Did God personally make Donald J. Trump and present him as a gift to Americans? A group of Trump supporters called the “Dilley Meme Team” created a video making the case. The video quickly made its way across the MAGA-net, and was shared by the former president, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White-Cain.
“On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God gave us Trump,” the narrator says. “God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxists, eat supper, then go to the Oval Office and stay up past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state.’ So God made Trump.”
It’s a bizarre video — even by Trumpian social media standards. It plays off Paul Harvey’s 1978 “God made a farmer” speech, and uses what sounds like Harvey’s voice (although Harvey died in 2009). Notably, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used similar themes and cadences in an ad during his 2022 re-election campaign.
This new “God Made Trump” video is eerily messianic, calling Trump “a shepherd to mankind.” It’s also laughable, claiming Trump “finish[es] a hard week’s work by attending church on Sunday.” Trump never joined a church in Washington, D.C., and was only observed attending services a handful of times as president.
With the Iowa caucuses just days away, Trump is paying special attention to conservative Christians.
Out of context, I would have thought the ad was satire. With the Iowa caucuses just days away, Trump is paying special attention to conservative Christians. White evangelicals have historically been a key Iowa voting bloc, and evangelical endorsements carry considerable weight. DeSantis has picked up several of these important endorsements ahead of Monday, but Trump still commands the majority of the evangelical vote.
The core message of the “God Made Trump” video is true, at least as far as Christian theology is concerned. God made Trump. What’s missing from the video is some key theological context: God made everyone.
God made every political opponent, journalist, American who died in war, and former presidential aide whom Trump has disparaged. God made the Christian supporters of Trump he mocked behind their backs.
Indeed, humankind is made in the image of God, according to the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament. As we celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday on Monday, it’s a good time to recall a passage of his from a 1965 sermon:
The whole concept of the imago Dei, as it is expressed in Latin, the ‘image of God,’ is the idea that all men have something within them that God injected. Not that they have substantial unity with God, but that every man has a capacity to have fellowship with God. And this gives him a uniqueness, it gives him worth, it gives him dignity. And we must never forget this as a nation: there are no gradations in the image of God. Every man from a treble white to a bass black is significant on God’s keyboard, precisely because every man is made in the image of God. One day we will learn that. We will know one day that God made us to live together as brothers and to respect the dignity and worth of every man.
In contrast, Trump seems to view dignity as currency, something that must be earned through fealty. This philosophy is antithetical to Jesus’ teachings, which viewed humans as inherently equal and worthy of kindness. This should be the core principle of Christian political engagement. God created humankind. At the very least, we must honor his creation by treating it with respect.
From the moment Trump burst onto the political scene, he has denied the God-given dignity of his fellow humans at every turn. Believing that we are all created in God’s image is, at its core, a beautiful principle. When leaders turn away from it, human suffering flourishes.
This has implications for our political system as well.
It’s the imago Dei that is compelling groups such as Faiths United to Save Democracy to work on election protection efforts. “If we believe every person is created in the image of God, ‘Imago Dei,’ then they deserve to vote in free and fair elections,” the group says on its website. “Therefore, our political campaign has a theological base and a moral imperative to save democracy for everyone, across racial lines, and a faith infrastructure that has the spiritual power to unite all who say they are the people of God.”
And though he has so far shown no remorse, even Trump is capable of repentance and reparation.
Yes, many Christians would agree that God made Trump. And though he has so far shown no remorse, even Trump is capable of repentance and reparation.
I hold onto this belief because it’s the foundation of my activism for social justice. It’s also a response to the belief that God made me. Because I’m born with God-given dignity, I’m compelled to go forth and help ensure the dignity of others.
Trump may only ever see the image of God in his MAGA crowds, but the “God Made Trump” video is a reminder of the implications of believing that all people bear the image of God.