President Donald Trump upset religious conservatives last week when he posted a social media image depicting him as a Christ-like figure widely believed to equate the commander in chief with Jesus.
The AI-generated image of a white-robed man wearing a red shawl was later removed from Trump’s social media accounts. Trump later said he understood the image not as Jesus but as a doctor. Then, on April 21, Trump participated in a marathon Bible-reading event, in which he shared a passage from the seventh chapter of 2 Chronicles, an Old Testament scripture about Solomon and the temple.
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land,” Trump said.
‘Grievous blasphemy.’ An image depicting Trump As the figure of Jesus was removed after the uproar
Trump’s complicated relationship with the Bible can be traced back to before he served in government. His Bible reading comes on the heels of a Pew Research poll conducted from April 6 to April 12 that found 7 in 10 Americans say President Donald Trump is either not very religious or not. In October 2024, 62% of American adults said Trump was very religious or not at all religious, compared to 70% this April.
The Pew Research study also found that Republicans and white evangelical Protestants still believe Trump will protect their religious beliefs.
Donald Trump has called the Bible his favorite book
Controversy arose after Trump’s 2015 interview with Bloomberg Politics reporters Mark Halperin and John Heileman, when the Republican candidate said he “didn’t want to get into specifics” about quoting his favorite Bible verse, “because it’s too personal for me.”
Asked by one of the “with all due respect” hosts if he was an “Old Testament guy or a New Testament guy,” Trump told Heileman, “Uh, probably equal. I think it’s unbelievable… The whole Bible is unbelievable… I joke a lot, they always say ‘The Art of the Deal’ (my favorite book of all).
Critics have rehashed the clip, saying that at the time, it sounded like Trump was bluffing.
Abby Philip remains calm in the middle Political Chaos on CNN’s ‘News Night’
His own book, “The Art of the Deal”, released in 1987 with ghostwriter Tony Schwartz, is seen as both a memoir and a business manual. Trump has said he was raised in the Presbyterian Church, but in 2020 he told a religious publication he considered himself non-denominational and affiliated with evangelical Christianity.
Towards the end of his first term as president, he ran into controversy for his awkward handling of the Holy Book.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, then a presidential candidate, criticized Trump for staging a dramatic photo-op outside St. John’s Episcopal Church. Two months before defeating Trump in the race for the White House, Biden claimed in a CNN town hall that Trump had wrongly put the Bible upside down.
Donald Trump holds a Bible as he stands in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House on June 1, 2020.
Trump read the Bible verses as a part Week long faith event
Fact-checking services Snopes and PolitiFact determined that this was false and said that Trump had put the book on the right side. Four years after losing to Biden, Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris with broad support from Christian conservatives.
Last week, he upset some conservatives with his comments that Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, was “weak to a fault,” was “terrible” for foreign policy and needed to be shaped. Trump’s team pulled down the social media post after backlash about the AI savior image on Truth Social.
And then on Tuesday, April 21, he read the Bible.
(This story was updated with new information.)
Contributed by: Greta Cross
This article originally appeared on USA Today: Are Trump’s supporters losing faith when they read from the Bible?
