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Trump Bible
President Donald Trump posed for photos – without notice to church leaders – holding a Bible outside St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. (White House Photo/Public Domain)
Like many of you, I have had the image of President Trump holding a Bible in front of St. John's Church stuck in my head.
Of course, we know that he had a peaceful protest broken up with a militarized police force for the sake of this photo. It breaks my heart that so many of my sisters and brothers and neighbors in Christ have been deceived by this man.
This is a President who is quick to anger, quick to exclude, quick to harm. He has never once reached across the political aisle. He demonizes foes and turns on "friends" when convenient because he does not care about people; he only cares about what they can give to him.
At this point the list of his falsehoods and failures are too numerous to point out. So I find that the photo simply makes me sad.
I am not angry. This was to be expected. He hides behind a meaningless gesture that his followers want to assign meaning to, and they will. He is playing at piety.
And so we must ask ourselves, as Socrates asked Euthyphro long ago, what is piety? Is it playing at caring about faith? We could excuse this if we never took the time to actually open our Bibles.
But open them we must. One of the definitions that Euthyphro gives to Socrates is that piety is obeying the Gods. However, the ancient Greeks believed in many Gods who were often at war with one another and demanded opposing actions.
United Methodists believe in a Triune God who is the same being, co-equal, of one substance in three persons. God is never at odds with God's self.
When I think about Christian piety and what God demands of us I think about two verses: Mark 12: 29-31 and Micah 6:8. Mark can be summed up by saying that the Greatest Commandment is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. Micah 6:8 answers the question of what God requires of us. It is not burnt offerings, calves, thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oil. It is not a sacrifice of our firstborns, the fruit of our loins for the sins of our souls.
Instead God requires us to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God.
Can anyone with integrity say that President Trump does justice, loves kindness or walks humbly with God? This man who imprisons children on the border, who brags about sexually assaulting women and cheating on his wives, who calls opponents names and degrades people based on religion and nationality and disability, who says he has never had to ask forgiveness for anything and that he does not take responsibility for the failures in response to the coronavirus?
Don't pose with the Bible. It is not a prop. Read the Bible.
Read about the God of the orphan and widow. Read the words of the Holy Spirit on the lips of the prophets when they called out nations for how they harmed the poor. Read about the God who restores the broken and heals the sick.
Read about the baby born in a manger, who was a refugee from genocide while still a child, who lived as a homeless man whose ministry was financed by women. Read about the beggar God who was fed and sheltered through handouts.
Read about the humble God who proclaimed justice and who preached sermons by uplifting women and Samaritans. The healing God who touched lepers and outcasts, who drank and ate with sinners and who loved prostitutes.
Read about the shamed God who was tortured to death by Empire, hanging naked on a cross and yes, who cried out for his parents when he choked to death, just like George Floyd.
Read about the God who is still dying with black people murdered at the hands of the police state, the God who is still suffering with protesters who cry out for a better world, a justice filled world.
Open the Bible and read about the God is lives. Read the Easter story and encounter the Risen Christ who offers hope in a world too often filled with despair.
Let us all read the Bible and find in its pages the love and goodness that are the foundations of all creation. Let us all read and confess, repent, and be made new in God's sanctifying grace.
Let us open the book far away from cameras, encounter God and accept God's invitation to justice, kindness, humility and above all, God's commandment that we love God, self and each other.
Let us be a pious people in a world made new in God's love.
The Rev. Jonathan Grace serves as senior pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas. This post is republished with permission from his Facebook page.