Lauren Boebert suggests her election was ordained by God

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) on Thursday described her 2020 House election victory in terms often used by Christian conservatives that place U.S. politics in a context of biblical miracles.

During an interview with Tony Perkins, president of the far-right anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council, Boebert said, “My victory in this race is certainly a sign and a wonder, just like God promised.”

Telling Perkins about “the journey that Jesus took me on as I was called to Congress,” Boebert said that she voted for Donald Trump, “who defended the right to life and honored the Bible.”

“The wisdom of the world is foolishness in God’s sight,” she said of predictions that she wouldn’t win her race for the House, reciting a Bible verse: “Just like God promised, he said, ‘Here I am,’ Isaiah 8:18 says, ‘Here I am, and the children whom the Lord has given me. We are made for signs and wonder,’ and this victory was a sign and a wonder to so many people who think that they have it figured it out.”

“I see two possibilities here. One is that Boebert means that her election is in itself a miracle, something that testifies to God’s power at work in the world. That seems more than a bit ego-inflated,” said Daniel Schultz, a liberal Christian minister in Wisconsin. ” The other possibility is more realistic: that her election demonstrates what God can do through the faith of ordinary people.”

Schultz said, “It reinforces the claim that conservatives have God on their side: God shows power by sending righteous people into public office or public activism, with ‘righteous’ defined as agreeing to Boebert’s hard-right agenda.”

Boebert has previously used the term “signs and wonders” in a political context. She used it in a House floor speech on Feb. 25 speech laced with comparisons of current political events to events in the Christian Bible.

Christian conservatives have recently turned to the Bible in protesting the validity of Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. The Washington Post reported in January, after the riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol, on an Arkansas ministry that broadcast to its listeners, “We thank God for exposing and foiling all the plans of the enemy set against him. We affirm his lawful election and pray for four more years with Donald Trump as our president!”

A growing number of them are also attracted to the QAnon conspiracy theory supported by Boebert, which posits a cabal of Democratic politicians and celebrities running a satanist child-sex ring, among other claims.

Former GOP Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam told the Atlantic this month in response to a question about Christian churches and the Jan. 6 riot, “I have heard enough pastors who are saying they cannot believe the growth of the QAnon theory in their churches. Their churches had become battlegrounds over things that they never thought they would be. It’s not so much the pastors preaching that from pulpits—although I’m certain there’s some of that—but more people in the congregation who have become convinced that theories [such as QAnon] are reflective of their Christian faith.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.