British columnist Tim Stanley claims in The Telegraph that “Trump’s reckless Iran war is underpinned by bad theology.” And he says a “a strange reading of the Bible by some evangelical Protestants is worryingly influential on this administration’s foreign policy.”
Stanley’s claims repeat a 45-year-old cliché that American evangelicals want Mideast conflict as a perquisite for Christ’s return. But the Iran War is possibly America’s first war in which Christianity and theology are largely irrelevant.
Nearly all American wars have evinced a messianic desire to spread America’s particular brand of Christian generated democracy and human rights to the world. There has been almost no talk of democratizing Iran. Instead, the war’s purpose has been defined as defeating Iranian power, especially removing its missile and nuclear programs, amid hopes the regime will, under possibly new leadership, accede to American demands.
Whether new regime leaders are more democratic or more just to their repressed people was inconsequential. Now, amid the reputed ceasefire, Iran’s theocratic dictatorship is mentioned by Trump as possible partners for Strait of Hormuz toll collections.
There is no theology in this war’s goals. But Stanley identifies Trump’s evangelical Zionist supporters as key to this war. They are supposedly motivated by the Holocaust, the holy places of Israel, and because “America’s story reflected in Israel and Israel as the theatre for a drama that might trigger the apocalypse.”
Stanley is right that America from the start has often identified with biblical Israel as a spiritually called nation. Much later, Dispensationalism arose, popularized in the late 20th century, and often focused on Israel’s role in the End Times. Dispensationalism has lost influence among evangelicals for at least 20 years.
Christian Zionists have often been but are not always Dispensationalist. In the 1980s, ctitics alleged that Reagan, who had evangelical sympathies and sometimes cited the Book of Revelation, as did his Defense Secretary, might launch nuclear war as a preamble to the Second Coming. This allegation was always silly. Reagan dreamt of eliminating nuclear weapons.
The allegation is sillier now since Dispensationalism almost no visible influence in the Trump Administration. Trump enjoys evangelical support but does not share their beliefs. At most, his spirituality is influenced by his childhood pastor Norman Vincent Peale, a Mainline Protestant famous for his self-actualizing “power of positive thinking.” Defense Secretary Hegseth belongs to a small theocratic Calvinist denomination that emphatically rejects Dispensationalism. It is not evident that there are any evangelicals among those in the Administration involved in Iran policy, certainly no open Dispensationalists.
There are Dispensationalist evangelicals among Trump’s core supporters, such as Dallas Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress. But Paula White-Cain, whom Stanley specifically cites, is more Dominionist than Dispensationalist, believing that Christians should gain political power instead of awaiting the Rapture and disaster. She is better known for touting the Prosperity Gospel, which claims Christianity necessarily involves material riches. She is not very interested in an “apocalypse.”
But as Stanley describes it, according to Trump’s evangelicals, “if Iran threatens Israel, Iran must be destroyed – even, paradoxically, if it results in the destruction of the world. That, folks, is part of the plan.” It is unclear who around Trump would have this view. And there is no evidence that anyone guiding policy has this view.
Stanley says “Trumpian Christianity seems to place an emphasis upon might,” which is true. Dominionism, in White-Cain’s Pentecostal version, or in Hegseth’s Christian Nationalist version, wants political power and is sweepingly self-confident about wielding it. These perspectives are not interested in the End Times. They want to prosper and rule right now and not await Christ’s return. From this view, elections, and real estate deals more reveal God’s plans than the Rapture or Armageddon.
In contrast, William McKinley told clergy that God had ordained America to “civilize” the Philippines. Lincoln discussed God’s purposes for the Civil War. Some Protestant clergy hailed the Mexican War for taking Protestant democracy to a barren land. Presbyterian Woodrow Wilson waged World War I to make the world safe for democracy. And FDR waged World War II in defense of religion and civilization. Korea and Vietnam were wars against atheist communism with hopes of transplanting American democracy. Geoge H.W. Bush liberated Kuwait from Iraq in defense of a righteous post-Cold War order. And his son, an actual evangelical, who may have quietly sympathized with parts of Dispensationalism, wanted to democratize Afghanistan and Iraq.
During the Iran War Trump has made a few pro forma references to God, perhaps to please his religious supporters. But he and those around them seem untouched by substantive theological motivations for the war, much less Dispensationalism.
Trumpian rhetoric, such as his threat to destroy Iran’s “civilization,” is unalloyed by high moral or spiritual purpose. His supporters, including his religious ones, rejoice in his supposed strength and authenticity, divorced from any pretense of piety or moralism. Although hosting White House photo ops with his evangelical supporters, Trump himself avoided church on Easter Sunday, no doubt confident his constituency would not mind.
Stanley complains of “bad theology” and that “a strange reading of the Bible by some evangelical Protestants is worryingly influential on this administration’s foreign policy.” But there’s little to no evidence that theology or Bible reading feature in the Iran War. Maybe the absence of a messianic purpose, which can lead to dangerous adventures, is a relief to many. But the absence of moral parameters should be disconcerting.
Arguably the Iran War is America’s first post-Christian war, heralded with brutalist rhetoric, not a moral vision. The problem is not so much “bad theology,” but no theology.