How the 'white evangelical movement' has 'fueled hatreds and grievances': conservative

04 March 2024

Despite the fact that he is facing four criminal indictments — one of which involves alleged hush money payments to an adult film star — former President Donald Trump continues to enjoy widespread support among far-right white evangelicals. Trump has plenty of critics and detractors within Christianity, from Mainline Protestants to Catholics.

But with the 2024 presidential election eight months away, Christian nationalists are rallying around the likely GOP nominee.

Trump has been more than happy to feed white evangelicals' feelings of grievance and bitter tribalism — a tribalism that Never Trump conservative Peter Wehner examines in a scathing article published by The Atlantic on March 3.

"One might reasonably expect that Christians, including white evangelicals, would be a unifying, healing force in American society," Wehner argues. "After all, the apostle Paul wrote that Jesus came to tear down 'the dividing wall of hostility' between groups that held profoundly different beliefs…. Yet in the main, the white evangelical movement has, for decades, exacerbated our divisions, fueled hatreds and grievances, and turned fellow citizens into enemies rather than friends."

The Never Trump conservative adds, "This isn't true of all evangelicals, of course. The movement comprises tens of millions of Americans, many of them good and gracious people who seek to be peacemakers, including in the political realm. They are horrified by the political idolatry we're witnessing and the antipathy and rage that emanate from it. But it is fair to say that this movement that was, at one time, defined by its theological commitments is now largely defined by its partisan ones."

Wehner describes the history of evangelicals in the United States, noting that "fundamentalists" distanced themselves from politics before the rise of the Religious Right and the late Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr.'s Moral Majority in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Along the way, Wehner notes, Falwell and the Rev. Pat Roberson became increasingly conspiracy-minded in their thinking and embraced an us-versus-them mentality that hasn't served them well.

"All of this was happening prior to Donald Trump's appearance on the political stage," Wehner observes. "But it went to a whole new level after he won the Republican nomination and the presidency in 2016. The Religious Right didn't change so much as the person the Religious Right supported for president changed. He ushered in a whole new era. The alliance between the Religious Right and Trump — a nonreligious, thrice-married man who celebrated his infidelities in the tabloids, paid hush money to a porn star, cheated on his taxes, spread conspiracy theories, mocked POWs and people with disabilities, and was found liable for what the judge in the case referred to as rape — seems incongruous. And in some ways, it is."

Wehner adds, "After all, for years, evangelicals insisted that good character was essential in political leaders, and especially in presidents. That was certainly the case when evangelicals lacerated (President Bill) Clinton for his moral failures…. How is it that anger and aggression have become the public face of Christianity, while the many acts of kindness and charity, and the spirit informing those things, are kept under a bushel, largely out of public view? Why do evangelicals consistently show their worst side rather than their most winsome one?"

Peter Wehner's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).

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