Was talking to my masseuse and when she heard I went to catholic school, she asked "so you've read the whole Bible prolly right?" And I was like..."ya, more than once. Is that not common for your side of the aisle?" She just chuckled. She is by no means a fervent believer, but her circle is and she still found it uncommon that I read it.

Yeah, who do you think we are, priests/pastors/etc? My church leader tells me what I need to know...

So I dug into this, and the following excerpt is the only piece of information related to the claim in question:

In the run up to the 2020 election, religious conservative public figures – for example, Rick Perry – claimed that Donald Trump was anointed by God; Perry called him “the chosen one” (see Djupe and Burge 2019). The head of Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Council, Paula White, went a bit further: “To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God, and I won’t do that.” In May 2019, 21.4 percent of Protestants believed Trump was anointed by God to be president, as did 29 percent of evangelicals, and a majority of Pentecostals (like Paula White). Belief in Trump’s anointing increased considerably closer to the 2020 election (Djupe and Burge 2020; Edsall 2020).

Here are the original sources of the claim:

1. Djupe and Burge 2019
2. Djupe and Burge 2020
3. Edsall 2020 (archive link)

I’ll keep editing this comment as I get further into it.

Edit 1: added archive link for Edsall 2020

Edit 2: fixed the link for Djupe and Burge 2019

Edit 3: Here is an archive link to the Economist article.

Edit 4: relevant quote from the Economist article:

In a survey conducted by Mr Djupe shortly before the election, three in ten Americans believed Mr Trump “was anointed by God to become president”.

Edit 5: Conclusion

It seems as though the Economist article, and therefore the Raw Story and various other articles referencing it, are not correct. I’ve looked through a couple dozen resources at this point, and I cannot find any publications from Djupe or Burge substantiating this “30% of Americans” claim. However, I did find

However, I did find this:

Other surveys have shown similar results. A 2020 Pew Research Center survey asked Americans, not just church-attenders, about God’s role in recent presidential elections. They found that 32 percent of the more than 6,000 respondents, a sizable minority, believed Trump’s election must be part of God’s overall plan—though only 5 percent of those respondents believed God chose Trump because of his policies.

So maybe the 30% finding was from Pew after all? I’m going to send all this to the Economist to ask for clarification.

He would prefer to think it's just the media reporting that a sizeable percentage of the country not only disagrees with him but would probably smile as the person you're responding to was jailed or harmed.

Can't totally blame him. "OMG u fuktard itz tthu mediaz making cheeto poplar!!1!" is much easier to deal with than reckoning with the fact that a) he was elected once, and b) based on current polling, he's likely to be elected again.

It's quite literally the same problem of the right, just reversed. The media are the problem, let's not look at the reality that is quite apparent all around us because it's scary.

Or, and this is a radical concept I know, you could read the paywalled book and quote the relevant parts. Then we could decide if we want to purchase said book for ourselves.

Because this isn't a study. This article is a sensationalized reprint of an Economist article which usually treats books pretty softly. Almost like it's an advertisement. But I would never accuse such a respectable magazine of doing that. (Lol, I even like the Economist, but it's a bad habit of theirs)

You guys are looking at this all wrong. 43% of Americans were found to believe that God helped Tim Tebow throw touchdowns link while only 30% believe Trump was chosen. We can thus conclude that Trump has lost a significant portion of Touchdown Jesus evangelicals.

I don't know about him but I did. And it maths to about 6 percent of all American Adults. (21 percent of weekly church going Protestants).

The article is sensationalist. As usual.

So either their god is powerless to stop this single fallen angel, or they don't love their creation enough to care.

Yes, but theres something like 50 million of them.

Again, not a single random bullshit poll. These articles from raw story and the economist are based on multiple different polls done in a statistically valid way by well known amd respected pollsters, and a comprehensive academic study of the matter. Ive linked the main study elsewhere in this thread.

I know I'm going to step in it by commenting, but the polls are usually accurate. It's how they're reported that's not. The data from polls themselves often say how limited in scope they are, but that doesn't make a good headline and never makes it into the story. It takes a real nerd to be interested in stats and real stats are boring.

I don't think there was a historical Jesus but had there been one and the rest of the sorry basically correct I doubt he would have said that in historical context.

The issue came down to the cult of the emperor. People in the empire were supposed to worship the emperor. Jews were given an exception provided that they offer daily donations in their temple for his health. The issue was the face of the emperor was on the coins. The majority of Jews at that time and place were okay with that but agreed that in the temple area you needed to change the money. A small zealot group was not and demanded that Jews use different coinage. In the story Jesus is asked to take a side on this debate and he leans towards it being fine. Then a scene later he is all angry about it. Very odd. Especially since he had the same followers in both scenes. Talk about wishy-washy leadership.

Here is the thing: we first hear this supposed argument made by a Roman decades later. A Roman familiar with Paul's prosperity gospel system. For Jesus to have said it was not fine would have been a major financial and legitimacy blow to the church.

If it had happened we would have had a zealot who suddenly decided to take lax opinion and moments later change his mind. People don't typically work that way. We have a group and we go along with everything the group thinks and we don't make rapid changes on our viewpoints in front of others and lose face. Especially when we are ruling solely by charisma.

Tl:Dr Jesus didn't exist but had he existed the story couldn't have happened the way described and was clearly an effort to keep the church money flowing.

Considering he was angling to become the king of Judea, I'd say Jesus probably preferred theocratic monarchies.

True. But him looking like he has money is enough. The guy very much acts like a poor person’s idea of a rich man.

I would say more allowed than chosen, unless you accept the idea of "chosen as a judgement". But I'm thinking just maybe you haven't had any experiences that would convince you of the reality of skydaddy. I'm picking up on a subtle vibe