Charlotte evangelical pastor in national spotlight, called Trump Bible ‘disgusting’
A Charlotte evangelical pastor is in the national spotlight for a fire-and-brimstone sermon denouncing as “blasphemous” and “disgusting” what’s become known as the Trump Bible.
Evangelicals are among the former president’s strongest backers, but Rev. Loran Livingston, the senior pastor of Central Church on Sardis Road condemned the Trump-endorsed “God Bless the USA Bible,” priced at $59.99.
His April 14 sermon has drawn millions of views on social media.
The bible homepage features a photo of a smiling Trump seated at what appears to be the Oval Office desk, although the website says Trump does not profit from sales of the book.
Well, maybe with his base he does, but not with Livingston.
“Are you kidding me?”
The Trump Bible includes copies of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Pledge of Allegiance and the handwritten chorus to the song featured at Trump rallies: country singer Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”
Don’t fall for it, Livingston warned his flock at the packed 10:30 a.m. service.
“When you don’t read and pray, you say, ‘Wow, there’s a Bible out now that includes the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, isn’t that wonderful?’ ” he said.
“No!” he shouted. “It’s disgusting. It’s blasphemous. It’s a ploy. Are you kidding me? Some of you are so encouraged by that?”
“The gospel is not an American gospel,” he said. “It is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Mixing politics and church
“People that don’t read (the Bible) and pray will get politics mixed up with church,” Livingston said in his sermon that’s on his congregation’s YouTube site. “Some of you bring politics into the Church. You think that politics is spiritual stuff.”
“No!” he said. “Your duty is to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, body and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Livingston couldn’t be reached by The Charlotte Observer on Saturday.
If you read the bible, he said, you’d also know that voting is not a “spiritual responsibility.”
“My real citizenship is in heaven, from which we look for the Lord Jesus Christ,” Livingston said.
“Bend politics to theology”
Livingston joins at least one nationally prominent Christian conservative to rebuke the Trump Bible: Andrew Walker of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, The Christian Post reported.
“To put matters bluntly, a Bible like this should never have been made,” Walker wrote March 28 in the Christian publication World, quickly adding that he’s both pro-Bible and pro-Constitution.
“The Bible is not a symbol of American identity even while we proudly herald the Bible-influenced shape of American life and values,” Walker wrote. “There is an ever-present temptation to allow one’s theology to bend to one’s politics when it is our politics that should bend to our theology.”
