If you had suggested to me that Donald Trump believed in any power higher than himself, I would have dismissed it as inconceivable. Through the eighties it seemed every other tabloid front-page story about Trump proclaimed yet another outlandish worldly episode in the ongoing saga of his self-serving, lavish, and dissipated lifestyle. How could a person portrayed in the media as such a “bad boy” be a person of faith?
I only knew Donald Trump from what I saw and heard in the news, and what was in the news (until 2015) was never about his “Christian character” or any kind of “redemptive nature.” I judged him solely by what was apparent on the surface. As I dove into the reality and examined the truth beyond the media hype, I realized a depth of faith not readily seen by outsiders.
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Trump was the pompous billionaire with the jumbo-sized ego, three times married, at least four businesses bankrupted (six if you are to believe Hillary Clinton), one alleged affair with a porn actress, caught on tape spewing crude locker-room bluster, and offender to millions of Americans unaccustomed to reading a president’s unfiltered (yet brutally honest and oftentimes spot-on) tweets that violate codes of PC conduct embraced by the truly enlightened.
Considering all that, it’s no wonder that Trump has never been treated by contemporary media as a man of particularly robust religious faith or expression. The remarkable truth is that he is a man of great faith, even if not in the eyes of his judgmental critics.
When it comes to demonstrations of a belief in God, prayer, worship, and Scripture, among Christians at least, judgmental churchgoers keep a hopeful eye out for stereotypes with a knack for quoting pet scriptural verses on cue, toting a Bible, and emoting during church worship, especially while perched in a pew every Sunday and other church holidays.
Trump isn’t much for checking off any of those boxes. Before we condemn him to an eternity in purgatory, however, let’s remember that the Bible speaks openly of man’s sinful nature and the hope for forgiveness available to any man or woman, boy or girl, who seeks a path to God accompanied by sincere repentance. Trump is afforded that same opportunity.
What exactly does a man or woman have to do to convince family, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and the public in general they are people of faith submitted to God? Actually, nothing. It’s between them and God; no one else is qualified to make that judgment, despite what they see, hear, or read (or don’t see, hear, or read). Trump has a foundation of faith that dates back to his youth. He grew up in a family that honored the Sabbath, the Bible, times of prayer, and church attendance, learning about and (hopefully) following the tenets in their respective chosen flavors of the Christian faith. We know of no evidence that Trump ever backed off or hid from his faith because a belief about a certain topic was “above his paygrade.”
Historical accounts about Trump’s religious upbringing as a youth are scattered and relatively scant. One thing known is that his mother, Mary Anne, gave him his first Bible when he was eight years old—a Revised Standard Version (RSV) published by Thomas Nelson & Sons in 1952. The occasion, in June 1955, was Trump’s graduation from Sunday Church Primary School at First Presbyterian Church (FPC) in Jamaica, Queens, New York, the neighborhood in which he grew up. 1
In the years since, hundreds of admirers—many of whom presumably concerned about Trump’s relationship with God and his eternal destination—have gifted him with Bibles, which he has safely stowed somewhere in Trump Tower.
“There’s no way I would ever . . . do anything negative to a Bible . . . I would have a fear of doing something other than very positive,” Trump said. 2
Trump’s Bible gifted to him by his mom was one of two Bibles on which Trump placed his left hand in January 2017 when taking the oath of office for the Presidency. The other was a Bible that had belonged to Lincoln, an 1853 Oxford University Press edition of the King James Bible. It was given to Lincoln by a United States Supreme Court clerk moments before his inauguration ceremony in 1861. Lincoln’s personal belongings—presumably to include his personal Bible—hadn’t made it to Washington, D.C. in time for the ceremony.
