President Donald Trump and lots of of his main Christian supporters and prime Republicans are collaborating this week in a marathon studying of the Bible in an America 250-themed event billed as encouraging a “return to the spiritual foundation that has shaped our country.”
The America Reads the Bible event — with every participant studying a passage aloud — is being livestreamed this week from the Museum of the Bible in Washington and different areas. It is slated to characteristic a video of Trump on Tuesday night reading a passage that referred to as for nationwide repentance in historical Israel — phrases which have been used prominently for many years by these selling the assumption that America has been and ought to be a Christian nation.
The Bible is “indelibly woven into our national identity and way of life,” Trump mentioned in a press release commemorating the event. The assertion cited historic figures such because the Puritan chief John Winthrop as “imploring his fellow Christian settlers to stand as a beacon of faith for all the world to see.”
Critics say the event has a extremely partisan listing of members and is an element of a bigger venture to attach America’s upcoming 250th birthday with a Christian nationalist imaginative and prescient that portrays the nation’s founding as basically Christian, one thing many historians dispute. White Christians, notably evangelicals, have been essential to Trump’s electoral base.
The listing of members — which overwhelmingly contains Republican politicians and Christian supporters of Trump — reveals it to be “very much a right-wing MAGA, Christian nationalist effort,” mentioned Brian Kaylor, creator of “The Bible According to Christian Nationalists: Exploiting Scripture for Political Power,” referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” motion.
“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,” added Kaylor, president and editor-in-chief of Word&Way, a progressive website protecting religion and politics.
Historian Jemar Tisby, whose books have challenged what he says is enduring Christian complicity in racism, criticized the event on Facebook: “You cannot quote the Bible while justifying violence, war and exclusion.”
Bunni Pounds, founding father of Christians Engaged, mentioned that studying the Bible alone isn’t sufficient. “Faith without works is dead,” she mentioned, including: “We need the word first to bring faith into our life.”
Trump’s newest faith-related tensions
The Bible event comes only a week after Trump drew uncommon criticism from his evangelical supporters for circulating a social media meme in which a white-robed Trump appeared as a Jesus-like healer surrounded by patriotic symbols. Trump eliminated the picture from his Truth Social website whereas insisting he was depicted as a physician, not Jesus.
It additionally comes shortly after Trump’s high-profile conflict with the U.S.-born Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict.
Other high-ranking officers have been or can be studying biblical passages in particular person or by video. They embody Cabinet officers similar to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in addition to House Speaker Mike Johnson and several other different Republican members of Congress. Prominent evangelical supporters of Trump who’re taking part embody evangelist Franklin Graham, pastor Jack Graham and pastor Paula White-Cain, who heads Trump’s White House Faith Office.
Pounds mentioned that the group invited Democratic members of Congress in addition to leaders of some denominations that is likely to be thought-about progressive however that they didn’t settle for.
Each speaker is taking a flip in the continuing studying of the 66 books of the Bible as acknowledged by Protestants. Jews acknowledge the Hebrew portion of the Bible that Christians name the Old Testament however not the New Testament books centered on Jesus, whereas Catholics and Orthodox acknowledge extra books of the Bible that aren’t included in this studying. The event does embody some Catholic illustration, together with the president of CatholicVote, which endorsed Trump in 2024.
The event entails a complete studying of the complete Bible, from the well-known verses (“Let my people go,” “The Lord is my shepherd”) to the obscure. Passages vary from the creation of the world to bloody battles and apocalyptic destruction, from exhortations to like of God, neighbor and the needy to passages telling of Jesus’ life, demise and resurrection.
Trump will learn from 2 Chronicles
The event organizer is Christians Engaged, a nonprofit whose said mission contains “discipling Americans on biblical worldview and their responsibilities to pray, vote and engage.”
Trump’s look can be from the Oval Office, the place he’ll learn from the seventh chapter of two Chronicles, set throughout King Solomon’s dedication of the temple in historical Jerusalem. In it, God guarantees forgiveness if a future era rebels then 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.”
The verse has lengthy been quoted at many conservative Christian rallies and political occasions such because the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Pounds famous that the Chronicles passage has for many years been a significant theme at annual National Day of Prayer occasions and that organizers invited Trump to learn from it. “It’s a powerful statement that he decided to read that passage,” she mentioned.
The Bible-reading marathon comes simply weeks earlier than a May 17 event referred to as a “National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise, and Thanksgiving,” to be held on the National Mall. It’s the climactic event of “America Prays,” a venture Trump introduced final yr in conjunction with America 250, calling for prayer for the nation and to “rededicate ourselves to one nation under God.”
Several of the teams and people concerned in America Prays are additionally taking part in this week’s Bible studying event.
___
Associated Press faith protection receives help by the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely chargeable for this content material.
