Recently, Brad had a chance to have a conversation with Dr. Paul Djupe. He is a political scientist at Denison University directing the Data for Political Research program and specializing in religion and politics, social networks, gender and politics, and political behavior. Also, he is an affiliated scholar with Public Religion Research Institute and the editor of the Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics series with Temple University Press. The coeditor of Politics & Religion (2011-2016). And blogs primarily for religioninpublic.blog.
Brad and Paul’s time together focused on recent research done by Paul around the belief in modern-day prophets. What is more, Dr. Djupe’s work highlights how these prophets can undermine the democratic process in the United States and promote Christian nationalism. Take, for example, Djupe found that 38% of Americans believe in prophecy and that 28% believe that God is speaking through modern-day prophets. Paul notes how these findings are being demonstrated before our very eyes when he notes,
And so if you're proclaiming, um, you know, with authority that. God has pronounced a judgment that, you know, say Trump is, Trump is, is the president, should be the president and will be the president, um, for the near future, then anything that's working against that is going to be illegitimate. Right? And likely the, the cause of, uh, likely caused by some kind of fraud. Right. Certainly, certainly caused by some sort of evil. Um, and that kind of language has been, has been trotted out too. I mean, this is a demonic action, um, to deny Trump the presidency. So of course they're gonna believe that it was fraudulent. Um, and just, and just plain wrong. Right? So it's, it's deeply related to the, the idea of prophecy itself.