She pulled a fast one on MAGA — and paid off her medical debt

In April, Rihanna Teixeria self-published a book with the extraordinary title “Scriptural Evidence That Trump Is Set Apart by God: Biblical Proof that Trump Will Save America.” Judging by its cover, it appears similar to other texts idolizing President Donald Trump that have practically become their own genre in recent years. When you open this one, however, you find only blank pages.

MAGA buyers who weren’t in on the joke are furious, with 1-star reviewers blasting it as “blasphemy,” “delusional,” and “terribly inaccurate.” One called it “the first book I have ever truly wanted to burn.” “Not what I learned in Sunday school,” declared another.

Mad as they may be, ironically, their purchases helped Teixeria pay off her medical debt as the book sold better than she expected — roughly 1,000 copies within two months — helping her earn enough to clear the $4,000 she owed.

According to Teixeria, it only took her a few hours of fooling around on Canva to make the cover, then the book was up for sale on Amazon. She explained that her goal wasn’t merely to make a buck, but to point out the hypocrisy she saw having grown up a Christian.

“There’s prophets in that [religious] world that make prophetic videos about how Trump is being called by God to change and save the nation,” Teixeria, a 40-year-old woman living in Florida, told HuffPost. “So, because it’s now been close to 10 years of [me] seeing the church idolize this man, it popped into my head… because I could never wrap my head around what evidence they have. Like, to me, this guy is not representative of Jesus or Christianity as it’s supposed to be at all.”

Prophetic messaging has been a core feature of Trump’s political movement from the beginning. Not only has he described himself as a champion of Christian beliefs, but Christian leaders have frequently preached Trump’s ordination. As a result, he has garnered overwhelming support from evangelical and conservative Christians, just over 80 percent of whom voted for him in all three elections.

According to HuffPost, “Teixeria grew up in the evangelical church in Arizona and attended a private Christian school. She voted for Trump in 2016, but after she asked church leaders to explain some of Trump’s choices, like his cabinet appointees, she said she began deconstructing her beliefs. By 2017, she stopped attending church, and today she makes videos on social media about her upbringing.”

While Teixeria says she is still a Christian, she rejects the Trumpist currents that have swept through the religion, saying, “In the evangelical church, he’s always presented as this strong warrior, like a white American Jesus. And if I go back and I read the Gospels now with a different perspective, I see him just as a man who was against government and people who were thirsty for power, and I just see him as a man who cared for the sick and the hungry and the poor, regardless of political affiliation or nationality or gender or any of those things.”

“I feel like I have a sweeter relationship with Jesus,” Teixeria added. “He represented how we’re supposed to be acting as Christians, which I feel like in America, we’re acting like we just want all the power and to control people, when simultaneously we’re voting for a man who’s also cutting funding from the hungry and not protecting women and children and not protecting people in minority groups.”

While Teixeria’s book may have prompted outrage from MAGA buyers, the vast majority of reviewers expressed support for her message, often with a tongue-in-cheek tone.

As one reviewer declared, “I’m a doctoral student, and I know firsthand how intense, difficult, and, honestly, grueling quality research and writing can be. Yet, this book centers such rigor. The author meticulously combs the pages of the ancient text, and thoughtfully synthesizes the all of the evidence proving why our dear leader is truly anointed for such a time as this. And to her credit, when the evidence isn’t robust enough, it’s clear that she refused to include it. This is true scholarship. This is sound science. This is what real faith looks like. Kudos!”