Meadows saw the situation differently.
“I was never prouder to be serving under President Trump than I was walking with him across Pennsylvania Avenue to declare once and for all that in the United States of America, we would not stand for the degradation of our heritage or the burning of churches,” Meadows says in the book.
The Rev. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, addresses a crowd outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, Sunday, June 14, 2020, in Washington, D.C. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins
The former congressman writes that Ivanka kept the Bible in her purse until the group arrived at St. John’s. They had expected to enter the church, inspect the damage and possibly say a prayer, but opted for an outside photo shoot upon realizing the sanctuary was boarded up.
As Trump posed for cameras, Meadows says he turned to stare at the church.
“I found it disturbing that of all the things that could have been attacked, these rioters chose a house of worship,” he writes. “I prayed, once again, that we would finally see an end to the violence and chaos.”
Around the same time, Gerbasi and other demonstrators huddled a few blocks away, coughing and passing around eyewash to relieve the effects of smoke and other irritants.
The book does not linger on the reaction to the Bible photo-op, aside from mentioning later that it garnered negative press. Although lauded by several of Trump’s evangelical faith advisers, it evoked fierce criticism in other religious circles — especially among leaders of the Episcopal Church.
“The symbolism of (Trump) holding a Bible … as a prop and standing in front of our church as a backdrop when everything that he has said is antithetical to the teachings of our traditions and what we stand for as a church — I was horrified,” Budde told RNS at the time.
The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, also accused Trump of using “a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes.”
This article originally appeared here.
