When Political Power Consecrates Itself. Donald Trump, Pope Leo XIV, and the Failure of Religious Correction in US Evangelicalism

When Political Power Sanctifies Itself. Donald Trump, Pope Leo XIV, and the Failure of Religious Correction in US Evangelicalism.
– By Ambrosius of Milan. Updated version of 21st April 2026. –What began as a dispute over war and peace became a theological stress test. Donald Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV, circulated an AI-generated image charged with sacral overtones, and responded to criticism with evasions. Leo XIV held fast to the measure of the Gospel, later defused the personal conflict, and restored peace to the centre of the debate. What was truly alarming lay elsewhere: Franklin Graham provided the President with religious exoneration precisely where spiritual correction ought to have been forthcoming. In this there emerged a crisis of US Evangelicalism that was at once political and theological. [1] [2]

The conflict arose from the question of war and became a question of authority

The escalation began with Leo’s public interventions on the Iran war. Since the end of March, the Pope had called for de-escalation, spoken of the need for an exit from the spiral of escalation, and described threats against an entire civilisation as “truly unacceptable”. At the peace vigil in St Peter’s on 11 April, he articulated his diagnosis with striking clarity: the world, he said, was suffering from a “delusion of omnipotence”, a mania of omnipotence that unshackled political decision-making and increased the willingness to destroy. Vatican News and Reuters reported this line in essentially identical terms. [3]

This language deserves careful attention. Leo was not singling out an isolated party-political measure; he was naming an attitude. By mania of omnipotence he meant a form of politics that regarded itself as the final authority, tolerated no standard above itself, and experienced every limit as an impediment. For that very reason, the Pope remained fixed on the substance in his later clarifications, even when he moderated the personal tone. On the flight to Africa he explained that a quarrel with Trump was “not in his interest at all”; his words, he said, were to be understood in the light of the Gospel’s message of peace. At the same time, he announced that he would continue to speak out against war. The de-escalation therefore concerned the form, not the content. [4]

Here already lay the first great divergence. Leo XIV sought to remove the conflict from the logic of personal offence and to return it to a reasonable plane. Trump responded in mirror image. Reuters and AP documented his sharp attacks on the Pope: Leo, he said, was “weak on crime”, “terrible for foreign policy”, and failed to understand the “real world”. These statements sounded like political coarseness, yet they contained more than that. They cast moral correction as a form of unreality. In precisely this way the conflict grew larger than a diplomatic dispute. It became a question of whether power still acknowledged any authority outside itself. [5]

J. D. Vance contributed significantly to this sharpening of the dispute. He publicly insisted that the Pope ought to speak “carefully” in theological matters and suggested that he should confine himself to moral and internal ecclesial themes. The implicit demand was unmistakable: the head of the Church should restrict his voice to a tightly delimited sphere and leave the major political conflicts to others. The inversion lay precisely there. Leo XIV was not speaking as a commentator on the news cycle, but as the supreme shepherd of a world Church judging war in the light of the Gospel. Anyone seeking to deny him that right was, indirectly, challenging the self-understanding of his office. [6]

The reaction of American bishops was therefore especially noteworthy. In a public statement they contradicted the notion that the Pope was merely offering private opinions on politics or theology. As supreme shepherd of the world Church, they argued, he proclaimed the Gospel. Even the appeal to just war teaching was not treated from that side as a slogan, but was connected with its classical conditions: defence, last resort, the exhaustion of all efforts for peace. Thus the Roman line found support precisely where Vance had wanted to set limits to it. [7]

Equally revealing was Leo XIV’s later clarification that some of his remarks had not, in every respect, been interpreted correctly. It had been represented as though he wished to debate the President; that, he said, did not lie within his intention. The speech in question had already been prepared before Trump personally attacked him. This point matters. It deprives the American narrative of its foundation, namely the claim that the Pope had allowed himself to be drawn into a feud. His words possessed an independent theological weight, irrespective of the subsequent exchange. [8]

The AI image was no side issue, but the concentration of the problem

Into this already highly charged field fell the now deleted AI-generated image showing Trump in a healing pose. The description of the image in a number of reports was unmistakable: a central figure, raised hand, a reclining man, light, national symbols, an atmosphere of greatness, consolation, and salvation. The President’s later explanation, that it depicted a doctor making people better, entirely failed to capture the iconographic force of the image. Images derive their meaning from their total semantics. A halo alone does not make a sacred figure; equally, its absence does not neutralise sacral effect. [9]

