The last time Donald Trump tried to flex scripture in public, he called it “Two Corinthians,” like it was part of a trilogy. The internet dragged him, theologians rolled their eyes, and folks treated the moment as proof that his relationship to the Bible was mostly aesthetic and he has clearly never made it past the table of contents.
And now, here we go again Y’all.
Same man. New day. Playin’ with the Word. But this time he landed on a scripture that has been circulating in American political religion for centuries.
Go get your Bible, dab your finger on your tongue, and turn with me to 2 Chronicles 7:14, which reads: “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.”
Now here Trump is, a whole demon, standing ten toes down on a verse about humility, repentance, and turning from wickedness, reading scripture like it’s a public service announcement for the rest of us. Like the Christian god accidentally CC’d the nation and forgot to put his ass on the thread.
Sir, you are the “wicked ways” that verse is talkin’ about!!!!
And right on cue, the headlines are doing what the headlines always do. There’s been a few nods to how “controversial” or “polarizing” the moment was. The media angle from outlets like The Guardian, The Associated Press, Al Jazeera and others, keep treating the Bible reading as the latest chapter in Trump’s religious spectacle. They’ve linked it to his recent beef with the pope, the AI MAGA Jesus imagery, and his broader attempt to occupy sacred language for political effect. And then, right back to business as usual. But that’s exactly the problem.
Most media outlets are stuck focusing on the optics, tone, and whether Donald Trump is being sincere or performative, as if the question is about his personality rather than the tradition he’s drawing from. They frame it as spectacle, contradiction, or political theater, something strange, maybe even inappropriate, but they stop short of asking why this language works so well in the first place. In doing that, they avoid the harder truth that American Christianity has long functioned alongside power, not apart from it. So instead of connecting this moment to that deeper history, they keep it surface-level and keep treating it like another headline rather than evidence of a much older, much more consistent pattern.
Folks are reacting like this is new, divisive, strange, or some kind of violation of the boundary between church and state. But this is not just absurd performance. And it certainly isn’t strange that a white supremacist political figure would reach for the Bible, and for that specific scripture. It actually would be stranger if he didn’t because in this country, the Bible has long been used as a tool to launder power, to sanctify domination, and to make racial hierarchy sound like “god’s plan” and divine destiny. When you’re trying to claim moral legitimacy, especially in a nation shaped by Christian narratives, you don’t reach for something outside that tradition. You reach for the very text that has historically been used to justify who gets to rule and belong.
Let’s consider that scripture, 2 Chronicles 7:14. That verse has a whole political life, and a colonial one. It has been circulating for decades in Christian nationalist rhetoric as a script for national correction rooted in the idea that America has a special covenant with the Christian god. Now, it’s not a literal, agreed-upon covenant written anywhere about the United States. It’s a theological narrative white folks have constructed and repeated.
In the Bible, that verse is about ancient Israel and its covenant relationship with god. But in American political rhetoric, it gets reassigned and applied to the United States as if the country occupies the same role as Israel. This is why I always say that America and Israel, two settler states built on claims of divine promise, operate like fraternal twins of empire because they are bound by a shared script where land becomes destiny, conquest becomes covenant, and power gets recast as divine destiny.
In Christian nationalist rhetoric, the “covenant” usually boils down to the idea
that America is a nation specially chosen by the Christian god. It is blessed and protected as long as it remains obedient to a particular version of Christian belief and moral order. If the nation strays through secularism, pluralism, multiculturalism, changing social norms, or shifting demographics, then it will fall out of favor with god. And the solution, in that framework, is collective repentance and a return to “biblical foundations” so the Caucasian god will “restore” the nation back to a hierarchy that feels familiar to the people who wrote the rules in the first place.
These fascist Bible thumpers are not calling for evolution into a more egalitarian, pluralistic, multiracial democracy. Nope. They want that return to the days of yore. It is not about healing in any expansive, democratic sense. It is not about making the country more just, more inclusive, or honest about itself. It is about cleansing and restoring a white supremacist order and calling the nation back to a version of itself where hierarchy feels righteous and power feels ordained.
That is the language Donald Trump is fluently tapping into. So when Trump reads that scripture, he’s not up there having some spiritual come-to-Black Jesus awakening. He’s activating an old narrative. And in this moment, with MAGA politics steeped in Christian nationalist and fascist rhetoric, that scripture functions like a trigger phrase. It’s a way to turn political anxiety into some sort of divine crisis, and all the nasty, evil backlash into moral duty. It tells followers that the nation has fallen, that “others” are to blame, and that salvation lies in taking the country back. And it resonates because it draws on a shared historical grammar that has fused Christianity with nation, power, and hierarchy for generations. People recognize the language, even if they want to pretend like religion and domination are separate in American history. That faith exists over here and power exists over there.
And this is exactly where the media taps out hard. Because to tell the truth about this moment, they would have to tell the truth about American Christianity. And they don’t wanna do that. You know it, and I know it. These outlets, including the most liberal ones, wanna keep pretending this is all a distortion, a misuse, a hijacking of something pure and untouched. They want to act like Trump is doin’ somethin’ to Christianity, instead of naming what Christianity, in its American form, has done in service of white supremacist power for centuries.
So they stay on the surface and call it spectacle, contradiction, and political theater. Anything but what it actually is. Because to say what this is would require them to admit that American Christianity, as it has been practiced and institutionalized in this country, has never been separate from white supremacy. That it has not just coexisted with domination, but has helped narrate it, justify it, and sanctify it. That the same Bible being read in the Oval Office is the same Bible that was used to rationalize conquest, dispossession, genocide, slavery, segregation and lynching. That Bible blessed and steadied the moral nerves of a nation built on evil.
That’s the part they won’t say. Because once you say that out loud, Trump stops looking like a clown fumbling through scripture. He starts looking like a continuation. Like a man who understands, whether instinctively or strategically, that scripture in this country has always been available to power. And that is a much more dangerous story.
So instead, the mainstream media sanitizes it. They tuck it neatly into the category of “Trump being Trump,” like this is just another personality quirk instead of a pattern with a long, ugly lineage. They report the moment but refuse to historicize it. They describe the performance but won’t name the tradition. They give you headlines, clips, polite discomfort, and “both sides” boolshit language, but they will not connect the moment to the structure that makes it possible.
Because they don’t want to admit that what we are all watching isn’t a corruption of American Christianity. It’s one of its most consistent expressions. The American media would rather debate tone and optics and keep acting surprised by the performance while ignoring the tradition that makes it possible.
But here’s the thing, Y’all . . . I’m an atheist and even I know that the Bible itself isn’t not confused about any of this. Look at Isaiah 29:13: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” And there’s also this cold line in 2 Corinthians 11:14–15: “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light… his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.”
What are these scriptures saying? They’re saying that evil doesn’t always show up looking evil. It can look righteous, sound righteous, and even quote scripture. So the Bible absolutely anticipates this Trump dynamic. It’s not shocked by people who read it publicly while living in contradiction to it. It expects it, and calls it out repeatedly.
The Bible has never been confused about this. It has always warned about people who know the words, perform the rituals, and still embody the very wickedness they claim to rebuke. So stop our media outlets need to stop calling this hypocrisy like it’s some kind of contradiction. This is alignment. This is the text doing exactly what it has been trained to do in this country, which is dress up power, sanitize domination, and make it all sound like the Christian god signed off on it.
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