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Promoting high-priced Bibles to individuals who typically can’t afford them has lengthy been a shady enterprise. In spite of everything, many non secular organizations give away free Bibles, going again greater than a century to the Gideons who put Bibles in resort rooms (to this present day). And today it’s simple to search out numerous variations of the Outdated and New Testaments on-line within the language of your alternative.
However this Holy Week, we noticed a brand new purveyor of high-priced Bibles—the identical man who introduced us Trump steaks, Trump water, Trump wine, and extra lately gold Trump By no means Give up sneakers. Former president Donald Trump is now pitching the “God Bless the USA Bible” for $59.99.
It’s a brand new grift that liberal Protestant theologian Jim Wallis, writing in The Every day Beast, says not solely makes Trump “a heretic and an idolator however endangers his immortal soul.”
RELATED STORY: Some Christians are aghast at Trump’s $60 Bible ‘hustle’
Wallis wrote:
The lifetime of lies that Donald Trump has led and intentionally unfold to the harm of our nation utterly contradicts Jesus’ phrases within the Gospel of John: “You’ll know the reality and the reality will make you free.”
Whereas Trump has led the political trajectory of worry, hate, and violence in our public discourse, Jesus says within the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be referred to as the kids of God.”
And it’s ludicrous if you notice that this Bible salesman is scheduled to go on trial this month in a New York courtroom on felony costs that stem from paying hush cash to adult-film star Stormy Daniels. Trump can also be interesting an $83 million judgment in opposition to him for defaming author E. Jean Carroll, whom he was discovered liable of sexually abusing in a division retailer dressing room.
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The fictional Bible salesman has, via books and flicks, grow to be the metaphorical manifestation of the biblical warnings in opposition to those that “peddle the phrase of God for revenue” (2 Corinthians 2:17, NIV). … These wolves in sheep’s clothes seem in works from Flannery O’Connor’s quick story “Good Nation Individuals” to movies like Paper Moon (1973) and O Brother, The place Artwork Thou? (2000).
That’s from the New Testomony guide that Trump mispronounced throughout a 2016 look at Liberty College as “Two Corinthians” as an alternative of “Second Corinthians.”
In the Oscar-winning movie “Paper Moon,” directed by Peter Bogdanovich, Ryan O’Neal performs a con man who combs newspaper loss of life notices for lately widowed girls, after which sells them personally inscribed deluxe Bibles that their husbands supposedly ordered earlier than they died.
And within the Coen Brothers’ jailbreak movie “O Brother, The place Artwork Thou,” John Goodman performs Huge Dan Teague, a smooth-talking, villainous Bible salesman who says there’s ”rattling good cash” in promoting “the reality, each blessed final phrase of it, from Genesis on all the way down to Revelations.”
It seems that Huge Dan is also a member of the KKK and takes half in an tried lynching. Slate writes:
By this aspect of his character, the story provides to the Bible salesman trope, linking violence and theft disguised by faith to the South’s historical past of racial violence within the identify of “tradition and heritage.” Huge Dan’s profession as a Bible salesman is a metaphorical hood that permits him to get away with theft, whereas his Klan hood permits him—and the remainder of the hate group—to get away with homicide at night time whereas sustaining the veneer of upstanding residents by day.
Huge Dan, meet your real-life counterpart, Huge Don.
And there was additionally the Maysles Brothers’ 1969 cinema verite documentary “Salesman” a few group of touring Bible salesmen who go door-to-door to low-income households from Boston to Florida promoting $49.95 illustrated variations of the Bible. The movie begins with one salesman telling a household, “The perfect-seller on the planet is the Bible for one motive it’s the best piece of literature of all time.”
However these Bible salesmen not less than know sufficient to correctly quote verses from the Bible, versus Trump.
Now Trump’s $60 “God Bless the USA” King James Bible does embrace copies of the U.S. Structure, the Invoice of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the “handwritten refrain” to Lee Greenwood’s hit nation music “God Bless the USA,” which is performed at Trump rallies.
In his personal gross sales pitch, Greenwood stated it’s really about accessibility:
In fact, Trump’s authoritarian bent and intent to overturn our democracy go in opposition to the very rules outlined in these founding paperwork.
In his Every day Beast opinion piece, Wallis makes clear why Trump is extra harmful than any earlier sleazy Bible salesmen, fictitious or in any other case. Wallis stated that Trump has dedicated idolatry, or false worship, by selling white Christian nationalism, which contradicts “probably the most inclusive and welcoming message of the gospel of Jesus.”
And by selling a Bible with “God Bless the USA” on the duvet, Trump goes in opposition to Jesus’ teachings “by asserting the ability of 1 nation over others.” Wallis wrote, “That’s idolatry—the false worship of 1 nation over others.”
Wallis additionally accused Trump of heresy for “drawing Christians and others away from Christ.”
Donald Trump and his MAGA motion deny the truest and deepest educating of Jesus in locations like his Sermon on the Mount. Trump’s worship of wealth and utter disregard for the poorest and most weak brings the judgment of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel Chapter 25, “As you have got accomplished to the least of those you have got accomplished to me.” […]
The divinely created equality of all of God’s kids is a lot bigger than the small world of Donald Trump, who desires to take over our political nation. To invoke God, Mr. Trump, within the making and promoting of your Bible is a really harmful factor—not just for the soul of the nation but in addition for yours. You as soon as stated that you simply by no means have felt the necessity to ask God for forgiveness in your life. You would possibly need to rethink that now.
“The Bible doesn’t want Donald Trump’s endorsement,” And added: “It’s a dangerous guess as a result of the oldsters who purchase these Bibles would possibly really open them up, the place it says issues like thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not bear false witness, the place it warns about wolves dressed up in sheep’s clothes.
“I believe you must watch out. That is dangerous enterprise for someone like Donald Trump.”
RELATED STORY: Trump’s newest grift? A Trump-endorsed Bible
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