On Easter Sunday, former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote:
Everyone in (Trump’s) administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the president and intervene in Trump’s madness. I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit. …
On Easter, of all days, we as Christians should be reminded that the Son of God died and rose from the grave so that we can be forgiven once and for all of our sins. Jesus commanded us to love one another and forgive one another. Even our enemies. Our president is not a Christian and his words and actions should not be supported by Christians.
Bill Leonard
In the 2024 campaign, Greene, speaking at a Trump rally, said: “The Democrats and the fake news media want to talk about ‘Trump is a convicted felon.’ You want to know something? The man (Jesus) that I worship is also a convicted felon.”
Even though Greene split with Trump a few months ago, his Easter remarks apparently prompted her to become the Republican Party’s new Mike Pence, a former MAGA devotee for whom Constitution, conscience and gospel apparently would not allow her to cross the line into what she now views as the destructive madness of King Donald.
Whatever Greene’s motives, when former MAGA true believers start calling for repentance, Trump voters, all 77 million of them, might well take notice.
Indeed, Greene did not speak only for herself.
“All of you are complicit” she declared to the MAGA faithful even before Trump posted an AI portrait of himself as Jesus. In fact, she urged repentance on those who claim to be Christian but whom she believes have forsaken the Christ who “commanded us to love one another and forgive one another.”
In repentance, Greene implicitly confessed she “once was lost in sin, but Jesus took me in,” as the gospel hymn says. Others, she insisted, need to do the same.
“All of you are complicit.”
Efforts to “biblicize” and “Jesusize” Donald Trump have been present from his entry onto the presidential landscape. Some MAGA religionists referenced him as a type of Cyrus, the Persian aka Iranian king who allowed the Israelites’ return from Babylon to Jerusalem where they rebuilt the Temple (2 Chronicles 36:22-23).
Is the Iranian connection a 2026 irony or what?
Others labeled Trump “the new Jehu,” the Jewish general who conquered Ahab and Jezebel, wreaking genocide upon their entire family.
Then there’s this: At a White House Easter luncheon during Holy Week, evangelist Paula White, one of Trump’s “spiritual advisers,” told the president: “You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It’s a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us. But it didn’t end there for him, and it didn’t end there for you. God always had a plan. On the third day, he rose, he defeated evil, he conquered death, hell and the grave. Because he rose we all know we can rise, and, sir, because of his resurrection you rose up. Because he was victorious, you were victorious. And I believe that the Lord said to tell you this: Because of his victory, you will be victorious in all you put your hand to.”
But biblical typology can go the other way. What if Trump isn’t a type of Cyrus or Jehu, let alone Jesus, but a type of Herod?
Mike Aleman writes: “Like Herod, Trump rules by intimidation and from a perspective of vengeance. He has no compassion for the downtrodden, the immigrant, those he deems weaker than he. Bullies do that.”
Typologically Jesus? This Easter season comparing Trump to the Son of God seems to many as close to blasphemy as a sinner can get. Even Tucker Carlson challenged that idea. Attacking Trump’s ludicrous Easter posting (not fit to print here), Carlson wrote to the president:
Tucker Carlson
This is not a theocracy. We don’t go to war with other theocracies to find out which theocracy is more effective. We are not a theocracy, and God willing, we never will be, because theocracies corrupt the religion. No, this is a mockery not just of Islam, it’s a mockery of Christianity. To send out a tweet with the F-word on Easter morning promising the murder of civilians and then saying praise be to Allah without explaining any of it, you are mocking me and every other Christian because we’re Christians.
Responding to White’s Jesus/Trump comparison, Sojourner’s Jim Wallis declared:
“We had a choice at the ballot box, and 77 million of us made this possible.”
At a White House Easter lunch service, we witnessed profound blasphemy. Religious leaders gathered around Trump, and a sacred moment that could have brought peace and truth-telling was misused, and religion was abused. … The whole service transformed a sacred moment of reflection into a celebration of war, power and Trump. We heard once more the claim that Trump is bringing religion back to America, followed by Trump’s many grievances about immigrants, elections, cultural threats and war. There was no talk about care for “the least of these,” whom Jesus asked his followers to defend and care for in Matthew 25.
So here Americans are, living in a country where global military action is increasingly normative, where resulting gasoline is $5 a gallon at the pump, where Medicare/Medicaid are fast failing multitudes, food is expensive, interest rates are edgy, and health care resources declining, and that’s only a brief list. And we’re at war with Iran, a “whole civilization” the president of the United States threatened with annihilation.
And it didn’t have to happen. We had a choice at the ballot box, and 77 million of us made this possible. Now and in history, those folks bear some responsibility for all the chaos. Marjorie Taylor Greene was one of them. She’s repented of it, and she’s asking 77 million American voters to do the same.
“Repentance,” one dictionary says, “is the guilt you feel when you do something wrong — and the steps you take to make up for it.” John the Baptizer said it like this: “Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” and demanded: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.”
Repentant tax collectors were told: “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” When soldiers asked John, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
Sound counsel for first century penitents.
Still is.
Bill Leonard is founding dean and the James and Marilyn Dunn professor of Baptist studies and church history emeritus at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, N.C. He is the author or editor of 25 books. A native Texan, he lives in Winston-Salem with his wife, Candyce.