of what escape hatch they\u2019re going to reach for:<\/p>\n \nCertainly, the bulk of Pentecostal-charismatics who follow the prophets are in for a shock when Biden gets inaugurated Jan. 20. Rather than admit their error, Brown says some prophets have already concocted a scenario where Trump will be inaugurated \u201cin heaven\u201d and that God will replace Biden with Trump sometime this spring.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This kind of goalpost-moving is common when apocalyptic predictions fail \u2013 \u201cEverything we said came true! But, uh, in heaven, where you can\u2019t see it\u201d \u2013 but to use it for a U.S. presidential election<\/i> must be a first. <\/p>\n It would be nice if this humiliating failure engendered some humility in the soothsayers of the religious right. It would be nice if they found the honesty to confess that they never heard the voice of God at all, but were only projecting their own wishes and desires. It would be nice if they were chastened enough to announce that they\u2019d no longer claim divine approval for the political platform they personally support. But we all know that isn\u2019t going to happen.<\/p>\n The Christian right has become a cult of personality. They\u2019ve tied themselves, body and soul, to this greedy, racist, adulterous wannabe-dictator. And as Trump\u2019s ship sinks, they\u2019re going down with him. They\u2019ll never have the intellectual honesty to own up to their miserable failure, but we atheists and progressives shouldn\u2019t let them forget about it. We should make sure that it hangs around their neck for the rest of their days.<\/p>\n UPDATE:<\/b> God is dead:<\/p>\n Header image: Hans Gerwitz<\/a> via Flickr<\/a>; released under CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a> license<\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today is Joe Biden’s inauguration as the 46th President of the United States. According to many influential Christians, this was supposed to have been impossible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1308,"featured_media":22419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[93],"class_list":["post-22410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rotunda","tag-prophecy"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/321\/2021\/01\/BidenInauguration.jpg\")
<\/p>\n