Pence Says ‘President Trump Is a Believer.’ Really?

That’s especially remarkable since Graham’s lifetime has coincided with two presidencies held by men who whose religious views definitely overlapped with his own, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush.

Trump’s alignment with Christianity, in anything other than an entirely instrumental manner, was not something conservative evangelicals were particularly confident about when he was running for president. Indeed, one very common rationalization for supporting this amoral narcissist (whose “attitude toward women is that of a Bronze Age warlord,” saidSouthern Baptist leader Russell Moore) was that God often uses wicked men to achieve His inscrutable purposes.

And even now, the conservative faithful don’t seem entirely sure Trump is one of their own. After Vice-President Mike Pence gave an interview with Christian-right journalist and Trump sycophant David Brody, CBN gave the “exclusive” story this triumphant headline:

’President Trump Is a Believer and so am I’: Pence Confirms Trump’s Christian Faith to CBN News

The interview provides no particular evidence for Pence’s assertion; it’s mostly a jumble of bromides:

“I’ve been with this president in the Oval Office, with religious leaders, when people have asked to pause for a moment of prayer and the president readily embraces that. I think he’ always very humbled and grateful by the support of believers … And we understand the role of faith in the life of this nation, and the American people I think can be encouraged to know that in President Donald Trump, they have a leader who embraces and respects and appreciates the role of faith and the importance of religion in the lives of our families in communities in our nation and he always will.”

To me, the most impressive thing about Trump letting Christians lay hands on him in prayer is that he waits until they are out of sight before reaching for the hand sanitizer. But in any event, accepting prayers and appreciating “the importance of religion” are not the same as sharing the prayers or the religion oneself. With the exception of Stalin with his famous “How many divisions does he have?” quip about the Pope’s limitations, even the most anti-Christian secular leaders have had sense enough to give a nod to the power of the church and its prayers.

But it really seems to matter to Trump’s believing followers to believe that he’s a believer, too. Last year Christian-right warhorse James Dobson dealt with the mogul’s patent philistinism by suggesting (with no particular evidence) that he had undergone a recent conversion, and was thus a “baby Christian” who was still learning the spiritual ropes. Within days Dobson backtracked on that assertion, and sowed additional doubts by attributing Trump’s religious tutelage to the prosperity-gospel televangelist Paula White, who is nearly as dubious a figure among evangelicals as Trump himself.

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