this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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United States | News & Politics

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Why do so many evangelical Christians support former President Donald Trump despite his decades of documented ungodly behavior?

An in-depth report from The Economist shows that it has a simple explanation: They believe that God personally appointed him to rule the United States.

In fact, the report cites a survey conducted by Denison University political scientist Paul Djupe that around 30 percent of Americans believe Trump "was anointed by God to become president."

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (5 children)

30% of Americans or 30% of voters?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

About 10 or 20 minutes after I posted the story, I found the actual study by Dennison University that is the basis of many of the claims.

Here is the /official/, paywalled, abstract only link on Cambridge's journal or study publishing site:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/full-armor-of-god/2B21DC6F17E88C6DF7275F45A66DF104

And here are various links to the full study provided by scientists amd volunteers who believe information should be freely available:

https://annas-archive.org/md5/da76eb110551fd4028c9c0a8e185f0ce

I have not had enough time to read it but given that 40% + of American adults believe in the Biblical Creation narrative of the world and do not believe in evolution, I'm pretty confident the 30% figure refers to basically American Adults, ie potential voters, in this context.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

It doesn't say. That and the fact that this is reporting on other reporting, a kind of "reaction video" of journalism should be enough to ignore that number.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

This article has more detailed information on the surveys conducted. It seems to be about a third of US adults.

https://bigthink.com/the-present/was-trump-anointed-by-god/

Interestingly, while skewed heavily towards Republicans, some Democrats also hold this position and a much smaller percentage overall believe he was selected because of his policies.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

30% of Americans that were willing to take the survey... So the most enthusiastic voters...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It's 21 percent of weekly church going Protestants. Unless OP cares to actually share the operative part of the book. That's the number in the interview we've been able to find.