Trump’s posting of this image of himself, which has been widely interpreted as a blasphemous self-claim on Trump’s part that he is either Jesus Christ himself or equal to Christ, was a very unwise thing for him to do. No question about that.
The Dubious Charge of “Blasphemy”
The image arguably conveys an exaggerated sense of self (who does he think he is … the pope?), but did he really intend to put himself on the level of Jesus? Is it blasphemy?
My friend Denny Burk, in an article in WORLD magazine this morning, thinks so (“In the steps of Nebuchadnezzar? Making blasphemy great again will not work out well for President Trump,” 4/14). He claims that Trump was “posing as the Son of God,” and adds: “It’s also difficult to imagine anything more blasphemous.”
Really? How about people bowing down before Trump, offering sacrifice to him, or with their hands up to worship him?
Denny claims that “one of the onlookers has her hands together in prayer, as if praying to Messiah Trump.” But that is totally read into the image by Denny and is not the most natural interpretation. The person is not even looking at Trump and is obviously praying that God will bless Trump’s efforts at healing the nation. Denny is trying too hard to fit everything into his blasphemy claim.
The Origin of the Image Suggests Excessive Adulation, Not Blasphemy
The picture was produced by Nick Adams, an Australian-American conservative commentator whom Trump appointed as special presidential envoy for American tourism, exceptionalism, and values. He posted the AI-generated image on X on Feb. 4, 2026 (he took it down yesterday in response to backlash). He captioned it allegorically: “America has been sick for a long time. President Trump is healing this nation.”
Adams does excessively fawn over Trump. Less than two weeks later, on President’s Day, he posted an AI-generated image of Trump dressed like one of our Founding Fathers with the caption, “Donald J. Trump Is (By Far) America’s Greatest President.” But the image of him in first-century robes healing someone was not intended as literal deification but as symbolic political commentary with religious connotations (i.e., Trump is doing God’s work).
Adams has a history of (unwisely) sharing similar AI-generated, biblically themed Trump imagery, including one image from late 2025 of Trump in a suit, smiling and holding a basket of loaves and fish to a first-century crowd. Trump is Jesus? No, more like Trump is doing the work of Christ. Adams identifies as a Christian, so it is unlikely that he was worshipping Trump; rather, it is a case of excessive adulation.
Trump posted the image on Truth Social on the evening of Sunday, April 12 (Orthodox Easter) — add super-bad timing — and, in response to public backlash, had it deleted roughly 13–14 hours later.
No Debate: Trump Has “Fallen Short of God’s Glory”
Let’s be clear: Though it is absurd to view Trump as the anti-Christ (contrary to the prevailing sentiment of the Left), he is certainly no “saint” in the Catholic sense of the term, particularly holy people (and perhaps not even in the biblical sense applied to all believers). There are so many areas in which Trump has “fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), including his past profligate sex life (pre-2008), his pride and self-boasting, his inability to forgive others, his disuse of prayer, and his frequent looseness with the truth.
I voted for him in the past 3 elections because the Democrat alternatives in terms of policies and court appointments (and not without their own character flaws) were so much worse in terms of long-term consequences for the nation. But in the Republican primaries, I supported other candidates (Cruz and DeSantis) because of Trump’s many flaws.
The best that can be said about him is that at least he doesn’t promote the chemical castration of minors, virtually unrestricted abortion for all 9 months in the womb, the shuttering of free speech and free exercise of religion for Christians, and a half dozen or more evils. But that doesn’t mean that he should be held up as a Christ-like figure (obviously).
Three Reasons Why the Claim of Intentional Blasphemy Doesn’t Hold Up, Including His Denial
Did Trump post this image to claim that he was somehow equal to Christ? There are several reasons to answer that with a resounding “no.”
First, Trump himself denies that he was portraying himself as Jesus Christ. A CBS reporter asked him Monday, “Did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?” Trump responded:
Well, it wasn’t depiction [of Christ]. It was me. I did post it and I thought [inaudible] a doctor and had to do with Red Cross as a Red Cross worker there, which we support and only the fake news could come up with that one. So, I just heard about it and I said, how do they come up with that? It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better.
Now, perhaps Trump was just lying to get himself out of trouble. Denny Burk comments:
That explanation strains credulity because the meme pictures Trump in flowing Messianic robes, with light beaming from one hand and healing flowing out of the other. His healing hand is on the head of a sick man. Several Americans are looking on in awe as the president brings healing to a nation…. Trump is surrounded by symbols of American strength….. symbolizing Trump’s heavenly power and glory. I don’t know how anyone looks at this picture and thinks “doctor.” I’m not buying it, and neither is anyone else.
Obviously, the image isn’t presenting Trump as a conventional doctor in an Emergency Room about to do surgery. The picture does have religious connotations in the sense of conveying symbolically that Trump is doing the Lord’s work in his administration by “healing” with God’s help the nation’s problems created by the evil Biden/Harris administration. It is an excessively fawning image of Trump that needs a dose of mundane realities. But it was not intended to communicate that Trump is supplanting Christ or putting himself on Christ’s level. (RELATED: When Politics Becomes a Faith, Faith Is Put to the Test)
Trump’s Repeated Admission That He Is Not Worthy of Getting Into Heaven
Second, Trump has stated on multiple occasions over the past half year that he does not consider himself good enough to get into heaven (data from Grok). (To be sure, this is a distortion of the gospel, which predicates salvation on faith in God’s atoning work through Christ rather than meritorious works, though a transformed life should ensue from justifying faith.)
October 2025, aboard Air Force One (speaking to reporters): “I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me in heaven. Okay? I really don’t. I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound. … I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make heaven, but I’ve made life a lot better for a lot of people.”
