As the public policy guy for the Southern Baptist Convention, Russell Moore is used to being asked about religion and politics. But this year, with voters facing two presidential candidates most of them dislike, the most common question he’s getting shocks him.
‘‘What I expected the primary question to be from evangelicals is: ‘What do we do in terms of voting in November?’ That hasn’t been it. It’s been: ‘Does this mean America is under the judgment of God?’?’’ Moore said. ‘‘There’s a kind of person for whom every year seems like an end times novel. This year has even sober-minded people feeling they are in an end times novel.’’
From Christians and Jews to those who follow psychics and ancient civilizations like the Maya, the bitter political chaos of Campaign 2016 has some of even those who Moore calls ‘‘sober-minded’’ wondering if its causes are entirely secular. Could there be some divine or cosmic force behind the fact that the last two candidates standing to run the world’s superpower are the least-liked White House contenders in US history? After all, every faith tradition has an end times story — or stories — which typically includes societal turmoil.
What’s going on in American politics 2016, for some, definitely qualifies. That includes people who earnestly study scriptures for clues and many more who are only comfortable — in public, anyway — going so far as saying something akin to: ‘‘Hmm, this sounds familiar.’’
That is often followed by a nervous laugh.
While most US Jews take an empirical, secular view about why things happen, Messianism is all over Jewish scripture, speaking of certain things that will happen to indicate ‘‘the birth pangs’’ of the messiah. Those include ‘‘the proliferation of chutzpah, audacity, gumption, impudence . . . and not the good kind!’’ said Rabbi Adam Raskin of Congregation Har Shalom in Potomac. ‘‘The proliferation of chutzpah — I can’t help but think of Trump!’’
Suhaib Webb, a Washington imam who fields 100 inquiries a day from young Muslims in particular, said the end of times is ‘‘so important’’ that it’s mentioned — implicitly or explicitly — on every page of the Koran. Muslims aren’t to think of themselves as active players in something only God can control — an axiom meant to protect them from cults. However, Webb said, the Prophet Muhammad is believed to have said ‘‘when trust is lost and the ignorant become your leaders, prepare for the hour.’’ ‘‘Whenever I see Trump, I think of that!’’ Webb said with a laugh.
The idea that God — or whatever divine force one believes in — has an opinion on politics and is meting out judgment on it goes back to, well, God.
Since Barack Obama entered the White House, some opponents have suggested his presidency was evidence of the anti-Christ. Famed evangelist Billy Graham once quoted his wife Ruth as saying, as she contemplated loosening US attitudes on technology and sex: ‘‘If God doesn’t punish America, he’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.’’ In 1781, Thomas Jefferson wrote: ‘‘Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.’’
David Carrasco, a Harvard Divinity School historian of religions, said he sees Trump deliberately trying to tap into people’s anxieties about the election, terrorism, and instability by evoking millennial language.
‘‘People feel like: ‘My God, how will we decipher the danger we’re in?’ Humans need seers, holy people, and you hear this in Donald Trump,’’ he said. ‘‘He’s saying: ‘We’re in the most dangerous, darkest times.’?’’
