North Carolina evangelical Rev. Loran Livingston is going viral for a fiery speech he gave in early April in which he condemns Donald Trump’s promotion of a $59.99 Bible that’s embossed with an American flag and includes historic documents like the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as the lyrics to conservative singer Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA.”
Livingston called the Bibles “blasphemous” and “disgusting.” And he isn’t the only conservative evangelical to take exception to Trump’s stunt. Another prominent conservative, professor Andrew Walker of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, denounced the merchandise in an op-ed for a Christian-focused news outlet in March.
“[F]using America’s founding documents with the Word of God is a syncretistic expression of civil religion that goes farther than what those who love their country—and, more importantly, for those who love their Bibles—should ever allow,” Walker wrote. He added that “President Donald J. Trump lacks all the authority—and sincerity—to stand up and advertise a Bible for $59.99. Really, no one does, because Bibles of this sort should never have been made in the first place.” He also said Trump’s critics would have reason to “stomp on Trump for bastardizing Christianity.”
The Bibles, which Trump has promoted alongside Greenwood, were widely panned when Trump began promoting them in March. Trump has never hesitated to use his followers’ religious loyalties to his political advantage. But he’s also given us ample reason to believe he doesn’t understand scripture or take seriously the personal convictions of those who espouse it.
That’s just what the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic senator from Georgia, tried to warn him about during a CNN interview in March.
Warnock said:
Donald Trump is doing what he’s always done, and this time it’s a risky bet because the folks who buy those Bibles might actually open them up, where it says things like, ‘Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not bear false witness,’ where it warns about wolves dressed up in sheep’s clothing — I think you ought to be careful. This is risky business for somebody like Donald Trump.
And look, I’m not so naive to think that this is going to be evangelicals’ “road to Damascus” moment. Right-wing evangelicals have remained largely loyal to Trump in spite of his refusal to cite a Bible verse, and after the “Access Hollywood” moment in 2016, and after he was found civilly liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, to name a few incidents. (Don’t call it hypocrisy, though: One religious historian argued to Vox in 2020, “If you understand what family values evangelicalism has always entailed — and at the very heart of it is white patriarchy, and often a militant white patriarchy — then suddenly, all sorts of evangelical political positions and cultural positions fall into place.”)
But it’s also true that Trump’s evangelical support seems to be on shakier ground than he might prefer. This is due, in part, to his recent statements that, while supportive of abortion restrictions, have backed away from the more draconian limitations allowed after his hand-picked Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v. Wade.
And in the 2020 election, Joe Biden did eat into Trump’s lead among white evangelicals, albeit only slightly. Liberal faith leaders are hard at work trying to chip away more of Trump’s evangelical support, as pastor and social activist Doug Pagitt explained in a recent interview with Chris Hayes.
In an election year that may come down to the margins, neither Trump nor Biden can afford to lose any core voters. Livingston’s sermon shows how Trump’s Bible stunt has perturbed some evangelicals. The question now is whether any defy him in November.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.