A JUDGMENT OF GOD?
A MORAL HISTORY OF THE 2016 UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19141/1809-2454.kerygma.v14.n02.p55-75Keywords:
historiography, providentialism, Seventh-day Adventism, theopolitics, Donald TrumpAbstract
From the apocalyptic kingdom sequence and Nebuchadnezzar’s madness narrative in Daniel, Ellen G. White developed a cosmic-conflict account of divine judgment in human history: God’s character is revealed through the moral principles of governance by which he judges the nations. Drawing on OT prophetic oracles against the nations, Steven J. Keillor discerns divine judgment in US history, not only in calamitous events, but also in historical processes that “sift” the righteous from the unrighteous. The 2016 U.S. presidential elections and their outcome fit both patterns of divine judgment, yielding the provisional, working conclusion that they were the culmination of a sifting judgment that humbled and revealed moral defects in the right-, center-, and left-wing factions of American politics. In response to a sense of being under divine judgment, American Christians should be taught to align their political loyalty to God instead of political factions so as to form characters fit to govern with Christ in the age to come.
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