There are a lot of discussions in political and even religious circles these days about whether the marriage between Donald Trump and evangelical Christians is officially over. Prominent evangelical leaders are backing away from Trump heading into the 2024 campaign, and Trump is openly disparaging them. I know that's an exciting prospect to many on the left but I promise you: This relationship is not over. The truth is that Trump's evangelical voters love him, and that love is not going away.

This article first appeared in Salon.

It is entirely true that the Republican establishment does not want Trump to win the nomination this time around, and the foremost evangelical leaders probably don't want him either. Gov. Ron DeSantis is the guy they want. He is seen as a solid politician with plenty of charisma and "Christian values," and he loves cruel political theater, like sending planeloads of Latin American migrants to Martha's Vineyard. The problem is that Republican leaders and evangelical pastors only get one vote apiece during the GOP primary season. It's actual Republican voters who will decide.

Remember that when Trump first ran in 2015, almost no evangelical leaders lined up behind him. The Republican establishment probably wanted Jeb Bush to win the nomination, and a number of evangelical leaders preferred Sen. Ted Cruz, who was seen as one of their own. Only after Trump started winning primaries one after another did the evangelical leadership start to get behind him. It was the people that wanted Trump, not any leadership group. Hell, back then there were plenty of Democrats who tried to elevate Trump as the Republican nominee, believing he would lose easily to Hillary Clinton.

At this point, Donald Trump is perceived by the GOP establishment as a three-time loser. In 2018, 2020 and 2022, he was essentially rejected by this country as a whole. But you may have noticed that the primary season is not about the whole country, and on the Republican side it's about the true believers and right-wing activists who are highly motivated to vote. As I see it, most of those people still prefer Trump over DeSantis. Once Trump really starts campaigning, we'll see the polling numbers favor him even more than they do now.

That's equally true for evangelical voters, if not more so. Most of them still love Trump and will show up in large numbers to make sure he wins the nomination. When that happens, suddenly all these evangelical pastors will start talking about what a great president Trump was, and how great he will be again. It's obvious that nearly all Republicans will support him rather than betray their own party, whatever private misgivings they may feel.

Understand that pollsters have never quite been able to predict the voting patterns of evangelicals. These simply are not the type of people who will answer the phone or be honest with some pollster. We have to assume that Trump's 80% support among evangelicals will remain intact as long as he's alive and keeps on running for president. Quite frankly, this is a case of reaping what you sow: Evangelical leaders spent so much time and energy convincing their followers that Trump was the chosen man of God, and they can't take that back so easily.

The relationship between Trump and his evangelical followers is true love, although it pretty much runs in one direction. Sometimes when you love someone that much, you end up staying with them no matter how they treat you. We've all seen it happen. Trump is the equivalent of an abusive, neglectful and hopelessly selfish partner. One of the biggest problems we face in life is that sometimes we love the wrong person.

Democrats have two options to combat this issue. They can simply ignore it, betting that the larger voting public outnumbers the evangelical base and that Trump's window of possibility for winning national elections has closed. I certainly hope that is true. The second option is to recognize that Trump really could win again and do everything to avoid that, by trying to connect to those evangelical voters who may be questioning their loyalty to this abusive boyfriend.

Reaching at least some of those evangelicals can be done. It is not true that the entire 80 percent is head over heels in love with the guy. Many are working families desperate to give a better life to their children. If the left can speak the language of the blue-collar everyday American, without being superior or condescending, some of those voters can be won over. Not so much by specifically targeting evangelicals as by talking to them about issues that unite us all.

Remember that there was a significant chunk of the electorate who voted for Barack Obama twice and then for Trump, and a whole lot of those people were evangelical Christians. At least some of those working-class Trump voters, according to polling at the time, might have been willing to support Bernie Sanders. It's crucial to remember that the voting public is not as predictable as many observers believe, a lesson we learned again in the 2022 midterms. People are complicated, and so are the reasons that drive their votes.