It was precisely here that political self-sacralisation began. A President was drawn into a visual world that mobilised patterns reserved within Christian memory: healing, exaltation, light, central authority. The composition brought political power into proximity with what has traditionally been reserved for the saving action of Christ. The matter remained deeply troubling, even though the post was later deleted. The deletion, in truth, merely confirmed that the effect had been recognised. [10]

Nor was this image an isolated aberration. Trump had already made use of sacral role-images for his self-presentation. Added to this was the religious environment of the White House. Paula White-Cain, who headed the White House Faith Office and had for years belonged to Trump’s spiritual-political circle, had repeatedly cast the President in a rhetoric of vocation that tightly linked success, divine election, and political leadership. In a much-discussed video from the spring of 2026, she drew a comparison between Jesus and Trump in tones of overt exaltation. This does not explain the AI image away, but it does explain why such a post appeared plausible within that milieu. [11]

At the same time, it became clear that no single religious-conservative bloc existed. It was precisely the reactions to the AI image that revealed how deep the tensions had by then become within the Christian-national-conservative spectrum. There are loud and influential currents that bind religious language closely to national politics. Yet they represent neither all Evangelicals nor all conservative Catholics. The present controversy instead laid bare differing lines of demarcation. In that lay one of its most important results. [12]

This conflict was also followed attentively in Germany. A poll published in April concluded that almost three quarters of respondents approved of Pope Leo XIV’s public criticism of the US President over the Iran war. Overall approval stood at 72 per cent, and was markedly higher still among older respondents. Particularly noteworthy was the breadth of that support: even among Catholics and members of the mainstream Protestant churches, the figures stood well above half. These numbers do not resolve theological questions, but they do show how strongly the Pope’s moral criticism was regarded as legitimate beyond narrow ecclesiastical camps. [13]

Franklin Graham exonerated the President where correction would have been necessary

Franklin Graham’s statement is well documented. Franklin Graham said that he did not believe Trump had knowingly portrayed himself as Jesus Christ; that, he said, would have been inappropriate. He added that the image contained “no halo, no crosses, no angels”. Trump, he said, had understood the image as that of a doctor and had removed the post immediately after objections were raised. In further remarks, Franklin praised Trump as the “most pro-Christian, pro-life president” of his lifetime and interpreted an additional image showing Jesus beside Trump positively, as an expression of spiritual guidance. Fox News and Premier Christian News reported these statements in materially identical terms. [14]

The real problem did not lie in a preacher’s personal loyalty to a President. The problem lay in the theological narrowing of the issue. Franklin Graham reduced an image affair whose overall sacral force was perfectly evident to the absence of certain individual symbols. The emphasis thereby shifted from the question of boundary-crossing to the question of the President’s intentions. A defence of this kind did not merely exonerate. It changed the standard. A situation in which spiritual correction ought to have been forthcoming became a situation in which religious authority semantically acquitted a political leader. [15]

For that very reason, the contrast with Billy Graham appeared so sharp. William Martin and Grant Wacker showed in their standard biographical works that, after the Nixon experience, Billy developed a stronger sense of the dangers of political appropriation. Proximity to Presidents remained, but distance gained weight. His credibility depended upon the capacity not to be determined entirely by political loyalty. In Franklin, such distance was scarcely discernible. The consequence was grave: spiritual public life lost its corrective function and became an extension of political communication. [16]

It remained revealing, however, that conservative critics from within Trump’s wider religious orbit drew very different lines. Bonnie Kristian wrote that Trump was “grotesquely in the wrong” if he elevated himself to the level of Christ and claimed authority for himself over Christ’s Church. David Brody maintained that even a supporter could affirm a political mission and yet decisively reject the image. Doug Wilson spoke of “unintentional blasphemy”. Riley Gaines suggested that Trump would do well to learn humility. Erick Erickson regarded the critical points as cumulative by this stage. These voices differed in tone and tradition, yet in substance they converged: a line had been crossed. [17]

German-speaking theological voices were, if anything, even more strikingly direct. Reinhardt Schink described the image as blasphemous and reminded readers that the Christian faith knows only one Saviour. Steffen Kern spoke of “anti-Christian self-deification” and described the image as the expression of a fusion of national identity, political loyalty, and religious exaltation. Joel White called the post repellent and interpreted it as symptomatic of a movement that instrumentalised Christianity in order to strengthen political power within the United States. The fact that such voices emerged from pious, Bible-oriented milieux only made the matter weightier still. [18]

