One of the troubling aspect of today’s politics is how it has corrupted evangelicalism.
Trump evangelicals are being openly disingenuous about why they voted the way they did, and why they still support him.
They want people to believe they support Trump on the basis of their moral principles rooted in their faith as Christians.
Sadly, it’s just not true, and they continue to prove it, as they did in an article in Sunday’s New York Times written by Michael Tackett entitled, “White Evangelical Women, Core Supporters of Trump, Begin Tiptoeing Away.”
Actually, the headline is a bit misleading. It is true that support for Trump among white evangelical women has dropped slightly from 73% to 60% (Pew Research Center), but most of the article is about why the 60% still support him.
“Certainly we are all embarrassed,” said an evangelical named Linda Leonhart from Dallas, “but for the most part he represents what we stand for.”
That statement is enough to gag anyone who knows anything about Christianity or Donald Trump, but let’s take it at face value. Trump represents what this woman and others interviewed for the article stand for.
What they mean by that is that they support his appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court which has given them hope that Roe v. Wade might one day be overturned, especially if Trump gets another appointment.
What’s strange about this rationale for supporting Trump is that before the 2016 election, virtually no evangelical said abortion was a major influence in determining how they would vote.
In a survey conducted by LifeWay Research in Nashville, a conservative polling group, evangelical voters cited the economy (30 percent) and national security (26 percent) as the top two reasons for supporting Trump. Abortion was named by only 4 percent of them.
Now it is the primary reason evangelicals remain “Mr. Trump’s most cohesive block of support” (Tackett, Times article).
He makes them cringe, the women in the article said. They are turned off by his “pettiness, impulsiveness, profanity, and name calling,” but they still support him.
For moral reasons? Not a chance.
One of the women named Carol Rains spilled the beans unwittingly about the real reason she and other evangelical women continue to support Trump.
It’s because he is a Republican.
“I would like for someone to challenge him,” Raines said, “but it needs to be somebody that’s strong enough to go against the Democrats.”
In other words, she and the other evangelical women would prefer someone other than Trump, but Tackett said that based on what they told him, at the end of the day they will vote for Trump over any Democrat he might run against.
So if you know anyone who is still wondering how evangelicals can continue to support Donald Trump, tell them they can stop, that the answer is the same as it was before he was elected.
Evangelicals are Republicans before they are Christian.
That was precisely the conclusion I reached when I researched my book, Evangelicalism and the Decline of American Politics.
One example I cited was a survey that was taken a year before the 2016 election. It asked the top one hundred evangelical leaders in the country who they would support as a potential presidential candidate.
Not one of them named a Democrat. Every name they gave was a Republican.
So the cat’s out of the bag when it comes to why evangelicals support Donald Trump. It’s because they are Republicans before they are anything else.
No wonder Linda Leonhart from Dallas said in the Times article that “for the most part [Trump} represents what we stand for.”
What evangelicals stand for is being Republicans. Nothing wrong with that. It’s their right. What is wrong, and disingenuous, is not admitting they are motivated by politics, not moral convictions.
The long and short of why evangelicals vote the way they do is that that they have Republicanized Christianity, as if they are one and the same.
That is troubling, deeply troubling, not least because it makes me wonder if by the time this period in our history is over, Christianity in America will have any credibility at all.
linnposts.com 
I have a few Republican acquaintances that, when asked about their continued support of Trump, say they would never vote for a Democrat. Some claim to be Christian, some have no religious affiliation. That tells me some “Christians” are more Republican than Christian — just as you conclude. Thanks, Jan, for cutting through the fog and stating the truth about the state of our nation’s political life. We can only hope we come to our senses in the next election.
Rollie, I hope people who want to give evangelicals the benefit of the doubt will see their politics comes before their faith.
Thank you, Jim. I too, read the article cited and was struck by how few named abortion as a motivating issue for them. Sadly, I think your conclusion is correct.
Thanks. I assume you mean Jan. The article’s focus was one thing, but for me it turned out to be quite revealing in an entirely different way.
It seems to me that Christianity has become a lable some people use to make themselves feel virtuous but has no part in the way they conduct their lives. It no longer informs their view of the world and their conduct in mundane events. Christianity has become irrelevant, but they keep up a loud pretense. Macbeth’s observation on the meaning of life upon his wife’s death comes to mind: (apologies for the adaptation). Politics is a tale “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Reluctantly cynical,
Gene
Gene, if you are cynical, even if reluctantly, then so am I because I think you describe the state of Christianity and our politics quite accurately. Never thought we would see either in the condition they are now in. It is not easy to admit the truth about what we have become. Thank you for telling the truth.
Heading out to Oregon for a week to be with Nolan’s ” Christian Republican” or ” Republican Christian” family. I will take some of my own surveys and apply your theory to how their loyalty to this Anti-Christ Monster in the WH will engage them again in 2018 or NOT.
Dixcy, just remember that you cannot take out of a person’s mind with reason what reason didn’t put into it in the first place. And, as Sheldon Vanauken at LC used to tell me whenever I got ready to leave after visiting with him, go with God.
Love your essays, Jan. Your articles are “spot on”.