Tensions grow between Trump and a crucial voting bloc: ex-evangelical leader

Erika Kirk with U.S. President Donald Trump in Glendale, Arizona, U.S., September 21, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole

In the past, the Rev. Rob Schenck was a prominent figure on the Religious Right, tirelessly railing against abortion and lobbying the federal courts to embrace Christian nationalist positions. But along the way, Schenck, an evangelical Protestant, grew disenchanted with the Religious Right and Christian nationalism as well as the anti-abortion movement. And organizations like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council no longer considered him a champion of their cause — especially in light of his vehement criticism of President Donald Trump.

In a lengthy article published by Mother Jones on April 29, Schenck takes a look at evangelicals who are now rethinking their support of the president.

"If Donald Trump is remembered for anything," Schenck observes, "it may be as a war president: His enemies so far have included migrants, trade, Venezuela, Iran, maybe Cuba — and now religion. His latest full-on assault was against Pope Leo XIV, whom he called 'weak on crime' and a 'very liberal person' who caters to 'the radical left,' accusing the pontiff of wanting Iran to have a nuclear bomb. Trump's verbal attack on the Holy See followed a series of posts that were equally offensive not just to Catholics, but to the full spectrum of Christians. Those posts included a profane Easter-morning missive about Iranian leadership; a day later, a threat to perpetrate genocide against the Iranian people; and, perhaps most offensive of all, an AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like figure performing a miracle."

Schenck continues, "Added to this affront to Christians, as well as believers of other faiths, was Vice President JD Vance's brazen attempt to justify Trump's lambasting of the Pope with a lecture on how the pontiff should speak about moral and spiritual issues."

Trump enjoyed strong support from far-right white evangelicals in 2016, 2020 and 2024, much to the chagrin of his Mainline Protestant and Catholic critics. And Trump still has plenty of white evangelical supporters.

But according to Rev. Schenck, he is going too far even for some of the white evangelicals who have supported him.

Schenck explains, "This escalation in Trump's conflict with religious constituencies comes as a slow but tectonic stress is occurring in his normally unified conservative Christian base…. It remains to be seen whether Trump's latest offenses to conservative Christian sensibilities, not to mention Catholic sentiments when it comes to respect for the Holy Father…. will change right-wing religious voting habits. But the revulsion over Trump's boorishness, the respective anger over Iran and immigration enforcement practices, the charges of blasphemy from several quarters, and the growing number of influential anti-Trump voices may be just enough to deny Trump's political toadies and his eventual MAGA successor the same overwhelming level of evangelical support they've enjoyed to date."

Schenck adds, "After all, the Jesus at the center of all versions of the Christian faith admonished that 'every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.' And that, we can take as gospel."

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