'Theological twilight zone': How MAGA Christianity defies the 'teachings of Jesus'

Paula White, senior advisor to the White House Faith Office, gestures while leading a prayer in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 1, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Although President Donald Trump's overall approval ratings are weak, he continues to poll well among his hardcore MAGA base — including far-right white Christian fundamentalist evangelicals. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her allies in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are using Christian nationalist arguments to recruit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, quoting scripture in videos posted on Instagram.

But Never Trump conservative Peter Wehner, in an article published by The Atlantic on January 20, argues that the Trump Administration's militarized ICE raids are inconsistent with traditional "Christian values."

To make his point, Wehner references Tobias Cremer — a member of the European Parliament and author of the 2023 book, "The Godless Crusade."

"Right-wing populists don't view Christianity as a faith; rather, Cremer suggests, they use Christianity as a cultural identity marker of the 'pure people' against external 'others,' while in many cases remaining disconnected from Christian values, beliefs, and institutions," Wehner explains. "Many right-wing populists, despite being secular, are successfully recruiting Christians to their cause. And rather than Christians leavening the secular right-wing movements, those movements are prying Christianity further and further away from the ethic and teachings of Jesus."

Wehner continues, "The Trump Administration has gone one step further, inverting authentic Christian faith by selling, in a dozen different ways, cruelty and the will to power in the name of Jesus. It has welcomed Christians into a theological twilight zone, where the beatitudes are invoked on behalf of a political movement with authoritarian tendencies."

The Never Trump conservative notes that Christianity, over the years, has had "glorious moments" as well as "some very dark turns."

"Huge numbers of American fundamentalists and evangelicals — not just cultural Christians, but also, those who faithfully attend church and Bible-study sessions and prayer gatherings — prefer the MAGA Jesus to the real Jesus," Wehner laments. "Few of them would say so explicitly, though, because the cognitive dissonance would be too unsettling. And so, they have worked hard to construct rationalizations. It's rather remarkable, really, to see tens of millions of Christians validate, to themselves and to one another, a political movement led by a malignant narcissist — who is driven by hate and bent on revenge, who mocks the dead, and who delights in inflicting pain on the powerless."

Wehner adds, "The wreckage to the Christian faith is incalculable, yet most evangelicals will never break with him. They have invested too much of themselves and their identity in Trump and what he stands for. This moment, and what it reveals about American Christianity, will be studied for a long time to come."

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

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