In the buildup to the US presidential election in November, we have seen the end point of a long process of the prophetic movement merging with the Republican Party in America. We have seen how one prophetic leader after another has publicly endorsed Donald Trump for president, even if he has never been a poster boy for Christianity.
For decades, the Democrat Party has had its own ‘prophetic’ traditions, drawing from the ideas of the Civil Rights Movement, which have also occasionally used messianic language. But the alleged divine mandate behind it has always been implied and more centred on ideas rather than persons, whereas the ‘prophets’ of the Republican Party have often resorted to language that claims a direct approval and call from God.
But how did Trump end up becoming the messiah of the prophetic movement?
The Trump prophecies
Fascinatingly, the first Trump prophecy I have come across goes back to his third wedding in 2005, as Bill Yount writes on the Elijah List on January 22, 2005:
"DONALD TRUMP'S WEDDING MAY BE PROPHETIC TO THE BODY OF CHRIST!
I want to caution many who may write off this extravagant wedding because it appears to not outwardly glorify the Lord. I believe I heard the Father say, ‘Donald Trump has the right idea of how to throw a great wedding celebration! Unknowingly to him, he is imitating My way of doing weddings!’
The wedding gown cost $200,000. Twenty eight seamstresses worked 1,550 hours to embroider it. The gown holds 1,500 crystal rhinestones and pearls! It is believed that this gown is so beautiful that many will be attracted to the gown more than the bride. It may actually be a distraction from the Bride's beauty.
The train of the wedding gown is thirteen feet long! I hear the Father saying, 'This is the year of My train (glory) beginning to fill My Temple!' We will begin to see the Glory of the Lord filling His people and overflowing onto the world, just as the waters cover the sea.
The veil of this wedding gown is sixteen feet long. The Father is going to lift the veil from off of the faces of women worldwide, beginning this year! Off of the faces of not only the Muslim women, but every woman. Women will be set free to worship the Lord, beginning this coming year. He will also begin to lift the veil, rapidly, off of the eyes of the Jewish people!"
Retrospectively, it seems evident that none of what Bill Yount prophesied has actually taken place, although the prophetic movement seems willing to ‘marry’ Trump in 2016.
In 2016, the American prophetic movement has lifted all the pretensions and is now openly and fully part of a political party.
For example, Lance Wallnau writes, "Donald Trump has got like this Elijah mantle on him, the Cyrus anointing.”
In another article he writes,
“There is a spirit assigned to destroy America. The strategy is laid bare if you read the 51-page democratic platform. It's the manifesto Hillary is expected to enforce when she is president. They call this revolution a 'reset!' Read it for yourself. Under Hillary, America will undergo the final phase of Obama's radical socialist cultural transformation with astonishing speed. Just one man stands in its path.”
A retired firefighter Mark Taylor prophesies,
“The Spirit of God says, I have chosen this man, Donald Trump, for such a time as this. For as Benjamin Netanyahu is to Israel, so shall this man be to the United States of America! For I will use this man to bring honor, respect and restoration to America. America will be respected once again as the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth, (other than Israel). The dollar will be the strongest it has ever been in the history of the United States, and will once again be the currency by which all others are judged.”
Interestingly, the sign God’s blessing will be most visible on the value of the dollar. In this prophetic movement, it is the American money that will judge all the other currencies. Thankfully, America won’t be as prosperous as God’s chosen nation, Israel! But this vision seems like an antithesis to Jesus’ warning regarding us not being able to serve two masters—God and money.
Also, prophetic leaders called a prayer covering for Trump before the first debate. There was no request for a prayer covering for Hillary Clinton. This is a prophetic movement praying exclusively for one political party only.
"We are interceding to pull down strongholds, expose and strike down adversarial plots and strategies, bind every force that opposes the will of God, and loosen upon Mr. Trump the supernatural gifts of grace, favor, wisdom, revelation, power, peace and presidential authority," Amedia said.
Other prophetic leaders are more cautious, so rather than saying that Christians should vote for Trump, they define the issues that Christians should base their vote on in such a way that the only right answer to the question who to vote for becomes Trump.
That is the strategy of Cindy Jacobs and many other Republican prophets.
Seeing that many Christians feel unease about voting for Trump, they claim that not voting is not an option. David Barton, in a teleconference with Cindy Jacobs, says,
"That's the way we should see our vote, is the Lord gave each of us a vote said, 'You take care of this vote 'til I get back. I want to see what you did with this vote.' If He comes back and say, 'What did you do with that vote I gave you in 2016?' 'well, I decided not to use it.' That's not the acceptable answer. We should first get out of our minds that we have any right to vote. We don't have a right to vote. We have a duty to vote. We have a responsibility to vote and we should tell our friends, 'You don't have a choice. You will vote.'"
Here voting becomes a duty of the Kingdom. Not voting becomes a sin that we will be accountable for in heaven. Then, referring to the prophet Isaiah, David Barton singles out from dozens of campaign issues what God presumably cares about the most. According to him, God cares about getting the right judges on the Supreme Court most, then Israel, marriage, abortion, and life.
Rather than commenting on which candidate Americans should vote for—I am not an American, so I don’t have a say—I am deeply concerned of the merging of the most influential prophetic movement in the world with an agenda of one political party.
