Faith & Reflection: Voices from the Black Church and Beyond
- Perform visible miracles and believe in yourself; people rally around tangible, repeated wonders.
- Mass persuasion requires plenty of gullible followers and the ability to broadcast misinformation through media and networks.
- Self-deification collapses; claims to be the messiah usually fail. True change is collective, needing humility and care.
The furious reaction to Donald Trump’s posting of an AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like healer resulted in a rare walkback from the US president, who deleted it from his social media account and insisted it was “supposed to be me as a doctor”. But if you were in fact the saviour of humanity, how would you go about convincing people of this? Even Jesus Christ himself struggled (although, admittedly, that was part of the plan). Bob Kenny, Dublin
Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.
Readers reply
It takes plenty of front from the self-proclaimed messiah, plenty of gullible people and an ability to spread the message. A willingness to suspend disbelief and a desire for someone else to fix your problems also help. That people believe that such a man can exist is part of the problem. Agrajag
It’s quite easy. You simply perform miracles. People soon come around you and believe. It helps if you believe it yourself. Michael Broadbent
Surely saving humanity is a collective effort? CybeleSettler
Those who seek ever greater importance and power tend to promote themselves as far as they can. It is when they deify themselves that it usually falls apart. I’d say we are each an atom of the whole and therefore a minuscule piece of a saviour. It is our joint responsibility. There is no one saviour. That has been the problem throughout history – all the argy-bargy and death and destruction over who it is, who is right, who speaks for God. If we were each to take our small role in that totality, I’d say a bit of care, love and humility would go a long way. LorLala
Well, you could start, like Brian, by denying that you are the messiah, because only the true messiah would deny his divinity. tortinwall
If only someone could come up with a system that would broadcast misinformation to millions of followers at the click of a button. Maybe Trump has it easy compared with Jesus. thatringsabell
There is a little quiz in the Jewish Museum, Berlin, which asks 12 questions to see whether you could be the next messiah. It turns out that all 12 questions have to be answered correctly, including admitting that you never use the internet on Shabbat. One can see that it would be virtually impossible for anyone to achieve that – and presumably Trump certainly wouldn’t. kipya_mitzov
I’m sure that would be an ecumenical matter …
Even Muslims, although denying the death, resurrection and divinity of Jesus (instead bestowing special prophethood) recognise that he is the messiah of the Israelites. His name in Islam, and among Arabic-speaking Christians, is Isa al-Masih (Jesus the messiah).
Step one: get arrested, convicted, sentenced to death, die.
Step two: get back up, schmooze a little.
Step three: ascend into heaven.
Trump is stuck at the first stage of step one, which is frankly the easiest step. Xcr47d55ngd4
It is hard, but I do try to keep a low profile. leadballoon
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