Irenaeus, Origen, and Augustine set sharper limits than today’s apologetic tradition

The patristic tradition supplied for this situation not decorative background material, but the actual standard. Irenaeus wrote in Adversus haereses IV, 6, 1: Non per semetipsos cognoscunt Deum, sed per revelationem Dei. In English translation: “They do not know God through themselves, but through the revelation of God.” What is at issue here is the non-disposability of truth. Knowledge of God does not arise from self-assertion. Truth is received, not produced. Political power that charges itself with religious meaning moves directly against this insight. It does not merely represent decisions; it generates meaning out of itself. [19]

In the same work stands the well-known formula: Gloria enim Dei vivens homo; vita autem hominis visio Dei. A fitting translation would be: “The glory of God is the living human being; the life of the human being consists in the vision of God.” This passage from Adversus haereses IV, 20, 7 possesses an almost brutal clarity for the present situation. Anyone who toys with the annihilation of an entire civilisation injures not merely political prudence, but precisely that reality in which, according to Irenaeus, God’s glory shines forth: human life itself. [20]

Origen deepened this boundary. In Contra Celsum VIII, 73 he rejected the expectation that Christians should operate in the mode of imperial violence. In Henry Chadwick’s classic English translation, Christians were more helpful to rulers than those who went to war on their behalf, because by their prayers they fought against those powers that unleashed wars and destroyed peace. The often-cited short version expresses the point succinctly: Christians do not fight with the sword, but through prayer. There was here no world-denying flight from politics. The issue was the distinction between truth and violence. Once violence is religiously exalted, that distinction is damaged. [21]

Augustine, in turn, is often instrumentalised in the present day. His doctrine of just war limited violence; it did not sanctify it. In Contra Faustum XXII, 74 we read: Pax est finis belli. “Peace is the end of war.” This was no secondary remark, but the inner logic of the entire argument. Violence remained exceptional, remained tragic, remained ordered towards peace. A political style that religiously charged hardness, threat, and symbolic grandeur stood outside Augustinian continuity. It used Augustinian language against Augustinian substance. [22]

Augustine put the matter still more sharply in De civitate Dei IV, 4: Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia? “Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but great robber bands?” The significance of this passage for the present essay can scarcely be overstated. It shattered the myth that greatness and power already amount to legitimacy. Justice remained the criterion. Here too, the Pope collided with a President not over matters of style, but over the source of legitimacy itself. [23]

Luther set the distinction between the spiritual and temporal regiments against sacralised politics

The Reformation tradition sharpened these patristic boundaries still further. In On Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed, Luther speaks of “two regiments”. One works through God’s Word and the Holy Spirit; the other through the sword and outward order. This distinction is intended precisely to prevent political power from claiming religious ultimacy, or conversely, spiritual authority from losing itself in the mode of the sword. The point, then, lay in limiting each side. [24]

For the present, this was extraordinarily instructive. Trump crossed this boundary by drawing political leadership into religiously charged visual spaces and dismissing moral correction as detached from reality. Franklin Graham crossed the same boundary from the other side by employing religious authority to stabilise political self-sacralisation. The doctrine of the two regiments offers no charter for silence. It grounds the claim that the Church must speak where power forgets its limits. [25]

The proximity between Pietist and evangelical forms of piety intensified the problem still further. A high regard for Scripture, the consciousness of conversion, the language of conscience, and the great importance attached to personal holiness ought to have given US Evangelicalism a particularly sensitive antenna for idolatry and the symbolic inflation of political leaders. The present case showed how dulled that antenna had become in parts of the milieu. [26]

Catholic voting blocs and evangelical fragmentation made the dispute politically significant

The conflict therefore had a serious domestic political dimension. Associated Press reported early signs of marked displeasure among many US Catholics at Trump’s attacks on the first American Pope. ABC News analysed that the dispute might damage Republican gains among Catholic voters. National Catholic Reporter described a new cohesion among US bishops in favour of Leo XIV. The Catholic electorate carries considerable weight in several states. A conflict with the Pope is therefore no symbolic side issue, but potentially a strategic error. [27]
At the same time, fractures became visible within US Evangelicalism. They were not yet universal, but they were audible. Critical voices from conservative circles described the image affair as blasphemous; others drew sharper lines against Trump’s political self-exaltation. The Washington Post and other outlets reported growing fatigue in parts of Trump’s religious base. A united front looked very different indeed. [28]