The relationship between Trump and his evangelical followers is true love. But sometimes when you love someone that much, you end up staying with them even when they're abusive, neglectful and hopelessly selfish.

But the hard truth here, which we all have to face, is that the marriage between evangelical voters and Donald Trump is far from over. The leadership will come around once Trump starts winning primaries again. They might not like it but they will support him in the end. My own opinion is that because of this hidden strength among evangelicals, Trump is still capable of winning a national election, and that Democrats must at least attempt to reach a few evangelical voters who feel uncomfortable with him.

Of course it's true that evangelicals generally hold views about abortion and the LGBTQ community that are completely unacceptable to Democrats. I'm not suggesting there's some middle ground on those issues, only that evangelical leaders care about a lot more about those things than ordinary evangelical voters do. They mostly care about taking care of their families and paying the bills, like everybody else. Liberals and progressives can do a much better job at communicating to all voters that Democratic policies on health care and the economy will benefit most Americans in a real and measurable way, while Republican policies are actively harmful.

America is in a very difficult place, but I pray that people begin to understand that our country is not the same as its political leadership. Years ago I had the great privilege of hearing the brilliant poet Maya Angelou speak in person. She told us over and over again that we are all much more similar than we are different, and that we should respect that everyone has a story to tell and veryone deserves to be heard. We all want to be loved, and to love. We all want a better life for our children, to grow old with dignity, and to have a job with value and purpose. Those who voted for Trump or for Bernie or for Obama are not as different as many believe — and sometimes are the very same people. If we can accept that, then just maybe America can finally rid itself of one of the most unhealthy and damaged people ever to enter the political world. Then perhaps evangelicals will finally break it off with their abusive, neglectful and narcissistic boyfriend.

Perception is not reality. I know many people who are more obsessed with how they are perceived than with actually being the person they are claiming to be. The political world is no different. Many of today's evangelical Republicans desire the perception of wanting a "Christian nation," but without any intention of ever creating a truly Christian nation.

A genuinely Christian America would be forced to do some things that most evangelicals will never be on board with. Following the teachings of Christ would make certain demands upon our society that these evangelicals would vehemently fight against.

On immigration, the teachings of Jesus would demand that every foreigner residing in this country would be given citizenship. When I was a teacher, I remember one student who came in on a Monday morning and told the story of watching her uncle being dragged out of their car by INS officials. They never saw him again. This student was constantly scared that her father would just disappear in the same way. A Christian nation would never do such things, and instead would welcome all foreigners.

On health care, Jesus was clear about the importance of healing the sick, as is the rest of the Bible. I don't think he would ever turn anyone away for lack of money. I recently visited a friend of mine, a 70-year-old man who is physically disabled and currently lived in a nursing home that is understaffed and underfunded. My friend is regularly neglected while he and the rest of the patients live in filth and wait for death. It costs my friend $16,000 a month for that level of care. A Christian nation would never tolerate any of that.

It seemed that every other room at this nursing home had a sign outside the door that stated that the patient inside was a veteran. These men and women who served their country are now ignored and abandoned. A Christian nation would treat those who have served with love and tenderness. It would care for the sick and the elderly, and turn no one away.

When it comes to the military-industrial complex, to use President Eisenhower's famous phrase, I feel confident that Jesus would not be impressed with all these bombs, guns, missiles and tanks, or with the billions of dollars being spent so we can murder the so-called evildoers. A Christian nation would value peace as its first priority. Jesus spoke of turning the other cheek and loving our enemies. That is never an easy thing to manage, but I think it becomes much harder if you destroy an entire neighborhood with bombs in an effort to kill one supposed terrorist. A Christian nation would abhor violence. The Christian way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy without a gun.

On the educational system: I went to high school in a wealthy, largely white community. Almost everyone I graduated with now owns a home, has a good career and has done just as well as their parents. There was nothing so remarkable about my classmates, and they were certainly made their share of stupid mistakes. With their opportunity and privilege, however, they nearly all found relative success.

