Do You Realize How Far Trump's Religion Speech Went?
David Niose
May 14, 2017
It’s no surprise that Donald Trump chose Liberty University—the evangelical Christian college founded by the fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell—as the venue for his first graduation commencement speech as president. White evangelicals were Trump’s strongest religious demographic last November, with more than four out of five voting for him, so it was perhaps predictable that he would repay the faithful with a visit on graduation day.
But what was surprising—and more than a bit concerning for those who see conservative Christian political ideology as troublesome in the modern world—is the degree to which Trump’s speech threw red meat to his evangelical constituency. Some God-talk was to be expected, but Trump went much further—arguably further than any modern president has gone in defining American values in terms of Christian nationalism.
“America is a nation of true believers,” he declared, going on to remind the crowd of the religious language that has become common in American public life, such as “under God” in the pledge of allegiance and the national motto of “In God We Trust.” Conveniently omitting that most public God-references are relatively recent inventions (“under God” wasn’t added to the pledge until 1954, and “In God We Trust” became the national motto two years later), Trump also neglected to mention that about one in five Americans claim no god belief at all.[1] Instead, the speech was all about God and country, using language of unanimity: “We all salute the same great American flag,” he proclaimed, “and we are all made by the same almighty God.”
With college grads as Trump’s audience, one might have expected that he would at least pay lip service to critical thinking, empiricism, or intellectual inquiry, but there was none of that. Instead, faith and nationalism stayed in the forefront. Trump even portrayed his presidency as an instrument of God’s plan, stating that many thought his election “would require major help from God. . . And we got it”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201705/do-you-realize-how-far-trumps-religion-speech-went
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