Trump angers American religious leaders with Bible photo op
American religious leaders on Tuesday castigated Donald Trump for posing in front of a church holding a Bible after peaceful protesters were violently cleared from the surrounding
BIBLE. US President Donald Trump holds up a Bible outside of St John's Episcopal church across Lafayette Park in Washington, DC on June 1, 2020. Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP
WASHINGTON, DC, USA – American religious leaders on Tuesday, June 2, castigated Donald Trump for posing in front of a church holding a Bible after peaceful protesters were violently cleared from the surrounding area. (READ: Trump threatens military mobilization against violent U.S. protests)
"It was traumatic and deeply offensive, in the sense that something sacred was being misused for a political gesture," Washington's Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde said on public radio station NPR.
The Republican billionaire, whose supporters include many evangelical Christians, used "the symbolic power of our sacred text, holding it in his hand as if it was a vindication of his positions and his authority," she said.
The historic St John's Episcopal church is across the street from Lafayette Park, which faces the White House and has been the epicenter of the protests in Washington since Friday. 
The church was defaced with graffiti and damaged in a fire during a demonstration on Sunday night.
On Monday protesters were demonstrating there peacefully when law enforcement including military police used tear gas to disperse them – clearing a path for the president to walk from the White House to the church for the photographs.