'Trump AI Jesus' outs 'hypocrites and hucksters': Christianity Today

According to Christianity Today editor-at-large Russell Moore, some evangelicals have claimed that President Donald Trump is the kind of “disrupter” that people need to bring them to Jesus. As Trump’s bizarre conflict with the Pope unfolds, however, “for the first time,” writes Moore, “I think they might be right — just not in the way they thought.”

Citing the president’s genocidal, profanity-laced threats against Iran, his social media attacks on the Pope, and the AI-generated image he posted of himself as Jesus, Moore points out that many of Trump’s Christian supporters “feel humiliated and angry” by what they’ve witnessed. This, suggests Moore, presents an important opportunity for Christians to look in the mirror.

“Maybe ‘Trump AI Jesus’ is what we’ve been waiting for to show us what we’ve become,” writes Moore. “I think it’s worth asking what exactly is coming to light in this moment and whether it could disrupt a means-to-an-end cultural Christianity.”

Moore argues that it’s not only Trump exhibiting un-Christian-like behavior, but it's also those in his orbit as well. Recently, for example, the president’s senior faith advisor compared Trump to Jesus, referencing his betrayal and crucifixion.

“If that’s not blasphemy, the word has no meaning,” says Moore. “But her comments were met with applause in the East Room.”

This “tawdry” display, argues Moore, is “humiliating” for Christians who should now recognize that Trump and his like-minded allies have “eviscerated conservative Christianity in the US and left it in the possession of hypocrites and hucksters.”

According to Moore, there will always be those who attempt to use the gospel “to mobilize voters or to sell products,” and Trump represents one of these.

“The problem is not that Trump can’t tell the difference between himself and Jesus. It’s that too many of us can’t,” writes Moore. “That’s why many people’s test of loyalty right now is not whether you hold to the gospel or to the mission or to the creeds or to the transformed life but whether you are sufficiently ‘in line’ on politics.”

But, he continues, Christians should not be swayed by the “nationalist frenzy” of “economic grifters,” and should instead “look into the dead eyes of an idol and ask, Is this what we’ve become?"