“God is still in control and God answers our prayers – regardless of what the anti-God people say,” Stephen Strang, founder and CEO of Charisma Magazine told Breaking Israel News.
Huddled together in the close quarters of a makeshift private room at the recent National Religious Broadcasters conference in Nashville, Strang made a statement to BIN that causes goosebumps and other hair-raising stress reactions to the Liberal media: “There was a supernatural aspect to the election of [US President Donald] Trump to the Oval office. I wrote this book to put it on record.”
“This book” is “God and Donald Trump,” written by Strang and published in November 2017 by FrontLine. The book tries to prove that whether the Left wants to believe it or not, “God is a true God and God did something they don’t approve of” in placing Trump in the Oval Office.
For Strang and his Christian readers of Charisma, Trump’s election was in some ways Divine. Strang said readers told him they were concerned about the direction of the United States, as they saw it moving further away from the truth of Scripture and morality. One Christian reader even said, “We were praying God would raise somebody up.”
God raised up Trump, according to Strang, much like he raised up British Prime Minister Winston Churchill just more than 70 years prior. During WWII, it was Churchill who urged the free world to rise and defeat Adolph Hitler’s Nazi regime.
In a not-so-dissimilar book from Strang’s, “God & Churchill,” authors Jonathan Sandys (Churchill’s great-grandson) and former White House staffer Wallace Henley point out that Churchill led from a core belief in Divine destiny. Sandys and Henley say that as a 16-year-old school boy, Churchill prophesied to a friend that London would one day be attacked and that he would lead England to victory.
“To then state clearly and with confidence that not only are you going to be the leader in a time of war, but you’re going to lead your country to victory — that becomes absolutely impossible,” Sandys said in an interview with CBN. “But in the light of history in 1945, you see that’s actually the case.”
“God was intervening through this man in that period of history,” Henley said. “So, God will intervene in our history. He will raise up people like that.”
Strang said God historically uses flawed individuals to do His work. Jews, for example, reference Moses, who led the people out of Egypt despite his being “slow of speech, and of a slow tongue,” (Exodus 4:1). Similarly, God raised up Cyrus, King of Babylon, who allowed the foreign populations who had been deported to Babylonia to return to their old lands. This included the Jews, who returned to Israel and rebuilt the Temple.
“It is hard for us to understand God’s ways,” Strang said.
In his book’s epilogue, Strang tells the story of a Catholic “holy man” named Thomas Zimmer who according to sources prophesied that Trump would lead America back to God. The story goes that in the 1980s, Zimmer, who was known as the “Hermit of Loreto,” had a premonition that a certain man would lead America back to God, and that this man would be Trump.
Zimmer was so sure Trump would become a great spiritual leader than he wrote his name on a brick and had it placed in the reconstruction of St. Peter’s Holy Door after the Jubilee, so Trump would receive blessings from the many masses that would be said in the Vatican.
Though Strang said the story does not easily fit into the “God and Donald Trump” narrative as he presented it in most of his book, he chose to include the story “if only to make you wonder if it might be true and if it’s one more confirmation – from a very different perspective – that somehow God raised up Donald Trump.”
This holy man said that Trump would return the American people back to faith. Strang said he does not believe that Trump has yet turned the American people faithful. In contrast, he expressed irritation that the left media and others continually mock Christians and “do everything possible to remove God and moral authority from our schools and our culture.”
However, Strang said Trump has reawakened the national conversation about faith, religious liberties and moral decline, that he has bettered held at bay attacks against those of faith, and that he has made some legislative moves that put faith at the forefront.
“In some sense, when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, he turned America toward God,” Strang said. “On his first day in office, he gave executive orders that made abortion more difficult, for example.”
In Strang’s home state, Florida, the House of Representatives recently passed legislation requiring all public schools in the Sunshine State to post the words “In God We Trust” – the state’s motto – on all campuses where students and staff can see them. He believes Trump’s vote for faith encouraged these lawmakers.
“The Bible tells us to pray for righteous leaders, so we can live good and peaceful and Godly lives,” Strang said.
Trump’s support of Israel came through faith, too, according to the author. Strang said a lot of people don’t like Trump and they don’t like Israel, either. But Trump will stand by Israel out of faith.
According to Strang, Trump’s understanding of the need to support the Jewish state started in 2003, when he contacted Paula White Cain after watching her television show. They became quick friends and White introduced Trump to several other evangelicals.
“She is very pro-Israel and she and these other evangelicals have included him and influenced him,” said Strang.
Today, Trump makes pro-Israel decisions on his own.
“He gets it,” said Strang. “When he hears something right or wrong, he processes the information very quickly and he makes a lot of right decisions.”
Strang said one can see that Trump’s decisions on Israel are so far correct. For example, when he announced the decision to move the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, “everyone said the Middle East would erupt in flames. It has not happened. And now there is information that he may be able to broker a deal where the Sunni Muslim countries are going to ban together with Israel against Iran. Who would have thought?
“I know people who actually think the Temple is going to be rebuilt.”
Strang understands that some might see his book as controversial in that he blurs the line between prophecy and the news. He said the concept of prophecy has always been controversial, and that not even all Christians believe in modern-day prophecy.
“I believe God does speak to people,” said Strang.
The author built his whole career based on this understanding. Strang is a trained journalist who started his career as a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel. But Strang said he was often marginalized among his colleagues because of his Christian beliefs. This led Strang to open Charisma in 1975, at first only a small magazine that served the charismatic community and covered items that many others choose to ignore. Today, Charisma Media is a multimedia publishing house.
“We are a publishing house and a ministry,” he told Breaking Israel News without apology.
While Strang said one must be cautious about seeing prophecy in every news item, he believes there are some news stories from which prophecy is clear.
“In 1948, when the news came out that Israel was a state, was that prophecy fulfilled?” Strang asked. “Of course.”
“In the same way, 1967 was in the news. We are now seeing scriptures in the news more clearly. Things seem to be coming to crescendo in human history,” he said.
And Trump?
Said Strang: “I think Trump feels a part of destiny.”
