Speaking at Yale University, one of America’s leading public faith leaders had harsh words for Donald Trump’s statements over the past few weeks: blasphemous, madness and a war on God.
Bishop William Barber II listed Trump’s recent statements, including threats of genocide, insults to the Pope and a profanity-filled Easter morning message that mocked Islam and threatened to commit wide-scale violence and death.
“Why has he been talking about raining down hell? Not? R-A-I-N but R-E-I-G-N, reign. Who is that claiming to serve?" Barber said. "There's a level of arrogance that points to a kind of madness.”
Barber especially criticized Trump’s AI portrayal of himself as Jesus as a "war on divinity," in which Trump is trying to install himself as a new god.
“An attempt by a human being to shift the moral categories and for us to engage in a kind of moral deregulation, where nothing is sacred anymore except what he says, an AI image of him as Jesus," Barber said. "It’s blasphemy, it’s heresy, it’s sinful, it’s idolatrous.”
Barber said Americans need to repent for allowing Trump’s words and actions to become so influential.
“Jesus, the gospel, said God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth, and this is not in line with the gospel," Barber said. "Points to a kind of public demonism, which requires public exorcism and truthful speaking in the public square, but this represents what happens when you allow it to go on too long, unchecked and unchallenged.”
Barber spoke at a gathering of about 400 theologians and faith leaders at Yale Divinity School, where he’s on the faculty.
