Less than 24 hours after the former president’s accident, pastors across the country addressed stunned and frightened congregants on Sunday morning. In a conservative evangelical church in Visalia, a farming community in California’s Central Valley, the pastor’s sermon reminded attendees that trumpets herald judgment for Christians.
According to the Rev. Joel Renkema, the accident involving Donald Trump on Saturday was a trumpet blast, a “clear and obvious message to our country.” He told parishioners at Visalia Christian Reformed Church that political discourse had spiraled out of control and urged them to stop “hating and demonizing our opponents.”
By the time worshipers gathered for services nationwide on Sunday, less than 24 hours had passed since a suspected assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Church leaders had little time to guide their shocked congregations through this violent moment in U.S. history.
Despite his lack of overt religiosity, Trump had become a messiah-like figure to many hard-right Christians in his MAGA movement. An attack on him was seen by some as an assault on Christianity itself. Amid the intense division in America, many church leaders issued urgent appeals for calm on Sunday.
“As Americans, we all have to be horrified today at what took place not too far from here in Butler last evening,” said the Rev. Kris Stubna during his remarks at St. Paul Cathedral, a Catholic parish in Pittsburgh.
The Trump campaign gave no indication that the former president attended church on Sunday. However, someone who spoke with him described him as almost “spiritual” about the near-assassination attempt, feeling as though he had been “handed a gift from God” by surviving.
Given the diverse mosaic of Christian communities, responses at the pulpit and in the pews varied widely based on location, denomination, and demographics. Some evangelical leaders made pointed allusions to “enemies” and “tests” of the faithful without specifically mentioning Trump or the incident. Others, particularly affiliates of the fast-growing Christian supremacist group known as the New Apostolic Reformation, mentioned Trump by name in sermons and declared spiritual warfare against his opponents.
