Paula White-Cain, a senior advisor in Trump’s White House Faith Office, made a much-criticized comment on Wednesday night, comparing the president to a central figure in the Christian faith.
“Jesus taught so many lessons through his death, burial, and resurrection. He showed us great leadership, great transformation requires great sacrifice,” White-Cain said during the meeting of Christian faith leaders sharing prayers for Easter. “And, Mr. President, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. It almost cost you your life.”
“You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused,” White-Cain said, quasi-describing a main tenet of Christian doctrine and comparing it to Trump’s own legal troubles. “It’s a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us. Because of His resurrection, you rose up.”
Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Getty
It’s a comparison that had quite a few people of faith scratching their heads — and others firmly pushing back, noting especially the discomfort during one of the most sacred weeks leading up to one of the most important holidays in Christianity: Easter.
“Asking God, in a public prayer, to help a political leader make wise decisions, care for the poor, seek peace, foster harmony, and try to include all those who feel excluded? Yes,” James Martin, a Jesuit priest and founder of Outreach, a LGBTQ Catholic ministry, posted in response to the video. “Comparing a political leader, in a public prayer, to the sinless Son of God during Holy Week? No.”
“This is blasphemy,” Rev. Benjamin Cremer posted on X Wednesday night. “This is what it sounds like to take Jesus’ name in vain.”
Biblical scholars spotted a few inaccuracies in White-Cain’s interpretation.
“As a biblical scholar, my initial reaction to White’s comments was that they’re factually incorrect,” biblical scholar Aaron Higashi told HuffPost via email. “There is no comparison between President Trump’s arrests and Jesus.’”
“President Trump has been arrested on several occasions, but he’s always voluntarily surrendered himself at pre-arranged times where every opportunity is taken to ensure his comfort and quick release,” Higashi continued. “Jesus, by contrast, was ambushed and violently arrested by an armed crowd. He was abused in custody and obviously never released. In the Gospels, we know that Jesus was falsely accused both because Pilate finds no reason to have him executed and because the resurrection vindicates his divine claims and purpose. President Trump has no comparable vindication, either legally or theologically.”
Jennifer Bird, Ph.D., a biblical scholar and author of “Marriage in the Bible: What DO The Texts Say?” also notes inconsistencies in White-Cain’s framing — particularly the lack of context of what “crimes” Jesus was accused of committing and why he was executed.
“So Jesus, the guy, a Jewish guy —some form of rabble rouser, maybe — but certainly what he represented as a human was rejecting the powers that be, rejecting the way the people in charge and religious leaders were in collusion with the Romans and exploiting the people,” Bird said. “So, to compare the execution of such a person to Donald Trump, who is actually the guy that Jesus would have been speaking out about? We’re completely ignoring the whole context of what was going on.”
And just the same, comparing Donald J. Trump to the man Jesus reportedly was feels very “apples and oranges” to Bird.
“I do think it’s perhaps helpful to think about the fact that Trump is a president of the United States. He is a leader on a global level. And Jesus was a person of the masses,” she said. “From the outset, these are not comparable people in terms of their station in life. These are not comparable life experiences. The things that Trump has been accused of and arrested for? These are on a whole different plane than why Jesus was arrested.”
And given Trump’s various charges (personal and professional), she notes that it’s impossible not to acknowledge the differences: “What Trump is being arrested for? Those are precisely the things that Jesus was speaking out against. It couldn’t be more bizarre to me when you look at it in through that lens —Jesus was arrested for speaking out about injustice and oppression and economic exploitation. And what was Trump arrested for? Doing those things.”
This is not the first time someone’s made this comparison – but it still might not sit well with some people of faith.
As a former evangelical Christian herself, Bird notes that this direct comparison between a politician and the central figure of the religion isn’t something she’d expect to see prior to this particular era of MAGA Christianity.
“I don’t know that we made those comparisons 30 years ago because it would be sacrilegious. It would have been sacrilegious to us to compare a person that we liked to Jesus,” Bird said. ”That that would be totally inappropriate. … To compare any person to Jesus, when I was in that state, it was heretical: You don’t compare people to God incarnate.”
Yet, Bird notes that she has seen an “uptick” in this kind of talk in more recent years, particularly amid the rise of Christian nationalism in the United States: “It’s like ’we’re going to play the biggest trump card we can come up with, making this comparison,” Bird said.
Higashi also sees the connection between the rise of these comparisons and the rise of white Christian nationalism in U.S. politics: “Marjorie Taylor Greene and Charlie Kirk both compared President Trump to Jesus in 2023,” Higashi told HuffPost via email.
“In my experience, it’s not common to see 1:1 comparisons between Jesus and a person of faith because it sounds blasphemous,” Higashi continued. “But with the rise in white Christian nationalism, and the tendency of evangelicals to see government power as a fulfillment of their religious aspirations, the comparison has become more common.”
And, yeah, to some Christians, this might feel ‘embarrassing’ and ‘insulting’ to witness.
For today’s non-MAGA Christians, like Malynda Hale, executive director of The New Evangelicals, these latest comments are “blasphemy” but “not surprising” — and it represents a bit of the battle of the soul other Christians are navigating daily with the rise of MAGA Christianity.
“It’s embarrassing. It’s insulting to the foundation of the faith. And it’s exactly why people can’t be timid about calling out Christian nationalism,” Hale said. “I refuse to let people like this redefine my faith into something that centers Trump instead of Jesus.”
She considers comments of this nature to be “what it means to take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“These people worship having so much power they are practically foaming at the mouth about it and they have the audacity to call it faith — and during Holy Week of all times,” Hale said. “It just shows how far they are willing to go in order to change Jesus’s message so it can serve their political agenda.”
“Living up to the actual words and commands of Jesus is hard for them because it requires integrity and accountability. It’s a lot easier to reshape Jesus into someone who looks more like the leaders they already want to follow,” Hale said. “So they elevate Trump to Christ-like status to justify staying aligned with him. That’s also why they still have pictures of a white Jesus in their churches and homes. But anyone who truly understands the teachings of Jesus would never do this.”