In my years experience working with first-generation and low-income students, I have seen tremendous disparities. Many of these students have been hard-working and highly engaged, with a keen awareness of social responsibility. One young man I had in class was working more than 40 hours a week, on overnight shifts, while trying to stay afloat in a poorly performing high school. His loyalty to his family, to his community and to the values of hard work that America supposedly cherishes will in all likelihood condemn him to a life of poverty and struggle. A Christian nation would be founded upon equality, and would never permit such unfairness.

In the justice system, as the Supreme Court and other federal judges hand down decisions that clearly treat people differently based on gender, sexual orientation, race and class, evangelicals who claim to want a Christian nation continue to fight on the side of the oppressors. A Christian nation would want a justice system based in compassion and mercy first of all.

I remember being in family court watching one person after another screwed over by an unequal and unfair judicial process. If a person could afford a lawyer, they generally won. If they did not, they always lost. Truth and justice were not relevant, only smoother legal arguments. I saw one woman who could barely speak English and came to court seeking to get her ex-husband to pay her child support. It was clear he had money, much of it off the books, and he also had a lawyer. Everyone in that courtroom could see that this woman was a caring mother, desperate for help. She lost her case. Whatever the arguments involved might be, a truly Christian nation would never allow such injustice to occur.

A Christian nation would hold that the entire society has responsibility for the elderly, the sick, the disabled and the poor. It would grant amnesty to all those who have come to this country in hope of a better life. It would demand peace, and extend mercy to all this country's enemies. It would demand equality in the education and justice systems, and extend special care to those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are persecuted and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, as Jesus put it in his most famous sermon.

But a Christian nation is not what these evangelical Republicans want. They, and especially their leaders, seek power, money and vengeance against anyone that stands in their way. If America's current health care system is killing people, then fine. If the justice system condemns the poor to prison and lets the rich walk free, then fine. If poor neighborhoods are plagued with violence and become traps nearly impossible to escape, then fine. These so-called Christians have no interest in equality of opportunity, in healing the sick, in welcoming the foreigner or in serving the poor. In other words, while conservative evangelicals may claim to want a Christian nation, they will do nothing to make that a reality. It's the last thing they want.

During my time as a boy attending an evangelical church and then later, when I attended an evangelical seminary, it was hard not to notice an underlying misogyny that seemed consistently present. As a man, I would be the head of the household. I was like Christ to my future wife. In fact, I once heard a sermon by prominent evangelical minister Tony Evans where he declared that wives must refer to their husbands as "Lord." In my church youth groups, we were separated by sex and the boys had bizarre discussions on the type of men we should become. There was a strong emphasis on being what they considered to be manly and tough, whereas young girls, of course, were encouraged to be nurturing, submissive and, most important, sexually pure.

When contemporary evangelical leaders push a message around Christian nationalism, I can promise you it always refers back to a time when the "traditional" roles of American households held fast. Making America "great again" is truly about bringing back a time when women were subject to their husbands' wills and whims, and the husbands were lords of the house.

Someone recently wrote to me, in response to one of my previous articles, wondering why so many evangelicals chose Donald Trump, a vulgar misogynist who shows no understanding of any element of the Christian faith, over other candidates who were much closer to the evangelical movement. The difficult answer is that most evangelical men long for the days when misogyny was cool, when women were under the thumb of their husbands and sexual harassment was almost universally accepted. Trump exemplified that approach — and a great many evangelicals loved him for it. Trump remains the favorite of the evangelicals not because any commitment to Christ or the Christian way of life — since he has none — but because of the widespread desire among evangelicals to take back control over their lives, and their wives. One of the major ways this has been expressed lately is through the ideology known as Christian nationalism.

