Injecting Beach or Ingesting It?—Trump as Prosperity Gospel Quack

I write this after reading a New York Times piece about Trump’s suggestion to combat coronavirus by “injecting” a form of bleach as a sort of “cleansing.” (He later tried to walk this back by claiming he was being “sarcastic,” but this seems worse than being sincere).

I noticed on TV as this story broke, then again today in the Times, ambiguity about whether Trump's idea was “ingesting” or “injecting” bleach. Was he floating a vision of cleansing the bloodstream, lungs, or digestive tract?

Although we've already gone with Alice through the looking glass by pursuing this question at all, I will explain why the distinction matters and what it may teach us about Trumpism.

And I think I have the answer for you if you read on! You're welcome!

The Guardian Figures It Out But No One Cares

The Guardian has reported that Trump's idea may have come from an obscure church called Genesis II. (Perhaps we should put “church” in scare quotes, but at least it seems to be a business registered as a church.) Since I study US religion and had never heard of Genesis II, I clicked over to its website to see what this was all about.

I must say I’m shocked that sp few reporters seem to have undertaken such a clicking expedition—which to my mind is a no-brainer—nor followed up on the Guardian's reporting. (This complaint is based on a quick search today; here is an exception to the rule. Perhaps I missed something or more will come out later.)

What One Learns at Genesis II

The Genesis II site is mainly about selling their cures, which center on a “sacrament” that involves drinking a small amount of special bleach mixed with water. It seems that these church people are anti-vaxxers—so as not to put bad things into their bodies—and this somehow co-exists with being bullish on their sacrament.

I found an impassioned sermon posted yesterday from the self-declared bishop of Genesis II. He defends his absolute religious freedom to promote his sacrament and seems to think there are only miniscule differences in time and theology between two things he conflates into a threesome with his cause: a quest of Pilgrims for religious freedom in the early 1600s, and language about religious freedom in the Constitution from the late 1700s.

Maybe this is only a problem for irrelevant geeky scholars, but... sorry Bishop, even before we get to the third part of your trio, you skate over a conceptual gap between theocracy (with witch trials) versus Deists (who did not believe in miracles). The time gap between them is more than 150 years—comparable to science before Darwin and Einstein versus science (with or without bleach cures) today, or to communication before even radio (much less the internet) versus communication today.

Ingest or Inject? A Snap Diagnosis

Although I am no expert on Genesis II and don’t have time to become one today, I think I know enough about US religion to be be like a doctor who (with all due caution) can make a sound snap diagnosis pending confirmation through more tests.

I've read Trump apologists trying to spin this as something less embarrassing:

he didn't really suggest drinking bleach, this was more like some high-tech injection in the bloodstream. Or perhaps the dear leader accidentally leaked still-classified knowledge of some advanced chemotherapy being developed? But all this seems doubtful, while the reporting by the Guardian, pointing toward Genesis II, passes a smell test with flying colors,

By extension, although no one seems to have fully proven a Trump/Genesis convergence, I believe we can safely hypothesize our answer: Yes, his idea was to ingest bleach.

Trump as Prosperity Gospel Quack

This shows all the marks of positive thinking and/or prosperity gospel quackery—the tradition of selling either New Age or ultra-consumerist-neo-Pentecostal healing oils, blessed prayer fetishes, healing crystals, mantras, etc.

Some may wonder if the Genesis II sacrament bears comparison with serpent handlers who—alongside showing their faith by risking deadly snake bites—also drink strychnine because they see Mark 16:18 commanding both things. And it's fascinating to ponder how hard-core Holiness people such as serpent-handlers come together and come apart compared to new age marketeers and prosperity gospel celebrities like Joel Osteen (who counsels mental fitness over drinking bleach.)

But let's be clear; one of these things is less like the others. The match between New Agers and people like Osteen is tighter. In this connection, recall how an imagined trio of Puritans, Deists, and Genesis II—with or without Trump's endorsement—creates an ideological bridge between standard Christian Nationalist clichés and "health and wealth" practices (New Age and/or Christian). Here again the marginal and relatively apolitical serpent-handers may be interesting to compare, but they are likely not a paradigmatic case.

Insofar as Trump has a credible claim to having any religious or moral orientation whatsoever—although yesterday Lucinda Williams released a song denying that he even has a soul—this is rooted in the positive thinking and/or prosperity gospel tradition. Trump got there less through New Agers nor his current neo-Pentecostal bedmates in the Christian Nationalist orbit, and more from a famous New York preacher, Norman Vincent Peale, who self-identified as a mainstream Presbyterian.

All these are fingers on the same hand. Genesis II is like a strange experiment in decorating one of the fingernails. If we want to understand the "full fist" we must grasp an emerging fusion between New Age, prosperity gospel and "classic" New Christian Right leaders like Jerry Falwell. Sadly, in this Alice through the looking glass world, it all does make a kind of “sense." Pulling on the Genesis II thread may help us grasp it.