Trump’s childhood church is more than 350 years old and, as of July 2016, was tucked among chain stores, Bangladeshi food stands, and halal grocers in Jamaica, Queens. One ironic thing about the church and its connection to Trump is that, present day, it boasts a congregation predominantly composed of immigrants from a dozen or more countries. On any given Sunday, as described in the July 2016 edition of The Atlantic, an attendee might see “women in geles and bright, African-print dresses (sitting) in the pews alongside ladies in floppy church hats.” 3
Although it was believed as of 2016 that Trump had not visited his childhood church in decades, he did send a $10,000 donation to FPC in 2012, according to Pastor Patrick O’Connor. “I attended Sunday school at the church for a number of years,” Trump wrote. “Going to church was an important part of our family life, and the memories for me are still vivid—of a vibrant congregation and a lot of activities.” 4
Over the years Trump on numerous occasions has proudly recalled his confirmation into FPC in June 1959, the month in which he turned thirteen, often showing off a photo from the confirmation ceremony. Pictured are seven boys in the back row, most of them wearing dark suits—he’s the tallest—with twelve girls in white dresses and flowers comprising the front two rows. Trump kept the photo handy during his 2016 presidential campaign, frequently pulling it out to show people as proof he had indeed been initiated publicly into the folds of the church.
As part of the confirmation process, students were required to sign a document certifying they had “publicly confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and received into the communicant membership” of the local church. Included in that confirmation process was a service during which the nineteen students publicly confessed, confirmed, and promised to abide by several affirmations. It started with, “Do you confess your faith in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, and do you promise with the aid of the Holy Spirit to be Christ’s faithful disciple to your life’s end?” 5
Whether Trump’s profession of confirmation of an abiding faith and lifelong discipleship in Jesus Christ could be interpreted as a proclamation of being “born again” is debatable (once saved, always saved?). It seems reasonable to conclude, though, that Trump did successfully complete the confirmation process (perhaps considering it his first exclusive club membership), imbuing him with a foundation of faith that has been with him his whole life, even if his words and actions haven’t always passed muster with other believers—and, of course, nonbelievers.
Most Americans don’t see Trump, who identifies as Presbyterian, as religious; half of them don’t believe he is a Christian. Those were among the conclusions reached by a Pew Research Center survey conducted in early 2020. Announced March 25, 2020, Pew’s survey results showed 63 percent of all U.S. adults claiming that Trump was either “not too” or “not at all” religious, while 28 percent of those respondents surveyed said the forty-fifth U.S. president was “somewhat” religious with 7 percent stating he was “very” religious. Even among survey respondents identifying themselves as Christian, more than half cast doubt on Trump’s level of religious faith: 56 percent said he was “not too” or “not at all” religious, and 43 percent chose either “somewhat” or “very” as their perceived assessment of Trump’s level of religiosity. 6
Even though the Pew Research Center bills itself as “a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping the world,” its origins suggest otherwise. It was established so-named in 2004, with roots tracing back to the now-defunct Times Mirror Company, which for more than a century published newspapers (e.g., Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Dallas Times Herald, etc.) and other print media. 7
The Pew Center’s survey findings make for interesting reading, especially for “anti-Trumpsters” craving ammunition with which to launch yet another assault on Trump’s character and fitness to lead the country. It’s worth pointing out that in its lead paragraph on the story announcing its findings in this survey, the Center acknowledged that Trump’s “personal religious beliefs and practices have not been as public as his penchant for surrounding himself with evangelical leaders while also supporting various conservative Christian causes, not to mention his frequent use of religious-oriented jargon while speaking in public.” 8
His detractors might claim that Trump’s affinity for Christian language and advisors has essentially been political strategy to endear himself to the Christian/evangelical voting bloc. But such an assumption falls short of properly evaluating Trump’s private exercise of his Christian beliefs. While they are at it, his detractors might scrutinize and perhaps adjust their own beliefs and religious practices before ordaining themselves bully pulpit bishops charged with deducing Trump’s personal faith.
(To be Continued)
Notes:
1. David Brody and Scott Lamb, The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A
Spiritual Biography (New York: Broadside Books, 2018), 73.
2. Brody and Lamb, The Faith of Donald J. Trump, 73.
3. Emma Green, “Trump’s Sunday School,” The Atlantic, July 24, 2016.
4. Green, “Trump’s Sunday School.”
5. Brody and Lamb, 76–77.
6. Dalia Fahmy, “Most Americans Don’t See Trump as Religious;
Fewer Than Half Say They Think He’s Christian,” Pew Research Center,
March 25, 2020.
7. Pew Research Center, “Our History,” https://www.pewresearch.org/
about/our-history/, viewed April 23, 2020.
8. Fahmy, “Most Americans Don’t See Trump as Religious; Fewer Than
Half Say They Think He’s Christian.”