Nwill Notre-Dame de Paris, whose reopening ceremonies take place this Saturday December 7 and Sunday December 8, awaken the Christian faith of Donald Trump? Unlike Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic who continues to attend Sunday mass at his Delaware church, the billionaire does not exude the image of a man of faith. That's the least we can say!
Married three times, found responsible for sexual assault by the courts, willingly outrageous, the man nicknamed the “billionaire playboy” crossed swords with Pope Francis on the subject of immigration and confused several times when he was questioned about the Bible.
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In 2015, when journalists from Bloomberg asked him what his favorite passages were, he simply said: “It’s a very important work for me, but I don’t want to go into details. » Is it rather “New or Old Testament”, asked his interlocutors? “Probably both equally.” »
Even Paula White, the Florida pastor who is considered his spiritual advisor, admitted that his rants about his religious beliefs were “in vain.” “It’s not her language, but that doesn’t mean it’s not in her heart,” she justified in 2016 after the revelation of a video from the show.Access Hollywood where we hear him bragging about grabbing women by their genitals.
And « non-denominational Christian »
Donald Trump is not a complete stranger to Christianity. Raised in a Calvinist family from Germany (paternal side) and Scotland (maternal side), he was a long-time member of the Presbyterian Church, an important Protestant denomination in the United States. As he built his real estate empire in New York, he became close to former pastor Norman Vincent Peale, an apostle of “positive thinking” who officiated at Marble Collegiate Church, the historic church on Fifth Avenue where Donald Trump married Ivana in 1977.
But the ambitious man did not frequent this place of worship only for spiritual reasons. “It was a church of well-known faces. When he went, the members were wealthy Protestant New Yorkers from the ruling class, noted Michael D'Antonio, a biographer of Donald Trump. It was a place where people went to see and be seen. »
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In his various writings, including his founding book The Art of the Deal (1987), the businessman says nothing about his religious training. Today, he only sets foot in a church to give speeches or to mark special occasions, such as Easter or Christmas.
-In 2020, he told Religious News Service (RNS) that he no longer considered himself a member of the Presbyterian Church and that he now saw himself as a ” non-denominational Christian”, that is to say not affiliated with any official structure. The last president to change his religious identity mid-term was Dwight Eisenhower, a Mennonite who became a Presbyterian.
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For David Brody and Scott Lamb, authors of a book on Donald Trump's religious beliefs, his ties to faith are similar to those of many American “baby boomers”. “They practiced their religion in fits and starts, sometimes not at all. They have renounced their commitments to theology and established churches with the same ease as they have divorced or lost faith in their government, but, despite it all, they remain committed to religion,” they write.
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To Discover
Kangaroo of the day
Answer
Although he is not a “good” Christian, Donald Trump has shown that he knows how to speak to this electorate. Since his first election in 2016, he has enjoyed strong support from Catholics and white evangelicals. And according to a recent study by the Pew Institute, those who go to a church at least once a month are more likely to vote for him than those who go less or never… One of the many paradoxes of Trumpism .
