By: Heather Timmons | White House correspondent | QZ
Date: May 15, 2018
[...]
Yesterday, Trump's advisors and family members Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner finally inaugurated the new Jerusalem embassy-while the death toll of Palestinian protestors ticked steadily up to over 50, including several children.
Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Barack Obama all faced pressure from wealthy potential campaign donors to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, but Trump is listening to a voice they were not: evangelical Christians who appear to believe in the "Rapture." Some, like vice president Mike Pence and secretary of state Mike Pompeo, hold posts inside his cabinet. For Rapture Christians, returning Jerusalem to the Jewish people is a key to the second coming of Christ.
Robert Jeffress, a pastor who preaches the Rapture, delivered the new embassy's opening prayer. Jeffress has previously said that Mormons are heretics, Jews fated to hell, Islam promotes pedophilia, and homosexuals are filthy. He prayed, "We thank you everyday that you have given us a president who boldly stands on the right side of history, and more importantly on the right side of you, oh God, when it comes to Israel."
[...]
A new ideology in the White House
Belief in the Rapture, also known as millenarianism or eschatology, has multiple variations, but the core view is that there will an apocalyptic war, Jesus will return, and true Christians will be "raptured" or ascend to heaven, with the rest of the earth's inhabitants punished.
[...]
Preachers of this scenario include the recently-deceased Billy Graham, mega-church founder Pat Robertson (who says Trump is implementing "God's plan") and many lesser-known "end is nigh" prophets around the country.
In the Trump White House, a weekly bible study group calls its brand of faith "historical evangelicalism." Biblical scholars say the group shares the "end of times" message of "Rapture" theologians in its statement of faith and founder Ralph Drollinger's own published lessons.
The bible study group is run by Capitol Ministries, an organization with the stated mission "to teach God's Word and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with state legislators, judges, and constitutional officers." Capitol Ministries supporters include ten members of Trump's cabinet, including in addition to Pompeo, labor secretary Alex Acosta and housing secretary Ben Carson according to the Capitol Ministries website.
[...]
On May 8, as Trump was pulling the US out of the Iran deal, Capitol Ministries put out its latest study, "The Bible on When War Is Justifiable," rebutting pacifism.
[...]
Critics warn that Rapture-believing evangelicals pose a threat to global peace. "They want to bring on the Kingdom of Christ, and their version is weaponized," said Mikey Weinstein, the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a watchdog group that tracks Christian fundamentalism in the military. "They want to do whatever they can do to bring their version of Jesus back."
If you believe in the Rapture, "there are only two groups, the righteous and the unrighteous, or the godly and the ungodly," said Valarie Ziegler, a professor of religious studies at DePauw University. "It leads to very binary thinking. Any other religion will be a false religion, by definition."
[...]
White, evangelical Christians voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016.
Anti-environmentalism, isolationism, King Cyrus
Rapture theologists and historical evangelicals hold several other views that hew closely to Trump administration policies. They believe that earth was created for man's use, for example, and that environmentalism is a form of blasphemy.
[...]
Christian evangelicals "don't like Trump because they think he is holy," explains Ziegler. "They like him because they think he's God's tool."