As I understand it, Christian nationalism is an idea now widely accepted within the evangelical church that the U.S. is a Christian nation founded upon Christian principles — no matter what it may say in the Constitution. This commitment to the Christian faith, as a nation, is the reason God blessed the U.S. as the greatest nation that ever existed. God will only continue to bless this nation, however, as long as it remains a Christian nation. As America becomes more progressive and increasingly secular in terms of politics, culture and faith, then in this view God will remove his blessing and protection and great evils will befall our nation.

This remarkable theory has no connection to any of the teachings of Jesus Christ or his followers, and is completely irrelevant to the Christian faith. I will certainly admit that I have a heart for American idealism. I have officiated at numerous Veterans Day and Memorial Day services, and I have felt the love of country enormously, on those days and all the days in between. None of that, however, has anything to do with Christianity. God does not play favorites when it comes to nations, people or cultures. That entire idea is morally and theologically absurd.

In truth, Christian nationalism is based not in the Bible or the teachings of Jesus Christ, but on the idea of the traditional American family. As roles for women have changed, as divorce becomes more common, as same-sex marriage gains a firmer footing, and now with the movement for transgender rights and visibility becoming more public, the panic of the Christian nationalists becomes ever more desperate. This is where all that rage among evangelicals is coming from. Understand, most people are motivated politically based on how they perceive policy decisions affecting their day-to-day life. Nothing affects our lives more than what is happening to our families. When things fall apart at home, it can feel helpful — even if it's not healthy — to blame someone or something besides ourselves. For myself, I know that all my personal failures are mine alone. I can't blame MTV or Eminem or the LGBTQI population, the evangelical church, Trump, Biden, Obama, my mom, my dad or anyone else. The problem is in the mirror, as it is for everyone. Any effort to pass that blame along to others is quite human, and quite wrong.

My final point on Christian nationalism is around all the macho tough-guy stuff that seems to be on the lips of every right-wing leader. Being "tough" seems to be the only thing conservative commentators and evangelical leaders care about. Trump is supposedly the epitome of that and his little posse loves him for it. I won't pretend to understand it. After I graduated middle school, being tough just didn't seem that important. But for people like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jerry Falwell Jr. (before his fall) and of course Trump himself, it's important to keep pretending that they are a bunch of tough guys, even though they also claim to stand with Jesus Christ, a humble, meek and homeless teacher.

I'm no tough guy but I am happy to offer a challenge to any of these fake tough guys. Debate me anywhere, anytime. I am truly blue-collar, a member of the American working class. I am a Bible-believing minister and a flaming liberal. I believe that the Christian nationalist message comes from the devil himself. I am trying to save the name of the Christian faith and to stand up for American idealism. I oppose every part of the hypocritical, fake-populist agenda of the Christian nationalists and their enablers. I double-dog dare any of them, here and now, to stand up and take me on in public debate. Odds are they never will.

When my daughters were coming of age I never prevented any book from being on our shelves. Any book or any topic they wanted to read about or discuss, I made sure I provided for them. I don't believe in editing information from my daughters, from the churches where I served as an evangelical pastor, from my students or from my family and friends. I never understood when people were unwilling to engage with material that threatened their own point of view. Unfortunately for my fellow Christians, this is a major part of church history and the current Christian culture. This close-minded approach has been on full display during this pandemic of the unvaccinated.

From Darwin to COVID the church has been wrong. It's really about fear among the Christian faithful when they turn away from science. Even scientific theory is dismissed out of hand by the church because of a fear that somehow science will prove that God does not exist. As the pandemic spreads from one church to another and global warming continues to be ignored by the evangelical movement, it is clear that practitioners of the current Christian faith have not evolved from their ancestors who condemned Galileo and Darwin.

This is why it has been so difficult to get evangelicals to accept things proven by the scientific community. You have probably noticed that many Republicans still will not confirm that climate change is even a thing. They almost certainly know better but are spineless, too afraid to alienate their hardcore Christian constituency, despite the clear ignorance behind the evangelical understanding of the climate crisis.

