Solomon

About those media reports that Rick Perry believes God 'ordained' Donald Trump to be president

Rick Perry, the outgoing U.S. energy secretary and former longtime governor of Texas, stirred up a pre-Thanksgiving social media storm with his comments on Fox News about God’s role — as Perry sees it — in choosing the president.

Not surprisingly, some major media reports boiled down Perry’s perspective to say that Donald Trump was “ordained by God” to lead America.

That is an accurate but wholly incomplete assessment of Perry’s words.

“How media misinformation spreads...” is how one Twitter user — Steve Krakauer — characterized CNN Politics’ tweet.

The thing is, for those who bothered to click the CNN link, the actual headline and story (by religion editor Daniel Burke) were pretty good. The headline mentioned Trump and Obama, and Burke put Perry’s words — all of them — into a helpful context:

(CNN) Like a lot of evangelical Christians, Energy Secretary Rick Perry believes in a God who gets involved in every aspect of our lives -- including the election of Donald Trump as President.

"I'm a big believer that the God of our universe is still very active in the details of the day-to-day lives of government," Perry told Fox News in remarks aired on Sunday.

"You know, Barack Obama doesn't get to be the President of the United States without being ordained by God. Neither did Donald Trump."

Perry went on to say that being God's instrument on Earth doesn't mean that Trump is a perfect person. Echoing the argument of other white evangelical Christians, the Texas Republican went on to cite several biblical figures, including King David, whose private lives didn't always align with biblical standards.

Perry is just the latest evangelical Christian in the Trump administration to say they believe the President is divinely ordained.


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