It's become a matter of course for white, Evangelical Christians in the United States to equate being Evangelical with being Republican. I first heard that rhetoric in college, just before the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan. Prior to that election cycle, most white Evangelicals were already Republican, largely because of their anti-abortion position, and because white, Evangelical Christian churches were one of the last bastions of bigotry and segregation in the country, something that existed just below the surface of Republican politics.
President Jimmy Carter was in the White House at the time. Carter never wore his Evangelical faith on his sleeve, or used it as a club to beat people over the head and demand that they listen to him, and he had such respect for the constitutional guarantee of a free conscience that set the church free to follow its conscience that he would not use his own Christian beliefs as a way to coerce others into sharing the same opinion. And that meant that he would not take any steps to appoint judges to overturn the Roe versus Wade decision. His greatest foreign policy decision was to negotiate the Camp David Accords, between Israel and Egypt, ending decades of war between the two countries. That angered some of the big shots who were self-proclaimed leaders among conservative Evangelicals.
So, as the election approached in 1980, several of these leaders, most notably Jerry Falwell, pastor of the giant Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia and weekly television preacher for "The Old Time Gospel Hour," and a Baptist evangelist by the name of James Robison, who preached revivals in Baptist churches, decided to see if they couldn't push the number of voting Evangelicals up to new heights while at the same time using their influence to endorse Ronald Reagan.
Personally, I believe this was the tipping point, when Evangelicals, who claimed that American society was becoming increasingly secular, as "blue laws" vanished, Sunday became another day on the calendar to enjoy the weekend, and the country was "straying away from God, toward his wrathful judgment," decided to turn to secular politics to enforce their social agenda. I heard that from the pulpit of the church in which I grew up, more than once. Unable to admit that it might be their own way of doing things, and their own approach to Christian faith that communicated a lack of relevance in people's lives, they decided to wage the culture war in the political arena.
So they endorsed a completely secular, unchurched, non-Christian follower of the New Age movement, a former "B" actor from the Hollywood film industry, the institution on which they placed the most blame for America's drift away from God and into secular humanism, over a lifelong, "born again," Georgia Southern Baptist who was, out of all of those who had served in the White House up to that time, the most sincere, faithful, openly practicing Christian since the constitution was ratified.
And it has gone downhill from there.
Christianity Has Been Hijacked by Right Wing Trump Extremism
There is no doubt about it, conservative, Evangelical Christianity in America has been hijacked by right wing extremist politics. What made Falwell and Robison, along with Pat Robertson, a televangelist whose program, The 700 Club, mimicked television news, angry at President Carter and pushed them to the GOP was his perspective on abortion rights. They wanted all Christians to accept their interpretation and ideology when it came to this specific social issue.
Former President Jimmy Carter provides perhaps the single best example of an Evangelical Christian who served in the White House who was able not only to balance differences between his personal convictions and a political perspective that recognized the rights of all citizens, but which advocated and promoted Christian values in issues such as racial discrimination, women's rights and social justice reforms that are consistent with the core values of the Christian gospel preached and taught by Jesus and his apostles.
Carter was personally opposed to any kind of abortion, for any reason, but he did not oppose it politically, because he saw that a majority of Americans did not hold the belief that life began at conception, that it was a religious belief entirely, and even though it was not something he would approve or advise, Americans who did not hold similar religious beliefs had the right to access something they themselves did not see as wrong for the culture and nation.
It is, in fact, a religious liberty issue as the concepts and beliefs which have led to a determination that life begins at conception are of an exclusively religious perspective, and when applied as restrictions on abortion rights, constitutes an "establishment" of religion, which is unconstitutional. Evangelicals, however, are not inclined to consider the rights of non-Christians in a constitutional democracy as equal, or of Christians who hold a different perspective, and for whom a candidate's position on abortion is not the only qualification for their vote.
