Not the only Messiah Complex in town
Reflections on that image of Donald Trump
I was shocked this week. Having worked as a doctor, pastor and magistrate (and as a father!) I like to think I am not easily shocked. But an image in a friend’s Facebook feed made my jaw drop.
It was the now-deleted but still much-discussed AI-generated image of Donald Trump – posted by him on Truth Social – wearing white robes with a red mantle. His light-radiating hand is placed on a sick man’s head.[i] He is surrounded by admiring onlookers (all of them white and one with praying hands) and patriotic symbolism. Silhouetted against a bright light in the sky are apparent angelic reinforcements – most in modern combat gear but the central one strangely shaped and seemingly horned.
In writing about culture and politics, I try to be fair. I find it troubling when Christians dismiss any leader wholesale. Demonisation is the enemy of discernment. So, I listened carefully to Trump’s explanation that he thought the image showed him as a doctor and that any Jesus-like interpretation was “fake news”.
But the imagery was undeniably messianic. It echoed artistic depictions of Jesus healing the sick. This was not white coat and stethoscope, but white robes and miracles. Whatever the intention, the symbolism was theologically charged in a way Christians cannot ignore. Especially coming after a series of stories of evangelical leaders praying with the president in terms that portray him as a divinely appointed saviour.[ii]
But this is no tirade against Trump. This image matters less for what it says about Trump – troubling as that is – than for what it exposes in us. Because the truth is uncomfortable: he is not the only one with a messiah complex.
‘Messiah complex’ is not a clinical diagnosis. But it is a useful term for a spectrum of attitudes in which people come to believe in themselves as the only answer to a problem.
It was the now-deleted but still much-discussed AI-generated image of Donald Trump – posted by him on Truth Social – wearing white robes with a red mantle. His light-radiating hand is placed on a sick man’s head.[i] He is surrounded by admiring onlookers (all of them white and one with praying hands) and patriotic symbolism. Silhouetted against a bright light in the sky are apparent angelic reinforcements – most in modern combat gear but the central one strangely shaped and seemingly horned.
In writing about culture and politics, I try to be fair. I find it troubling when Christians dismiss any leader wholesale. Demonisation is the enemy of discernment. So, I listened carefully to Trump’s explanation that he thought the image showed him as a doctor and that any Jesus-like interpretation was “fake news”.
But the imagery was undeniably messianic. It echoed artistic depictions of Jesus healing the sick. This was not white coat and stethoscope, but white robes and miracles. Whatever the intention, the symbolism was theologically charged in a way Christians cannot ignore. Especially coming after a series of stories of evangelical leaders praying with the president in terms that portray him as a divinely appointed saviour.[ii]
But this is no tirade against Trump. This image matters less for what it says about Trump – troubling as that is – than for what it exposes in us. Because the truth is uncomfortable: he is not the only one with a messiah complex.
‘Messiah complex’ is not a clinical diagnosis. But it is a useful term for a spectrum of attitudes in which people come to believe in themselves as the only answer to a problem.
