Why Trump is reading the Bible — at a complicated moment for his relationship with American Christians

By Betsy Klein, CNN

(CNN) — One day after he posted — then deleted — an image comparing himself to Jesus Christ, President Donald Trump sat at his desk in the Oval Office and read from the Bible directly to a camera.

Trump is one of nearly 500 people reading scripture this week as part of “America Reads the Bible,” a weeklong event offering what its organizers describe as a “spiritual celebration” of the country’s 250th anniversary. The effort is led by a Christian nonprofit aimed at engaging the country and its leaders on the need for the Bible’s teachings.

Participants, which include Trump, his chief of staff Susie Wiles, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others, are reading from the Book of Genesis through the Book of Revelation. Some are doing so via in-person appearances at the Museum of the Bible and others, like Trump, are doing virtual readings.

The president recorded his two-and-a-half-minute passage, 2 Chronicles 7:11-22, last week, and it will be played at the museum and online via the faith-based Pure Flix streaming service Tuesday evening.

The passage Trump is reading is a significant one — and has marked a rallying cry for the Christian right in the US and across the globe for decades.

It reads in part, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Bunni Pounds, a former political consultant who is now organizing this week’s reading as founder and president of Christians Engaged, and her team had saved this passage for an elected official. She said she prayed that Trump would be willing to read it.

“I’ve just been praying with a small group of people, asking the Lord to move to allow our president to pray this prayer, the words of God that he would hear,” Pounds said in an interview with CNN.

But the reading comes at a complicated moment for the president’s relationship with American Christians. Trump’s recent AI-generated social media post, which depicted him as Jesus healing a sick person, spurred rare pushback from key allies in the Christian right. The president eventually backed down, deleting the post and suggesting he thought “it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross.” At the same time, he’s ratcheted up tensions with Pope Leo XIV, lobbing criticism at the first American pontiff for days on social media and stating emphatically that he has no plans to apologize as the two publicly disagree over the Iran war.

That extraordinary rift has underscored a shift among some American fundamentalists and evangelicals toward embracing a “MAGA Jesus,” a movement invoked by some of his followers in recent years that offers Trump as its “chosen one.”

The president, an irregular church-goer who lashed out at his political enemies during this year’s National Prayer Breakfast and was once criticized for bringing a Bible to a photo-op, has spent much of his second term chipping away at the wall between church and state, championing faith initiatives that have led to a systematic religious revival within the government’s operations, culture and policy.

For Pounds, Trump’s installation of people of faith across the White House and administration shows that “his heart is really tender and open towards the Lord.”

“He’s so authentic and real, whether we like the things he says sometimes and the things we don’t like, that he wouldn’t have done it (participated in the scripture reading) if he didn’t believe it,” she said.

She downplayed any connection between the reading and Trump’s deleted post, noting that his participation was scheduled prior to the posting — but said that his decision to take it down was “moving.”

Margaret Susan Thompson, professor of history and political science in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, told CNN the verse has been seen by many Evangelical Christians as a “justification of calling upon God to bless their nation.”

Pounds leveraged connections from her time in politics, working with the White House Faith Office Director Jennifer Korn, the office’s senior adviser, the evangelist Paula White-Cain; and Domestic Policy Council Director Vince Haley to extend an invitation to Trump, along with several members of his staff and Cabinet. She said they “really grabbed the vision of what we were doing, wanted to be a part, and have been amazing partners.”

“We just felt like it was important for the leader of our nation, if he was willing to read the Bible, to read the Bible with us,” she added.

CNN’s John Blake, Rene Marsh, Steve Contorno, Aleena Fayaz, Kaanita Iyer, and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed to this report.

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