The Problem With Political Evangelical Christianity

But for evangelical and "conservative Christians' America and the world might have avoided the toxicity of the Felon's two terms in the White House.  No group has been more loyal in its support of the Felon despite his embodiment of evil, cruelty and immorality.  I have long argued that evangelicals and "conservative Christians" would ultimately what killed the Christian brand and a new poll reflects this: 48 percent of Gen Z adults surveyed said that Christians’ support for Trump made them less likely to want to attend church. Instead of being positive witnesses for Christianity they have become models of hypocrisy and loathing towards others as they support a man no one truly moral should support. Part of the Felon's appeal has been that he has played to the persecution complex of these "Christians" who see any restraint on their ability to force their beliefs on others or their ability to discriminate and harm others as "religious persecution."  The Felon promised to protect them and to work against those they dislike: gays, blacks, non-Christians and anyone else they dislike.  In exchange, they close their eyes to the Felon's immorality and support Republican reverse Robin Hood policies that are the antithesis to Christ's gospel message. A column in the New York Times looks at the damage being done to the Christian brand: 

[The Felon's] Trump’s presidencies are the evangelical church’s unwanted gift to America.

You don’t have to rehash all the events of the last decade to make that case. A single statistic tells the tale: In 2024, Trump received 82 percent of the white evangelical/born again vote. He lost the rest of the vote by a whopping 18-point margin, 58 percent to 40 percent.

And while their support for Trump is declining, white evangelicals are still Trump’s most loyal religious supporters. . . . . And this brings me to perhaps the least shocking statistic in America. The Billy Graham Center Research Institute at Wheaton College in Illinois recently released polling data showing that almost half — 48 percent — of Gen Z adults surveyed said that Christians’ support for Trump made them less likely to want to attend church, at least to some degree.

Actions have consequences. And one of those consequences is that a church that wraps its arms around arguably the most vulgar, most corrupt president in American history will repel good people, especially those people who’ve encountered MAGA’s claws.

That reality is reflected in the stark partisan divide in the Graham Center’s numbers. Two-thirds of Democrats said Christian support for Trump made them less likely to want to go to church. And 42 percent of independents were inclined to agree. I was a bit surprised to see that one in four Republicans was also put off from church by Christian support for Trump.

This is a finding that should trigger soul-searching among American evangelicals. . . . . it’s worth pondering whether the decision to so loyally support a man like Trump is worth actively repelling millions upon millions of Americans from church.  But I’m not holding my breath.

Last week the popular Christian podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey hosted two Christian apologists, Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle, to discuss the survey and its findings. Cliffe Knechtle’s and Stuckey’s different responses were almost perfect encapsulations of the different ways that evangelicals approach the political challenges of the moment.

First, Cliffe Knechtle, the senior pastor of Grace Community Church in New Canaan, Conn., . . . If Christians tie themselves too closely to any politician or party, that’s our fault. . . . . At the same time, no political party embodies Christianity, and while you can certainly argue as to whether any given party or given politician is more Christian in its platform or his personal conduct, God doesn’t have a party. And the effort to marry God to a political party will harm the church.

Stuckey had a different take, one that I’ve heard more often in the age of Trump. She questioned whether revulsion at Trump was the real reason people are retreating from church. In reality, Stuckey argued, “We don’t want to see our sin because it’s hard.” . . . I absolutely believe that people can be uncomfortable in church because of their own sin.

But that’s not what’s happening here. When many young people look at the church’s embrace of Trump, they’re not rejecting the church because it’s too moral. They’re rejecting it because they see the church’s immorality. They see its fear and moral compromise.

In other words, they don’t reject church because they’re afraid to shed their sin and become better people. They’re rejecting the church because they refuse to embrace sin and become, well, worse people. . . . We’ve seen the conduct of so very many Christians in the MAGA movement — we’ve seen their cruelty, their dishonesty and their racism.

If Christ says that we will know people by their fruits — by their character and actions — then what kind of fruits do you see in Trumpism? . . . . “The problem now is not that people think the church’s way of life is too demanding, too morally rigorous, but that they have come to think the church doesn’t believe its own moral teachings.”

The result is a sealed moral environment. First, there isn’t a single Christian I know who would admit to making politics his or her religion. Instead, all of them would argue that they voted for Trump because of their religion. Their politics flows from their theology, they’d say, and not the other way around.

But this means that many Christians then interpret an attack on their politics as an attack on their religion. If you’re angry at the choices you make because I’m a Christian, then you must also be angry at my Christianity. . . . . the very fact that Christians face criticism for supporting Trump becomes a perverse form of confirmation that they were correct. After all, they’re getting “persecuted.”

This self-conception, however, collides with reality. It turns out there is a lot of evidence that for many evangelicals, their faith flows from their politics, not vice versa. . . . Evangelicals are less churchgoing and more partisan. When you read the words and watch the conduct of MAGA Christians online, it can seem as if the church is more influenced by Trump than the church influences Trump. When it comes to politics, he’s the evangelical pope.

When Stuckey said, “We don’t want to see our sin because it’s hard,” she was correct. But in this instance, the community most unwilling to see its sin is in the Christian church. The sin lives in the people who allowed fear and anger to swallow their commitment to truth and character.

Now the entire world lives with the consequences of the choices they made.