{"id":96871,"date":"2017-01-18T23:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-01-19T04:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/?p=96871"},"modified":"2017-01-18T23:05:02","modified_gmt":"2017-01-19T04:05:02","slug":"symbolism-donald-trumps-2-bible-choices-inauguration-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/symbolism-donald-trumps-2-bible-choices-inauguration-day\/","title":{"rendered":"The Symbolism of Donald Trump’s 2 Bible Choices on Inauguration Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
When George Washington took the oath of office as the country’s first president in 1789, he placed his hand upon the Bible while speaking those solemn 35 words required by the Constitution, beginning a tradition that has come to define the pomp and circumstance of Inauguration Day.<\/p>\n
And though the act of swearing upon a Bible held significance at the time, the particular book he chose did not.<\/p>\n
It was, historians say, an afterthought. Organizers had simply forgotten to bring one, so they grabbed the closest Holy book they could find – a nearby Masonic lodge’s altar Bible – and Washington made his promise.<\/p>\n
But in the two centuries since then, the act of choosing an inaugural Bible – or Bibles – has become far more symbolic.<\/p>\n
Franklin Delano Roosevelt used his family’s Bible, written in Dutch and printed in 1686. John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic elected to the White House, chose a Douay Bible. And when his second inauguration fell on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, President Barack Obama chose to lay his hand upon a book of Holy Scripture that belonged to the civil rights leader.<\/p>\n
The story behind the Bible adds gravitas – and gives media commentators something to talk about.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump announced his choices: a Bible his mother gifted him in 1955 when he graduated from Presbyterian Sunday school and the one President Abraham Lincoln used at his inauguration.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Presidential Inauguration Committee Chairman Tom Barrack explained the selections.<\/p>\n
“In his first inaugural address, President Lincoln appealed to the ‘better angels of our nature,'” Barrack said. “As he takes the same oath of office 156 years later, President-elect Trump is humbled to place his hand on Bibles that hold special meaning both to his family and to our country.”<\/p>\n
Trump’s choices seem to make a nod to themes that deeply defined his controversial campaign for the presidency and the direction of his administration since emerging victorious – religion and race, and his complicated relationship with both.<\/p>\n
The last, and only other president since Lincoln, to use the Lincoln Bible was Obama, both in 2009 and 2013, a choice the 44th president said was meant to emphasize Lincoln’s call for “national unity” during his first inaugural address. Others speculated that Obama’s selection evoked even deeper symbolism – the first black president taking the oath on the Bible of the Great Emancipator.<\/p>\n
But the connection to Lincoln’s Bible is less obvious for Trump. Lincoln was, after all, a man credited with keeping America from permanently fracturing during the Civil War. Trump won the presidency on a campaign fraught with division.<\/p>\n
And the President-elect’s relationship with the African American community has thus far been strained – especially this week after Trump fired off an insulting and erroneous tweet about Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., the civil rights giant who said he believes that reports of Russian influence in the election made Trump “illegitimate” and pledged to boycott the inauguration. Since then, nearly 60 other House Democrats have joined him.<\/p>\n
Trump has spoken about Lincoln before.<\/p>\n