Is Trump the antichrist? — and other hard questions Christians should be asking - ABC Religion & Ethics

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We live in apocalyptic times — at least, that's what it feels like. Having emerged from a global pandemic and still reckoning with its lingering effects, we now face a spate of new challenges. People are being rounded up on the streets of America and deported without due process, millions of the world's poorest are predicted to die due to the cuts in USAID, civilians and aid workers alike continue to be bombed or shot in Gaza, antisemitism is on the rise, and war rages in various parts of the globe. That's before we mention climate change and any number of other pressing justice issues. One does not have to look far to wonder what is going on in our world and what disaster might come next.
I don't use the word 'apocalyptic' lightly. Nor do I mean by it some kind of world-ending catastrophe. Apocalypse — from the Greek apocalypsis — means an unveiling, a revelation or disclosure of something previously hidden. It is a laying bare of the world so as to see it for what it really is underneath the distractions of celebrity, wealth or power. And one of the things unveiled, at least in the apocalypses in the Bible, is evil.
What does the Bible say about evil?
In the New Testament, evil is depicted in a variety of ways. The apostle Paul uses language of sin and its power to describe something that holds humans in its grip. Other writers refer to Satan or the Devil, a supernatural being usually thought of as a rebellious fallen angel who now acts against God and accuses God's people.
But what about human evil? In the later apocalyptic texts of the New Testament, evil is described as manifest in human beings who are described as 'antichrist' or imaginatively depicted as a monstrous beast whose number is '666'. Both of these images — antichrist and 666 — have captured popular imagination and been (mis)applied to numerous figures throughout history. Barack Obama, the Pope, the President of the United Nations, Saddam Hussein and the prophet Muhammad have all been labelled as 'Antichrists' or bearers of the beastly 666. Is such a thing justifiable by thinking Christians? Perhaps.
The antichrist appears in the Johannine epistles as a figure who opposes Jesus. He is literally someone who is anti-Christ. Notably, there are many of these: people who deny that Jesus is the Messiah and who oppose him and his followers. Such people are depicted as liars but compelling enough to deceive the world with their lies (see 1 John 2:22, 4:5; 2 John 7).
Closely related to anti-Christs are pseudo-Christs or false Messiahs (Matthew 24:24). Deception is likewise their dominant trait, insofar as they lead Christians astray with signs and wonders (Mark 13:22). Implicit in their designation is the idea that they present themselves as Christ-like figures, messianic leaders and saviours who want people to follow them rather than Jesus — Which is to say, they set themselves up in imitation of, and competition with, Jesus Christ.
For the author of the Book of Revelation, Nero is the manifestation of evil for Christians living in the Roman Empire in the first century CE. (belterz / E+ / Getty Images)
The fullest iteration of an antichrist figure comes in the form of a multi-headed beast in Revelation 13. This figure has become monstrous and more than human. It has seven heads with ten horns and seven crowns, symbolising his power. Like Frankenstein's creation, he is hybrid in form, compiled from powerful and fast animals — leopard, bear and lion. And like the Lamb image for Jesus in Revelation, this beast has survived a mortal wound and yet is alive and healed.
Scholars agree that this beast who is assigned the number 666 is most likely a veiled reference to the Emperor Nero. Nero was remembered by ancient historians as an egotistical, violent tyrant. He was also no friend to Christians, blaming them for the great fire that decimated Rome in 64 CE. Like Jesus, Nero was rumoured to have survived death — in his case, a self-inflicted mortal knife-wound. Rumours circulated in the last decades of the first century CE that Nero had returned to claim the empire (the Nero Redivivus myth ). These 'false-Neros' were pretenders for the imperial throne.
For the author of the Book of Revelation, Nero is the manifestation of evil for Christians living in the Roman Empire in the first century CE. Nero is not the point of the story, however. Rather, he is the face of a regime that is unjust and evil. Revelation exposes the Roman Empire itself as one that is murderous and violent, a place where some have become extremely wealthy and others are impoverished and enslaved, and where the only veneration allowed is of Rome and her gods who demand unflagging allegiance.
Revelation offers an analysis of evil that goes far beyond locating it in one individual. Evil is not a person. The great unveiling in Revelation is that evil is communal and systemic, found in any empire or other collective that is unjust, oppressive, deceitful, violent and stands in opposition to God and God's values.
Evil incarnate?
So let's ask the provocative question: is Donald Trump the antichrist? The short answer is no , because there is no one antichrist. To claim that the number 666 refers to a specific person is to misunderstand the symbolic and polyvalent nature of the ancient biblical texts.
The whole point of Revelation is that evil becomes incarnate in systems and regimes that transcend any individual. Trump, however, may be an antichrist — that is, part of a much larger phenomenon. That phenomenon, I suggest, is Christian nationalism.
