As Americans celebrated Easter weekend from coast to coast, former President Donald Trump used the opportunity to carve out a new role for himself: defender of the faith in a country that continues to uphold its tradition of separating church and state.

Republican presidential candidates launched a fresh attack on the White House on Saturday, accusing President Joe Biden of putting Christianity in his crosshairs.

To be fair, the White House has drawn criticism. First, it banned the children of National Guard members from submitting religious designs in a contest purportedly celebrating the Easter holiday. A leaflet sent to children aged seven to 17 warns them that their Easter egg designs “may not contain any…religious symbols, overt religious themes or partisan political statements”.

Trump blasted the rules, calling them “appalling and insulting.” But his campaign also accused the White House of issuing a separate presidential proclamation declaring that Easter Sunday should be marked as “Transgender Visibility Day.” March 31st is an oddity on the calendar^Yingshi A holiday celebrated annually by transgender Americans and their supporters is Easter this year. But the Trump campaign used the coincidence to maximum political effect, calling Biden’s statement “blasphemous.”

“These are just two more examples of the Biden administration’s years of attacks on the Christian faith,” Trump’s press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said. She demanded that the White House immediately apologize to “the millions of Catholics and Christians across America who believe that Easter weekend is only for one celebration: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Biden, who spent the weekend at Camp David, is the second Catholic president of the United States after John F. Kennedy and an active and proud member of the Roman Catholic Church. Trump has clearly been less than enthusiastic about religious observances in and out of his presidency, but he did use the lead-up to Easter weekend to endorse a new version of the Bible.

In a video promoting the God Bless America Bible, Trump described it as “my favorite book” and said “We have to bring Christianity back into our lives… We have to make America again pray”.

The book, the brainchild of country music star Lee Greenwood, whose patriotic song “God Bless America” ​​is played at every Trump rally, retails for $59.99 (£47.50) and comes with Greenwood’s lyrics as well as the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Democrats have long derided Trump’s efforts to portray himself as a man of faith. In an August 2015 interview with Bloomberg Television, he refused to reveal his favorite Bible verse and was pressed by the host to reveal whether he considered himself an “Old Testament person or a New Testament person” ” Trump paused before accepting the interview. Safe option and answer “may be equal”.

But Trump’s support among Christians and evangelicals may be the panacea for his return to the White House next January. In 2016 and again four years later, 80 percent of white evangelicals supported Trump despite his divorce, sexual assault allegations, numerous extramarital affairs and public derogatory comments about women.

“I don’t see a downturn in the 2020 election,” said Troy Miller, president of the National Association of Religious Broadcasters.He said I “If anything, I think the support is getting stronger.” Miller made no secret of the nature of Trump’s relationship with Christian evangelicals who pledged their support to the former president, and made clear why Trump won support from so many people who may privately be dissatisfied with the former president’s Behavior feels intimidating.

“I would say it’s probably more of a transactional relationship,” Miller said. “He promised to do certain things, he promised to protect religious freedom, and he’s delivered… A lot of Christians look at Donald Trump and say he did what he said he was going to do. They’re disappointed with a lot of Republicans , they may have looked very good on the outside, but then they didn’t follow through in their government… I think he made a huge difference.”

Of course, the issue of principle that Trump “follows” is ensuring restrictions on abortion.

By appointing three of the nine justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, Trump claims he has won a majority among the conservative majority that overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, reversing a half-century Perspectives on the legalization of abortion in the United States. In several states, mostly in the American South, Republicans have moved quickly to either limit the procedure or outlaw it entirely.

But Miller believes evangelical voters’ loyalty to Trump runs deeper than any one issue.

“The vast majority of the working class who sit in the church pews do feel that Donald Trump understands them and understands their concerns about the country,” he said. “If you look at his judicial appointments to the federal bench and to the Supreme Court , you will find that there have been many other key cases on religious freedom that have been decided in favor of Christians… and the whole regulatory framework for business and Christian organizations. I think that has made a huge difference.”

During the short Republican primary campaign, Trump solidified his support among Christians and evangelicals, helping him defeat challengers for the presidential nomination in record time. Late last year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence looked to separate Trump from his evangelical support base, but those campaign efforts simply disappeared.

In February, Trump appeared in Nashville at the annual convention hosted by Miller’s National Association of Religious Broadcasters and claimed that the “radical left… wants to take down crosses wherever possible and cover them with social justice flags.” While Democrats deny posing any threat to Christianity or any other faith in America, Trump calls himself a “very proud Christian” and says the left is “trying to humiliate us.”

“No one is going to touch the cross of Christ under the Trump administration, I swear to you,” the former president roared.

Such rhetoric could be politically advantageous for the former president. Miller acknowledged that “there are still some middle-of-the-road Christian evangelicals” who are weighing their decision in this year’s election, but believed Trump could further increase his support in the coming months. “I think the left is no longer hiding its anti-Christian bias,” he claimed, “so I think this contrast will force more people to vote”