Christian Conservatives March Ahead for God, for Country, and for Trump

One after another, for four days, the testimonies for Donald J. Trump poured out.

“God spared his life,” Franklin Graham, the evangelist, proclaimed.

“Divine intervention” saved his father from the assassin’s bullet, Eric Trump said.

Ben Carson, the former secretary of housing and urban development, said that when he saw his friend “escape death by mere inches” his thoughts “immediately turned to the book of Isaiah, which says, ‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper.’”

And Mr. Trump himself said at the Republican National Convention, “I felt very safe because I had God on my side.”

As many in the audience nodded and cried in the darkness, the message was unmistakable. Even as his speech was criticized by many for its divisive tone and length, for these believers, Mr. Trump appears supernaturally anointed, an embodiment of God’s blessing.

This extraordinary week capped the rising and unreserved expression of Christianity in Republican politics, along with the changes the Trump movement has wrought for American Christianity itself. This fusion of Christian fervor and Republican politics reflects a shift that has intensified in response to an increasingly secular and pluralist country, and fractured many evangelical churches and families.

And for many, it’s fueling their staunch support for Mr. Trump to retake the White House in November, even as he pulls back on some of their longstanding social goals.