{"id":30911,"date":"2026-04-06T12:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T10:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=30911"},"modified":"2026-04-06T12:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T10:24:08","slug":"trump-invokes-religious-rhetoric-in-praise-of-iran-rescue-drawing-criticism","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/trump-invokes-religious-rhetoric-in-praise-of-iran-rescue-drawing-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump invokes religious rhetoric in praise of Iran rescue, drawing criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">President Donald Trump and other United States (US) officials cast the rescue of a US airman in Iran \u200bas an \u201cEaster miracle\u201d on Sunday, framing the operation in religious terms that portrayed the war as a just cause and divinely \u200cblessed.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In the past, administrations typically issued postcard-style Easter greetings, and critics said officials&#8217; messages this time had blurred the line between faith and policy by invoking religion to justify the war and shape the military\u2019s conduct.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;The rescue was an Easter Miracle,&#8221; Trump told \u00a0National Broadcasting Company&#8217;s &#8220;Meet the Press,&#8221; and some cabinet members followed with messages of their own.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In a separate message that \u200binvoked religion in another way, Trump threatened on social media to strike power plants and bridges, urged Tehran to open the Strait of \u200bHormuz, &#8220;you crazy bastards\u201d or face \u201cliving in Hell,\u201d and signed off with the phrase \u201cPraise be to Allah.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In a social media message, \u2060Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent drew on the symbolism of Easter, the day Jesus was resurrected from the dead.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;The Easter miracle is considered the greatest victory \u200bin history,&#8221; Bessent said on X. &#8220;And so, it (is) fitting on this holiest of Christian days that a brave American warrior was rescued from behind enemy lines \u200bin one of the greatest search and rescue missions in military history.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote \u201cGod is good\u201d on his private account on X on Sunday, reposting a social media post by Trump about the success of the rescue mission in Iran.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Axios, citing an interview with the Republican Trump and an unnamed US defense official, reported that was the phrase \u200buttered by the rescued officer over the radio after he ejected from his aircraft.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21260,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-30911","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Iran and US war","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30912,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30911\/revisions\/30912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=30911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}