{"id":72482,"date":"2026-04-23T03:58:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/23\/with-his-bible-readings-trump-is-doubling-down-on-his-god-complex-somehow-evangelical-christians-are-buying-it-emma-brockes\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T03:58:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:58:24","slug":"with-his-bible-readings-trump-is-doubling-down-on-his-god-complex-somehow-evangelical-christians-are-buying-it-emma-brockes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/23\/with-his-bible-readings-trump-is-doubling-down-on-his-god-complex-somehow-evangelical-christians-are-buying-it-emma-brockes\/","title":{"rendered":"With his Bible readings, Trump is doubling down on his God complex. Somehow, evangelical Christians are buying it | Emma Brockes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The US president is making a desperate plea to the one group that seemingly hasn\u2019t deserted him \u2013 yet<\/p>\n<p>He has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/apr\/18\/us-catholics-trump-pope\">lost the Catholics<\/a>, the foreign policy isolationists and the millions of people affected by ICE\u2019s immigration raids. But Donald Trump is still counting on the goodwill of one powerful constituency of American voters, to whom he appealed this week by reading a passage from the Bible urging people to repent their \u201cwicked ways\u201d. A lot of thoughts spring to mind in relation to this, but at the very forefront, one question: do the US\u2019s evangelical Christians, who overwhelmingly support Trump, have a red line and if so, can they find it with both hands?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m stating the obvious but it\u2019s worth raising again, if only to boggle at the sheer shamelessness of a religious community that has thrown in its lot with Trump: how on earth do the evangelicals work out the maths on this? Let\u2019s remind ourselves of the facts; that the president <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/apr\/21\/trump-bible-passage-oval-office\">treating us<\/a> to a section of the Old Testament as part of a week-long, continuous <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefings-statements\/2026\/04\/presidential-message-commemorating-250-years-of-the-bible-in-america\/\">public reading<\/a> of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation \u2013 separation of church and state, anyone? \u2013 is the same president who has, variously, been found by courts to have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c4g3m95ykzko\">falsified business records<\/a>, as part of a hush-money payment scheme to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2023\/may\/09\/e-jean-carroll-wins-trump-trial-verdict\">sexually abused and defamed<\/a> E Jean Carroll. As the president intoned to camera in the Oval Office on Tuesday: \u201cIf my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,<strong> <\/strong>then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2026\/apr\/23\/donald-trump-bible-readings-god-evangelical-christians-us\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US president is making a desperate plea to the one group that seemingly hasn\u2019t deserted him \u2013 yet He has lost the Catholics, the foreign policy isolationists and the millions of people affected by ICE\u2019s immigration raids. But Donald Trump is still counting on the goodwill of one powerful constituency of American voters, to &#8230; <a title=\"With his Bible readings, Trump is doubling down on his God complex. Somehow, evangelical Christians are buying it | Emma Brockes\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/23\/with-his-bible-readings-trump-is-doubling-down-on-his-god-complex-somehow-evangelical-christians-are-buying-it-emma-brockes\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about With his Bible readings, Trump is doubling down on his God complex. Somehow, evangelical Christians are buying it | Emma Brockes\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}