Evangelicals for Trump? It's Not About Religion
Right after his victory in Iowa, where he received 53% of the evangelical and born-again Christian vote, Donald Trump traveled to New York to plead his case — literally. He was in federal court today, where he’ll soon find out how much he’ll have to pay for defaming a woman he’s also been found liable for sexually abusing. You may want to think about that for a moment. And let us remember it’s only January. There are more trials to come starring the leading GOP presidential candidate.
Here’s the quick backstory: Trump has already been found to have sexually abused and defamed columnist E. Jean Carroll. The jury in this current trial is only determining how much Trump will pay in compensatory and punitive damages. The contentious day in court — the judge threatened to toss Trump from the courtroom for his antics — is in sharp contrast to the warm and fuzzy reception he received from Iowa’s Republicans, especially the state’s evangelicals.
It is no secret that Donald Trump is the political choice of white evangelical Christians, albeit a counterintuitive one. He is a three-times married, twice divorced, admitted sexual abuser who is mired in six civil and criminal cases either in court now or headed for trial this year. Not exactly the picture of morality. But to the modern evangelical, that doesn’t seem to matter anymore.
Why this is true remains for many an open question.
Once upon a time, evangelicals believed in the teachings of Jesus Christ, in the moral imperative of helping one’s neighbors, of being a “compassionate conservative.” But we are living in an up-is-down, black-is-white world in which a man who admitted to grabbing women by their genitalia is embraced by one of the largest religious groups in the United States. What accounts for this dichotomy? What accounts for the growth of Trump’s popularity among this group? According to Ruth Graham and Charles Homans of The New York Times, “Today, [EVANGELICAL] is 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.”
They care more about opposing abortion and curtailing LGBTQ+ and minority rights than about the teachings of their savior — the original one. Many see Trump as a modern savior, “rescuing” the country from Democrats, drag queens, and immigrants. Inexplicably, they do see him as a person of faith, more so than any other politician. In a November poll of Republican voters by HarrisX, Trump ranked highest as a person of faith at 64%, higher than profoundly religious former Vice President Mike Pence (56%), higher than Mormon leader Senator Mitt Romney (34%), and significantly higher than weekly church-going Catholic President Joe Biden (13%).
It may not be surprising that the number of evangelicals who regularly attend church has dropped; 40% go to church once a year or less. But that’s against a backdrop of church attendance generally declining among Americans and in Western civilization as a whole.
A group of Trump supporters recently produced a video called “God Made Trump” in which he is depicted as the second coming. It has quickly made its way around the MAGA-sphere.
Perhaps it was Romney who best put this all in perspective. “I think a lot of people in this country are out of touch with reality and will accept anything Donald Trump tells them,” Romney told CNN. “You had a jury that said that Donald Trump raped a woman. And that doesn’t seem to be moving the needle. There’s a lot of things about today’s electorate that I have a hard time understanding.”
So it is with many Americans as we ponder in this election year what our country has become, where it appears to be headed, and why.
As always, we welcome your comments and thoughts.
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Trumps hold over Evangelicals is about cult worship and idolatry. It has zilch to do with anything in Christian teachings.
They would persecute Jesus if he did come to earth. They are very like the Pharisees of the New Testament, in my mind. Misguided and consumed by hatred sowed by their idol.
I no longer call myself a Christian, but I do believe Christ was good man, who taught love and casred for those marginalized by power.
He would not condone what the Evangelicals following Trump profess.
So well put, Mr. Rather. I am disgusted as an Iowan of some 61 years, belonging to the Iowa State University community former UC Berkeley graduate in Chemistry, and a naturalized citizen (1964, Iowa) from the Netherlands.
My parents and I and three younger siblings lived through WWII. We lived and survived rule by the occupying Nazis in our small North Sea village, where my parents risked their lives saving the persecuted Jewish families and their children and sympathizers of Jewish families, Allied airmen shot down over our coastal village, took them in and also starving orphans from Rotterdam or placed them with their friends... yes they harbored 26 adults and children in a fortunate exchange with thd caretakers of the 26 bed sanatorium for our little brick red-tiled home in our village.
And now we have to tolerate on a daily basis a foulmouthed , criminal and corrupt presidential candidate ??? How Christian is that??? How free-world- like democratic-like is that???