You ain’t Jesus, Donald!, By Wole Olaoye

The AI picture casting Donald Trump as Jesus Christ the Healer was, like many of the US president’s effusions, in bad taste. Since he made his entry into our consciousness, he has demonstrated that he respects no boundaries and nothing is sacred. He seems to share the same worldview with the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Fair is foul and foul is fair.”

As always, as soon as the posting of the illustration on his TruthSocial page generated a massive backlash, Trump refused to apologise to his followers and other Christians who may have been offended by the trivialisation of Christ’s ministry

The attempt to equate Trump with Christ followed a pattern. The Christian conservative arm of Trump’s MAGA movement has always tried to cast a sanctimonious halo over their ‘hero’, especially in the light of the countless moral indiscretions attributed to him. The issue of the Epstein files and allegations of paedophilia are still raging. In spite of the ongoing war of choice against Iran, that matter is still on the front burner of national discourse.

The US president has become well known for sacrilege, profanity, irreverence and blasphemous utterances. He routinely lobs insults at fellow heads of state in a manner that is both unprecedented and undiplomatic.

On the massive pushback that the AI picture elicited, Trump tried to rationalise the portrayal. “It wasn’t a depiction. It was me. I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor. And had to do with the Red Cross as a Red Cross worker, which we support… It was supposed to be me as a doctor making people better, and I do make people better. I make people a lot better.”

The now-deleted image showed Trump, wearing a white robe, with a glowing hand on the forehead of a sick man, like similar religious paintings of Jesus Christ healing the infirm. The background included a fluttering US flag, fighter jets, an eagle, a nurse, a woman praying, security personnel in uniform and a ‘Statue of Liberty’, horned figure which some critics have interpreted as symbolising the Antichrist. (The Antichrist is a figure in Christian eschatology prophesied to oppose Jesus Christ and falsely substitute himself as a saviour before the Second Coming.) Scary!

Trump’s recent spat with Pope Leo XIV was totally unnecessary. The pope has always commented on world affairs and called for restraint in a world where human life has been reduced to nothing. World leaders understand that the pope is a moral authority and that he has a role to play in ensuring that the world does not go over the brink. When the pope criticised the war against Iran, Donald Trump took it personally. In a social media tirade, he said Leo was “weak on crime” and “terrible on foreign policy”.

Claiming credit for the election of the former Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, he bragged that but for his tenancy of the White House, the Chicago native would not have been elected pope. Don’t laugh! It is generally believed that Trump operates in his own delusional world. His supporters expect the rest of the world to simply tune in and humour their man whenever he undertakes one of his flights of fancy. The supreme irony of all this is not lost on the world. Pope Leo is the first American citizen to become pope, but, as Christ Himself said, “A prophet is not honoured in his own town.”

The pope was in Africa last week to proclaim his message of peace. In Cameroon, he was impressed that the people had resisted the urge to turn their separatist conflict to a religious war and that Christian and Muslim communities were working together. “Indeed, your religious leaders have come together to establish a Movement for Peace, through which they seek to mediate between the opposing sides,” he noted. He advocated a change of course for leaders who take resources from Africa and use the money for weapons, thereby “perpetuating an endless cycle of destabilisation and death”.

In a sermon at St Joseph’s Cathedral in Bamenda, he stated, “Blessed are the peacemakers! But woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.” He warned against the “masters of war” who behave as if they don’t know that “it only takes a moment to destroy, yet often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild.” Such warmongers spend billions on weapons but dedicate nothing to helping people heal. Rather, they “manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”

“Who the cap fits, let them wear it,” says inimitable Bob Marley!

Actually, Trump’s flight of fancy and self-portrayal as an entity that is higher than he really is gained social media attention last year when he posted a depiction of himself as the pope. At that time, his supporters said he was merely affirming his support for the papacy. Well, he has now graduated to impersonating Jesus, which no Christian — even a nominal one — should be caught doing. Many people will not be surprised if his next move is to claim godhood.

Earlier this year, in a fit of unprovoked cruelty, he posted an AI photo depicting former President Obama and his wife Michelle as apes. Even his racist base was shocked! How could a 79-year-old grandfather resort to such asinine barbarousness?

Responding to reporters’ questions in Cameroon, the Catholic pontiff said last week that he had “no fear” of the Trump administration. He affirmed that he would continue “speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do”. He has enjoyed widespread solidarity from European leaders, including Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, and the Conference of Catholic Bishops in the United States, who said President Trump’s remarks towards Pope Leo were “unacceptable”. The bishops’ statement is a rare intervention, reinforcing that the Pope’s comments are considered a reflection of core church teachings rather than just personal opinion.

However, more surprises were in store for the pope. His brother, John Prevost, was the target of a false bomb threat at his home in suburban Chicagoland, police said. Reuters noted that the threat came after President Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV over his criticism of the war in Iran.

Smarting from the negative reactions to his Jesus post, Trump has since posted another image of himself and Jesus in a semi-embrace. And yet another one with him wearing a lab coat to justify the puerile lie that it was all meant to portray him as a doctor. Judging by his compulsive nature, we have not seen the last iconography of Trump with the Jesus motif as he makes a mishmash attempt to weld the sanctimonious and the profane.

The holy book reveals that God is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5, 34:14). He doesn’t brook competition.