August 2025, on Fox & Friends (discussing efforts to end the war in Ukraine): “I want to try and get to heaven, if possible. I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole.” He suggested that brokering peace could help his chances.
February 2026, at the National Prayer Breakfast: Trump mused that he doesn’t “qualify” for heaven, isn’t sure he is “pure in heart,” and said, “I just don’t think I qualify. I don’t think there’s a thing I can do,” while noting his efforts to support religion.
A person who doubts that he will even receive eternal life is not likely to regard himself as equal to Christ. Trump does believe that he has done some good things as president that just maybe might save him by making up for his many transgressions, but he doubts that even this will be enough.
Trump’s Easter Message Giving Glory to Christ
Third, Trump’s Easter message that he delivered 11 days ago also speaks against the view that he was attempting to depict himself as Christ or equal to Christ. Granted, it was probably written by a staff member, but Trump at least spoke the words (yes, it is possible that he was being totally insincere, but I doubt that he was totally so).
Referring to Jesus as “our Lord and Savior,” Trump stated that because of what Jesus did on the cross, which “modeled true love,” believers can live with hope, knowing that “in the end, evil and wickedness will not prevail.” He affirmed that Christ’s resurrection “secured the promise of redemption and the hope of eternal life for all who believe in Him as Lord and Savior,” and that “a new creation has been ushered in, and evil and death have been conquered forever through the unmatched power of God’s sacrificial love…. Even death itself will not silence those who place their trust in Almighty God.” He quoted John 3:16, which affirms that “whosoever believes in” God’s Son and his atoning work will “have eternal life.”
I think it is safe to say that Trump doesn’t consider any of his accomplishments to be quite on this level, or that by believing in Trump, people will be saved in any eternal sense.
The Alleged Comparison of Trump to Nebuchadnezzar and Herod Agrippa in the Bible
No, Trump was not equating himself with Christ either in identity or in significance. Yet he clearly believes that, so far as his administration’s policies are concerned, he is doing at least some of the Lord’s work and that he is being used by God. Maybe the assassination attempt in Butler, Penn., gave him a better sense of his mortality. Maybe.
Denny Burk, following many, equates what Trump did in posting this image to King Nebuchadnezzar whom “the Most High” and “King of heaven” punished for giving himself the credit for the magnificence of Babylon (“by my mighty power and for my glorious majesty,” Daniel 4:30). But is Trump really claiming that he accomplished what he did without God’s help? That’s again reading into the image, which makes no such statement.
After the assassination attempt on his life in Butler, PA, in July 2024, Trump, on multiple occasions, gave credit to God for saving his life. That includes his inaugural address in which he stated: “I was saved by God to make America great again.” He has described it as “God alone” who saved him or “God’s hand” intervening. He has also used phrases like “Thank God” for elections or national blessings, and spoken of America as a nation “ordained by God” whose greatness involves trust in “the providence of Almighty God.”
Trump is given to self-boasting and taking too much credit for himself. But he still gives credit at times to God’s providential work. Not as much as he should, to be sure, but enough to make the comparison with Nebuchadnezzar exaggerated, and all the more because Trump took down the post in less than a day.
Denny also makes a comparison to King Herod Agrippa I (king AD. 41-44), who was hailed by the people as “a god” after delivering a public address, then struck down by an angel for failing to give the glory to God (Acts 12:21-23). Again, this seems a stretch for an image that is not hailing Trump as a god, an image that Trump denied was depicting him as Jesus Christ.
It is good to cite these two examples as a warning to Trump, but not as parallels to what occurred.
Make Sure Your Public Disgust
Again, it was manifestly dumb for Trump to post such an image of himself because it is so open to misinterpretation, given the vitriol for Trump but also given his sometimes massive ego — even if he thinks he is not good enough to get into heaven (itself a misinterpretation of the gospel). It was stupid to post, but not intentionally blasphemous. It was political symbolism rather than religious deification.
We should also criticize those who fail to express greater disgust in their posts (this does not apply to Denny Burk or some of the other Evangelical critics) for a Party that does far worse things and with far greater consequences, a Party that promotes such things as:
- The chemical and surgical castration of minors, allows female-identifying males into female private spaces and sports (and prisons and shelters)
- The coercive indoctrination of children into “LGBTQ+” immorality, confusing and radicalizing many
- Virtually unrestricted abortion for all nine months of pregnancy
- Removal of children from parents who, in truth and love, do not support their child’s confused “LGBTQ+” identification
- The termination of employees who refuse to use “trans” pronouns (not bowing to compelled speech) or who otherwise dissent in the public sphere from “LGBTQ+” celebration (even in social media outside of employment)
- The appointment of hard-left justices who treat the Constitution as so many tea leaves into which they can impute any meaning
- Attempts at packing the U.S. Supreme Court and at making D.C. and Puerto Rico states, all for the purpose of gaining absolute power
- An unprecedented illegal-immigration election scheme designed to turn the US into a one-party, leftist state.
If you haven’t expressed greater disgust in your postings and comments for these things than over an unwise, potentially blasphemous image (but which almost certainly, upon reflection, probably wasn’t intended as such), taken down in less than a day, then your sensibility for being outraged over really serious matters that will affect the nation grievously for decades to come is morally deficient in the extreme. That is something I find truly disgusting.
By all means, criticize Trump for his posting something so unwise and with an exaggerated sense of self. By all means, criticize those who have an exaggerated sense of Trump’s “saintliness.” Just make sure your criticism is proportionate to truly great evils.
READ MORE from Robert Gagnon:
Weighing Trump’s Social Media Post on Rob Reiner’s Murder, Without the Hysteria
Away With the Absurdity That the Left and the Right Are Equally Vicious