by Rodney Kennedy 

Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. He pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years, after which he served as interim pastor of ABC USA churches in Illinois, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania. He is now a full-time writer, and lives in Louisiana. His eighth book, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, is the focus of this interview. And there are more books to come!

“Trumpocalypse” image via Huffington Post.

As a child in a North Louisiana Baptist Church, I wondered why we were grinning while singing, “Are You Ready for the Judgment Day?” 

But now I realize we were grinning because we were sure we were the sheep, the chosen people of God. 

Nothing has previously thrilled MAGA evangelical hearts like preachers describing the end of the world. Evangelical dreams of apocalypse have always been a dark secret of wanting revenge on the wicked even though they couch their message as one of love and salvation. Rev. Robert Jeffress has written several books on what he thinks will happen. All the scenes he depicts contain chaos, destruction, annihilation, and the wrath of God loosed upon the wickedness of humanity. 

But now, these resentful and angry MAGA evangelicals — tired of waiting on Jesus to return, frustrated that Jesus isn’t doing anything to help them – have decided to release the wrath of God now. Jesus is an afterthought. His name is invoked, but the power behind this movement is Trump. “It’s judgment day in America. Bring it on!” 

Don’t be fooled by Trump’s fake offer of “Make America Great Again.” This is a salvation by demolition and destruction. As Lance Wallnau once said of Trump, “He’s the chaos candidate.” And now he is unleashing the terrible swift sword of God’s eternal wrath on liberals. 

The rhetoric of dismantlement and destruction now lays waste the foundation of our government – the civil service. As Trump rules by executive order, he seeks to destroy all in his sight. His imperial militancy knows no bounds. 

Rhetorical scholar Robert L. Ivie says, “Trump personifies chaos. Demolition is his rhetorical hammer. Cataclysm is the political entailment of demolition.” MAGA evangelicals are on board with the unfolding scenes of destruction. 

MAGA has manufactured a national narrative of a chosen people in a Christian nation with an apocalyptic mission, an innocent righteous people opposed by the forces of evil. Trump has always offered a message of salvation, but it is clothed in lies. Ivie labels it “a true revelation of crisis but a false diagnosis of what is wrong and how best to respond.” And “Trump’s deception hinges on a facile promise of national salvation. It is a puerile discourse of redemption by demolition and deal making.” 

For example, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s purge of tens of thousands of federal workers has halted efforts to collect data on everything from cancer rates in firefighters to mother-to-baby transmission of HIV and syphilis to outbreaks of drug-resistant gonorrhea to cases of carbon monoxide poisoning. If a nation doesn’t have safeguards in place for the appearance of epidemics and plagues, the door swings open for a real apocalypse.

The evangelicals have long warned of the four horsemen of the apocalypse as pestilence, war, famine, and death. Now, the four horsemen of apocalypse are a ream of executive orders, a group of compliant billionaires, and a compromised Congress. Instead of bombs dropping from the sky, we have a chaotic tariff policy, the destruction of entire departments of the federal government, and revenge on Trump’s personal enemies. 

The point is revenge. 

Apocalypse now makes MAGA evangelicals giddy with excitement. Dropping all pretense of salvation, they now unashamedly promote Trump’s horrible campaign of revenge. This is the evangelical war to end all wars. MAGA has taken on the task of forcing the nation into line. Eric Metaxas, after the election of Trump, exclaimed, “Let the AWESOMENESS begin! God bless America!” Our ambassador to Israel, former Gov. Mike Huckabee says President-elect Trump might as well be called “President Lazarus” after his sweeping victory. 

Owen Strachan couldn’t contain his glee: “We have been granted a reprieve, a temporary stalling of evil as driven by the modern political left. God has shown up. God has answered our prayers. Let us use this truth to keep praying, and keep hoping, and keep loving …. It’s morning in America.” 

Evangelicals are not talking about the devastation to nations cut off from needed food and medicine by the severe cutbacks at USAID. They ignore the tragedies of government workers fired without cause. They don’t care about Trump trampling on the Constitution and eroding the First Amendment. Legal immigrants kidnapped by ICE agents in plainclothes and disappeared are cheered. Evangelicals are a happy bunch. This is like a Trump rally where Trump and his followers enjoy one another’s cruelty; but now it’s better because real people are being punished. 

MAGA evangelicals would be dancing if they danced. Given the absolute absurdities of MAGA evangelical theology in its capitulation to Trumpism, I’m wondering, “How many evangelicals can dance on the head of a pin?” 

The gleeful, giddy evangelicals are heedless of the innocent casualties of the culture wars they started. War always destroys more than soldiers in combat. Civilians died from genocides, massacres, bombings, disease, and starvation. According to statistics from The National WWII Museum, 45 million civilians were killed in WWII. 

Trump’s apocalypse has disrupted thousands of innocent bystanders. Civil service workers have been fired without explanations. Elon Musk, with no apparent plan, has rampaged through the government in a helter skelter way to close departments, reduce departmental efficiency, and fire workers. The image of Musk with a chain saw is suggestive of his approach. When any reformation of the federal government should require precise surgical tools, Musk and his crew are loose with chainsaws. This apocalypse has become a “chainsaw massacre.” 

To MAGA evangelical eyes, the demolition is long overdue. They righteously believe this is the true judgment of God. President Trump has the full backing of an evangelical crowd convinced beyond any semblance of doubt that he is doing what must be done. 

We are not witnessing a reformation of our government; we are witnessing a feckless mob of people who have gathered to witness the mayhem.  

MAGA have presumed the right to be at God’s right hand as judges of the nation. They parade and preach as if they have just returned from the top of Mount Sinai with stone tablets of instruction from God entitled, “The Destruction of the Deep State.” 

Their fondest dreams are coming true before their eyes. Paul Dans, the former director of Project 2025, the apocalyptic blueprint, says he is delighted with Trump’s policies. “It’s actually way beyond my wildest dreams,” Dans said. 

Even as Project 2025 and Trump’s executive orders look like exact copies, Dans insists any correlation is merely the result of great minds swimming in the same sea. Still, Dans claims, “Trump is seizing every minute of every hour. I’m not sure that you’d be able to implement Project 2025 without Donald Trump’s ability to bring people together and Elon Musk’s ability to focus the direction of the work.” 

As for MAGA evangelicals, they are acting as if the Rapture has occurred in the second coming of Trump. They are busy selecting targets for the president. Wallnau wants Trump to really go after the universities because he believes they are “the hotbed of resistance. Time to make them a priority of reformation. For real!” As Trump attacks history and science, he embraces the two greatest enemies of the evangelical tribe. 

MAGA evangelicals like Jeffress, Wallnau, and David Barton are doing flips over Trump’s executive order targeting history and the Smithsonian. Now, at last they see an opening for their fake, revisionist history claiming America was created according to God’s will and as a Christian nation. 

Ken Ham must be deliriously happy as he watches Trump destroy the department of Education and attack science on multiple fronts. What more could a man who believes the earth is only 6,000 years old want more than the undoing of real science? 

A political power determined to demolish and destroy can’t be allowed to dominate American politics. The MAGA evangelicals are no longer harmless Bible-thumpers; they are giving President Trump all the support he needs to create Apocalypse Now. And as Trump would put it, “It’s happening. It’s happening. It’s happening.” 

And MAGA is not prepared for the horrific outcomes.