On Religion: Trump’s Talk of Heaven Spurs Debate Among Evangelicals
(ANALYSIS) The U.S. Secret Service spotted the hunter's stand high in a tree near Palm Beach International Airport.
It’s possible that it could be used to shoot invasive wildlife. Then again, this potential sniper's nest had a clear sightline to the departure stairs for Air Force One when parked in its usual slot when President Donald Trump returns to Mar-a-Lago.
Obviously, Trump knows he has enemies who want to help him spend eternity in real estate infinitely hotter than South Florida.
“I'm not supposed to be here tonight," he told the Republican National Convention, days after an assassin just missed his head. When the crowd shouted, “Yes, you are!", Trump responded, "I thank you, but I'm not, and I'll tell you, I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God.”
The president believes God saved his life for a purpose. That's interesting, considering his history of remarks doubting whether he is worthy of heaven.
During Trump's recent journey to Israel, a Fox News reporter asked if the Gaza ceasefire effort might open heaven's gates.
“I'm being a little cute. I don't think there's anything going to get me in heaven," said Trump. "I think I'm not maybe heaven bound. ... I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make heaven, but I've made life a lot better for a lot of people."
That question was linked to his August remarks about ending the bloodshed in Ukraine.
“If I can save 7,000 people a week from getting killed, that's pretty good," Trump said. "I want to get to heaven if possible. I'm hearing I'm not doing well. I hear I'm at the bottom of the totem pole. ... If I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons."
The president's thoughts on heaven and hell inspired online commentary, especially among Evangelical and Pentecostal Protestants, who played a major role in his rise to political power. Trump was raised as a mainline Presbyterian -- but now calls himself a nondenominational Protestant.
In a Madison Square Garden rally in 2024, Trump described his devout mother and real-estate magnate father in these terms: "Now, my beautiful parents are up in heaven. I think they are. ... I know my mother's in heaven. I'm not 100% sure about my father, but it's close."
The president's desire to perform good works worthy of heaven meshes with what sociologist Christian Smith, now teaching at the University of Notre Dame, describes as moralistic therapeutic deism. Its tenets: (1) God created the world and watches over humanity, (2) God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in various world religions, (3) The goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself, (4) God becomes involved in life when needed to solve problems, and (5) "Good people go to heaven when they die."
In an open online letter to Trump, the conservative Reformed theologian Doug Wilson stressed that sinners must repent and believe. "The fundamental temptation for people, and especially for accomplished people like yourself, is to think that there is something they can do to earn or merit God's forgiveness," he wrote.
“Hell is only earned, and heaven is only given. Given to whom? To all who ask for it in the name of Jesus Christ. ... Coming to Christ is nothing less than a resurrection from the dead, and the only thing you are allowed to contribute is the corpse."
An outspoken #NeverTrump evangelical, Christianity Today Editor-at-Large Russell Moore, noted that the Bible says Jesus even embraces repentant sinners who have "defrauded others," were "morally promiscuous" and supported what was "probably insurrectionist violence." However, addressing Trump, Moore admitted that "I'd kind of like to see you get your comeuppance," but that the temptation to think that way "is of the Devil."
The bottom line: "To actually enter heaven, you have to give up that mindset of earning your way there. You have to recognize your own need for something you can't win or achieve or earn. You have to consider Donald Trump to be the wrong path for you. In fact, you have to consider Donald Trump to be dead. ... You can't get to heaven with the art of the deal.”
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Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.