By Paul A. Djupe and Ryan Burge
Over the weekend, Rick Perry, the U.S. secretary of energy, became the latest highly placed evangelical Christian to claim that President Trump is the “chosen one.”
“I said you were,” Perry said in a clip from an interview shown on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” relating a recent conversation with Trump about an August press briefing in which the president said, “I am the chosen one.”
“If you are a believing Christian, you understand God’s plan for the people who rule and judge over us on this planet and our government,” Perry explained. The energy secretary said he had given the president a memo listing the kings of Israel, all of them ordained by God in the Bible — none of whom, Perry pointed out, “were perfect.”
Is this view of Trump as anointed by God common among Protestants? We put a survey into the field in May of 2019 that assessed the opinions of just over 1,000 Protestant Christians. We asked two questions regarding the anointing of presidents by God.
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