The self-appointed religious leader really captures something close to the American spirit. Examples of the type can be seen across all regions and all races, from Wallace Fard, who organised black Detroiters into the Nation of Islam, to the founder of Christian Science, who was the kind of lunatic who could have only come from New England. One feels the need to preface an article about dubious Trump-era Evangelicals in this way, lest I be accused of harbouring prejudice. You could probably find the equivalent of today’s figures riding the wave of the First Great Awakening. A ministry in Dalton, Georgia, shut down this month after doubts emerged about whether their copy of the Bible was truly miraculously generating oil. Johnny Taylor and Jerry Pierce, two long-standing residents of the Northwest Georgia town of 34,000 souls had drawn crowds for months to see the book and be healed by the oil, which was kept submerged in a tupperware container, and allegedly generated hundreds of gallons of the stuff. Chemical analysis commissioned by a Chattanooga newspaper indicated that the oil was a match for mineral oil sold at a local tractor supply store, sold for use as a horse laxative, among other things. The miraculous oil was believed to be linked to God’s alleged approval of Donald Trump: it began appearing soon after his inauguration. The story, then, brings to light some of the ways Trump’s relationship with Evangelicals is different from that of previous Republican presidents. More mainstream groups, particularly the Southern Baptist Convention, have been remarkably cool toward his administration. The Washington-based Evangelical power-brokers have by and large been replaced by a different, more colourful group of outsiders – among them Paula White, a prosperity preacher who has now joined the administration. Once the Dalton Bible began oozing, word spread quickly about the ministry, known as His Name Is Flowing Oil. Marla Maples, who hails from Dalton and was Trump’s first wife, allegedly visited a store connected to the ministry, though this has not been confirmed. Andrew Brunson, the pastor imprisoned by the Turkish government who became a cause célèbre for American Evangelicals, certainly visited. According to Slate, “Johnny and Leslie said they were invited by Christian right activist Andrea Lafferty to the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh, where Johnny said he surreptitiously spilled ‘a lot’ of the oil in the chambers.” Taylor claimed to have received a “vision” in which God told him to stand with President Trump, part of which was related as follows: