‘Saved By God’: Trump Invokes The Almighty And Faith On Inauguration Day
Donald Trump was sworn in on Monday as the 47th president of the United State, part of a series of events highlighted by God and faith.
“I was saved by God to make American great again,” Trump said in his inaugural speech, alluding to the failed assassination attempt against him last July during a Pennsylvania rally.
Trump said the election gave him “a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal … and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”
The inauguration also marked the third time a president has been sworn in on the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama also were sworn in for their second terms on MLK Day.
“We will make his dream come true,” Trump said of King’s legacy.
The holiday is observed on the third Monday of January every year. The U.S. Constitution places Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
Service at St. John’s Church
The day started with Trump and his wife Melania arriving at St. John’s Episcopal Church — known as the “Church of the Presidents” — for a closed-door service ahead of the inauguration, taking part in a long presidential tradition.
The pair were greeted by the Rev. Robert W. Fisher outside the church before heading inside. The Trumps were joined at the service by Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha.
Elon Musk and several of Trump’s Cabinet picks also sat in the pews at the historic church on Lafayette Square.
Among other guests in attendance were Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio, Argentina President Javier Milei and the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump. The crowd also featured several Silicon Valley tech titans, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
The short service, roughly an hour in length, was kept private and not televised.
Fisher, rector at St. John’s Church, gave WTOP, a Washington, D.C.-based radio station, a glimpse of what would take place inside: “This service is intentionally different from what the rest of the day is going to be. What we offer is a time that’s actually a meditative time, a reflective time. It’ll be just the people in the room, having a time where they can breathe. One of my goals and hopes for a service like this is for us to provide a space so that people can be brought in touch with, as [President Abraham] Lincoln said, the better angels of their nature.”
The Trump family held hands as they filed out of the historic house of worship and the president nodded and smiled at churchgoers as he exited the sanctuary.
The church itself is a major part of presidential history. Consecrated on December 26, 1816, the church got a portico and bell tower six years later containing a bell cast by the son of the famous U.S. war hero Paul Revere.
James Madison, the nation’s fourth president, was the first US president to worship at the St John’s Episcopal Church. The church invited Madison, who was at the time president, a free pew (now known as No. 54). The church would rent out its pews to parishioners. In response, Madison insisted on paying the annual rent out of his own pocket.
The church — designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 — became embroiled in controversy in June 2020 after police tear-gassed protesters in Lafayette Square after Trump wanted to walk to the church from the White House. Afterwards, Trump stopped outside the church and held up a Bible upside down and proclaimed that America was “the greatest country in the world.”
Trump made a triumphant return this week after defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential election.
Bibles and the swearing in ceremony
The day culminated with the inauguration ceremony — Trump’s second after he was elected president in 2016. The event, typically held outdoors, was moved inside to the Capitol Rotunda, which seats just 600 people, due to the freezing temperatures.
The ceremony’s invocation was delivered by New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan and the Rev. Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse and The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
The benediction was delivered by a trio of interfaith clergyman: Yeshiva University’s President Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, Pastor Lorenzo Sewell and Father Frank Mann, a Catholic priest from Brooklyn, N.Y.
As for the swearing-in itself, Trump used his own Bible, which was given to him by his mother, and the Lincoln Bible for the ceremony.
The Lincoln Bible was provided during Lincoln’s 1861 inauguration by William Thomas Carroll, then-clerk of the Supreme Court. At the time, Lincoln’s family Bible was still packed and on its way to Washington from Illinois, along with their other belongings.
In 2017, during his first inauguration, Trump placed a family Bible atop Lincoln’s while taking the oath. He did the same on Monday. Photos of the ceremony, however, showed Trump with his hand at his side, not atop the Bible.
The crowd erupted in applause following Trump was sworn in as the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” rang out.
In an opinion piece posted to MSNBC.com, Anthea Butler, a professor of religious studies and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote: “For MAGA clergy and religious figures standing with Trump, his inauguration will be the culmination of their earnest prayers, rallies and political participation after their appeals to Christian nationalism, faith and fear. But they may get more than they bargained for.”
Meanwhile, the Rev. Al Sharpton and other Black leaders led a congregation in a passionate MLK Day rally in the capitol as Trump was being sworn in.
“We want people to see the tale of two cities in one,” Sharpton said.
Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged. He previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on X @ClementeLisi.