In a sermon preached on Revelation 13 during the Second World War, Scottish theologian Thomas Torrance said, 'It is one of the deep hypnotic mysteries of human history, that evil can become 'incarnate' in apparently Christian form.' Torrance was, of course, addressing the monstrosity that was Nazism — a movement that utilised Christian imagery and language in pursuit of national reconstruction; whose leader, Adolf Hitler, consistently claimed to be Christian; and which had the support of many Christian churches in a country where over 90 per cent of the population in the 1930s identified as Christian. For Torrance, Nazism was evil wrapped in Christian guise.
Christian nationalism is based on the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation and ought to be defended as such. Yet the Christianity at play here has a certain set of characteristics: it is white, masculine, patriarchal and not afraid to embrace violence. Christian nationalism defines Christianity as a religion of power, where God is on the side of might.
The comparisons between Germany in the 1930s and America under Trump are coming in thick and fast: attacks on education, vilification of certain groups, the demise of truth, limiting of free speech and authoritarianism are all on full display — so too is the use of Christianity as a prop and a costume for the Project 2025 agenda.
US President Donald Trump prays during an 'Evangelicals for Trump' coalition launch event in Miami, Florida, on Friday, 3 January 2020. (Photographer: Marco Bello / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
There are two things we need to consider when thinking about the Trump administration and its relationship to Christianity. On the one hand, there are the obvious ways Trump's team is iconographically presenting him as a Christ-like, saviour figure. Photo ops show him surrounded by a team of people fervently praying. In many of them Trump sits as if enthroned, while those around him stand and even kneel before him. Purchasable digital cards of Trump shroud him in golden light or show him as a superhero. A variation of this trend appeared recently when the White House social media accounts shared an AI-generated image of Trump as pope, dressed in full papal regalia including cross and mitre. He had previously joked to the media 'I'd like to be Pope. That would be my first choice.'
The second thing we need to consider is the actions of Trump and his team. In the first 100 days, Trump has:
put millions of lives at risk by pausing most foreign aid;
put millions of lives at risk by pausing most foreign aid; prioritised the arrest of undocumented migrants;
prioritised the arrest of undocumented migrants; stopped most immigration by brown skinned people while proactively offering visa to white South Africans;
stopped most immigration by brown skinned people while proactively offering visa to white South Africans; expanded Guantanamo while pardoning 6 January rioters;
expanded Guantanamo while pardoning 6 January rioters; paused military aid to Ukraine;
paused military aid to Ukraine; tried to limit diversity and inclusion measures; and
tried to limit diversity and inclusion measures; and created a culture of fear that blames certain minorities for America not being 'great again'.
By any measure, policies that risk life, oppress the most vulnerable and do not meet basic standards of justice and due process are not in keeping with biblical values — values that inform the US judicial system, albeit i mperfectly.
Vice-President JD Vance also tried to redefine Christian love, justifying mass deportation on the grounds that the Catholic idea of ordo amoris — the proper ordering of loves — sets priorities focused on family, local community and nation before others. Pope Leo XIV, at the time a cardinal, shared an article on Twitter rebutting Vance and wrote, 'JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others.' Pope Francis likewise wrote that Vance's attitude did not reflect the fullness of biblical teaching on love.
Humans are fallible and no one of us will perfectly embody Christian teachings. But what we are witnessing in the United States is something more sinister than ordinary Christian fallibility. The Trump-Vance government claims to be a defender of Christianity and free speech — even presenting a bill to 'eradicate anti-Christian bias' — while also arresting Christians for prayerful protest in the Capital. It appears that only regime-supporting Christians are worthy of freedom, revealing that the so-called defence of Christianity is a cover for a program of lies, injustice, fear-mongering, control and white nationalism packaged as true Christianity.
What about Australia?
What does any of this mean for our country? The recent federal election delivered a resounding affirmation of the political centre. Trump-style politics did not play well for those who tried them. But that does not mean we should not be alert to strands of Christian nationalism here.
In her book Jesus and John Wayne , historian Kristen Kobes Du Mez writes that evangelical Christian support for Trump was:
the culmination of evangelicals' embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at home and abroad.
Constantine Campbell puts it slightly differently in his book Jesus v. Evangelicals : 'The evangelical movement must be refashioned in Jesus' image, rather than cast Jesus in its image.' For him, Christ-like qualities of humility, peace-making, love and mercy have been replaced by arrogance, fortune building, manipulation, judgement and seeking after political power in much American Christianity.
Thankfully, the majority of Australian Christians have no intention of going down the American path of Christian nationalism. We must be vigilant and work hard to keep it that way. When power, wealth, violence, control, patriarchy or divisiveness become the main game of any Christian movement, we need to ask hard questions about whether that truly reflects the Jesus of the gospels or what we are seeing might really be evil, in apparently Christian guise.
Robyn Whitaker is Associate Professor of New Testament at the University of Divinity, founding Director of The Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy and author of Even the Devil Quotes Scripture.