It’s been a bit of a return to my research roots recently as I’ve begun a project looking at contemporary religious performances particularly around the candidacy, election, and presidency of Donald Trump. More on this as it continues to unfold, but for the moment, let me draw your attention to an essay that was recently published in Ecumenica: Performance and Religion. Entitled “Vessel, Messiah, Warrior: Donald Trump in Evangelical Christian Narratives,” I began this project by looking at the 2018 film, The Trump Prophecy and began to expand my research to look at the intersection of evangelical Christian performance and political power in the character of Donald Trump. You can find the article over on my profile on ResearchGate. Abstract below.

In 2016 and 2020, a record number of evangelical Christians supported the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency. This essay investigates key evangelical narratives that contribute to the understanding of Trump by evangelical Christians, such as The Trump Prophecy, a 2018 feature film. In so doing, this essay unpacks major themes like Trump’s connection to Cyrus the Great and his “prophetic” election in order to understand better how evangelical Christian discourse has constructed the forty-fifth president as a Christian nationalist hero.

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