 section one scenes of madness one Tony Perkins wrote that out for me he actually wrote out to he wrote out the number two Corinthians I took exactly what Tony said and I said well Tony has to know better than anybody to I don't want to get into it it's very personal you know when I talk about the Bible it's very personal so I don't want to get into verses I don't want to get into it the Bible means a lot to me but I don't want to get into specifics three proverbs the chapter never been to envy I've had that thing all my all of my life where people are bending to envy for well I think many I mean when we get into the Bible I think many so many and some people look an eye for an eye you can almost say that that's not a particularly nice thing but you know if you look at what's happening to our country I mean when you see what's going on with our country how people are taking advantage of us we have to be firm and have to be very strong and we can learn a lot from the Bible that I can tell you and notes this is partially polemical section to introduction it is utterly predictable that an American who does work partially in biblical studies would point to the inverse relation between a boobish president in biblical Texas after all one is more likely to defend what they spend their time working on preferring to note an inverse relation between acceptable use and political evils of course then it is a tantalizing prospects attempting to gesture to a certain type of biblical irrelevancy that the Trump predestive presidency points toward but by a certain type of biblical a relevancy I do not mean to suggest that the Bible has disappeared in the political sphere nor something equally silly like that theology or religion are no longer politically relevant we saw too often theological apologies for the actions and words of Trump by people with popular religious authority popular preachers and people like that for instance in my own home state of Texas Robert Jeffries of first Baptist preacher Trump as well consistently appeals to the religious persuasions and affections of his audience he saturates his audience with concerns for the evangelicals for the favorings of Christianity for the freedom of pastors and church people to be able to do and say things that many of them believe have been eroded during the near decade of Obama's term there is clear religious tension that Trump plays into a third section shifts I mean to suggest that the Bible's relevance can be read as having shifted though even noting this does not enter into bold claims about the intransigence of the shift a shift implies context in the context of this shift is narrow in scope and point of fact it is quite obvious that the Bible has not left political discourse in this sense one can note a subsection of shift one which proceeds the contextual shift to be kind of sort of flesh out later the Bible in one sense was more often than not at the forefront of political discourse but it appeared in otherwise strange places places that would not have been obvious or interesting in the last few elections in the US regularly images of Jesus are used in political left discourse particularly and memes that attempt to either make a serious point about how a particular understanding of for instance Jesus's ethic would work out if transposed into the 24th century nothing too novel as this is par for the course and public discuss discussions of ethics in the West or in means that parody a conservative Jesus who for instance withholds health care because a lame man's inability to work or who asked for money before feeding the 5000 this shift perhaps an example of the radical Bible that James points to in British politics is only a relative shift seen as an intensification because of conservative atrophy and the ease of media dissemination in the world of social media of course the radical Bible tradition hasn't been utilized effectively in any major US elections that I'm aware of except maybe recently much less presidential elections despite some gestures by people like Bernie Sanders to the ethos of Jesus he spoke to Liberty University for instance and yet he cannot be ignored that presidents in the US from Obama to Bush to Clinton and beyond have used biblical materials in support of principles especially broadly American principles Bush frequently employs biblical materials not to mention theological ideas to supplement his speeches he frequently mixes in biblical motifs and imagery talking of a light on a hill or utilizing the familiar Samaritan parable Clinton Bill Clinton as well was quite open about his relationship to the Bible in his own faith even employing if sometimes in a bit of a convoluted way versus from the Psalms or Proverbs and Obama's well often quoted from the Bible whether from Matthew or famously from 2 Timothy during I believe maybe the National Day of Prayer I believe it was or maybe it was the National Breakfast Prayer or whatever it's called too many prayer breakfast national things going on in the US however Trump's relationship to the Bible mirrors his own or his use of other props for public image quotations and illusions are few and far between and often egregious his use is often a misuse much like his use of relational props family familial parading boasting of properties and wealth bravado and machismo we can recall then his early recollection of a favorite Bible verse one which didn't exist there is no despite his confidence verse about not bending to envy in Proverbs and it should be particularly egregious that this is said to an evangelical interviewer someone who should kind of pick up on that but these incidents are not isolating I isolated they occur over and over again in the course of a year and a half long presidential election something