US President Donald Trump hosted a marathon reading of Bible days after posting an image that shows him in the likeness of Christ and after he criticised the Pope for comments calling for peace. The week-long event that Trump participated in is an attempt to encourage America to “return to the spiritual foundation that has shaped the country” and was packed with leading Republicans and Christian supporters.
The event was held under an America-250 theme and titled ‘America Reads the Bible’.
It was being livestreamed from the Museum of the Bible in Washington. The livestream showed a video of Donald Trump reading a passage from the Old Testament from the Oval Office on Tuesday evening (Washington time). The passage called for national repentance in ancient Israel and has been used for decades to promote the idea that America is and has always followed Christianity.
The Bible is “indelibly woven into our national identity and way of life,” Trump said in a statement commemorating the event. He also issued a statement naming historical figures such as Puritan leader John Winthrop as “imploring his fellow Christian settlers to stand as a beacon of faith for all the world to see.”
Why historians slammed Trump Bible event
Many historian and critics slammed it as a highly partisan event, and disputed that the vision makes it appears that the nation’s founding was inherently Christian. Brian Kaylor, author of “The Bible According to Christian Nationalists: Exploiting Scripture for Political Power” criticised the move by saying that it shows to be “very much a right-wing MAGA (Make America Great Again), Christian nationalist effort”.
A prominent voice of criticism was of Brian Kaylor, president and editor in chief of Word&Way, who said: “If they wanted this to be a unifying American project, there would have been a whole lot more attention to getting political diversity and ideological diversity”.
Historians who have largely covered the concept of Christian complicity in racism, including Jemar Tisby, also criticised the event on Facebook, saying “You cannot quote the Bible while justifying violence, war and exclusion”.
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Bunni Pounds, founder of Christians Engaged, and an event organiser, said that reading the Bible alone isn’t enough. “Faith without works is dead,” she said, adding: “We need the word first to bring faith into our life.”
Trump’s relation with faith
The bible reading event comes after a week after Trump was criticised for circulating a meme where he appeared to be in a Jesus-like healer robe. It also comes after his clash with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war.
Speaking on the topic of invitations, Pounds said that the organization invited Democratic members of Congress as well as leaders of some denominations that might be considered progressive, but that they didn’t accept.
The passages read in the event range from the famous verses of “Let my people go” to the bloody apocalyptic battles and passages detailing Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
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In the video, Trump read from the seventh chapter of 2 Chronicles, which takes place during King Solomon’s dedication of the temple in ancient Jerusalem. The passage involves God’s promise of forgiveness if a future generation repents: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” This verse has been widely quoted at various conservative Christian rallies and political events, including the 2024 Republican National Convention.