It seems to me that a prophetic movement needs to stay independent of political parties to remain influential. That doesn’t mean that prophets can’t have political leanings or convictions, only that we must guard the integrity of our prophetic gift when it comes to politics.
But what is the biblical basis for the prophetic anointing of political leaders?
Anointing political leaders in the New Testament
Anointing political leaders is non-existent in the New Testament. When Jesus stood in front of Pilate, he said,
“Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.’” (John 18:36)
The early church operated in a society that was often hostile to Christianity, and it seems clear that Paul’s relationship with the Roman Empire was somewhat ambivalent. On one hand, he was a Roman citizen, on the other hand, the land of his fathers was occupied by the empire. But the early Christians very much followed the understanding that the Kingdom of God was not of this world and not part of the power structures of our society. The issues related to political power began to occupy Christians only when the Church began to increase in influence and theologians such as Augustine began to develop political theology. But you can’t find any of that in the New Testament.
Seven mountains of influence
The closest to any kind of coherent political theology the prophetic movement in America has come to political theology is an idea about the seven mountains of influence.
In 1975, Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade and Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth With a Mission(YWAM), developed a new strategy. Their mandate: Bring godly change to a nation by reaching its seven spheres, or mountains, of societal influence. They concluded that in order to truly transform any nation with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, these seven facets of society must be reached: religion, family, education, government, media, arts & entertainment and business.
In a nutshell, the idea is that if God’s people take over those mountains, they will be able to influence the whole society in a positive way. There are many interesting ideas included in the seven mountains thinking, but it seems that we are currently more focused on laying hold of power rather than the righteousness of our power. Here is a fairly balanced critique of this way of thinking.
In many ways, this strategy seems derive much from the Old Testament thinking, and it is the Old Testament we must now turn to.
Anointing political leaders in the Old Testament
Anointing political leaders is somewhat more prevalent in the Old Testament, and it is no surprise that most Bible references linked to anointing political leaders come from there. The prophet Samuel anointed Saul, the first king of Israel in 1 Samuel 10, although he also warned Israel against choosing a king.
1 Samuel 8:10-17 says,
“So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked him for a king. And he said, ‘This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots. He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants. And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day.’”
Samuel doesn’t sound particularly optimistic regarding where all this anointing of leaders will lead to. But if you read Jeremiah who prophesied hundreds of years later, you will be able to see them clearly.
Jeremiah prophesies in Jeremiah 22:1-5,
“Thus says the Lord: ‘Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and there speak this word, and say, “Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates! Thus says the Lord: ‘Execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. For if you indeed do this thing, then shall enter the gates of this house, riding on horses and in chariots, accompanied by servants and people, kings who sit on the throne of David. But if you will not hear these words, I swear by Myself,’ says the Lord, ‘that this house shall become a desolation.’””
The list Jeremiah gives is strikingly different from the stated political agenda of Donald Trump. It is also strikingly different from the list given by Christians who demand that we vote for Donald Trump. To be fair, there are elements such as shedding “innocent blood” that fit rather unwell with the abortion policies of most Western nations. But it seems that to Jeremiah, the righteousness of political leaders—no matter who they are—is measured by how well they bring social justice.
You can’t choose between personal holiness and social justice
Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are well versed in using Christian symbolism and language in their campaigning. It seems to me that the Democratic Party has chosen the path of social justice, whereas the Republican Party has leaned towards personal holiness, and it has always been important to them that their candidates profess Christianity as their personal choice. But in the process of neglecting the Bible teaching about social justice, the pursuit of personal holiness has also been disregarded, and it is now all about the pursuit of power.
We can see this clearly in the last two presidential elections, as the Christian part of the Republican Party has found it difficult to present Romney and Trump as Christian candidates and hence the prophetic anointings have become more important that ever, as they can't argue from the personal values of the candidates anymore.
But the prophetic call in the Old Testament has always included both personal holiness and social justice. And in the New Testament, we are asked to love our God with all our heart but also to love our neighbour as we love ourselves.
The problem America is facing right now is the separation of these two strands of biblical values from each other in the Church. It seems that when they become separated from each other, the Church becomes dysfunctional, and today, this is reflected in our society.
We desperately need a Church that is not willing to compromise on either personal holiness or social justice. And that is why the Church has to go back to being the Church again and cease to be an extension of a political party.
We can see the damage done in both Democrat and Republican leaning churches.
But as the white Charismatic churches today are predominantly Republican leaning, the merging of a prophetic movement into a political party has meant that it has merged with the Republican Party.
We must understand that separating personal holiness from social justice inevitably leads to a culture of hypocrisy. And Jesus had more to say about hypocrisy of religious leaders than about nearly any other topic. His message to the religious leaders of our time is neatly capsulated in the story about the Good Samaritan.
We have created a culture of hypocrisy where social justice and truthfulness matter very little. And this is damaging to our testimony.
In my book Supernatural Love: Releasing the Compassion of Jesus Through the Gifts of the Holy Spirit I look at how our stage management driven churches have led to the loss of real spiritual power in the Body of Christ. In may ways, the failure of the prophetic movement is a direct result of the stage performance driven culture of our churches.
You can connect with Marko on Twitter @markojoensuu and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mpjoensuu/ or by visiting markojoensuu.com.
5 Comments
Thanks.