As you will no doubt know, Pope Francis – head of the Roman Catholic Church – recently died. You may also have picked up in the news, and more broadly on the internet, that Donald Trump, President of the USA, recently posted an AI generated picture of himself dressed as the Pope. There has been outrage from Catholics, from others who feel Trump is denigrating the office of President and from those on the political spectrum who are anti-Trump whatever he may do. Trump has denied having anything to do with the post; it was first posted on his personal Truth Social profile and subsequently re-posted on the official White House profile. It also comes off the back of Donald Trump previously joking, in response to a question, that he would quite like to be the next pope.

Now, before I say any more here, let me note a few (probably obvious) things. First, I am not a Catholic. I have no skin in the game so far as the pope is concerned. I did not recognise him as a church authority, I did not recognise his teaching and I actively reject both his doctrine and his office. So what follows is not the opinion of a (potentially) offended Catholic. Second, I am not a Trump-fan. I am not American so had no ability to vote for anyone. But I am not aligned with Trump politically and I am not supporter of his work. I generally share the (broad) distrust of him that is widespread across Britain and Europe. I am not sympathetic to him politically and I am even less drawn to his personality. So, what follows is not the opinion of a Trump-supporting fanboy. In respect to both camps, I might be considered a hostile witness being both left-wing and Protestant; very much a non-Republican evangelical (see my ‘about’ page for more info if you are so inclined).

With those caveats out the way, let me make my basic observation of the matter, add a little colour to it and then I’ll reel round to why it matters. My basic observation is this: Trump clearly knew about and posted the picture (whether he made it or not). He clearly endorsed it. It is untrue to claim otherwise. It is also evidently nothing more than a joke. It does not seem to be worthy of any real furore.

Let me make a few observations to add a bit of colour to that. First, I am sympathetic to those who think this is not very statesmanlike behaviour. I would tend to agree with that observation. Nevertheless, to counter that (and I do think these points clinch the matter), this is not new. Trump was elected as a very unstatesmanlike candidate. He has consistently behaved in very unstatesmanlike ways. This, frankly, is not the worst example of it by a long chalk in an otherwise strongly contested field. Getting frustrated that this is unstatesmanlike behaviour when that is precisely what the American people voted for is a bit like getting frustrated that Boris Johnson launched into unintelligible posh waffle every time he was asked a marginally awkward question: it is in the nature of what was elected.

There is a case to be made by non-Americans and those Americans who did not vote for him that this represents a problem. Certainly that we are all affected by the things he does and therefore have a legitimate opinion on it. It may give some legitimate ammo for the next election, but that is all this is. At the end of the day, this is in the nature of democracy and nation-states. We do not get to vote in every country’s elections and, even where we do get to vote, we must accept that such votes are determined by votes that we may lose, having to bear the consequences with everyone else – the good and the bad – until the next election. Mount your case for dismantling either democracy or nation-states if you wish (ironically, bringing you closer to Trumpian politics than you might care to admit), but recognise that is the case you are then making at that point. Not a case I would want to make or endorse.

Second, on the issue at hand, Trump was clearly making a joke. If the most you have against that is that it is unstatesmanlike (a view to which I am sympathetic), but you are not advocating the total dismantling of democracy or nation-states, you may choose not to vote for him next time round (or given the fact he cannot constitutionally run again as it stands, any of those who have supported him). But at the end of the day, this was a joke. As one of those (probably) hostile witnesses, even I can see it was not intended maliciously. Nor is it the worst example of unstatesmanlike behaviour. It is hardly worth all the furore.

Third, I suspect the joke was more a play on the suggestion by some that Trump is a power-hungry, megalomaniacal dictator (or aspires to it and admires those who very much are). I won’t pass comment on the validity of that here. What is significant is that I suspect he posted this as a joke riffing on that suggestion. What is more, I suspect he knew full well it would light the red touch paper. His supporters would lap it up and it would send his detractors into a frenzy. If that is the case, it is hard to say that hasn’t been borne out.

Fourth, Trump is hardly the first person to make a joke like this. For one, I highly doubt if he hadn’t done it, that someone somewhere on the internet wouldn’t have done so. It is entirely possible that Trump didn’t make it himself, just reposted the picture. That aside, he is not the first person to be depicted this way and he almost certainly won’t be the last. Actors and comedians have all dressed up as the pope before; Dave Allen used to make a regular thing of it! Nobody cares in these situations. Again, we may fall back onto arguments about appropriateness given the office. Again, I would refer you to the points above that all hold if that is the main concern.

So why does any of this matter? I can’t help but feel this all smacks of well used distraction techniques. When everybody is up in arms about a much less significant thing over here, they are not paying attention to the very serious things going on unscrutinised over there. If we can focus everybody’s attention on the appropriateness or otherwise of a little joke, they might not be focused on the more troubling moves toward international annexations, setting aside constitutional matters in order to remain in office, failing radical tariff policies, obtuse and dangerous approaches to developing geopolitical situations and the rest. What is frustrating is many seem quite willing to jump all over the minor subjective offence – a matter on which the President is actually on reasonably solid ground – which moves the focus away from areas that should be deeply troubling and concerning.

My reason for raising this is because I think there are two parallel lessons we can learn here for the church. There is an external application of this and an internal one. The external application is the more direct parallel; the internal application is of the same order but slightly different.

The external application here concerns what exercises Christians in the world. What are the things that make us mad and what are the things we are going to devote our time to campaign on and pushing against? Christians will inevitably differ on where the lines fall here. But it is my personal observation that we frequently get exercised about things in the public eye that really don’t matter all that much – or rather are tolerable matters of freedom within our Christian principle for the world, even if we don’t agree with the matter at hand – and we can be much more reticent to raise our voices over matters that are more significant. The only people with a firm get-out clause here are the quietists who, on principle, refuse to raise their voices on anything political or cultural whatsoever. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of that position, it is nevertheless consistent to simply say nothing about any of these things. We so frequently get distracted from what is really important.

Second, there is an internal matter. There are all manner or things that go on in churches. Some of those things we will like, a fair number of them we may not. It is very easy to get distracted, even to become highly focused on, side-issues and matters that – whilst not how we would have them and not exactly what we would hope them to be – are not primary or significant matters of any concern. Over-focusing on these things can cause us to miss much bigger matters that may be significant and, simultaneously, lead to friction as we are unable to hold our peace on issues many others will find fringe concerns at best.

That is not to say what everybody considers a fringe matter is fringe (as I previously noted here). But it is to say, there are things we may not like that have little problematic outworking. We not think them the best, or even necessarily right, but they have little to no consequence in the grand scheme of things. There are other things that we may not like that, if we do not sort them out, have significant potential to cause problems for us and for the consequences to be really quite serious. Figuring out which are which is a matter of wisdom and not a little difficult much of the time. Nevertheless, figuring which is which is vital because it will stop us railing against minor issues and matters of preference of little significance and stop us from being distracting from addressing the genuinely serious issues that, if left unchecked, really might lead to ruin. Again, we so frequently get distracted from what is really important.

Just as outrage over Trump’s papal picture distracts from much more serious concerns, which in the grand scheme of things doesn’t really affect anybody and is (at worst) unbecoming of the office, so the church is frequently distracted from what really matters. We can easily get ourselves twisted up over some minutiae that has limited impact on the gospel, ministry and church itself whilst overlooking much more serious matters and relegating them to ‘secondary issues’ as if they aren’t of any great import. The lesson here, as I judge it, is to ensure the main thing, and the more important things, remain in their proper place and we don’t let ourselves get distracted by minor inconveniences, preferences and non-issues.