Fact check: Did God keep bullets from killing Donald Trump?
Fact check: Did God keep bullets from killing Donald Trump?
Evangelical leaders attribute candidate’s survival to divine intervention
One week after the bullets of a would-be assassin failed to even slow down Donald Trump, it has become almost an article of faith among his evangelical Christian supporters that his survival was literally a gift from God. Evangelical leaders have seen the fact that a bullet came within an inch of his head while causing only superficial harm as a sign not only of divine favor but also of divine intervention.
The comments of Texas pastor Robert Jeffress, speaking in his sermon the morning after the assassination attempt1, are typical:
What happened in Pennsylvania is, first of all, a demonstration of the reality of evil in the world. Evil is very real. It’s very present around us. And by the way, evil is nonpartisan. Evil is everywhere.
But I think what happened in Pennsylvania is also a demonstration of the power of Almighty God. What happened was inexplicable apart from God. And President Trump, a friend of our church, said that only God alone can be credited with what happened.
We have a friend, a doctor who watches Pathway to Victory in another state, that wrote me and said, ‘By my calculation, from what I can see, a millimeter’s difference in the trajectory of that bullet would have ended up in a fatality.’
It was that close. God did that.
I think about what happened way back in March of 1981. Remember when President Ronald Reagan was shot? A few days later, he voiced the belief that God spared his life for a purpose. And for President Reagan, that purpose was to defeat the godless Soviet Union. I believe God spared Donald Trump’s life for a purpose. I don’t care whether you’re a Democrat or Republican — that’s not what we’re talking about here.
I think Donald Trump has a purpose. My own feeling is God spared him for the purpose of calling our nation back to its Judeo-Christian foundation.
Others, including some who aren’t evangelicals, made similar claims:
Vivek Ramaswamy, former presidential candidate: “I personally believe that God intervened today not just on behalf of President Trump but on behalf of our country.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, in a letter to Trump: “I want you to know that I truly believe that God had a hand in saving you.”
Activist Charlie Kirk, according to Rolling Stone: Kirk suggested a “gust of wind” may have “pushed that bullet ever so slightly.” Kirk added that “the Holy Spirit in scripture is often associated with a gust of wind.” And he insisted, “God’s hand is on Donald Trump.”
Tim Scott, evangelical Christian and U.S. senator: “If you didn’t believe in miracles before Saturday, you better be believing right now. Because on Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle, but an American lion got back up on his feet and he roared.” (In U.S. evangelicalism, a lion is sometimes used to symbolize Jesus Christ.)
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio: “God protected Trump.”
Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writing in World: “But I dare to ask, how do you look at yesterday’s events in Butler, Pa., and see it all merely as a lucky miss? If that’s all there is to it, our luck will one day run out. Thank God that day was not yesterday.”
Joy Pullman, executive editor of The Federalist: “The Person who saved Trump’s life — and our nation from dangerous social unrest — is Jesus Christ. ... The chances of everything occurring as it did by random chance are impossibly improbable. No, the only Person who saved Trump is the same Person Who saves anyone who is ever saved: Jesus Christ, the God of the universe in human flesh.”
Truth verdict: ❓❓ Indeterminable.
Comment: Of course, the matter of whether God protected Trump from serious injury or death cannot be determined in any scientific or historical sense. It is indisputable that Trump had a close call, receiving an injury that caused minor damage to his ear but could have been fatal with the slightest changes in the trajectory of the bullet and/or bodily movements. But improbability alone does not a miracle make.
We do know that presidents and presidential candidates have been subject to assassination attempts before, sometimes successful, sometimes not. According to the Congressional Research Service, direct assaults against U.S. presidents, presidents-elect and presidential candidates have occurred 15 times, with deaths resulting five times. In two of the unsuccessful assassination attempts — that of President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and of candidate George Wallace in 1972 — the victims had closer calls than Trump did, as they were wounded by bullets; Wallace was permanently paralyzed.
So the idea that an event such as last week’s must have been a miracle because it was so unlikely is unsupportable. Of course, the existence of other assassination survivals doesn’t disprove the occurrence of a miracle either. Certainly, most people who believe in a God and survived such an event would at the least find a way to thank God for the gift of life.
I won’t even attempt here to present a theodicy — an argument that solves the problem of evil, how bad things can happen despite the existence of an omnipotent God who is good. I have only about 1,500 words here, and the equivalent of a library of books have been written on the subject. The question of evil is one that has been asked for thousands of years; the problem is the focus of the Bible’s book of Job, in which the title character’s questions to God are answered with more questions.
What I will do, however, is point out three ways in which the belief that God carried out a miracle in protecting Trump is problematic. It is certainly possible to accept the possibility of divine miracles without believing that this particular incident was one. Sometimes terrible things happen simply because of human free will and the laws of physics, and to me that is the best explanation here.
1. An arbitrary and capricious God?
At least in the way they were quoted by both secular media and the religious-right press, the vast majority of evangelical leaders attributing Trump’s survival to divine intervention made no mention of the fact that the shooter’s bullets killed a completely innocent man — by all accounts a faithful, loving Christian father — and seriously injured two other bystanders.
The only logical conclusion, then, is that if God decided to protect Trump, God also decided that an innocent man should die and two others should end up in the hospital. It is hard to see a God Who would behave this way as anything but arbitrary at best and recklessly mean-spirited at worse.
One of the few to address this problem was Franklin Graham, son of the late evangelist Billy Graham and the head of a Christian relief organization. In a speech before the Republican National Convention, Graham said:
I cannot explain why God would save one life and allow another one to be taken. I don’t have the answer for that.
That’s hardly a satisfying explanation, so it’s not surprising that so many people giving God the credit for saving Trump’s life fail to look at the full story. Nor did they mention the many other times where God didn’t intervene in the shootings of innocent people, such as in the mass killings of schoolchildren and partygoers.
2. This doesn’t fit the pattern of miracles in the Gospels
Of the 40 or so miracles attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, not a single one was remotely connected to the reinforcement of political power. In fact, if anything, Jesus’ actions were a threat to political power. The overwhelming majority of those who were healed or who otherwise benefited from Jesus’ miracles were the poor and outcast. One of the few exceptions, the second miracle attributed to Jesus, was the healing of a Roman official’s son in John 4:46ff. However, that healing doesn’t seem to be connected with the official’s wealth or power, but with the faith he had demonstrated.
The Jesus in the Gospels simply didn’t appear to be impressed by the politically powerful and didn’t go out of his way to perform miraculous favors for them.
3. The ‘miracle’ is being used to support a political agenda
Jeffress, among others, is using the supposed miracle to support a partisan agenda as part of a “Christian” mission, but the New Testament simply shows no signs of urging believers to pursue political power. In fact, many of Jesus’ most enthusiastic supporters seemed disappointed that he didn’t have a political agenda (and, if he did, he failed miserably at it when he was executed by the Roman government). And despite intense persecution, the apostle Paul steered the earliest Jesus-followers away from political opposition to the oppressors, for their own safety if for no other reason. Early Christianity wasn’t about politics but about spiritual transformation and community.
Quotation from Baptist News Global.