“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” whether Mark Twain said it or not, has never seemed more truthful. As a student of rhetoric, I see current politicians through the lens of history. And MAGA evangelicals have turned to various historical figures in an attempt to depict President Donald Trump as a fine Christian man.
Rodney Kennedy
In the Episcopal celebration of the saints daily calendar for devotional use, Holy Women, Holy Men, King Louis IX of France is recognized on August 25. Louis IX was canonized by the church in 1297. A man of unusual purity of life and manners, he was sincerely committed to his faith and its moral demands. He was an impartial, just, and compassionate sovereign.
The best word to summarize his character: integrity. Louis IX attended church faithfully, was generous in his charities, and unusually free of the bigotries of his age. His primary concern was to put Christian ethics into practice in both his personal and public life.
President Trump is no Louis IX. The Christianity MAGA has claimed for President Trump is not in fact Christian. It is idolatry.
MAGA evangelicals have certainly spent a lot of energy connecting Trump to biblical figures. Lance Wallnau concocted a wild story of Trump being the new Cyrus, “God’s anointed.” Other evangelicals depicted Trump as King David or King Solomon in rather ironic selections. Robert Jeffress said he wouldn’t let Trump teach Sunday School at FBC Dallas, but said he was the “most faith-friendly president in our country’s history.” Paula White claimed that she had led Trump to accept Jesus Christ as his savior. Jerry Falwell Jr. said that Trump’s moral life had changed since he had become a born-again Christian. James Dobson told his followers Trump was a “baby Christian.” And Duck Dynasty patriarch, Phil Robertson, volunteered to baptize Trump in a Louisiana bayou.
No effort was spared to provide Trump with Christian credentials, but he’s not likely to ever show up in a devotional book like Holy Women, Holy Men or be canonized by the Church. MAGA has promised America a man like Louis IX for more than a decade. Dutiful evangelicals have supported the illusion through three election cycles with an 82% support for King Donald I. But these efforts to “baptize” Trump as a holy person have crashed against the reality of Trump’s lack of character.
Photo by Carlos N. Cuatzo Meza on Unsplash
Trump rarely attends church. The images associating Trump with church include the silly photo of him holding a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., and his vicious attack on Bishop Mariann Budde’s sermon at the National Cathedral. Bishop Budde implored, “Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
President Trump has set himself up as some sort of monarch. While claiming to be the smartest man in the world, Trump’s mind is also filled with illusions of kingly aspiration:
You said to yourself,
“I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
on the heights of Zaphon;
I will ascend to the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:13 – 14)
MAGA, of course, denies Trump’s monarchical pretensions. Everyone else plainly sees Trump thinks of himself as a sort of king. He has draped the Oval Office in gold, gilded the statues and monuments that mark the landscape of Washington, D.C., pledged to build an enormous triumphal arch in his name, and destroyed a large part of the White House to build an opulent presidential ballroom of immense size.
The official White House account on Elon Musk’s X platform shared an AI-generated image of Trump as monarch with the caption reading in part, “Long Live the King.” I’m not sure whether the images of Trump with Jesus or Trump as king are more dangerous. They probably work in tandem as each justifies the other in a diabolical scheme against democracy. A monarchy upheld by a theocracy surely emanates from Satan’s workshop.
Trump is more Louis XIV than Louis IX. Known as the “Sun King,” Louis XIV allegedly once said, “I am the state” in defiance of the attempt of Parliament to restrain him. Trump is allergic to restraints and doesn’t comprehend why anyone would attempt to restrain him, whether it’s Congress, Iran, Yale University, powerful law firms, the states, or even Democrats. Trump revels in his own “Sun King” image, once bragging, “He who has the gold makes the rules.”
Trump even pouts like a king. His sense of royal injury when anyone tells him “No,” insults him, or refuses to bend to his will. What else can the huge tariffs on Canada be other than a royal “snit fit?” Attempting to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America” is not sane political policy — it is a pouting ruler lashing out like a little boy. The best biblical image of President Trump is that of King Ahab when Naboth refused to sell his vineyard to the king. “Ahab went home resentful and sullen …. He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat” (I Kings 21:4).
MAGA either lied about King Trump or they are delusional. In either case, the emperor has no clothes.
Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div. from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. The pastor of 7 Southern Baptist churches over the course of 20 years, he pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton, Ohio — which is an American Baptist Church — for 13 years. He is currently professor of homiletics at Palmer Theological Seminary, and interim pastor of Emmanuel Friedens Federated Church, Schenectady, New York. His eighth book, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, is out now from Cascade Books.
