Donald Trump was nearly assassinated at a rally eleven days ago, and it’s only because he turned his head at the last moment that the bullet nicked his ear instead of ending his life. For some Christians, this is proof of God’s providential protection, and thus, a confirmation of Trump as God’s chosen instrument. Others have gone even farther, trying to draw biblical connections to Trump’s survival.
For instance, a viral post on Facebook cites Leviticus 8 and Leviticus 14 to argue that “the concept of blood on the right ear serves as a visible mark of consecration, signifying that the person is dedicated to God’s service and has been set apart for a specific purpose.”
This is a strange perversion of the biblical texts. Leviticus 8 involves placing the blood of a ram on the right earlobe, right thumb, and the big toe of the right foot as part of the ordination of the Jewish high priest. And Leviticus 14 is an even stranger proof-text: it’s about the purification ritual for lepers. Neither text says anything about the top of the right ear, or about using the blood of the person in question.
But the image expressing a variation of this idea that I’ve seen most often is one in which a weird AI-generated Virgin Mary uses her middle finger to move a bullet (still in its shell):
To be sure, Trump’s survival could be because Mary intervened, or because God wanted to show . . . something. Miracles do happen, and Pope St. John Paul II was certain of Mary’s intervention in his own survival after the assassination attempt of Mehmet Ali Ağca. But it’s dangerous to jump to the conclusion that a politician is divinely appointed just because he survives an assassination attempt.
To take a stark example: on July 20, 1944, as part of the famous Operation Valkyrie, a group of conspirators led by Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler by leaving a briefcase containing a bomb next to him at a meeting. At the last moment, the briefcase was moved and Hitler survived with minor injuries (while three others present at the meeting died).
That night, the Führer took to the airwaves to announce to the world that he had survived, and claimed this as proof of Providence:
The bomb planted by Colonel Count Stauffenberg exploded two meters to the right of me. It seriously wounded a number of my true and loyal collaborators, one of whom has died. I myself am entirely unhurt, aside from some very minor scratches, bruises and burns. I regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence. […] Probably only a few can imagine what fate would have befallen Germany if the plot had succeeded. I thank Providence and my Creator, but not because He has preserved me. My life is solely devoted to worry, to working for my people. I thank Him, rather because He has made it possible for me to continue to shoulder these worries, and to pursue my work to the best of my abilities and according to my conscience.
And of course, the horrific “work” that Hitler was pursuing was a ghastly Holocaust and a bloody world war.
I’m not suggesting that Trump is Hitler; such a comparison is ridiculous. Rather, I’m demonstrating why it’s theologically reckless and unfounded to treat a politician surviving an assassination as thereby receiving a divine endorsement of any kind.
As Christians, we don’t believe that fortune signals divine favor, or that misfortune signals divine disfavor. An anecdote from the Gospel of John illustrates this: the disciples see a blind man and ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:3). Jesus answers by rejecting the premise: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him” (v. 4). Similarly, Jesus warns his followers not to think of themselves as better than the Jews who died in a tower collapse, or the Galileans whose bodies were desecrated by Pontius Pilate (Luke 13:1-5).
So if you’re trying to decide whether Donald Trump is the person you should be voting for this fall, don’t base that decision on a near-death escape. Instead ask: does he do the deeds of righteousness or the deeds of wickedness? How does he take care of the fatherless, the unborn, the immigrant, the poor, the weak and defenseless, whoever and wherever they may be? That’s the standard—not that a bullet nicked his right ear.
For more, see Joe’s latest episode of Shameless Popery.