{"id":74057,"date":"2026-04-23T17:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T21:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=74057"},"modified":"2026-04-23T17:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T21:03:17","slug":"text-and-contexts-more-bible-in-the-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/04\/23\/text-and-contexts-more-bible-in-the-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Text and contexts: More Bible in the news"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Bunni\u2019s Bible-thon \u2014 the \u201cAmerica Reads the Bible<\/a>\u201d event\/fundraiser\/MAGA rally being held this week at the Museum of the Bible \u2014 included a special guest star on video.<\/p>\n

The books of Chronicles didn\u2019t promise to be a highlight for this event, what with 1 Chronicles starting with nine chapters<\/em> of genealogies and census records, followed by a long retelling \u2014 a sometimes very altered retelling \u2014 of the stories we\u2019ve just finished reading from 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings. But finally, in 2 Chronicles 7<\/a>, we arrive at a famous verse, one many Christians have memorized. It\u2019s a passage that has been quoted by dozens of politicians, has been printed on inspirational posters and T-shirts, has appeared as yearbook quotes at Christian schools, and sometimes even gets used in the PowerPoint slides during pledge week at local churches.<\/p>\n

2 Chronicles 7:14 is a celebrity rock-star Bible verse:<\/p>\n

If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some of you will, like me, hear the music in your head when this verse gets quoted. It\u2019s not just \u201cIf My people who are called by My name,\u201d but \u201cIf My people (people, ooh) \u2026\u201d That made for a pretty praise chorus.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica Reads the Bible\u201d chose to have this celebrity rock-star Bible verse read by the organizers\u2019 idea of the ultimate Bible Celebrity Rock Star: President Trump.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump didn\u2019t read this live and in-person there at the Museum of the Bible, but he submitted a pre-recorded video of him reading 11 verses from 2 Chronicles 7 while sitting at his desk in the Gilded Office at the White House.<\/p>\n

Bible-thon organizers described this as \u201cTrump Reads Scripture Over America.\u201d The use of \u201cover\u201d there is evangelical-speak suggesting an act of pastoral or spiritual beneficence, expressing the idea that Trump is mediating* on our behalf something like a faith healer laying hands on the entire country.<\/p>\n

Given the president\u2019s usual difficulty of sticking to any prepared text, I doubt he recorded this reading in a single take and I would very much like to see the outtakes and blooper reel from this recording session. I can\u2019t help but wonder how many times they had to stop filming to edit out \u201cthe weave\u201d with random tangents about sharks and batteries or about the straits of Hormuz or Nares<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2 Chronicles 7:14 is, in context, a specific promise God makes to a specific people in a specific time and place. That time and place is not 21st-century America and that people is not white Protestant Christians. So it\u2019s important for modern Christians not to appropriate this passage and its promise in a supercessionist way \u2014 the whole idea that European Christians are the New Israel, replacing the Jews. That gets very antisemitic and very blasphemous very quickly, and it\u2019s particularly dumb and dim as a reading of this passage, which involves God making a promise<\/em>. See, the whole basis of supercessionism is that God\u2019s promises are not worth diddly squat and can be revoked at any time because God is a capricious liar.<\/p>\n

\"\"But 2 Chronicles 7:14 is also about more than a specific promise in a specific context. It also has something to say about the character of God, about how God is always willing to be merciful to those who repent. If that is true of God in all times and places, then that is true for all readers of this passage, regardless of their time or place or status, so I think it\u2019s very possible for Christians to treasure this verse as a description of that.** But we need to tread carefully to avoid the self-defeating blasphemy and antisemitism that flows from just assuming \u201cMy people\u201d here is obviously and exclusively about us, <\/em>because we are now the people who have claim to God\u2019s (apparently worthless) promises.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen a few news reports on Trump\u2019s video Bible-reading stunt that attempt to report the full context of this passage in 2 Chronicles 7. (See, for example, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.) These all include the context of these verses in the history of American civil religion noting, for example, that Dwight Eisenhower was sworn into office with his hand on a Bible opened to this passage. But they all describe its biblical context as being from the time of Solomon.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n

The context of 2 Chronicles 7 is the story<\/em> of Solomon, but it is not at all the time<\/em> of Solomon. The Chronicles were written many centuries later, long after Solomon died and his kingdom was divided, after each of the divided kingdoms was conquered and destroyed, after the people of Judah were carried off into exile, and after some of those people were allowed to return.<\/p>\n

So, no, saying the context of 2 Chronicles 7 is \u201cthe reign of King Solomon\u201d is wrong in much the same way it is wrong to say that the reign of Prince John is the context of Errol Flynn\u2019s The Adventures of Robin Hood.\u00a0<\/em>That movie was written and filmed in California in 1937, not in England in the early 1200s.<\/p>\n

So 2 Chronicles 7 is the work of a pro-monarchy, but post-monarchy writer advocating for the restoration of a lost and fallen kingdom years after its destruction, It was written by and for people who were living in the aftermath of that destruction, and it employs the devastation of that context to argue for a restored monarchy that will get it right this time around because it will be guided by the spiritual leadership of the priests.<\/p>\n

That context makes this passage way<\/em> more interesting as a favorite verse of civil religion advocates and Christian nationalists. It also makes it a very interesting passage given the current political context of Trump and his lackeys at the Pentagon trying to pick a fight with the pope based on the president\u2019s utter inability to comprehend what a pope even is or does or means.<\/p>\n

\n

* The use of the word \u201cmediating\u201d there is a reference to 1 Timothy 2:5, which reads, in the KJV, \u201cFor there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.\u201d That\u2019s the verse white evangelicals will quote against Catholic Christians who pray for the intervention of the saints on their behalf. Appealing to St. Francis or St. Oscar Romero for spiritual intervention on our behalf is regarded by these evangelicals as tantamount to idolatry. But the idea that America will be blessed because \u201cTrump Reads Scripture Over\u201d us is, somehow, different. For there is one God and one mediator between God and country, their man, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

** 2 Chronicles 7:14 is echoed in Jonah 4<\/a>, where Jonah says, \u201cYou are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, the full context there in Jonah has the resentful anti-prophet saying this:<\/p>\n

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.<\/p>\n

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, \u201cIsn\u2019t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like most of the polemical satire of the book of Jonah, that bit is funny. But it\u2019s even funnier if we recognize that Chronicles is traditionally attributed to Ezra, and is, at least, Ezrahic, and that the author of Jonah is deliberately and specifically mocking that perspective here.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s mercy is available to me not because God has broken God\u2019s promise to Abraham and replaced Abraham\u2019s children with people like me. It is available to people like me because it was available to people in Ninevah. (And even to camels<\/em> in Ninevah, which the book of Jonah tells us donned sackcloth and ashes and knelt in repentance. For 21st-century white Christians reading 2 Chronicles 7:14 I would suggest its meaning is this: emulate the camels of Ninevah<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a pre-recorded video, Trump reads a famous Bible verse from 2 Chronicles. I’m not sure he understands that verse, but its message — urging us to emulate the camels of Ninevah — is good advice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":74060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nText and contexts: More Bible in the news<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On a pre-recorded video, Trump reads a famous Bible verse from 2 Chronicles. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Text and contexts: More Bible in the news","description":"On a pre-recorded video, Trump reads a famous Bible verse from 2 Chronicles. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}