Jesus and Trump
By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at The Heidelblog:
No Christian, whatever his politics, should defend this image. Why not? First, depictions of any person of the holy Trinity violate the moral law of God...Garrison Keillor used to open his monologues about the fictional town of Lake Woebegon by saying, “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Woebegon” and then go on to explain how it had not actually been quiet. The way the news is these days it is as if we are all bowling pins and the news stories are the bowling balls.
One of the stories that came down the alley concerned an AI-generated image depicting the President of the United States as Jesus, wearing a robe with a red robe over his shoulders. The Trump-Jesus figure was depicted placing his right hand on the forehead of someone in a hospital bed and in his left hand is what appears to be a ball of light. He is surrounded by flying eagles, the Statue of Liberty, and military personnel in the air with light behind them. Below are pictured a nurse, a soldier, a woman, and a man.
The President admitted publicly that he posted the image to his Truth Social account. After the image generated backlash he removed it. Later, he explained that he did not think that he had been depicted as a Christ-figure. He said that he thought that he had been depicted as a physician.
The President has some religious education in his background both in the Marble Collegiate Church (RCA) in New York, where he took to Norman Vincent Peale’s messages about the power of positive thinking. He also has a background in the Presbyterian Church in the USA.1
A man of the President’s age and experience has surely seen some of the more popular depictions of our Lord and would recognize a depiction of himself as a Christ-figure. So, his claim does not seem credible. The President seems to enjoy stirring up controversy of this sort so that none of this should be particularly surprising to us. What is of more interest is how people responded. Of course there were denunciations of the image by a wide variety of people. About a day after the image was posted we began to see defenses. They are not consequential and need not delay us here. What is significant is that they occurred.
No Christian, whatever his politics, should defend this image. Why not? First, depictions of any person of the holy Trinity violate the moral law of God which says about depicting God:
You shall not make for yourself any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments (Ex 20:4–6; Heidelberg Catechism 92).The ancient Christian church was united in her conviction that images of God the Son incarnate are forbidden. Hippolytus of Rome (c. AD 170–c.236) complained, “certain, likewise, of these (heretics) brand their own disciples in the back parts of the lobe of the right ear. And they make counterfeit images of Christ, alleging that these were in existence at the time (during which our Lord was on earth, and that they were fashioned) by Pilate.”2 Just to forestall any misunderstanding, he did not think that there were genuine or legitimate images of Christ.
