Why the Christian right worships Donald Trump
Trump seemed to ponder this deeply. For much of his political run, the thrice-married, swindling, profane, materialistic, self-styled playboy had appealed mainly to the more fringe elements of Christianity, a ragtag group of prosperity gospelers , Christian dominionists , and charismatic or Pentecostal outliers . Considering their extreme views, these folks had an alarming number of followers, but certainly nothing of voting-bloc magnitude.
“What a group of people!” Trump exclaimed when he entered. “This is serious power. Fantastic. I don’t even know if I’ve ever seen this.” “As long as you don’t refer to the baby Jesus as a ‘he,’ ” an attendee joked. “His preferred gender pronoun that day, that’s what you have to use.” Politics is a transactional game, and presidents don’t need to be moral to be effective. While much has been made of the hypocrisy of Trump’s Christian supporters, these “values voters” who’d once gone apoplectic over Bill Clinton’s indiscretions and now capitulated to the most immoral president in living memory, the meeting at Trump Tower shows the logical framing of the argument that would lead a certain type of Christian to vote for Trump.
It’s a concept that has long animated Christians, and explains why church history is littered with movements and leaders who have tried to hold America accountable to its theoretical ideals. Before the Civil War, Christian abolitionists fought not just for the end of slavery but also for prison reform and humane treatment of the mentally disabled, while Wheaton College — the so-called Harvard of Christian schools — served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.
As it turned out, Graham’s brand of engaged evangelicalism hit a sweet spot. In 1920, 43 percent of Americans were members of a church; by 1960, that figure had jumped to 63 percent. In 1976, the year that evangelical Sunday school teacher Jimmy Carter was elected president, fundamentalist pastor Jerry Falwell decided it was time to stoop to worldly matters and go on a series of “I Love America” rallies across the country to decry the decline of American morality.
Zooming out, that cleaving was by design: It created a powerful us-versus-them mentality that mobilized the Christian base fiscally and politically. We were Christian soldiers, and the weapons we had were our votes and our tithes. “The persecution trope is a hell of a fundraising pitch,” says Charles Marsh, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia.
Not everyone capitulated. There were still those who balked at the idea of stumping for a man who famously referred to the biblical book Second Corinthians as “Two Corinthians,” and who once opined that he had never had the need to ask God for forgiveness.
The frustration certain Christians have over the Republican Party’s stranglehold on our faith deeply troubles Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has consistently pushed back on the notion that Republican policies are inherently Christian.
In that sense, the victimization certain Christians feel is very real. “I believe that Christians are being targeted by the gay and lesbian movement,” Franklin Graham tells me. “We’re not targeting them. I’m not targeting them.” Metaxas, the radio host who was at the September 29th meeting, agrees.
In a journalism career that has spanned 15 years, I have never struggled with an article so much as I have with this one, and it’s because I know my beliefs could hurt my family. I know the points I make here might hurt them — not because they care what other people think, but because they care about my salvation. They’ll see this article as proof of my blindness to the truth. They’ll see my faith as a lack of certainty — and for them, the stakes are too high for that.
“I don’t think he’s godly, Alex,” my aunt tells me. “I just think he stands up for Christians. Trump’s a fighter. He’s done more for the Christian right than Reagan or Bush. I’m just so thankful we’ve got somebody that’s saying Christians have rights too.”
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