Trump Is Poisoning Christianity

There was an interesting news story from earlier today about how Trump is connecting with a different type of Evangelical voter. And these voters are not just the churchgoing, conservative activists who once dominated the G.O.P.

The article is in the New York Times, and I realize that many of you will therefor dismiss it out of hand for that very reason. But here’s why you shouldn’t: The article is not an opinion piece, nor is it making hard-to-substantiate claims based on anonymous sources.

Instead, it is quoting actual Trump supporters, who go on record with how they feel about #45, and what they have to say is eye-opening, indeed. I’ll put a link to the article in the description below, but here are a few quotes that stood out to me.

The article starts out by talking about a woman identified as Karen Johnson, who is 67 years old, and considers herself an evangelical although she no longer goes to church.

Ms. Johnson’s thing includes frequent prayer, she said, as well as podcasts and YouTube channels that discuss politics and “what’s going on in the world” from a right-wing, and sometimes Christian, worldview. No one plays a more central role in her perspective than Donald J. Trump, the man she believes can defeat the Democrats who, she is certain, are destroying the country and bound for hell. “Trump is our David and our Goliath,” Ms. Johnson said.

The article goes on to say:

Evangelical supporters themselves often compare Mr. Trump to the ancient Persian king Cyrus the Great, who freed a population of Jews even though he was not one of them. But religion scholars, drawing on a growing body of data, suggest another explanation: Evangelicals are not exactly who they used to be.

Being evangelical once suggested regular church attendance,a focus on salvation and conversion and strongly held views on specific issues such as abortion. Today, it is as often used to describe a cultural and political identity: one in which Christians are considered a persecuted minority, traditional institutions are viewed skeptically and Mr. Trump looms large.

This is most true among white Americans, who over the course of Mr. Trump’s presidency became more likely to identify as “evangelical,” even as overall rates of church attendance declined. The trend was particularly pronounced among supporters of Mr. Trump: A 2021 Pew Research Center analysis found that white Americans who expressed “warm views” of him were more likely to have begun identifying as evangelical during his presidency than those who did not.

At a recent rally in Waterloo, Iowa, Mr. Trump cast Christians as a broadly persecuted group facing down a government weaponized against them. Catholics are the current target of “the communists, Marxists and fascists”… and adding that “evangelicals will not be far behind.”

There was little sign at the outset of the 2016 Republican primary season that evangelicals would take to Mr. Trump as enthusiastically as they eventually did. When World magazine, an influential Christian publication, surveyed about 100 evangelical leaders in December 2015, none of them named Mr. Trump as their preferred candidate.

But as Mr. Trump gained ground in the early primaries, his growing strength among white evangelical voters became clear. Polls showed that the future nominee was most popular among one group in particular: white evangelicals who seldom or never went to church.

He would also win over white regular churchgoers, a group that leans Republican. But Mr. Trump’s relationship with evangelicals tracked his relationship with the Republican Party. He capitalized on eroding trust and participation in civic institutions and then, as president, remade the institutions in his own image.

Mr. Trump elevated a cohort of obscure evangelical pastors and media figures, who were often outside the theological mainstream but unwavering in their devotion to him. He increasingly championed Christians as a constituency, rather than nodding to their values, as previous presidents had. His rallies took on a tent-revival atmosphere.

“People who love their country and believe in God, but haven’t been typical churchgoers — he’s brought those people into the fold,” said Jackson Lahmeyer, the founder of Pastors for Trump, a national group of church leaders backing the former president.

Mr. Trump himself has become a model for embracing evangelicalism as an identity, not a religious practice. In 2020, he announced he no longer identified as a Presbyterian but as a “nondenominational Christian,” a tradition closely associated with evangelicalism.

He is rarely seen in church, but a poll this fall by HarrisX for The Deseret News found that more than half of Republicans see Mr. Trump as a “person of faith.” That’s more than any other 2024 Republican presidential candidate and substantially more than President Biden, a lifelong Catholic who attends Mass frequently.

“I voted for Trump twice, and I’ll vote for him again,” said Cydney Hatfield, a retired corrections officer in Lohrville, a town of 381 people in Calhoun County. “He’s the only savior I can see.”

At Mr. Trump’s rally in Coralville, it was Joel Tenney, a 27-year-old local evangelist who does not lead a church, who delivered the opening prayer.

The crowd responded tepidly to his impassioned recitation of several Bible verses. But the rallygoers roared to life when he set aside the Scripture and told them what they had come to hear.

“This election is part of a spiritual battle,” Mr. Tenney said. “When Donald Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country.”

More and more Christians are now starting to believe that anyone and everyone who opposes Donald Trump is evil, or treasonous, and that they should pay the ultimate price for this unforgivable sin.

The quotes I just read are simply a microcosm of how Trump has already poisoned the church to be as vengeful – and even as hateful – as he is. And this is just the beginning.

Trump won’t be happy until he has done the same thing to the church as he has already done to the GOP … to remake it in his own image.

Thanks for watching and I’ll be back soon with another video. ♦