“Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power Over Christian Values.”

A new book by a writer and filmmaker with the title used for the heading of this post looks at the growing moral bankruptcy of evangelical Christians in the age of Trump.  The author argues that as long as evangelicals prioritize political power over true Christian behavior and persuasion by charitable actions, their pews will be continue to lose occupants and their national influence will dwindle in the long term. The author perhaps unrealistically argues given the lust for power of those like Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Tony Perkins, that if evangelicals hope to avoid cultural irrelevance in the years to come, they will have to value humility over ego, and resist the seduction of political power, no matter the cost. Nowhere does the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of evangelicals reveal itself more than in their cheering support of the Trump/Pence regime's brutality towards children of undocumented immigrants.  

Frighteningly, I suspect that many evangelicals would look at the image of the crying child above and not feel any remorse for the simple reason that the child is not white. The further irony, of course, is that while these evangelicals want to "take back their country," those against whom they target their hate are the descendants of the the original indigenous populations of the Americas  and who had their lands stolen from them by white European conquest.  Here are highlights from a column in the Washington Post by the author of “Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power Over Christian Values”:

As the debate about how to handle applicants for refugee status at the U.S. southern border gained urgency in recent months, Pew Research Religion waded into the social-media fray on July 7 with a tweet about the results of a poll the organization conducted last year. Pew reported, and online commentators quickly noted, that white evangelical Protestants were the least likely group — amid results sorted by age, race, education and religion — to say that the United States “has a responsibility to accept refugees into the country.” 

Sixty-eight percent of white evangelical Protestants said the country has no responsibility for refugees. No other demographic group came within 10 points of that result.

[S]ome evangelical leaders had been taken aback when the Pew results were originally released in May 2018, and urged their flocks toward change. But back then, the main question about refugees concerned those fleeing the brutal civil war in Syria. “When faced with a potential conflict between prominent evangelicals’ biblical pro-refugee arguments and [President] Trump’s opposition,” Brian Newman of Pepperdine University noted in The Post, “the vast majority of white evangelicals choose Trump.”

A year later, with the focal point on refugees from Central America, in much greater numbers and more likely to be vilified by the president, evangelical leaders are largely as one with their congregations.

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, ventured this observation on Twitter: “The reports of the conditions for migrant children at the border should shock all of our consciences. Those created in the image of God should be treated with dignity and compassion, especially those seeking refuge from violence back home. We can do better than this.”

Moore’s comments didn’t sit well with Jerry Falwell Jr., inheritor of his father’s Christian empire, president of Liberty University and a prominent evangelical figure.

Some were dismayed by Falwell’s response, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone paying attention the past few years who was surprised by it. 

Falwell is one of several leaders in the modern evangelical movement who have helped solidify Christian principles as synonymous with the Republican agenda, and specifically with the [Trump’s] president’s agenda.  Trump, of course, welcomes this way of thinking.

Yet the idea that without Republicans, Christianity is lost, is not unique to the Trump era. The merging of evangelicalism and Republicanism has been underway for decades. It is simply more visible and pronounced under this president — primarily because evangelical support for Trump requires a much higher degree of cognitive dissonance.

That is, fighting for conservative Christian values by unquestioningly supporting someone who not only doesn’t share them but has lived most of his life actively, and unapologetically, in opposition to them. 

Stomaching Trump’s behavior and rhetoric — which could generously be described as not characteristic of a Christian — has been rewarded with much-improved prospects for stricter abortion laws and achieving other long-sought goals in what conservative Christians regard as a desperate and escalating culture war.

The evangelical embrace of Trump has been an electoral positive for the Republican Party, but for those who would evangelize, the new reality is tragic.

[True Christians are] meant to speak the truth in a way that invites strangers in, welcomes them, makes them feel loved.  To care for the least of these is a Christian value. Expressing and demonstrating it is spreading the Word.

That’s called evangelizing. A movement that based itself on the term but now embraces its antithesis is becoming difficult to recognize.

Yes, there are good Christians, but until they loudly and continually condemn evangelicals on a daily basis, they are allowing evangelicals to be the face of Christianity and the result is the exodus of people, especially among younger generations, from religion entirely.  Meanwhile, being a Trump supporter and a true Christian are mutually exclusive.