President Donald Trump is leaning into his latent Christianity just days after depicting himself as Jesus Christ and hurling insults at the pope.
The 79-year-old participated in an “America Reads The Bible” event on Tuesday, a week-long scripture reading arranged to coincide with America’s 250th anniversary.
In a pre-recorded video, Trump read from the Old Testament, specifically 2 Chronicles 7:11-22. The passage is often cited by Christian nationalists, the Associated Press notes, who invoke it when seeking to bolster their argument that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and should remain one.
Reading from the Easy Read version of the King James Bible, the president’s video included the 14th verse, which is most often quoted by Christian nationalists.
“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,” Trump read.
The passage is set during the reign of King Solomon, 3,000 years ago. In it, Solomon presides over the dedication of the first temple in Jerusalem, and asks for God’s mercy in the event that future generations sin, are punished, but ultimately repent.
“It’s a powerful statement that he decided to read that passage,” Bunni Pounds, the founder of the group which organized the event, said.
Another eyebrow-raising part of the passage read by the president said, “But if you turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them, then will I pluck them up from the roots out of my land which I have given them, and this house which I have sanctified, for my name will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among nations.”
Trump’s participation in the event comes just over a week after he made waves by sharing an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ. He later claimed that he believed the image depicted him as a doctor healing the sick.
The image, which many of the president’s supporters criticized for being sacrilegious, was posted shortly after Trump unleashed a lengthy attack aimed at Pope Leo XIV, calling him “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy” and taking credit for his election as pope.
“Leo should be thankful,” Trump wrote, claiming that “he wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”
Several prominent MAGA supporters took issue with the president’s artwork and attacks on the pope. Former MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X, “On Orthodox Easter, President Trump attacked the Pope because the Pope is rightly against Trump’s war in Iran and then he posted this picture of himself as if he is replacing Jesus.”
“This comes after last week’s post of his evil tirade on Easter and then threatening to kill an entire civilization. I completely denounce this and I’m praying against it!!!”
Right-wing podcaster Michael Knowles wrote to his 1.4 million followers on X, “I assume someone has already told him, but it behooves the President both spiritually and politically to delete the picture, no matter the intent.” The image was deleted from the president’s Truth Social account the next day.
The president later doubled down on his criticisms of the pope, telling reporters that he didn’t think the Chicago-born pontiff was doing a good job.
“I am not a fan of Pope Leo,” the president said. “He’s a very liberal person, and he’s a man who doesn’t believe in stopping crime.”
The president’s Bible reading appeared to go down well with much of his base. In the 2024 election, 66 percent of his voters were Christian.
Right-wing commentator Eric Daugherty called Trump’s reading “incredible,” while 19-year-old MAGA influencer Bo Loudon shared a clip of the reading on X, writing that it “made every Christian voter across the USA proud to be an American.”
“I voted for this. God bless Trump,” he added.
