It has everything (both religion and patriotism) that Republicans pretend to believe in – all in one book!
Easter is traditionally a time when secular media make some more (or increasingly less) serious forays into the world of American religion. This year, candidate Trump beat them to it by unveiling his new bible for sale (at the outrageous price of $59.99 for a book one can purchase much more cheaply, or even easily access for free). « Happy Holy Week, » the great grifter is supposed to have said. « Let’s make America pray again. »
It is a truism at this point that Trump (who has been quoted as saying his favorite bible verse is « an eye for an eye ») is no longer the transactional deal dubiously embraced by so-called conservative Christians in 2016, but is now the central character and dominant figure at the center of a pernicious personality cult that calls itself « Christian. » In this perverse melding of religion and white nationalism, this dangerous conjoining of religion and the pursuit of political power, to be a « Christian » has little or nothing to do with church or community or with faith, hope, and charity but has become effectively post-Christian, even referred to by some as the « post-Religious Right » (replacing the older « Religious Right »).
Famously, Saint John’s Passion Account (proclaimed liturgically on Good Friday) highlights the distinctiveness of Christ’s kingship as utterly unlike any experience of worldly power. In contrast to Christ’s Good Friday testimony before Pilate, Christ the King is instead being sacrilegiously transformed into an avatar of Christian nationalism and a blasphemous cult of America-worship. For his part, Trump has successfully tapped into the fantasies of religious persecution indulged in by many Evangelicals and some conservative Catholics and a consequent desire for a fighter ( a « Cyrus » figure), who personifies aggressive behaviors that perhaps many others would wish they could get away with themselves.
Were we still able to be shocked by anything Trump says, we would surely be shocked by his scandalous self-identification with Jesus. Trump may want to be identified with the Lamb of God, but as Maureen Dowd noted on Easter Sunday, « rather than a sacrificial lamb, he is the Golden Calf, the false god worshipped by Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments. » [« Donald Trump, Blasphemous Bible Thumper, The NY Times, March 31, 2024].
