Trump perverts Christian teaching as he uses believers to advance political agenda
White House issues guidelines to follow in praying for the country
Donald Trump has long fancied himself becoming some sort of king for the United States, although recently he has used the word “dictator.” Now, it appears, he also wants to be the country’s high priest.
With great fanfare and a presidential appearance at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., yesterday, Trump’s White House issued guidelines that Americans can use in praying for the country — and, implicitly, the Trump agenda of a strong nation.
And while the White House invitation to prayer is addressed to “America’s great religious communities,” it is clear that there is only one religious community that really matters to the president: the Trump-supporting wing of evangelical Christianity, the Christian nationalist community that doesn’t seem to notice that the supposed founder of their religion, Jesus of Nazareth, was never about gaining political power, much less about empire.
Of the three dozen groups and individuals listed as “initial participating organizations” on the White House web page promoting the religious guidelines, most have been outspoken in supporting the Trump political agenda, a pseudohistorical view of the religious nature of the United States’ founding, and/or a theological viewpoint that excludes mainline Protestantism and sometimes even the moderate social and theological views of groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals.
The White House push represents an unprecedented intervention in the spiritual life of the nation. Although nearly all U.S. presidents have promoted a sort of civil religion that acknowledges God, usually a vaguely Judeo-Christian one, and included prayers in major events such as inaugurations, never before has a U.S. president, even the most devout, issued guidelines suggesting to Americans suggesting how often they should pray, what they should pray for, and which Bible verses they should consider in their prayers. (Of course, none of the verses listed are among those that call for caring for the needy or welcoming foreigners.)
At best, Trump’s guide to prayer stretches the Establishment Clause1 to its limits. David Cole, a Georgetown law professor, was quoted by the Washington Post as saying that the White House-issued initiative “raises serious constitutional questions” and at a minimum violates the spirit of the clause.
At worse, the guidelines offer an endorsement of a Christianity that is a distortion or even a rejection of the Christian teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount. The guidelines talk about a having a strong America, but they mention nothing about compassion. “A nation is only as strong as it citizens,” the guidelines state, ignoring virtues such as mercy found in most religions.
The problem here isn’t so much the guidelines themselves — after all, there is nothing wrong with spending an hour a week praying for one’s country and its people — but the way in which the effort puts the government and divine imprimatur on only type of religion and gives the false impression that God favors Trump’s vision of America over all others. They suggest that the purpose of religion is to make American “great” — but in the one place where the Christian Bible defines religion2, the focus is on care for the needy and personal integrity, principles all but absent in the Trump administration.
It’s hard to see this new Trump push as anything other than using religion and its adherents for political ends.
The First Amendment begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ....”
James 1:27 (NRSVue): “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”