An additional poll of US citizens regarding their perception of Trump’s religiosity reinforced this impression. Seventy per cent of the population as a whole regarded Trump as scarcely or not at all religious; among Catholics the figure stood at 71 per cent, and among black Protestants as high as 86 per cent. Even among white Evangelicals, only a minority considered Trump “very religious”. These figures do not explain everything. They do, however, show how limited the President’s religious credibility remained even within religiously sensitive constituencies. [29]
The political point was plain. Trump’s power base depended upon the interlocking of several religious constituencies. If Catholic voters began to distance themselves, and if loyalties within US Evangelicalism grew porous, the balance of the system shifted. This was precisely why the conflict possessed a significance that reached far beyond a single media cycle. [30]

World responsibility required limits, not volatility

The matter was also serious from the standpoint of responsibility for the wider world order. Trump’s repeated threats against Iran, his oscillation between maximum hardness and subsequent qualification, his attacks on the Pope, and the symbolic self-exaltation embodied in the image together formed a pattern of unpredictability. This was no mere matter of temperament. Other states read signals. A President who placed the destruction of entire orders on the table and shortly afterwards shifted to reassurance generated instability. [31]
Leo XIV behaved recognisably differently in this situation. He did not continue the quarrel, yet he held fast to the standard. This combination of de-escalation and firmness was politically more prudent and theologically more sustainable than the whole pathos of presidential self-display. That is precisely why the Pope’s position appeared not detached from the world, but responsible for it. [32]

The power of religious language

In the end, everything led back to a simple alternative. Either religious language retains the power to measure political power against truth and justice, or it becomes part of that political staging which it ought to correct. Leo XIV showed that power during those weeks. Franklin Graham did not show it in this specific case. Trump benefited from that exoneration in the short term. In the longer term, however, his weakness may reveal itself precisely here. Wherever power reaches for sacral exaltation, the religious question becomes serious again. [33]

