Reading Trump as Biblical Text
Reading Trump as Biblical Text
by AFBR
Note: This post is from a few years ago, but I think it is still relevant, if not applied to the former president, then to many leaders of his ilk.
It occurs to me that President Trump has turned into a sacred text for some of his more dedicated followers. Or, certainly, that there is an analogy to be made between how a lot of people read the bible and how they interpret Trump’s actions, proclamations, and character. Here is what I mean.
Speaking for myself (and for others of like mind and personal experience), there came a time when I realized that, as a Christian, I read the text of the scriptures and saw the character of its main protagonist, God, through a certain kind of lens. Growing up, the bible and God were both inerrant and perfect, or so I was taught and surely believed. Yet, this type of lens presents certain issues and challenges.
First, when there is a serious problem or contradiction in the bible, the default is not to read the text as is, but to defend it with the assumption that our reading is imperfect or flawed. This assumes what we want to prove, and is technically a logical fallacy. That is, many Christians look to the inerrant bible for proof of a perfect God, yet it is only by first assuming infallibility that the text can be understood as such.
Just one case in point. In Mark 2, Jesus refers to an Christian Old Testament story about King David during a time ‘when Abiathar was the high priest.’ When one looks up the OT story in I Samuel 21, however, there is a different high priest cited. It is Abiathar’s father who was priest in the official story, not Abiathar. Either the writer(s) of Mark, a subsequent scribe(s), or maybe Jesus himself got it wrong. If Christians who see the bible as inerrant read this kind of mistake in, say, the Koran, it would be understood as a clear problem. But because for many persons of faith the bible can have no mistakes and God or Jesus can’t be flawed (the lens I am talking about here), the assumption is that we just don’t have a perfect reading – that we are the problem, or at least it can’t be the text.
New Testament professor Bart Ehrman has recorded in several places his story about writing a 40-page term paper in his Ph.D. program on these texts defending the notion, via language analysis, that the problem is not really a mistake only to reflect later that the simplest, most honest, and obvious response is that Mark just made a mistake. There are many others. This is just one example. And we all have interpretive assumptions we take to any text. But for those who have this kind of lens, challenges and mistakes must be written off to preserve the assumed inerrancy of both the bible and God.
Many of Trump’s followers read the president through this kind of lens. Trump has made so many mistakes and told so many lies, that there are new categories created for his duplicity. The Washington Post and other news and political outlets have noted that Trump transcends anyone who’s come before him in the manner in which he lies, obfuscates, and misleads. All politicians lie or cover up at some points. And this sin can be tracked in all political parties and human beings. Yet Trump, like members of dysfunctional families, lies even when it would be simple just to tell the truth. I don’t have to enumerate his lies here; if you’ve read this far and think that Trump never lies or misleads, you have either not been paying attention or you see him through the very lens I am writing about.
Or, along with lying, the president flouts the very conventions and values of Christianity that conservatives (I once being one, so I know) have historically prized. Character – good Christian moral standing – is no longer essential for a president. He can insult women, separate families, lock kids in cages, call war heroes villains (remember John McCain was a hero because he was captured; “I prefer people who weren’t captured”), side with fascists, insult others less powerful to shore up his ego, and all is mysteriously forgiven. Why?
Because Trump has become, for many of his followers, sacred scripture. He is a text that can be read through a lens that assumes he is always right, so it is others who must be wrong if they see any mistake in him. He, for a lot of folks, must be defended at all costs. The Leader must be right. There is no criticizing him. In any other faith, or…, I mean, leader, these faults would be named and called out. But not with someone who’s achieved sacred status with assumed perfection.
So, this got me thinking. How would the Trumpian universe treat someone with even the highest-level credentials to criticize their leader, the one who could shoot someone in the middle of New York City and get away with it?
What if Jesus, if just briefly, came down from heaven and, say, spoke mildly about some off-color comment the president made? What if the Christian Lord said, for example, “Mr. Trump might want to hold off on the casting of so many aggressive verbal stones at his enemies. He’s not perfect, you know.” How would this hideous affront be reviewed by the always-Trumpers?
Here are a few educated guesses of the cognitive dissonance required for response.
“What does a failed carpenter from Galilee know about perfection, anyway?” asked the Reverend Franklin Graham, a prominent ally of the president. “He’s wounded himself, you know.”
The televangelist and Trump supporter, Paula White weighted in with, “You can see the rags he’s wearing. The holes in the hands. The feet. Disgraceful! He ought to talk! This ‘savior’ could use a dose of some good ol’ prosperity gospel, if you ask me.”
“Who does he think he is? God’s gift to humanity or something?” Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, offered in defense of his true leader. “This ‘Christ’ is very quick to throw aspersions himself while telling this wonderful president not to cast stones. The hypocrisy. Really.”
A prominent senator and Trump golfing buddy from South Carolina joined the chorus with “Well, we all are not perfect, even the president, sometimes. But when it comes to the leader of the free world, you keep your comments to yourself, if you’re a good conservative.”
Finally, the Donald himself tweeted at 3:16 am: He’s only a ‘savior’ because he died. I prefer saviors who don’t die! DISGUSTING!