- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
- Click here to share on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window)
- Click to email a friend (Opens in a new window)
(CNN) - Like many evangelical Christians, Energy Secretary Rick Perry believes in a God who is involved in all aspects of our lives, including the election of Donald Trump as president.
"I am a great believer that the God of our universe is still very active in the details of the daily life of the government," Perry told Fox News in statements issued on Sunday.
“You know, Barack Obama did not become the President of the United States without his being ordained by God. Nor Donald Trump. ”
Perry went on to say that being God's instrument on Earth does not mean that Trump is a perfect person. Echoing the argument of other white evangelical Christians, the Texas Republican went on to cite several biblical figures, including King David, whose private lives did not always align with biblical standards.
Perry is just the last evangelical Christian in the Trump administration who says he believes the president was divinely ordained.
- MIRA: Most important moments of the political trial hearings against President Donald Trump
In February, former White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said God "wanted Donald Trump to become president and that's why he's there." A month later, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joined the choir and said it is possible that God has raised Donald Trump to be president in order to protect Israel from Iran.
Perry, who announced plans to leave his post in December, said he and other evangelicals in the Trump administration have tried to indoctrinate Trump, even giving him a kind of Sunday School lesson.
"In fact, I gave the president a small booklet about those Old Testament kings about a month ago," Perry told Fox News.
"I said: 'Mr. President, I know there are people who say you said you were the one.' And I said 'yes, he was chosen'. I explained, "If you are a believing Christian, you understand God's plan for the people who govern and judge over us on this planet."
Perry added that he told Trump that he wanted him to read the list of the kings of the Old Testament and "absorb that he is here at this chosen moment because God commanded him."
- READ: The secretary of the Navy was expelled while military tensions rise with Trump
Many other white evangelicals probably agree with Perry, Sanders and Pompeo. According to a 2017 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, more than half (57%) say that God played an “important role” in the 2016 presidential elections.
But other Christians, particularly those of more liberal traditions, disagree with that idea.
Ekemini Uwan, public theologian and co-host of the “Truth's Table” podcast, told CNN in February that Trump's election was not exactly an answer to his prayers.
Uwan said he believes that God has supreme control of the entire universe, from the smallest atoms to American politics.
"We cannot say that it is not God's will that Donald Trump be president, because he is the president," he said.
But the theologian makes a distinction between God's sovereignty and God's approval. That is, what God allows to happen is not the same as God wants it to happen.
GodReligionRick Perry
