Eric Metaxas urges grace toward Trump for Jesus meme, accuses Tucker Carlson of 'blasphemy'
'People can lighten up'
Christian author and broadcaster Eric Metaxas told The Christian Post in a recent interview that Christians ought to extend grace to President Donald Trump for his controversial Truth Social post depicting himself as Jesus Christ.
Metaxas, a longtime Evangelical supporter of Trump who serves on his White House Religious Liberty Commission, also reiterated his condemnation of Tucker Carlson for what he described as a "diabolical" twisting of Scripture, which he said is "true blasphemy."
Metaxas told CP last week that he generally disapproved of Trump's post of himself as a robed figure with light emanating from his hands, though he pushed back on claims that it was blasphemous or intentionally irreverent.
"How tacky. How gaudy. What the heck is this?" were his initial thoughts on the image, Metaxas said.
After deleting the Truth Social post last Monday following pushback from many of his supporters and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Trump dismissed allegations that he was attempting to liken himself to Christ. He instead said he thought the AI-generated image depicted him as "a doctor" who was healing people.
After walking back his first post, Trump posted another meme last Wednesday that showed Jesus embracing him at a podium in front of an American flag. The meme said "God might be playing his Trump card" by exposing "these satanic, demonic, child-sacrificing monsters," presumably referring to Democrats.
"The Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!" Trump posted along with the second meme.
Metaxas claimed the firestorm in response to the initial meme was a "Kabuki theater of outrage," and defended the president against charges of trying to offend Christians or believing himself to be God.
"I find the whole thing funny, actually," he said. "I find it funny, in part, because many people that I love and respect immediately went to the term blasphemy. 'This is blasphemy.' And I'm thinking, I don't know that it rises to the level of blasphemy. It's kind of too dopey and, as I said, kind of tacky. I mean, there's so many tacky memes being put out there."
Metaxas said "there is zero question that this president would not want to offend Christians, ever; he would not ever want to do anything blasphemous."
"So I think we have to give him grace, whoever posted this for him or whatever — we know he didn't make it."
"I think if anybody actually does something genuinely blasphemous, those of us who love Jesus should be upset, but I just think this was misguided and sloppy and, again, tacky," he said, adding that "people can lighten up."
Contrasting him with former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, who he claimed "genuinely are at war with the things of God," Metaxas said Trump "genuinely cares" about Christians. He wishes "people would be more focused on defeating evil than getting upset at a truly dopey-looking meme of whatever the heck it was, which nobody will ever know."
While acknowledging he is unsure of what was going through Trump's mind if or when he posted the meme, Metaxas speculated that he was probably thinking, "I want to be a force for good, like Jesus."
"I know that he would never want to be deliberately blasphemous, and he doesn't think of himself as Jesus," he added.
Metaxas' assessment of Trump's AI Jesus post echoed that of evangelist Franklin Graham, who serves with Metaxas on Trump's White House Religious Liberty Commission and dismissed the controversy last week as "a lot to do about nothing."
Metaxas went on to excoriate political commentator Tucker Carlson, who he claimed "either lost his mind or lost his way," and whose views he characterized as genuinely blasphemous.
Metaxas, who has been increasingly outspoken against Carlson in recent months, said Carlson's condemnation of Trump in recent weeks has been "tremendously clarifying," and relegated him to the level of former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Candace Owens. Both were once staunch supporters of the president, but have since broken with him over issues such as the Iran war and the Epstein files.
Metaxas accused Carlson of offering a "satanic inversion" of the Esther story by focusing on the 75,000 in the Persian Empire who were killed by the Jews in Esther 9:16, which the book presents as a reversal of Haman the Agagite's foiled genocidal plot against them.
Carlson, who condemned Trump's Jesus memes as "a mockery of God," was critical of Graham during his April 8 monologue for applying the book of Esther to the present conflict in Iran during an Easter luncheon at the White House during Holy Week.
During his remarks, Graham likened Trump to Esther and the modern Iranian regime to ancient Persia, prompting Carlson to raise concerns about using a violent portion of the Old Testament to endorse a modern policy.
Noting that Esther does not mention God and that Martin Luther questioned its canonicity when he was translating the Bible into German, Carlson observed that Esther also recounts Jews killing 75,000 people. He accused Graham of citing the book in an attempt to spiritually sanction an unpopular war.
Metaxas suggested that by raising the historical questions regarding Esther's canonicity, Carlson was echoing Satan's underhanded tactics in the Garden of Eden.
"It's diabolical," Metaxas said. "It's when Satan says to Eve, 'Did God really say, like, is this really the Word of God? Or is this, maybe we need to get rid of this, because we don't like this.'"
"That's one level of true blasphemy. I mean, every Christian should understand that is blasphemy. You're saying this is not the Word of God," he added.
Accusing Carlson of arrogantly undermining the authority of Scripture, Metaxas said, "It's kind of stunning to me that somebody who patently knows almost nothing about the Bible and Christian faith seems to weigh in on it, as though he's been studying it forever."
"It's frankly bizarre, and I say very, very honestly, I hope people, please, pray for Tucker. Pray that God delivers him from whatever is going on, because something very dark has gotten hold of him. I don't know how else to say it."
Metaxas, who Carlson claimed in March "has a lot of personal problems" without offering details, has previously suggested that Carlson's story of being attacked by an unseen malevolent force in his bed during his waning months at Fox News might be true, and could indicate that he has come under demonic influence.
