The caricature images spread on President Trump’s social account showing him as Jesus, or as the Pope, or in a new message released yesterday, embraced by Jesus, contain a serious and dangerous message: the current administration is sliding the country towards a Christian nation, a theocracy, in direct clash with the Constitution and what the American tradition means. That’s not to mention the megalomania evident in those images.
Our first amendment, perhaps the most important, says in this regard: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free practice thereof…”
Yesterday, the organizers of “Christians Engaged” sent a press release to the media announcing that today, April 21, “President Trump plans to read Scripture via video message from the Oval Office at 6 pm Eastern Time.” The pretentious name of the event: “America Reads the Bible.”
The presence of Secretaries of State Marco Rubio and Defense Pete Hegseth and the Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, in his delegation, among others, was announced.
All this after, last week, the president publicly insulted Pope Leo XIV, accusing him among other things of being “weak against crime.” Apparently, for the President this is nothing more than one more fight in the long list of confrontations that he favors and in which, so to speak, he pretends to be “more papist than the pope.”
But for our society this is a negative process, where we are approaching an even more divided society, with religious privileges and preferences, everything that the founding fathers of our nation rejected.
Trump would reportedly read a passage from 2 Chronicles 7:11-22, which reads: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” This seemingly innocuous verse was shown in 2016 by MAGA faithful as evidence that God placed Trump in the White House and on January 6, 2021, it was the banner of those who attacked the national Congress.
The problem is not that a president shares his own beliefs with the community, that is correct, but when a religious doctrine is prescribed for everyone as normative.
Thus, last September, the White House called on all Americans to pray for one hour a day.
The Department of Homeland Security repeatedly intersperses Bible verses on its social media. the same as the self-proclaimed War Department.
In fact, in February Hegseth himself invited Douglas Wilson, a pastor who opposes women’s voting rights, among other extreme positions, to lead a worship service at the Pentagon.
Finally, in the current war against Iran, more than 200 complaints have come from soldiers whose commanders told troops that the war is “part of God’s divine plan,” using extremist Christian rhetoric invoking the biblical “end times.”
As the protests against this process grow, their authors insist and redouble their intensity.
Religious tolerance is an exceptional achievement of countries. It wasn’t always like this. Right here, in the past there was discrimination against Catholics, with disenfranchisement, violence and marginalization, especially against German and Irish immigrants; against Jews with professional exclusion, university quotas and harassment, and more recently against Muslims, with social harassment and government policies, such as entry restrictions with Executive Order 13769 in 2017.
But the United States has religious freedom engraved in its essence. This has allowed the peaceful coexistence and collaboration of the different denominations, regardless of any government intervention. That’s why we are all proud Americans. This is how it has to continue.
