What Do Religion Scholars Think of Trump's Violent Bible Photo Op?
On this emergency episode, Brad asks religion scholars to weigh in on Trump’s violent Bible photo op. He speaks with first with Dr. Richard Newton, Assistant Professor of Religon at the University of Alabama. They discuss how Christianity often offers a validation to racism and what he means by the term negrophobia. Christian nationalism is a prominent theme on Straight White American Jesus. Brad discusses how it played into Trump’s photo op with Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead, authors of "Taking America Back for God," a new and important text on Christian nationalism in contemporary USA. Using Christian nationalism as a lens helps clarify why Trump’s base is also populated by a good number of white Catholics. Brad discusses this with Matthew J. Cressler, Asst. Professor of Religion at the College of Charleston. They discuss his work on white Catholicism as a vehicle for segregation in the USA, and the work of black catholics who are working to dismantle the structures of racism in the church. Brad turns next to Dr. Matt Recla, Associate Director of the University Foundations program at Boise State, to get a view of Trump’s weaponization of the Bible from the eyes of a scholar of the Roman empire. Dr. Recla explains the ways Christians and politicians have done the same throughout the last 1700 years. Finally Brad asks his Skidmore college, Dr. Lucia Hulsether, author of the forthcoming book Capitalist Humanitarianism, to help him understand the term racialized capitalism. He finishes the episode with insight from his former colleague Dr. Charles McKinney Jr, professor of Africana studies at Rhodes College, who relays a lesson in how white people often view racist acts and how to begin doing anti-racist work.
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My name is Brad Onishi, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Skidmore College.
Today's an emergency podcast episode.
We are talking about Trump's photo op in front of St.
John's Church in Washington D.C.
just a couple days ago.
Just a quick recap.
President Trump gave a speech in the Rose Garden talking about law and order.
He then left the Rose Garden and walked the short distance to the church, St.
John's Church, which is a historical church in D.C.
And in order to make that walk, he had Attorney General Bill Barr and others order the dispersal of peaceful protesters.
And that dispersal happened by way of tear gas and other methods.
And so there was a striking side-by-side image of Trump walking and then holding a Bible in front of the camera while peacefully protesting Americans were being tear gassed in order to make a pathway for him to do so.
This is all taking place in the context of the ongoing protests against police brutality, specifically in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and so many others.
I asked a number of religion scholars to help us understand what was taking place with Trump's photo op.
When Trump held up the Bible in front of St.
John's Church, what was happening there?
What did it symbolize?
What are the histories at play?
and how can they help us understand the larger context.
I am joined now by Dr. Richard Newton, who is an assistant professor in the Religious Studies Department at the University of Alabama.
And Professor Newton has a long CV and written many things.
One of those things we'll talk about now is an article in the Journal of Religion and Violence with the amazing title of Scared Sheetless, and that is on White supremacy and what Dr. Newton calls Negrophobia.
We'll get into that.
He also has a book coming out, Identifying Roots, Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures, and that is with Equinox, and that'll be up soon.
And so first, let me just say thanks for joining me.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
Well, the question I'm asking everyone is, you are a scholar, you're a scholar of religion, you're a scholar of scripture, and I guess I'm wondering, What was your take, your first thought, when you saw Trump holding up the Bible in front of the church after clearing protesters with tear gas and other means?
I think my first reaction is that this is what we thought, right?
I mean, I don't...
I don't think shock or surprise is anywhere near the sort of response that I would, or any of the words that I'd use to kind of describe that response, at least from my part and for, frankly, and hopefully lots of people.
I mean, there's just a long history of this kind of thing.
And he's been doing this throughout his presidency.
I mean, a sort of strategic employ of icons, whether it's the Bible itself here, in this case in Washington, DC, at the grounds of a major protest at a church, in front of a church, whether it was here in Alabama after a natural disaster whether it was here in Alabama after a natural disaster and he was signing Bibles or around his inauguration.
And, you know, I think the left really jumped on him for supposedly having removed a bust of Martin Luther King Jr.
from the Oval Office, when in fact, I guess, supposedly he did have it in the Oval Office, and then they gave him the photo op to be in front of it, which sort of plays into the hand that he's drawing upon a great tradition of American supremacy and the best of America and the ways that that often gets articulated as the article alludes to and as I think everyone should know and everyone should know by what they're seeing in the news and what they've been hearing black people say forever.
It comes in the ways of rhetorics of whiteness and it comes in the ways of rhetorics of Christianity and certainly the combination and conflation of the two.
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