Prophetic foreign policy

In 2017, President Donald Trump wrestled with whether to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the country’s de facto but not formally recognized capital. The phone was ringing off the hook with concerned ally nations warning that moving the embassy to disputed territory could light a match that would blaze into World War III. He called in his faith adviser and prominent televangelist Paula White-Cain.

“He looked at me and said, ‘Paula, what’s the final weigh-in of people with faith?’” White-Cain recalled this April in an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I said, ‘Absolutely do it. It’s right both with history, it’s right with God, and it’s what you campaigned on.’ And we know: Promise made, promise kept.”

For White-Cain and many other Christians, the move fulfilled not just campaign trail promises but also God’s will: to preserve Israel as a key player in end times events. It signaled the growing influence that prophecy-oriented Christians now have in the Trump White House, especially regarding policy on Israel.

It’s not clear exactly who or how many people in Washington shape their political agendas according to Biblical prophecy, and there are many theological variations among those who do. What is clear is that some have a great deal of influence. White-Cain now directs the White House Faith Office, located in the West Wing. In 2021, Trump and White-Cain launched the National Faith Advisory Board, a group of faith leaders who served in the first Trump administration. Members span several denominations and faith traditions, but most are politically involved pastors from charismatic churches. It’s headquartered at White-Cain’s Florida church. White-Cain has invited many of the same pastors to the White House for prayer meetings, dinners, and religious liberty functions.

One of the biggest political issues for prophecy-oriented American Christians is foreign policy regarding Israel, and therefore many believe Trump has a significant role in God’s plan. Some compare him to two Persian kings: Cyrus allowed the Israelites in exile to return home and start rebuilding the Temple, while Darius funded its completion.

“Trump 45 was a modern Cyrus, it was the beginning of the restoration process,” Mario Bramnick, a National Faith Advisory Board member and Pentecostal pastor, told me. “Trump 47 is Darius, where we will see the completion of the border wall and the rebuilding of the Temple. What we’re seeing now is a global reset against an anti-Christ spirit.”

While prophecy-oriented believers stress that one can disagree with the government of Israel, they say Christians should try to preserve God’s chosen people because of His promises to Israel in the end times, especially promises to restore the nation’s borders. Many cite Genesis 12:3, where God promises to Abraham that He will “bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, cited the same passage of Scripture in a heated June interview with conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson.

“The Scripture is very clear that we are to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and that when we do, we’re blessed; when we oppose Israel, then we’re not blessed,” Travis Johnson, pastor of Pathway Church and a National Faith Advisory Board member, told me. “We pray with President Trump regularly. I’ve been to dinner with President Trump and with rabbis. And Israel is a regular part of those conversations.”

BOTH PREMILLENNIALISTS AND POSTMILLENNIALISTS typically support Israel, but for different reasons. At one of the largest evangelical political gatherings in the country, the annual Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington in July, organizers held a breakout session with a postmillennial title: “7 Mountains of Influence,” alluding to the “Seven Mountains Mandate.” This mandate, popular with charismatic believers, calls for Christians to take control of the seven spheres of influence (family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government) to prepare the world for the Second Coming of Christ.

Madgie Nicolas, the organization’s director for African American Voices, ran the breakout session. “We elected a president that’s the anointed one,” Nicolas told me. “Right now we have an abomination in this country. We have every type of darkness unveiling in this world, and if we don’t put ourselves in control and give God the control, then we won’t have the next generation.”

Supporters of the mandate, or versions of it, are trying “to establish this millennial kind of kingdom,” said André Gagné, chair of theological studies at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. “The Church has to grow in influence, glory, and power and will establish and prepare the kingdom for Jesus to return.”

It’s not always just about eschatology, he added. “You don’t have to be like a Pentecostal or a Neo-charismatic to adopt this idea of seven mountains,” Gagné explained. “In a sense, it’s just a neutral strategy for people to mobilize in getting this political theology into motion.”

Evangelical Christians pray with President Trump in the Oval Office before he signs an executive order establishing the White House Faith Office on Feb. 7. White House Handout / Alamy

FOR PREMILLENNIALISTS, American support for Israel matters because end times signposts are accumulating. Greg Laurie is pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, one of the largest churches in the country, and a frequent visitor at White House Faith Office events. He hosted a prayer gathering along with Franklin Graham at the White House for staffers during Easter week this year. In June, he said that Trump’s decision to bomb Iran was spiritually significant.

“This is what we might call a labor pain,” Laurie said about strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in a video posted to X. “Jesus said when we get closer to His return, it would be like a woman giving birth, and her labor pains would get closer and closer together. So as we see the signs of the times, it’s telling us that Jesus is coming.”

Similarly, some identify Gog and Magog, prophetic figures in an apocalyptic final battle, as modern-day Russia and Iran. “Today, reading Ezekiel’s prophecy is like reading the front page of your newspaper,” said Steve Berger, pastor emeritus of One Church Home in an April 2024 sermon, referring to wars with Russia and Israel. “It might be a good idea to be on God’s side on this stuff.” Berger also runs a discipleship ministry for politicians out of a Washington, D.C., townhome: Ambassador Services International.

Moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem was also very important. “It doesn’t change anything,” Gagné said. But pre­mil­lennialists believe “it places Jerusalem at a crucial moment in their understanding of eschatology. Israel has to have a prominent place so that we can have someone eventually arise in the political sphere, someone that would be an anti-Christ figure and trigger the reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. That would be a sign that we’re coming close to the Rapture.”

Many American Christians disagree that particular interpretations of prophetic passages should guide foreign policy, noted Daniel Hummel, author of The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism, and they are very critical of the influence prophecy-oriented leaders have gained in recent years. “There are significant players in the administration who also are operating out of this theology that make it relevant, just to understand why the administration is doing what it’s doing, at least to some extent.”

For example, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist minister and now Trump’s ambassador to Israel. Huckabee said in a June 10 interview with Bloomberg News that achieving an independent Palestinian state in conjunction with the state of Israel is no longer the administration’s goal. The White House and the State Department did not answer questions about whether Trump agreed.

The statement is a significant departure from long-standing U.S. efforts toward a two-state solution. The administration may have many reasons for this stance, but it lines up with the positions of pastors like Mario Bramnick. He says the Bible doesn’t concern itself with Gaza. “The land of Palestine originally belonged to Israel before the establishment of the statehood of Israel,” he said. “The Biblical mandate is clear to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

In June, Huckabee sent Trump a lengthy text only days before the president authorized a strike on Iran: “No president in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. … I don’t reach out to persuade you. Only to encourage you. I believe you will hear from heaven and that voice is far more important than mine or ANYONE else’s.”

Trump posted screenshots of the message to his X account.

—Read editor-in-chief Les Sillars’ cover story in this issue’s feature package on end times views, “Visions of the apocalypse,” and Carolina Lumetta’s Washington Memo report, “Return of the red heifer.”