Nearly all elected politicians in the United States have professed some belief in religion. Few publicly claimed to be atheists or agnostics. Most of those politicians were followers of the Christian faith. The majority of the country is Christian. This has resulted in campaigning that involves some religious pandering. It has been common to see politicians attending church or meeting with Christian pastors while campaigning. Some presidents even had Christian leaders come to the White House to provide insight and advice about what is going on in the country. Not everyone agrees that religious figures should be consulted about matters of state, wars or economics since there are a myriad of belief systems and no single one can be endorsed by the government.
One of the most visible and well-known Christian pastors to be involved in politics is Billy Graham. He is an evangelical Christian with a very specific religious view of the world. Graham has met with nearly every modern president from Harry Truman to Barack Obama. Graham has been involved in talks about national policies and foreign affairs. He primarily supported Republican policies and presidents although he claimed to be a Democrat for a long time.
Graham was not without controversy. He did do some good things such as supporting civil rights and leading integrated church services. He also held some very controversial views. Graham was against women’s rights. He believed women’s destines were bound to being mothers and homemakers. Graham told Richard Nixon that Jewish people controlled the media along with other conspiracies. He went as far as to call Jewish synagogues Satanic. It is no surprise that some of this rhetoric strongly influenced Graham’s children.
Anne Graham Lotz is the daughter of Billy Graham. She followed in his footsteps and founded an evangelical Christian ministry of her own. The problem is that Lotz happens to have a very unforgiving and decidedly right-wing view of the world. She is not reserved or consolatory in her public comments. Lotz has repeatedly come out in recent years claiming that God is watching the United States. She claims that nearly all of the problems in the country today are due to the direct influence of God. This applies only to the bad things that happen and not the good ones.
Lotz did an interview recently where she blamed everything that she did not like or agree with for nearly every disaster or tragedy in recent history. She believes that God is punishing the United States for not following what she interprets to be his will. Lotz is claiming that God is upset with gay people and transgender individuals. She has said that evolution is upsetting God. She also states that God is very unhappy with the fact that the United States is a secular nation instead of a theocracy dedicated to her version of Christianity. Her upset God has been punishing the United States for those transgressions in various ways.
Lotz claims that everything from hurricanes and mass shootings to the World Trade Center attacks and diseases are God’s judgement on the United States. Lotz is also one of the many evangelical Christians who believe that the “End Times” are coming within the next couple of decades. She believes in something called the Rapture where all faithful Christians will be instantly teleported into heaven while the rest of the world will be plunged into a thousand years of torment. She is now calling on Christians to pray to turn the United States into a Christian theocracy. Lotz has declared that she will vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming 2016 election regardless of his actions that violate her Christian beliefs.