Notes:
[1] Reuters, “Pope Leo urges end to ‘madness of war’ as U.S., Iran start talks”, published 11 April 2026; Vatican News, “Pope Leo’s appeal to the silent majority that chooses peace”, published 11 April 2026. Both reports document the peace vigil, the phrase “delusion of omnipotence”, and the appeal to dialogue and mediation.
[2] Reuters, reporting of 7 April 2026 on the description of threats against Iranian civilisation as “truly unacceptable”; Reuters, reporting of 13 April 2026 on Leo’s continued criticism of war and escalation.
[3] Reuters, “Pope Leo urges end to ‘madness of war’ as U.S., Iran start talks”, published 11 April 2026; Vatican News, “Pope Leo’s appeal to the silent majority that chooses peace”, published 11 April 2026.
[4] Associated Press, “Pope Leo XIV says it’s ‘not in my interest at all’ to debate Trump, but will keep preaching peace”, published 18 April 2026; Reuters, “Pope says he will continue to speak out against war after Trump attack”, published 13 April 2026.
[5] Reuters, reports of 12 to 15 April 2026 on Trump’s attacks on Leo XIV; Associated Press, live reports of 12 and 18 April 2026 on Trump’s claim that he has the right to contradict the Pope.
[6] Reports on J. D. Vance’s remarks concerning the Pope, mid-April 2026; see also the presentations of the conflict received in Germany in ecclesiastical and political media between 15 and 18 April 2026.
[7] Documented statement by American bishops on the Pope’s criticism of the Iran war, in a print issue of a Christian news magazine from April 2026 consulted by the author.
[8] Associated Press, “Pope Leo XIV says it’s ‘not in my interest at all’ to debate Trump, but will keep preaching peace”, published 18 April 2026; documented summary of the same passage in a print issue of a Christian news magazine from April 2026 consulted by the author.
[9] Reuters and Associated Press, reports on the publication and deletion of the AI image in April 2026; The Independent, reporting on the religious symbolism of the depiction, April 2026.
[10] On the iconographic logic of Christian healer imagery, see Hans Belting, Bild und Kult. Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst, Munich 1990, especially pp. 145–210.
[11] On Paula White-Cain’s role in Trump’s religious-political environment, and on her public remarks, see the background reports documented in a print issue of a Christian news magazine from April 2026 consulted by the author; supplemented by general reporting on the White House Faith Office.
[12] Cf. the reactions of conservative Christians to the AI image, as summarised in a print issue of a Christian news magazine from April 2026 consulted by the author, together with parallel statements in US media.
[13] Documented polling results from a German polling institute on the public response to the Pope’s criticism of the Iran war, published in a print issue of a Christian news magazine from April 2026 consulted by the author.
[14] Fox News, Jasmine Baehr, “Franklin Graham defends Trump over AI Jesus image backlash”, published 16 April 2026; Premier Christian News, “Franklin Graham defends Trump over AI Jesus image”, published 16 April 2026.
[15] Ibid.; particularly revealing is Franklin’s concentration on the absence of particular symbols (“no halo, no crosses, no angels”) alongside his positive interpretation of further Trump images with explicit Jesus references.
[16] William Martin, A Prophet with Honor: The Billy Graham Story, New York 1991; Grant Wacker, America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2014.
[17] Documented statements by Bonnie Kristian, David Brody, Doug Wilson, Riley Gaines, and Erick Erickson in a print issue of a Christian news magazine from April 2026 consulted by the author, together with the US media contributions cited there.
[18] Documented statements by Reinhardt Schink, Steffen Kern, and Joel White in a print issue of a Christian news magazine from April 2026 consulted by the author.
[19] Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus haereses IV, 6, 1, in W. W. Harvey (ed.), Sancti Irenaei episcopi Lugdunensis libri quinque adversus haereses, vol. 2, Cambridge 1857, pp. 3–4.
[20] Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus haereses IV, 20, 7, in Harvey (ed.), Adversus haereses, vol. 2, Cambridge 1857, p. 100; English translation in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, Buffalo 1885.
[21] Origen, Contra Celsum VIII, 73, in Paul Koetschau (ed.), Origenes Werke II: Contra Celsum, Leipzig 1899, pp. 253–255; Henry Chadwick (ed.), Origen: Contra Celsum, Cambridge 1953, pp. 499–501.
[22] Augustine, Contra Faustum XXII, 74, in Joseph Zycha (ed.), Sancti Aurelii Augustini Contra Faustum Manichaeum, CSEL 25/1, Vienna 1891, pp. 617–618.
[23] Augustine, De civitate Dei IV, 4, in Bernhard Dombart / Alfons Kalb (eds.), Sancti Aurelii Augustini De civitate Dei, CCSL 47, Turnhout 1955, p. 102.
[24] Martin Luther, Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei (1523), in D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 11, Weimar 1900, pp. 245–281, especially pp. 250–252.
[25] Oswald Bayer, Martin Luthers Theologie. Eine Vergegenwärtigung, 3rd ed., Tübingen 2007, pp. 285–319; Volker Leppin, Martin Luther, Darmstadt 2006, pp. 198–210.
[26] On the proximity and difference between Lutheran, Pietist, and evangelical patterns of piety, see Hartmut Lehmann, Pietismus und weltliche Ordnung in Württemberg vom 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1969; David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, London 1989; and, for the American development, Frances FitzGerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, New York 2017.
[27] Associated Press, reports of 13 April 2026 on the displeasure of many US Catholics; ABC News, “Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo are hurting recent GOP gains with Catholic Americans”, published 16 April 2026; National Catholic Reporter, “Trump slammed the first U.S. pope. The country’s bishops now appear more united than ever”, published 17 April 2026.
[28] The Washington Post, reports in mid-April 2026 on the political consequences of the dispute with the Pope and on early fatigue within parts of Trump’s religious base; supplemented by conservative media reports describing the AI image as blasphemous.
[29] Documented Pew Research Center poll of 6 to 12 April 2026 on perceptions of Trump’s religiosity, reproduced in a print issue of a Christian news magazine from April 2026 consulted by the author.
[30] On the political relevance of Catholic voter groups in the United States, see Pew Research Center, data on the Catholic share of the population and voting behaviour, together with the contemporary analyses in ABC News and the Associated Press from April 2026.
[31] Reuters and the Associated Press documented throughout April 2026 Trump’s rhetoric on Iran, the degree of escalation involved, and the sequence of threats and subsequent qualifications.
[32] Associated Press, “Pope Leo XIV says it’s ‘not in my interest at all’ to debate Trump, but will keep preaching peace”, published 18 April 2026; Reuters, reports of 13 April 2026.
[33] On the religious question underlying the political crisis, see the overall constellation of the primary and leading media sources cited here, together with the patristic and Reformation texts in notes 19 to 25.
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