There’s a simple reason Christian nationalists are willing to abandon long-held values and rewrite, redact and reinterpret the Bible as needed to support Donald Trump, Brian Kaylor says.
“They want power,” said Kaylor, a Baptist minister, editor-in-chief of Word&Way and author of The Bible According to Christian Nationalists: Exploiting Scripture for Political Power.
“The Trump era has really shown how quick conservative Christian nationalists are to just jettison what presumably had been longstanding beliefs and character matters,” he said. “If Trump comes out and says something that doesn’t match with what they have previously argued, they will continue to go with him and change their position because they want the power.”
Released earlier this month, the book explores how Christian MAGA supporters carefully select, reinterpret and omit key portions of Scripture to transform the Bible into an instrument of political recruitment and propaganda.
“The irony of Christian nationalism is that it actually relies very little on Christ or his teachings.”
“They like to elevate a lot of Old Testament passages and want to implement and codify those. But then the words of Jesus get short shrift, and so the irony of Christian nationalism is that it actually relies very little on Christ or his teachings,” Kaylor said.
The Bible According to Christian Nationalists unpacks numerous approaches politically motivated conservative Christians use to make the Bible conform to specific ideological positions. These include presenting the Bible as selectively literal, triumphal, pro-American, rewritable and as a weapon to vilify opponents.
Brian Kaylor
Christ’s instructions to treat strangers and enemies with compassion are absent from the Christian nationalist version of the Bible, as are concepts such as turning the other cheek, Kaylor contends.
As an example, he writes about Donald Trump Jr.’s infamous 2021 comments deriding such teachings: “‘We’ve turned the other cheek, and I understand sort of the biblical reference, I understand the mentality, but it’s gotten us nothing.’”
Instead, Christian nationalists focus mostly on narrowly interpreted Old Testament passages and figures selected to promote America as a favored nation and Donald Trump as its divinely chosen leader, Kaylor said.
He recalled Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ repeated reference to a line in Ephesians 6 imploring Christians to “put on the full armor of God” in opposing the schemes of the devil. However, the Republican politician changed the verse to target Democrats instead of Satan.
It’s a prime example of how comfortable Christian nationalists are in rewriting Scripture for political expediency and how the Bible has been weaponized in the search for power, Kaylor said.
“And this isn’t just demonization. It is more like devilizing to rewrite Scripture to cast your political opponents as satanic forces and to therefore confuse the Republican Party as the church. With DeSantis, we’re talking about putting on the full armor of God so you can stand against the schemes of liberals, as opposed to the schemes of the devil.”
“With DeSantis, we’re talking about putting on the full armor of God so you can stand against the schemes of liberals, as opposed to the schemes of the devil.”
Kaylor’s book provides numerous examples of the willingness to reinterpret Scripture for political ends and doing so without objection from conservative Christians who claim to love the Bible.
One includes former U.S. congressman Dave Brat of Virginia, now an official at Liberty University, defending President Donald Trump’s 2025 tariffs as an example of the Golden Rule.
“‘Trump’s going for reciprocity, which is basically the Golden Rule. Whatever you do to us, we’re going to do to you.’ He must be reading the Trump Bible to get that upside-down translation,” Kaylor writes.
What Trump calls the U.S. Department of War has been releasing videos and photos on social media blending violence and Scripture. “They are putting Bible verses on the screen with a lot of militaristic images like fighter jets and tanks and missiles shooting and people running around firing guns,” Kaylor explained.
When teachings such as “love thy neighbor as thyself” are used, it is usually in an effort to redefine the meaning of “neighbor” to mean those who are white and ideologically aligned with Christian nationalism.
“It’s just this idea of taking verses out of context, focusing on a few key words and applying them in a way that would baffle the biblical writers and the original audiences,” he said.
Selective literalism emerges when a line or two from a biblical passage is used to rationalize U.S. policy, such as the Trump administration’s financial and material support for Israel in its campaign in Gaza.
However, repeated condemnations of Israel by Old Testament prophets are never mentioned, Kaylor added. “Being selectively literal is ignoring most of the biblical witness, but then demanding we follow their strict interpretation on a couple of verses and codifying that in U.S. law.”
That approach is effective in part because fewer and fewer Americans are familiar enough with the Bible to know when it’s being misquoted or rewritten, he explained.
“We’re in a society where most people still claim to have a high regard for the Bible and give the Bible high authority, and they claim they want to do what the Bible says. Yet, at the same time biblical literacy keeps declining and it’s that gap between high regard for the Bible and low biblical literacy that is allowing this wilder version of Christian nationalism to flourish.”