If you want to work for the Trump administration, you must first prove your loyalty to the president. “Those seeking jobs have been told they will have to prove their ‘enthusiasm’ to enact Trump’s agenda and have been asked when their moment of ‘MAGA revelation’ occurred,” the Associated Press reported on Saturday, sparking an obvious religious parallel. Any true believer — in God, in Trump, in aliens, or whatever else — clings to a moment of revelation, after which nothing is ever quite the same. Sometimes revelation is quiet, a matter of internal struggle and evolving belief. We can’t all be Saul of Tarsus, who spoke with God on the road to Damascus. Saul was a Pharisee, bent on the destruction of the Lord’s disciples, until the Lord Himself appeared to him in a heavenly light and questioned his activities. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads,” said the Voice, and Saul, trembling, became a believer, known as the apostle Paul.
These days Donald Trump can boast his own apostles, and some, like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, describe their loyalties in those precise terms. In American Crusade, Hegseth’s 2020 book, he writes, “I was mugged on my own road to Damascus; it was a conversion moment many years in the making — but hastened by the fury of the political climate.” In Trump, Hegseth saw the “Crusader in Chief” that America had long required, and he embraced his new leader with all the fervor of the newly converted. Hegseth is a conservative Christian, and during his Senate confirmation hearing he said often that he had been redeemed by Jesus Christ. For Hegseth, who cheated on his wives and faces accusations of alcohol abuse and rape, Trump offered another, parallel form of salvation. Before Jesus elevates his soul to heaven, Trump will elevate him on Earth.
Like any good apostle, Hegseth carries out his savior’s mission. Now that he is Defense secretary, he has said that he will end diversity programs at the Pentagon and promised a renewed focus on “lethality and readiness and warfighting.” Trump is poised to strike a similar bargain with candidates for other, lesser positions: a soul in exchange for a role in his regime. To enter heaven on Earth, jobseekers must first believe.
Trump owes his initial rise in part to Christian nationalists, who once considered him a modern Cyrus, or a flawed vessel for God’s will. In the years since he first came to power, he has become something of a holy figure, whom many consider to be anointed by God. When he survived an assassination attempt last July, some had all the proof they needed. God’s hand was on Trump — and to oppose God’s man was to oppose God Himself. For some believers, the line between God and Trump had blurred, and now it is blurrier still, marking a new development in a much older phenomenon. A strain of Christianity embraced conservative politics — and reactionary figures — a long time ago, and Trump fulfilled its yearning for a ruthless father. In doing so, he reoriented that version of Christianity around himself until it became a cult of personality, bent on power and domination.
The conflation of Trump and God was apparent last week, when conservatives erupted with outrage over a sermon by Bishop Mariann Budde, the clerical leader of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Budde, who is the first woman to lead the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, urged Trump to show mercy and compassion to immigrants and anyone else who might fear his power. “I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away,” she preached, a message that repulsed Trump and his supporters. “This is not a church and she is not a pastor,” tweeted Sean Feucht, a popular preacher and worship leader. “Do not commit the sin of empathy,” urged a far-right Christian podcaster on X. “This snake is God’s enemy and yours too. She hates God and His people. You need to properly hate in response. She is not merely deceived but is a deceiver. Your eye shall not pity.” On Truth Social, Trump attacked Budde for bringing “her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way” and added, “She and her church owe the public an apology!”
Christian nationalism is but one tendency under the broad MAGA umbrella, but even the movement’s more secular adherents betray near-religious convictions — in their own superiority and the certainty of their triumph, in the rightness and might of Trump above all. They search for transcendence in brutality and find redemption at the feet of a man who offers earthly power if not spiritual redemption. Some can sound quite a lot like their Evangelical brothers and sisters, even if they don’t share certain metaphysical beliefs.
MAGA has chosen its god-king. As the object of a new American mysticism, Trump can inspire revelation, devotion, even sacrifice. He is a source of absolution and of comfort to his followers, who number in the tens of millions. He can reshape society in ways that may be permanent, but the long-term viability of “America First” is not assured. Heresy still exists, and Trump has yet to stamp it out. The god-king is human, fallible, and frail, and his worship distorts the world. There are no saviors on Earth, no easy salvation. Trump will fail, and though his most fervent supporters will excuse him, everyone else must live with the truth.