that's much too long section for evangelicals it must be remember remembered that Elizabeth Diaz wrote an article that appeared in Time magazine on September 26 2016 called quote the pastor who prays with Trump and quote it is hard to not categorize this as a puff piece despite the fact that I can't really point to any determinate political agenda behind Diaz's behind her persona that justifies a pro Trump slant this comes at a time that isn't the end of a long year and a half battle one with numerous gaps but also a lengthy war that seems to justify over and over to observers that Trump doesn't have much of a relation with biblical materials much less with Christianity in an obvious hands-on sense which would be a necessity one would think for an evangelical voter here in this piece Diaz points to a near decade and a half friendship or at least an acquaintance ship between a well-known televangelist Paula White and Trump the two have allegedly had a long and fruitful relationship one which included Trump attending numerous Bible studies with white Diaz admits of course that Trump spirituality has been a mystery during the campaign and again this is coming right before you know the election happens this is a mystery despite his public announcements of his Christian religiosity but we have to note the ambiguity in this whole mess Diaz in this piece points to the 15-year history of Trump's relationship with the Pentecostal leaning non-denominational televangelist his prayer sessions with her his attendance of Bible studies and other things of this sort you seem to fly in the face of his numerous public biblical gaffes and also it's strange that these things would be pointed out while also noting the mystery behind Trump but about these gaps we recall his not knowing the usual name way of naming some biblical texts and at the quote at the beginning you know of course he defers blame onto someone else his fabrication of texts his refusal to name his favorite texts and in almost absolute lack of biblical references much less relevant or carefully picked ones though they do occur some after the campaign they can be heard when he stays on track sticking to prompts in some recent speeches but they do not come natural as they seem to with Bush Clinton or Obama despite all this Trump is baptized here there is a subtle shift a shift from the Bible being a political tool that occurs naturally to the politician one of the politician wields as a weapon of persuasion to a political tool utilized by the supporters of the politician Christianity imposes its imperial substance baptizing the hapless fool while also fooling itself thinking it is truly converted to savage. We recall the often used evangelical defense of Trump he is only a baby Christian he is just learning how to be like Jesus and how to love the scriptures but we have always read what we want to into our politicians after all Obama was the paragon of leftist virtues despite being a raging neoliberal who continued usual American foreign policy. Section five what shift does it matter to continue on with this comparative game to try to gesture to a shift that I can't quite name my finger on I think requires noting that the Trump with Trump it is precisely because he doesn't proof text the Bible that he doesn't have a Bible in the same way that someone like Thatcher or Corbin or Obama or Bush to name a few did we find a peculiar political authority in glances towards texts even when they don't show up in the places we would expect to politicize text to Bush's biblical authority come from his public religious life his autobiography his continual use of biblical figures like Moses or books like acts to underwrite his story no matter how self affirming and gratuitous the use of these texts may be Trump however uses the Bible as a political piece but is largely evacuated of similar uses the Bible is a sort of hollow prop to be held and thrust in the air as he often did he issues a stronger oral dimension that one sees or one hears in other leaders who have utilized the Bible the words the phrases the stories that remind catalyze emotion and call forth an imaginative aspect for the especially evangelical listener or absent but at this late stage I have to admit the ambiguity and in fact the contradiction between my early inclination put quite strongly about shifts in the Trump era it isn't proper to speak of a shift in the Trump era because this era has been in flux since June 2015 when he bans race straight out of the gate with an eye fixed on the evangelical contingent a subset that he overwhelmingly won despite the overall lack of comparatively biblical references illusions and motifs in his campaign he has deferred to the safer route finding time to quote verbatim some passages during very specific post campaign moments most notably his inauguration in the national prayer breakfast back in February where he quoted greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends um it's only now that we that he begins to make tendentious connection between perhaps starting a formation of a Trump Bible where values are connected to texts such as in the national prayer breakfast where this quote that he references is you're gesturing to a soldier who was martyred for the cause of American freedom as he might put it well he wouldn't put it that way but I'm not sure then what we can actually say about Trump's Bible but it seems clear that if it materializes if it ceases being a specter it does so in a very public way and it does so over time it isn't thrust upon the scene in a mature state like some of his people that came before him but instead is like Trump himself quite clear in its own strange imperfections that seem to call to the initiated like a moth to the flame that's it