President Trump Rightly Points to King Jesus
What a difference a year makes when it comes to celebrating Holy Week at the White House.
Last year, a somewhat tepid Easter statement from President Biden was infamously overshadowed by an extensive proclamation that touted a “Transgender Day of Visibility”—and issued on Easter Sunday of all days. Rather than praise the satanic disfigurement of the human body—wounds that harm and mutilate—Trump thought it important to highlight Christ, who heals us by his wounds, as the Prophet Isaiah teaches.
President Trump’s Holy Week message, which was released on Palm Sunday, calls Jesus the “living Son of God who conquered death, freed us from sin, and unlocked the gates of Heaven for all of humanity.” It goes on to describe the ebb and flow of Holy Week, beginning with Jesus’ triumphal entry, to the humiliation of the cross and Jesus’ descent to the dead, and then to the indescribable heights of the resurrection. “On Easter morning, the stone is rolled away, the tomb is empty, and light prevails over darkness—signaling that death does not have the final word.” Amen!
According to the resurrection prayer from the Valley of Vision, “Jesus strides forth as the victor, conqueror of death, hell, and all opposing might; He bursts the bands of death, tramples the powers of darkness down, and lives forever.” After conquering death, Jesus opened the way to heaven for all those who put their faith in Him. The Easter week collect from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer calls all people to “follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The presidential statement continues: “Through His suffering, we have redemption. Through His death, we are forgiven of our sins. Through His Resurrection, we have hope of eternal life.” This is the message of Christianity—the message of humanity’s only hope. In the words of the absolution from the Book of Common Prayer, God the Father “desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live.”
The message closes with policies the administration is undertaking to “defend the Christian faith”: “We will never waver in safeguarding the right to religious liberty, upholding the dignity of life, and protecting God in our public square.” This is in line with the broad consensus of the Reformed confessions on the duties of the civil magistrate. Perhaps it most closely follows the American revisions to Chapter 23 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which calls magistrates “nursing fathers” and requires them to “maintain piety.” At the same time, it expresses a more capacious view of religious liberty than the older confessions, which makes sense given the particularities of the American context.
In contrast to Trump, Biden clearly and forcefully rejected the Christian duties that all magistrates are bound to follow, consecrating evil on the day of the Lord’s resurrection from the dead. Andrew T. Walker summed up what most Christians were likely thinking when comparing Trump’s message to Biden’s clear and open embrace of wickedness on Easter Sunday: “Given the choice between a robust civil religion that acknowledges Christianity’s central truths and significance in America versus a pagan nationalism that hijacks Easter for transgender visibility, the answer is obvious.” Though evangelical legacy institutions are loath to admit it, promoting sin, despair, and death is at the very heart of the Democratic Party’s political program.
Strangely, some confessional Christians likely demur at the kind of public Christianity promoted in Trump’s presidential message, labeling it as some sort of transformationalist, immanentizing of the eschaton. Language like Trump’s, which has rightly been used by most presidents throughout American history, is exactly the kind of public teaching that the Westminster Confession of Faith and other Reformed confessions expect from the civil magistrate. The president is in very good company in acknowledging the Christian foundations and character of America—and pointing citizens toward the heavenly good found in Christ alone.
America’s heritage, after all, is that of a Christian nation. From our earliest days as a collection of colonies, Christianity has suffused our culture and politics. Presidential addresses, Supreme Court opinions, and congressional speeches have been peppered with allusions to Christianity and verses from the Bible. Our public monuments are adorned with images and themes that harken to Scripture. Though the First Amendment forbids the federal government to set up a national church, it left the states with considerable power to maintain soft, pan-Protestant establishments.
“The United States is a Christian nation in the same sense it is an English-speaking nation. There isn’t any law mandating it—that’s just the way it is…. The population remains in the majority Christian, with the share of Americans who identify as Christian outweighing those who identify as Republicans or Democrats.” These statements weren’t written by some hardened “culture warrior” but by The Dispatch’s Kevin Williamson, an ardent critic of Christian nationalism.
Absent Christianity, America simply is no longer America in any discernible sense.
Fortunately, more and more Christians are beginning to push back against the quasi-anabaptist agenda that has been advocated by many in the upper echelons of evangelicalism and think about how to restore the Christian foundations of our nation in the modern age. Preserving our nation for future generations requires a vigorous Christianity that manfully asserts the supremacy of Christ in public.
On this front, U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt has proposed making Easter a federal holiday. “It’s a federal recognition of a tradition that is central to Western civilization—a tradition that’s already recognized as a public holiday in nations across (and beyond!) the West, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and most of Western Europe,” Schmitt posted to his X account.
In a joint op-ed at The Daily Signal earlier this week, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and Center for Baptist Leadership Executive Director William Wolfe laid out a number of items the Trump administration should consider. They argue for repealing the FACE Act and for the DOJ to step in against states like Colorado that make it illegal for businesses to “deadname” or “misgender” their clientele, a clear violation of the First Amendment. They call for the Senate to confirm U.S. Representative Mark Walker (a former pastor) as ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. And Roberts and Wolfe also contend for the creation of a special envoy in the State Department who can “monitor and combat anti-Christian sentiment and persecution.”
Contrast this to the Biden administration, which weaponized the FACE Act to arrest pro-life protestors like Mark Houck (who was later acquitted) and whose disastrous foreign policy saw an increase in Christians around the world having their churches attacked and themselves being persecuted and killed.
While practical politics is surely an important vehicle for Christians to assert themselves, in the midst of Holy Week, we should turn again to Christ, contemplating his finished work on the cross.
The “Homily for Good Friday” from the Second Book of Homilies, a collection of sermons written in the 16th century that explain the doctrines of the Church of England, is apropos: “Let us therefore, good friends, with all reverence glorify [Jesus’] Name; let us magnify and praise him for ever. For he hath dealt with us according to his great mercy; by himself hath he purchased our redemption. He thought it not enough to spare himself and to send his angel to do this deed; but he would do it himself that he might do it the better, and make it the more perfect redemption.” Amen.
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