So, Trump has a Bible.
Well, not exactly. Trump endorsed a Bible. Trump is selling a Bible. Trump doesn’t have a Bible. It doesn’t have TRUMP in giant gold letters on the top.
But it might as well. People that buy the Trump Bible are buying it because it’s a Trump Bible.
They’re not buying it because it’s a Bible, because it’s not just a Bible.
It’s a Trump Bible.
It’s a Trump Bible that people who love Trump will buy because it’s the Bible that Trump told them to buy.
It’s a Trump Bible. It’s Trump’s Bible.
I suspect at any future rallies, Trump will talk about how much he looooooves the Bible, and immediately afterward he’ll tell the people to buy the Trump Bible.
And they will.
Not because it’s a Bible.
But because it’s a Trump Bible.
Let’s look at the features:
It has the lyrics to God Bless the USA.
The lyrics to God Bless the USA are freely available online, and anybody who knows the song knows the lyrics. If they want to read the lyrics, they’d probably rather listen to the song.
But fine, it has the lyrics. I'm sure someone is stoked about that.
It has the constitution, the declaration of independence, and the pledge of allegiance.
You can get a pocket edition of the constitution that includes all 3 of these for free online.
There are places that will send you one for free. They want you to have it.
Also, the pledge of allegiance??? Putting the pledge of allegiance in a book that calls people to give their allegiance to God instead of a world leader is…misguided at best.
It has the King James Version of the Bible.
Rarely do people these days read the King James version of the Bible.
There are people who do. There are KJV-only folks.
But not many.
This is purely anecdotal, but I’ve worked in quite a few churches, and not one person in any of those churches has wanted to fight through the King James version of the Bible. It’s hard to read, and none of the people in any of my churches liked using it.
Some people think they want the KJV, and realize later that they don’t. One person asked me for a KJV, so I gave him one. A couple weeks later he asked me for a different version, because the KJV was too hard to read.
Another guy had a KJV that he loved. He brought it to church every Sunday. Not once did I ever see him open it during church, even though he had it with him.
It’s old, and it’s not a fun read. So why would the people making the Trump Bible make it a KJV? Possibly because many older KJV-only folks who like Trump also like the KJV, and are more likely to buy the Trump Bible if it’s KJV.
Or, more likely, the original plan was to publish it as NIV, but Harper Collins owns the publishing writes to the NIV, so they went with a royalty-free translation.
Lyrics to a song that people likely won’t read, some documents that are freely available online or in print, and a translation of the Bible that folks probably don’t want to fight through.
For sixty bucks.
What is even happening?
Plenty of ink has been spilled this week condemning Trump for endorsing this Bible purely so that he could make money off of it.
It is true that he’s making money off of it.
And yeah, that’s probably a good chunk of the reason.
But all of that has been talked about at length over the week.
I wasn’t really bugged by any of that.
(Okay, I was. But I wasn’t surprised by it. Like, of course he’s selling a Bible. The only surprising thing is how long it took him to do it.)
No, what bugged1 me was how much it reminded me of Lafayette Square.
You know, that time that Trump had protesters tear gassed so that he could hold a Bible2 in front of a church.
Not even holding it open. Holding it up like you’d hold a sign at a basketball game.
Making the angriest face he possibly could.
Because that’s how Christians look when they hold a Bible. Angry.
What was the point of the tear gas stunt?
To hurt the protesters?
No. The point wasn't to hurt the protesters (although he certainly didn’t like the protesters).
The point was the Bible. Trump wanted a picture of him holding a Bible so that people could see him holding a Bible.
He wanted people to see the reverence he has for the Bible.
Tear gassing the protesters was just a bonus for him.
The photo-op was the point.
People seeing him with the Bible was the point.
“We love the Bible, don’t we folks?”
It’s just pandering.
See? I love the Bible. I love it so much I’m selling one. Pay me 60 bucks and then vote for me.
The Trump Bible exists so people who love the Bible can see that a Trump Bible exists.
Do I need to say any of this? No. You already know.
That's not really the point of this post.
The point of the post is this:
I wonder why I care so much.
I don't feel like I should.
For a bunch of reasons.
-There's a bunch of Bibles out there that I don't care for: Bibles with American flags on them, Bibles with misogynistic language, cringey 90’s-tastic EXTREME Bibles, etc. I’m not as annoyed about those as I am about this one.
-I don’t always know if I’m a Christian. If I’m often on the fringes of Christianity, you’d think a Bible being hocked by a charlatan wouldn’t matter all that much to me.
-I’m not put off by people who don’t read the Bible regularly. Likely at least half of the people in any given church don’t read their Bible regularly. My non-Christian friends certainly don’t. And I don't really mind.
-I don’t revere the Bible itself the way a lot of people do. I still love the Bible, I really do, just in a far different way than I used to.
So why do I care if Trump hocks a Bible for money to pay his debts?
Why am I still so offended at his misuse of the Bible?
I don’t know.
Maybe it’s because there’s still a part of me that has some reverence for the Bible.
Or maybe I still have enough ownership of my faith to be offended when people use bits of it for their own ends.
I don’t really give a s—t when Trump sells steaks, vodka, or a board game. Why do I care so much more about him selling the Bible?
I don’t know.
But I do.
I do care.
“But, but, but, what about Biden? Why do you only talk about Trump?”
If Biden hocks a Bible,3 or if he tear gasses a group of people so he can hold up a Bible, I’ll absolutely have a follow up post.
I’d be surprised if he did.
But I’ve been surprised by things before, so who knows?
AI tries to draw “Guy Sells Bibles.” So much to love about this picture, from the lack of teeth, to the different sizes of eyes, to the words on the screen. But my personal favorite is the two microphones on the tie. Perfect. 10/10.
“Pissed me off” is more accurate.
Yes, a Bible. He was asked if that was his Bible, and he said “It’s a Bible.”
Or if RFK Jr. makes a Bible that has every verse written in blue that he uses to promote his anti-vax thinking
We’re angry I think because we know the horrors and history of death that are tied to these behaviors. While there’s so much we doubt and don’t know about our faith we do know the reason we doubt and wonder is because of behaviors and reasonings like this persons.
“tUrDy bLeH bLiBiLe” is how my brain read the screen, and that is exactly how Trump’s brain of Christian’s sound. 🙃