Remember Trump's famous favorite Bible quote?
He's got one, right?
So if he does have one, based upon his actions as president, or his decades as a miserable example of a "businessman" over his lifetime, WHAT IS IT?
What might, say...three of his favorite quotes be?
The famous moment: Trump was asked his favorite Bible verse in 2015 and couldn't name one. He later cited "an eye for an eye" as his philosophy -- which is real (Leviticus/Exodus), but notably Jesus specifically repudiates it in Matthew 5:38-39. So his "favorite" is the verse Christ overruled.
Three that actually fit his record:
1. Proverbs 21:6 "A fortune made by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare." -- Six bankruptcies, Trump University fraud settlement, inflated asset valuations. The vapor part aged well.
2. Matthew 6:5 "When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others." -- The Lafayette Square Bible photo op, holding it upside down. Scripture as prop.
3. 1 Timothy 6:10 "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." -- Covers pretty much the entire career arc and the current presidency-as-profit-center Raskin was describing above.
The brutal irony is that "eye for an eye" being his self-chosen verse is actually the most honest thing he's ever said about himself.
Trump's politics are pure Old Testament retribution politics with zero New Testament grace anywhere in sight.
Trump really seems to be an Old Testament guy, though.
Old Testament Trump?
The OT God is frequently wrathful, vengeful, tribal, transactional, and rewards loyalty above almost everything else.
So? Trump IS like the Old Testament, immature, vindictive, jealous "God"?
Punishment is swift and disproportionate. Enemies are smited.
The chosen people are exceptional by definition.
Outsiders are threats. Sounds kind of like a five-year-old.
But it maps almost perfectly onto Trump's operating psychology.
The transactional covenant thing is key.
OT theology is largely "obey and prosper, disobey and suffer."
Trump runs the same deal -- loyalty is rewarded, disloyalty is destroyed.
It's less a moral framework than a power framework with religious language draped over it.
What Trump actively rejects from the New Testament:
- Forgiveness of enemies (he never forgives, or apologizes, doubling down, always)
- Humility ("blessed are the meek" -- not a Trump value)
- Turning the other cheek (see: "eye for an eye")
- Care for the poor and stranger (see: every immigration and social policy)
- The rich man and the needle's eye passage -- genuinely inconvenient for him
The dark irony is that evangelical Christians, who are supposed to be defined by the New Testament and Christ's teachings, have attached themselves to perhaps the most purely Old Testament political figure in American history.
See, white Christian Nationalism. Or the American Taliban.
Allow me... And there it is. The through line.
Why the OT fits WCN perfectly:White Christian Nationalism isn't really Christianity in any theological sense. It's a tribal identity system that uses Christian iconography as its flag. The Old Testament gives them what they actually want:
A chosen people narrative
A promised land (America as covenant nation)
Divine sanction for conquest and dominance
Clear in-group/out-group boundaries
A wrathful God who punishes enemies
Tribal law over universal grace
The New Testament is genuinely problematic for them because Christ was a Middle Eastern Jew who preached radical inclusion, care for immigrants and outcasts, rejection of wealth and power, and forgiveness of enemies. That's essentially the opposite of the WCN political program.
So they quietly sideline Jesus as a theological figure while keeping the cross as a political symbol. The cross at January 6th wasn't about the Sermon on the Mount.
Trump as OT figure works for them because he's Cyrus -- the flawed pagan king God uses as an instrument anyway. That's literally the theological framework many WCN pastors use. It's clever because it immunizes him against any moral critique.
The deepest irony: They've built a political religion around the parts of the Bible their own Christ specifically came to supersede.
That's not Christianity. That's nationalism wearing Christianity's coat.
While we're on the topic of Trump's nonsense...
The Trump "Weave" Nonsense Unravels: A Decade of Cognitive Decline in Donald Trump's Public Speech
1980s — Coherent, even articulate in interviews; sentences complete, vocabulary precise, stays on topic. Fundamental life view pretty messed up, however. Still capable of hiding that.
1990s — Still functional but shallower; the braggadocio is increasing, substance thinning.
2011 — Filler words measurably increasing in recorded interviews; vague placeholder language creeping in.
2015 — Campaign launch; rambling style rewarded by crowds, masking deterioration with performative energy.
2016 — Tangentiality accelerating but mistaken for authenticity; wins the presidency.
2017 — First STAT linguistic analysis finds his speaking style has already worsened significantly since the 1980s.
2018 — Still capable of structured prepared remarks but unscripted responses increasingly fragmented.
2019 — Repetition of key phrases intensifying; same anecdotes recycled regardless of context.
2020 — Post-election loss triggers emotional constriction; all-or-nothing vocabulary spikes.
2021 — Negative emotional language dominates; "never," "always," "completely" becoming verbal tics.
2022 — Word retrieval errors becoming regular; confabulation harder to distinguish from deliberate lying.
2023 — Haley/Pelosi confusion; uncorrected errors normalizing; digressions no longer return to a point.
2024 — Abrupt unframed topic shifts more than double; changes exceed what stylistic continuity can explain.
2025 — Retrieval failures, disorganized sequencing, errors go uncorrected in real time; the compensating mechanisms are visibly breaking down.
2026 — Currently in office, 79 years old, mentally older, and the public record of any given week supplies fresh examples without having to look hard.
The baseline has shifted to where the episodes are no longer remarkable enough to dominate any news cycle.
By the way?
That normalization may be the most telling data point of all.
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
JZ Murdock is a retired Senior Technical Writer/IT administrator, and an active award-winning author/ filmmaker, documentarian, and writer based in Bremerton, Washington.
He publishes commentary on the state of things at murdockinations.com and on his creative works over at Substack. He also posts on Slasher.com on the horror genre.
If this work means something to you, you can support it at Ko-fi. Tips are always welcome and go directly toward keeping independent documentary work possible.
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