The president joined hundreds of others for the ‘America Reads the Bible’ event.
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump read passages from the Bible on April 21 from the Oval Office at the White House as part of the “America Reads the Bible” celebration.
Trump read 2 Chronicles 7:11–22, long considered a call to national prayer. The Old Testament passages include God’s response to King Solomon after the construction of the first temple, promising forgiveness for those who repent and issuing a warning that disobedience comes with consequences.
Trump and nearly 500 participants read aloud in a livestream from April 19 to April 25. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson joined in the reading, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and other administration officials.
The event was organized by nonprofit Christians Engaged for the nation’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“From the declaration of those immortal words at the very beginning of our Republic, and ever since, the Bible has enduringly illuminated our system of Government, given life to our constitutional framework, bolstered our educational institutions, and informed our deepest civic and moral identity,” Trump said in an April 17 statement announcing the event.
The reading follows exchanges between the president and Pope Leo, who criticized the president’s policies regarding the war in Iran, immigration, and criminal justice.
“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters,” Pope Leo said April 16 during a speech in Cameroon.
“Peace is not something we must invent: it is something we must embrace by accepting our neighbor as ourbrother and as our sister.”
Trump subsequently described the pontiff as “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy.”
“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do, setting Record Low Numbers in Crime, and creating the Greatest Stock Market in History,” he wrote in a Truth Social post.
“Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”
The president posted an image April 12 and deleted it a day later after some claimed it depicted him as Jesus, though he rejected the accusation, telling reporters he believed it showed him as a doctor healing a patient styled as Uncle Sam.
