As the Religious Right coalesced behind Donald Trump’s presidential campaign last year, various narratives began to emerge that Trump had found God—or at least “opened himself” to Christianity—thanks to his proximity to conservative evangelical leaders.
George Barna, a conservative Christian pollster who is out with a new book arguing that Christians brought about Trump’s election in what he has called a “major miracle” sent by God, added to this narrative in a recent interview with Virginia talk radio host Rob Schilling, saying that the conservative religious leaders who Trump has surrounded himself with in the White House have brought about a “major change” in “the heart and hopefully the soul of this man who’s now our president.”
Schilling said that in a recent interview with pro-Trump pastor Robert Jeffress, Jeffress had said that Trump often asked him for prayer “in private.”
“What do we know about Donald Trump’s Christianity at this time?” Schilling asked.
“Well, not a whole lot,” Barna said. “What we do know is that while he entered the campaign not being a religious person at all, he was greatly impacted by many of the Christian leaders in this country who met with him and talked to him about how we view issues, why we come to the conclusions we do, how the Bible fits into that, our perspective on a relationship with God and the fact that we are on earth to serve God and to do His will.”
Barna elaborated, “And this was all a revelation to Mr. Trump. And so he began listening to this, and now he’s surrounded by several different groups of religious leaders who meet with him regularly or have conference calls with him regularly. They pray with him or for him. I mean, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that’s not strictly political. There is a major change, I believe, taking place in the mind, the heart and hopefully the soul of this man who’s now our president.”
