When Donald Trump endorsed the “God Bless the U.S.A.” Bible on Truth Social, it caused mixed reactions from the faith community.
Some viewed it as a positive thing, seeing a presidential candidate endorse the Bible as opposed to lighting the White House up in rainbow colors and push irreversible medical procedures onto children.
There were many others, however, who viewed it as a sacrilegious stunt and an “Americanizing” of the Word of God.
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Pastor Loran Livingston of Central Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, rebuked support for this particular version of the Bible, calling out those who think it’s a good thing in a now-viral sermon.
“If you don’t read [the Bible] and pray, you’ll think it’s a good thing that there’s a Bible now that has the Constitution on one side, and the Bill of Rights on the other,” Livingston says in the first of two services he addressed the Bible in on Apr. 14.
“Some of you think that’s good? That somebody produced a Bible, the holy Word of God, and decided to Americanize it. …Are you telling me, that you would take a document that says ‘This is of the people, by the people and for the people’ and stick it up beside the holy Word of God that is infallible, eternal and is not about me but it is about Him?” Livingston asks.
For those thinking along the same lines as Livingston, this addition to the Bible goes against the warnings in both the Old and New Testaments regarding adding to Scripture, especially things of man such as the Founding documents.
“Are you going to tell me it’s okay to stick a Bill of Rights, our rights…just Americans, in God’s holy Word?” Livingston continues. “And turn this whole thing into an American Bible with an American gospel? Oh some of you are really upset with me right now, but I’m here to tell you that is a cheap ploy. And if you can’t see the difference, if the Word of God, the piercing Word of God has not been able to divide your spirit from your soul, you will think that this is okay, and it’s going to bring a revival to America.”
During the second service Livingston again made clear his stance of keeping politics off of the pulpit, saying that is not his spiritual duty, but instead, that voting is a “civic privilege.”
“The gospel is not an American gospel,” Langston said in a rising voice. “It is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ!”
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James Lasher is Staff Writer for Charisma Media
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