For years, the question 'What would Jesus do?' was on the lips of some Christians. The rhetorical question was meant to help believers think about their actions toward others, a kind of ethical shorthand.
However, since the advent of Donald Trump onto the political scene, a number of religious leaders have turned to more obscure biblical figures for models of leadership.
Lance Wallnau is a conservative evangelical Christian preacher in Dallas. He refers to Trump in sermons and at rallies as a modern version of the 6th Century BCE Persian king Cyrus.
"Thus says the Lord to Cyrus, whom I've anointed," says Wallnau in a video posted online. "Donald Trump has an anointing upon him. The hand of God is on him. Oh, I know a bunch of people say, 'Well, how can you say that he does this and he does that?' Cyrus wasn't even a Jew. He was a Persian."
The idea is that even if Trump does not embody Christian values such as humility, some of his actions have brought results that many evangelicals support. They often point to his U.S. Supreme Court appointments that led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a prime example.
Another biblical figure commonly likened to Trump is the 9th Century BCE Israelite king Jehu.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic Jewish leader, gave a fiery speech at a National Faith Advisory Board meeting last year making the comparison.
"President Trump, you were born into the world to be a trumpet of God, a vessel of the Lord in the hands of God," said Cahn. "God called you to walk according to the template. He called you according to the template of Jehu, the warrior king. He called Jehu to make his nation great again."
These comparisons to the ancient Persian king Cyrus and the ancient Israelite king Jehu may have swayed some conservative Christians to vote for Trump. But the analogies have those who study biblical texts concerned about what evangelicals expect from a second Trump administration.
Cyrus, though not Jewish, allowed for local religious practice
Likening Trump to Cyrus makes sense from a certain point of view, says biblical scholar Kristine Henriksen Garroway, who teaches at the Reform rabbinical seminary Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles.
"He's seen as a foreign king who was very kind to the Jews and allowed them to return to their homeland," she says.
Cyrus was known for not forcing the peoples he conquered to adopt his religion but rather allowing them to continue practicing their own. And he allowed Jews to return to their homeland after the Babylonian exile.
In the same way that President Harry Truman was called a Cyrus figure during the founding of Israel, Garroway points out Trump has been likened to Cyrus for moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
"Trump and Cyrus does not surprise me in the least and makes way more sense than the Trump Jehu comparison, which is a little bit more almost insidious," says Garroway, because of how Jehu came to power. "He's the king who's known for having a bloody coup and initiating a new era."
Jehu's rise to power was marked by violence
Jehu's coup was waged against the line of the Israelite king Ahab and his foreign wife Jezebel. It's worth noting that evangelicals have compared both Trump's presidential opponents — Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris — to Jezebel.
Jehu and his followers murdered not just Ahab (who allowed foreign religions to be practiced) and Jezebel but also all their descendants.
Bible scholar Peter Altmann of the evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., says comparing a president to any biblical figure involved in such a slaughter raises concerns for him. "The big question with Jehu is just the incredible violence," he says.
The story of Jehu, Ahab and Jezebel can be also read as demonstrating a lack of tolerance for religious difference since Jezebel was not an Israelite and Ahab allowed the worship non-Israelite deities.
"How does that relate to a modern liberal democracy where there is some sense of religious plurality?" asks Altmann.
He cautions that those using these analogies are misrepresenting the current political reality.
"Americans don't live under some type of imperial regime," he says. "Nor are Christians or evangelical Christians, a tiny minority living in a far-flung diaspora across a huge empire."
Altmann says these figures are misused when they are applied as strict analogies and without humility. "The problem that I see is that it becomes so easy to use these texts in a way that calls them in some ways as a support for our own side," he says.
Biblical monarchy is not a model for American democracy
In the introduction to biblical interpretation class that Professor Wil Gafney teaches at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas, she asks her students this question about likening any current leader to an ancient king: "What does it mean to read scriptures that are set in the context of monarchy as inspirational and authoritative in conversation with our system of government?"
Gafney points out that the U.S. is a democracy, not a biblical theocracy and that biblical texts are too complex for easy analogies. "My concern is the taking of the text out of its multiple contexts," she says.
Gafney teaches her students that these stories are not a manual for how to run a nation or a people. Rather, she says, they should perhaps be viewed as ethical texts on how not to run a nation or a people, how not to behave, and how not to conduct oneself.
Gafney says it's telling that some evangelical Christian leaders have chosen as their models for the president of the United States two biblical kings who waged bloody wars, but avoid comparing him to a more obvious biblical figure.
"Jesus's social policies have come out of favor," she says. "So Jesus is not in favor as a model for a national leader."
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