October 5, 2017

A flinty, closed-door Christianity is increasingly common on the conservative fringes of American fundamentalism, where profitability is considered next to godliness. Versions of that theology, sometimes called prosperity gospel, dominate President Donald Trump's evangelical panel, 25 pastors and religious conservatives who have mostly dispensed with those Sunday school homilies about Jesus loving the sick and poor, and Jesus responding to attacks with a turn of the cheek. They preach that their Lord hates entitlements, from welfare to Obamacare, that climate change is the talk of pagan heretics and that their heavenly father is fine with nuclear first strikes, as long as it's America droppin' the hammer.

And many of them believe their mortal messiah is Donald J. Trump, long a sybaritic scion but now the man who has solemnly vowed to take America to the promised land of deregulation, tax breaks and resegregation.