Trumpianity

Today, Donald Trump did something decent: he visited an area of the country devastated by a recent natural disaster. It is an act any American President should do. When a populace is shaken by great tragedies - whether from a hurricane or a mass shooting, it is normal for people to look to their leaders for hope. In our darkest hour, we want to know that our government hasn’t forgotten us, that they are on our side, and that everything is going to be OK. So Trump went to Alabama to see the havoc caused by tornados and speak with the citizens dealing with the loss of life and property. This is a good thing. It is presidential.

In the middle of these commendable events, Trump’s behavior took a wild detour. He did something I have never seen any other president do. While speaking with storm victims at a church in Opelika, he started autographing bibles.

image courtesy of Carolyn Kaster/AP

This might come as a surprise to some people, but Donald Trump did not write a single chapter or verse of the Bible. He’s not even one of the characters found in those holy pages. If you want a copy autographed by the author, you will need to wait until the afterlife.

Are you as skeptical as me?

Whatever this is, it is not Christianity. You might call it religion but it has nothing to do with Christ. This is not the worship of a humble carpenter from Galilee - it is the glorification of an unrepentant and immoral fool. Other than money and power, what Trump craves most is the adulation and adoration from the masses. We are just giving it to him. This is Trumpianity.

Please do not misunderstand – I am not opposed to people asking Trump for an autograph. Collecting signatures of celebrities is an American tradition. I have some autographed liner notes in my CD collection and a few books signed by the author. Nor do I object to people writing in their Bibles. If Christians are to study it and learn the precepts contained in its pages, highlighting words, underlining passages, and scrawling notes in the margins is the most reasonable thing anyone could do. People should feel free to personalize their Bibles, anything that makes the word of God more real and living for them. My Bible is unmistakably mine - decorated with stickers, comics, and photos on the cover and in the blank spaces of pages inside. On the spine, there’s a hand drawn design I want tattooed on me someday, and a picture of Lajon Witherspoon precedes the book of Galatians.

In Deuteronomy, God commanded the Israelites to “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.” Many scholars in Jewish tradition took these words literally - wearing phylacteries (little leather boxes containing scripture) tied to their arms and foreheads during prayer services. In Christian tradition, we apply this verse more figuratively - binding scripture to our hearts and minds through familiarity and memorization. If you want to learn more about scripture, you should do whatever is needed to help you - excessive note taking, doodling, adding color. If it makes it easier for you bind it to your heart and mind, do it. I am a fan of creative biblical study.

But to see a politician scribbling their signature onto the Word of God? It seems offensively wrong. Blasphemous. Sacrilegious. Heretical. The Bible is a wonderful collection of stories, poems, and letters about God, how the authors understood and related to the divine. Signing your name in someone else’s Bible changes the narrative. With the stoke of a pen, you’ve made the story of God all about you. It is perhaps the most heinously narcissistic thing you could do. It is apostasy.

I am not God. Neither is Trump. When a bunch of people are clambering to have their Bibles autographed by the President of the United States of America, we should call it what it is: idolatry. If we actually read our bibles, we would know the scriptures instruct us to only worship one true God. Those words would be bound to our hearts.