As I was scrolling through headlines trying to get inspired this week, I stumbled upon one about the nation’s leading consumer of Diet Coke, Donald Trump, who is now selling Bibles to cover his mounting legal fees. I chuckled at the absurdity of the headline, but it got me thinking about Trump and his relationship with Christian voters and Christianity in general. As the presumptive Republican nominee, Trump is relying on the votes of Christians to claw his way back into the White House. But why exactly do Christians support a man who has shown on numerous occasions that he doesn’t represent Christian values?
Now, it’s important to note that I am not a Christian, but rather an outsider posing the question. I must also establish that I am referring to Christians as a whole, not the evangelical Christian Right that I love to talk about or any other specific denomination. That said, let’s get into this.
There are numerous values that Christians seek to uphold, with some of the main ones being generosity, kindness and self control. But in his political and business careers, Trump has done absolutely nothing to uphold these values. He has shown that he is a petty, spiteful man who only cares about his own success and will stop at nothing to have his way. He immediately tears into anyone who dares say anything remotely critical about him with personal attacks that sound like they were written by a thickheaded middle school bully rather than someone trying to get access to the nuclear codes. Whether it’s his former Cabinet members speaking out against him or Jimmy Kimmel hosting the Oscars, Trump always finds a reason to spread hate in the direction of anyone who disagrees with him, which last time I checked is not a Christian value. And he exercises as much self control as a five-year-old by lashing out immediately without thinking twice before posting something inflammatory or derogatory to Truth Social.
Some of the most important Christian values come from the Ten Commandments, a set of principles that details how Christians should live their lives. Based on my estimation, Trump has violated at least six of these decrees. The first two commandments read “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” and “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.” Trump has shown throughout his entire adult life that he’s a self-worshipping egomaniac who idolizes himself in all his gilded glory, so that checks off two-in-one. He cheated on his first wife, Ivana Trump, with his eventual-second wife Marla Maples, but Trump violating the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery” really isn’t that surprising given how lowly he views women. “Thou shall not steal” is one that was doomed from the start for him to follow, as evidenced by his multiple million-dollar civil fraud trials. His rallying cry to “build a wall and make Mexico pay for it!” and other derogatory comments about Mexico should qualify as a contradiction of “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” Lastly, there’s “Thou shall not covet,” which translates as not being overly jealous. He’s currently actively breaking this one by running for president out of jealousy and spite after he lost to the remnants of Joe Biden in 2020. If anything, the only commandment he has successfully held up is “honor thy mother and father,” which he has done by continuing his father Fred Trump’s legacy of bigotry and racism.
Trump’s latest business venture of selling Bibles at the exorbitant price of $59.99 is just the latest example of how he doesn’t care about Christian values. He’s not selling them because he’s a man of faith: he’s selling them because he’s running out of money to pay for the trials exposing him for being a scumbag crook. He’s shown in the last year that he’ll do anything for money, including selling NFTs and sneakers. At this rate, he’ll be launching an OnlyFans page within a month to get money. What’s even worse is that these aren’t just any old Bibles he’s selling – they’re “God Bless The USA” Bibles. While it may be just a Bible, it’s also a symbol of the ever-growing lack of separation of church and state in today’s Republican Party that further brings the dangerous idea of Christofascism into the American political mainstream.
It’s abundantly clear that Trump doesn’t represent Christian values whatsoever, but a lot of Christians will probably still vote for him anyway since the Fox News outrage machine will successfully portray him as more religious than Biden, who has routinely shown his Christian faith. But would a man of faith have meltdowns about the smallest amounts of criticism? And would he follow even the basic human principle of not cheating on his wife? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding no.