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“All Americans need a Bible in their home,” Trump said, claiming that he has “many,” and calling the Bible, “my favorite book.” 

“This Bible is a reminder that the biggest thing we have to bring back America and to make American great again is our religion,” the former president announced as he held a copy of the ‘God Bless The USA Bible’ - which, we learn, is a King James Version copy of the Old and New Testaments alongside the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and Pledge of Allegiance - for $59.99 plus shipping. 

“Christians are under siege,” Trump said. “We must defend God in the public square…We have to bring Christianity back into our lives and back into what will be, again, a great nation.”

The product’s website says the Bibles are being sold through a “paid license” and that the Trump campaign is not profiting from the Bible - though it’s unclear what that arrangement means for Trump himself.

“Boy, do I feel like this would infuriate the people you discuss in your book,” Rosenwald said in a text message.

He’s referring to The Exvangelicals – a category that includes many who’ve left the white evangelical church for reasons including concerns about the movement’s increasing politicization and alignment with right-wing politics and Trumpism.

Rosenwald was right:

Russell Moore, a longtime Trump critic who remains theologically conservative and who is mentioned briefly in my book, referenced the biblical story of the Golden Calf:

Here’s bit more of my text conversation with Rosenwald, shared with his permission, and edited for clarity and length.

Rosenwald: As I read you, that’s one reason exvangelicals see evangelicals as so hypocritical? Like is faith something a politician ought to be monetizing?”

Me: It makes me think of the New Testament story where Jesus overturns the money changers' tables in the temple. He was famously ticked off about using religion for profit.

Rosenwald: I wonder if evangelicals realize that non-Christians like me struggle to take their faith seriously because of it? I assume they don’t care. But the most honest thing Trump said was that he could shoot someone without losing his largely evangelical base. The siege mentality has driven them to a place where almost anything is acceptable?

Me: He reinforces it in that video. That siege language is right there.

Rosenwald (later, after watching the video): It’s just so transparently fake. To say that what America is missing is Christianity and religion…did you think that when you were having an affair with a porn star?

Me: But he’s repeating a theme that evangelicals have been touting for years.

Rosenwald: Yup. At the end of the day, they watched Reagan and W. Bush – true believers – not deliver. And so Trump comes along, and…he’s willing to give them what they want as part of a transaction.

I regaled him with memories from my youth group days, when the Christian Contemporary Music artist Carman would fill arenas full of Christian teenagers who attended his free concerts across the country. With theatrical lights and booming bass, Carman sang about epic spiritual battles with Satan himself, and infused his lyrics with a casual Christian nationalism which, as I describe in The Exvangelicals, was pervasive in many evangelical Christian textbooks and other literature written by leaders in the movement.

My first-ever concert experience was around age 12, seeing Carman perform at Kemper Arena or a similar large venue in downtown Kansas City.  That was the year that Carman released his album ‘The Standard,’ which included the song “America Again”:

In a dramatic monologue, Carman says that America’s founding fathers “shook off the chains of tyranny of Great Britain by divine call.”

But then, Carman warns, the country took a turn: 

“We eliminated God from the equation of American life

Thus eliminating the reason this nation first began

From beyond the grave I hear the voices of our founding fathers plead

You need God in America again.”

The song lists a litany of concerns: teen pregnancy, condoms in schools, pornography flooding the streets, drug use, divorce, and people feeling free to “come out of the closet,” and includes this dire warning:

“So when you eliminate the Word of God from the classroom and politics

You eliminate the nation that Word protects.”

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I’ve heard it several more times in recent days during Q&A sessions with audience members on my book tour, which continues this week.

So much ink has been spilled trying to answer that question, and the answer is essentially what it always was: Trump’s message resonates deeply with many white evangelicals, particularly when he promised to “protect” Christianity and deliver on their larger objectives. They’ve seen him do so, most notably in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and they view him as their champion in a cultural battle.

Few evangelicals appear to be under any illusions that Trump is a deeply religious man, according to recent data from Pew. After all, he’s famously fumbled more than once in the past when it comes to the Bible. Who could forget the “Two Corinthians” moment at Liberty University, or his apparent inability to come up with a single favorite Bible verse in an interview with Bloomberg in 2015. 

Trump’s critics will highlight the incongruity of his efforts to claim the Bible as his favorite book given that track record. But his larger message - of liberties under siege and a nation that has lost its way and deviated from a storied Christian history - continues to resonate with a majority of white evangelicals, even if it’s delivered alongside a sales pitch.

The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church is available now.

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