And rather than worship the divine, the crowd was there to herald the malign: Donald Trump and his brand of hateful, intentionally divisive politics. Similar to a creed, Trump shared his litany of election-denial lies that have come to constitute the Republican Party platform. The intentional coupling of MAGA politics with religious imagery isn’t merely a rhetorical act, either. Trump’s Ohio rally is hardly the only recent example of a politician appropriating religious symbols to seize power. Here, too, Christians are speaking out against his hijacking of the church for right-wing politics.

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