Majority of Public Calls Trumps Bible Signing Inappropriate
The gesture of signing Bibles is quite common and harmless on the surface, experts said; several presidents, including Ronald Reagan, signed Bibles.
What makes the incident at Providence Baptist Church different is white evangelicals’ full embrace of “God and country,” according to John Fea, a professor at the Christian school Messiah College. He noted Trump serves as a balm for many Christian nationalists, who see their pews empty amid the country’s cultural and demographic shift.
White evangelical Protestants shrank from 21 to 13 percent of the country between 2003 and 2017, per ABC News. The group stands out from other religious demographics on issues such as abortion and the U.S.-Mexico border wall. The largest “religious” group in the country is the religiously unaffiliated, at 25.3 percent in 2017.
“Trump is there to provide comfort in the aftermath of the literal storm,” Fea said of the president’s humanitarian visit. “But he’s also providing comfort in the culture war storm.”
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