There’s a joke about the Pope. Thoroughly bored with being driven everywhere, on a trip to New York the Pontifex decided he wanted to drive. After some persuasion he convinced his driver to hand over the keys to the limousine. Unfortunately, given that his domain of expertise was more theological, ecumenical and spiritual than physical, he was almost immediately pulled over for speeding. The cop who stopped the car, however, found himself in a bit of a predicament, so he called the chief of police.This is how the conversation went:Cop: Chief, I just pulled over a limo for speeding.Chief: So give him a ticket.Cop: I can’t. He’s really important.Chief: All the more reason.Cop: No, chief, really important.Chief: What is he, the mayor?Cop: Bigger.Chief: The senator?Cop: Bigger.Chief: The President?Cop: Who the hell is bigger than the President?Cop: I think it’s God.Chief: What makes you think it’s God?Cop: Well… his chauffeur is the Pope.The joke feels a little too real because the annals of history are replete with examples of folks — pastors, rulers, conmen and others — who claim to be driving for God. Of course, in some traditions, God himself is the charioteer.Dr Gregory House, television’s favourite misanthropic curmudgeon, famously said: “If you talk to God, you are religious. If God talks back, you are psychotic.”Unfortunately for us, since time immemorial, before rulers had to rub our grubby hands for votes, they often claimed God spoke to them — and they had armies, so no one could call them psychotic.In ancient Egypt, the pharaohs claimed they were living gods. Chinese emperors argued they ruled under the Mandate of Heaven. European monarchs claimed the divine right of kings. It is therefore hardly surprising that divine intervention has slipped into modern democracy as well.
God’s chosen warrior?
There is a phrase that the Lord works in mysterious ways, which perhaps explains why God picked a former reality television star with what increasingly resembles dementia-infused logorrhoea to carry out the good work.
For the last decade, American evangelists have claimed that Donald Trump is God’s “chosen warrior”, even though he could not quote a single verse of the Bible during the 2016 Republican primary debates (not that it stopped him from selling Trump-themed Bibles).The chorus reached fever pitch when Trump survived an assassination attempt. Jack Posobiec, a well-known MAGA conspiracy theorist, claimed that since the bullets were fired at 6:11 PM — apparently God also follows Eastern Daylight Time — the moment was foretold in Ephesians 6:11: “Put on the armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”Matthew D Taylor, a senior scholar of Christian nationalism, explained to Politico after the assassination attempt that the reaction reflected a hardline evangelical belief that the incident represented the “fulfilment of a modern prophecy”.That made it only a matter of time before God became involved in the US–Israel confrontation with Iran.
Another holy war?
The American establishment has offered a variety of explanations for the strikes: regime change, Israel was going to do it anyway, feminism, and eliminating nuclear weapons.It was perhaps inevitable that theology would eventually join the list.In an article published by Asia Times, a combat-unit commander reportedly told non-commissioned officers during a briefing that the Iran war was “part of God’s plans” and that Trump had been “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to earth”.The report cites complaints from several service members submitted to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, alleging that commanders described the conflict as “all part of God’s divine plan”, referencing passages from the Book of Revelation about Armageddon.Such rhetoric sits comfortably alongside interpretations circulating in evangelical media, prophecy forums and street preaching across Jerusalem. In these circles the Israel–Iran war is increasingly framed through biblical eschatology.
Commentators invoke Revelation’s description of Armageddon — the gathering of armies before the final divine judgment — alongside the prophecy of Gog and Magog from the Book of Ezekiel, which describes hostile nations rising against Israel in the last days before being destroyed by God.In many of these interpretations, modern Iran becomes ancient Persia reborn, Israel becomes the stage for history’s final act, and the war itself becomes a possible sign that the final act of biblical prophecy is unfolding.Pete Hegseth, Trump’s defence secretary and a former Fox News host, has long spoken about conflict in language that sits comfortably within this same theological universe.In his 2020 book American Crusade, he framed contemporary geopolitics as a civilisational struggle between Christianity and its enemies and argued that those who enjoy Western freedoms should “thank a crusader”.For Hegseth, the symbolism is not merely rhetorical. His body is adorned with crusader imagery including the Jerusalem Cross and the Latin phrase Deus Vult — the medieval battle cry meaning “God wills it”, famously associated with the First Crusade.
A familiar historical flex
It would be optimistic, to the point of foolishness, to assume that America’s “divine wars” began with a former Fox News host or a former reality television star.During the early days of the War on Terror, George W Bush described the campaign against terrorism as a “crusade”, a remark that reverberated across the Muslim world. The White House later clarified the statement, but the slip revealed how easily the language of holy war could enter modern geopolitics.Bush frequently framed the fight against terrorism as a struggle between good and evil, casting the conflict in moral terms that echoed older ideas of providence and destiny.The Cold War saw Ronald Reagan describe the Soviet Union as a “godless evil empire”, turning the rivalry between Washington and Moscow into a moral contest between good and evil.Earlier still, the nineteenth-century doctrine of Manifest Destiny held that the United States had been chosen by Providence to expand across the North American continent.In the American imagination, the country often sees itself as heir to two civilisations at once: the power of Rome and the intellectual heritage of Renaissance Europe.
Within that arc, crusades, prophecies and apocalyptic language resemble an old American muscle memory — turning wars into moral missions and geopolitical struggles into stories of destiny.The enemies change and the scriptures invoked vary, but the underlying narrative remains remarkably consistent: God is always on America’s side.
The Christian Zionist worldview
Much like the Indian subcontinent — which gave birth to Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism — the Middle East is the cradle of several of the world’s most influential faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. That is why the region has long been imagined as the Promised Land for some and sacred terrain for others.In the Christian Zionist worldview, Israel is not merely a country but sacred geography, a belief rooted in the covenant described in the Book of Genesis where God promises Abraham that his descendants will inherit the land. Biblical imagery reinforces this vision. In Isaiah 51:3 the prophet describes Zion’s restoration in almost Edenic language:“The Lord will surely comfort Zionand will look with compassion on all her ruins;he will make her deserts like Eden,her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.”The promise is simple and powerful: a barren land transformed into Eden itself. For believers inclined to read scripture alongside modern geopolitics, the passage suggests that Israel’s fate was never meant to be merely political. It was always part of a much older story.The belief occasionally surfaces directly in political rhetoric. US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee once argued that it would be “fine if they took it all”, referring to the biblical interpretation that Israel’s promised land stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates. Trump’s Arab allies reacted sharply. Huckabee’s remarks draw on a nineteenth-century framework of evangelical theology known as dispensationalism — a doctrine that divides history into divine eras culminating in the return of Christ. Within that timeline the restoration of Israel occupies a central place. For believers influenced by this interpretation, the modern state of Israel becomes evidence that biblical promises are unfolding in contemporary history.Supporting Israel therefore becomes not merely diplomacy but theology.
The punchline
Which brings us back to the Pope joke. Today the real problem is that much of the world resembles the cop who has stopped a speeding limousine.The rules say he should hand the driver a ticket. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the limousine is now a metaphor for the American military-industrial complex — the most powerful war machine ever assembled.Which raises a troubling question: How do you tell a man who believes he is carrying out God’s will to slow down?