The intrusion of right wing politics into Evangelical churches and denomination has brought about a revival of the ideology of Christian nationalism, which started radicalizing conservative Christians back in the 1980's, and which now has become the predominant political perspective of a majority of conservative, Evangelical Christians. Trump has simply turned the art of trading political favors to Christian nationalists as a matter of political course. And in exchange for their votes, they have been quite willing to give up not only their core theological and doctrinal beliefs and practices, but their integrity and their morality, on which the credibility of their faith is built.
When the principles and values of the Christian gospel, drawn from the biblical text, are laid out and promoted, most conservative Christians dismiss them as "liberal talking points." Gone are the claims from conservative Evangelical leaders that "character matters most" when choosing who to vote for as a Christian in a constitutional democracy. Those standards were reserved only for Bill Clinton when he was running for President and when adultery, or the hint of adultery, and lying to cover it up, were virtually unforgiveable sins as far as right wing conservative Christians were concerned. They have become hypocrites in not applying those same standards to Trump, who has made a point of denying anything resembling a conversion experience to Christianity, insisting he has done nothing for which he must ask God's forgiveness.
They have also become hypocrites in their complete abandonment of the core values of the Christian gospel in order to gain political power by riding on Trump's coattails. Doctrine and the interpretation of the Bible has changed to accommodate the justification of behavior and activity that is decidedly un-Christian and un-patriotic on the part of Trump-supporting Evangelicals.
There is a Biblical Warning About Such Political Intrusions Into the Church
Jude, who was one of Jesus' twelve apostles, and who was very likely the son of Joseph and Mary, making him a half-brother of Jesus, wrote an epistle to the church about the danger of philosophical intrusions into the Christian community of the church that had the potential to change their doctrine and alter their practice in a way that led to apostasy. Jude's words are not a direct prophecy referring to what is happening to conservative Evangelicals who have embraced the heresy of Trumpism, but they are definitely a prophetic warning and an accurate description of what is now occurring among American conservative Evangelical churches.
"For certain intruders have stolen in among you, he writes, "people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." [Jude v. 4]
We've seen this perversion, not only in Evangelical leadership ignoring Trump's immoral lifestyle, his perpetual, pathological lying, and his open denial of the Christian conversion experience in favor of his own view of who God is, but in the fact that many Christians have made Trump into an idol of their worship, according characteristics to him that he doesn't exhibit, and making him the object of their loyalty in a false and deceptive way. Trumpism has also brought about a definite perversion of the Christian gospel, openly proclaiming that principles which Jesus taught as the core beliefs of the Christian faith, such as turning the other cheek, "have gotten us nowhere," according to one of his surrogates, Donald Trump Jr., at a Turning Point rally in Arizona last spring.
Jesus never intended for the church to be supported by a political state, in which all of the leaders adhered to the Christian gospel and conversion was required for citizenship. Much of the history of the Christian church, from about 300 A.D. right up to the American Revolution, is of the repeated failed attempts of the church to establish itself in the same way that ancient Israel did in the Old Testament, as a covenant theocracy. Not only is there not one jot or tittle of scripture to support this idea, but we have more than ten centuries of brutal bloodshed and war that testify to the fact it was the wrong thing to do.
So it is quite encouraging to see groups forming, like "Evangelicals for Harris." It is a demonstration of true democracy, and it shows that it is possible for people to disagree on some social issues, and on some interpretations of the Bible, and still give reasonable discernment to their choice of a candidate for office. Personally, I find it easier to support a candidate like Harris, who is working to protect rights that are in danger, and boost the economic prosperity of Americans, than Trump, whose main talking point involves giving tax breaks to billionaires, and who keeps lying about the 2020 election he lost, and who, by his own bad choices and foolish behavior, has managed to be indicted for over 80 felonies and convicted, so far, of 34.
It's hard for me to see how someone who understands, and practices, the values of the Christian gospel, could ever support, and vote, for someone like Donald Trump, or J. D. Vance.
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