The columnist Cal Thomas recently asked Trump, “Who do you say Jesus is?” Trump replied:

Jesus to me is somebody I can think about for security and confidence. Somebody I can revere in terms of bravery and in terms of courage and, because I consider the Christian religion so important, somebody I can totally rely on in my own mind.

Trump’s emphasis on Jesus’s bravery and courage may not resonate with every believing Christian, but it draws on a century-old tradition of Muscular Christianity. Its 19th-century advocates worried about the feminizing influences of urban civilization, and sought security and confidence in a religion that would be strong, vigorous, manly. A Christianity for winners.

One of its greatest champions was a Manhattan-based businessman, who rose to national prominence by virtue of his mastery of media and his knack for salesmanship: Bruce Barton. As a boy, Barton later recalled, he’d been unsettled by his Sunday school lessons, which offered brave, manly heroes like David and Daniel:

But Jesus! Jesus was the “lamb of God.” The little boy did not know what that meant, but it sounded like Mary’s little lamb. Something for girls—sissified. Jesus was also “meek and lowly,” a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” He went around for three years telling people not to do things.

Years later, after Barton built a successful career as a pioneer of the advertising industry, selling Americans things they’d never known they needed—he’s the second B in BBDO—he thought again about that contrast:

He said to himself: “Only strong magnetic men inspire great enthusiasm and build great organizations. Yet Jesus built the greatest organization of all. It is extraordinary.”

So he reopened the Gospels, and confessed himself startled by what he found. (Barton’s readers might be equally startled.)

A physical weakling! Where did they get that idea? Jesus pushed a plane and swung an adze; he was a successful carpenter. He slept outdoors and spent his days walking around his favorite lake. His muscles were so strong that when he drove the money-changers out, nobody dared to oppose him! A kill-joy! He was the most popular dinner guest in Jerusalem! The criticism which proper people made was that he spent too much time with publicans and sinners (very good fellows, on the whole, the man thought) and enjoyed society too much. They called him a “wine bibber and a gluttonous man.” A failure! He picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organization that conquered the world. When the man had finished his reading he exclaimed, “This is a man nobody knows!” “Some day,” said he, “someone will write a book about Jesus. Every businessman will read it and send it to his partners and his salesmen. For it will tell the story of the founder of modern business.”

Barton wrote that book. The Man Nobody Knows became an instant bestseller, moving a quarter-million copies by 1926. It was, like The Art of the Deal, an inspirational success manual. And it’s hard to miss the echoes in the language the two authors employed, or in the ideals they chose to exalt.