As I said, this is about fear. Understand that for many people of faith it has become very challenging to hold onto that faith. Christians are asked to believe in an invisible being in the sky who keeps score of all our sins, and in the literal truth of a giant book put together over thousands of years that describes people rising from the dead, seas parting and water becoming wine. Because of this intense insecurity, which they cannot admit, some Christians cannot tolerate any information that weakens the case for the existence of God. (The more liberal Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church have made some progress in this area, although even there the relationship to science remains uneasy.) When science becomes the enemy, something like a vaccine cannot be trusted — because it was created by the same people that are trying to destroy God.

If Darwin is correct, then Adam and Eve never existed. If Adam and Eve never existed, then the lineage from Adam to King David (of David and Goliath fame), and then to Jesus Christ must be questioned. Many Christians simply do not want to ask those difficult and complicated questions. If dinosaurs were real (I know it is not if — just bear with me) then God never created anything in six days and then rested on the seventh. Science has proven that the earth is a few billion years old, instead of just a few thousand years old as the Bible would indicate. Science appears to the evangelical Christian to be a relentless hunter of their faith.

But science is just science. It has no agenda except to discover the truth. That is precisely the problem it presents for the faithful. To a person of faith, at least in the evangelical or fundamentalist tradition, only God is truth. Only God can be trusted. There is no theory or scientific method to discovering one's faith. A person either decides to accept the truth of God's existence or reject it and be condemned.

The scientific evidence around the climate crisis has become a threat to many evangelicals because it suggests that God's ultimate plan for his creation is not working. You see, according to the evangelical reading of the Bible, after the time of Christ there is a distinct calendar of events that follows, culminating in Armageddon. Evangelicals are usually pretty excited about this idea. Those nasty non-believers finally get what's coming to them and the good Christians get to win the battle against evil. In that context, a warming planet cannot be understood as a real concern. Potentially, it is even a signal of the return of Christ — why would a true believer do anything to stop that?

This brings us to the COVID vaccines and the fact that evangelicals have a culture and a long history of rejecting science. Somehow this vaccine has become a symbol of government overreach, but what's even more important to evangelicals is the idea that science is telling people of faith what is true. No matter how many evangelical leaders encourage their followers to get the vaccine, this rejection of scientific data is completely ingrained in the church, dating as far back as Galileo. It is and has always been about the fear of losing their faith.

I have never understood this fear, and in my view neither should any other person of faith. I go out of my way to read theories I disagree with, to listen to preachers I deem heretical and to attend seminaries that are in direct opposition to my political and social beliefs. This is how my faith grows. Reading a book like "The God Delusion" should be required by all Christian leaders. Not because the book expresses the words of the enemy but because we all must explore our own doubt. The leap is a leap for a reason and people of faith should lean into it, not run away from it. There is nothing to fear from scientific data and proper research. There is something to fear from the fearful and ignorant. Anyone who is not willing to question their own belief structure, or anyone that remains in their own echo chamber, is dangerous. That is why there is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. It is expressing the fear of people who claim to have none. It must be addressed, but that will not be easy.

I was raised by a pair of wild hippies, so my heart has always been committed to liberal ideology. As a Bible-believing Christian, however, I was surrounded by evangelical theology throughout my youth, in various churches, Bible camps and so on. When I decided to enter the ministry to attempt to change that conservative theology, I attended an evangelical seminary. It was clear on my first day on campus that no reform was going to occur.

If I happened to mention voting for Al Gore, I was told by my classmates that God keeps a record of my voting history and that I had voted for a man who endorses baby-killing and tearing down the American family. Honestly, I was just hoping that President Gore might help save the planet and not make up a reason to go to war in Iraq. Anyway, in my 10 years in ministry I had even less luck making any changes, which is why I left the formal ministry a couple of years ago.

The truth then, and even more so now, is that we cannot separate Republicans, and now the Trumpists, from the evangelicals. I have seen my fellow "Christian left" types attempting to reform the God vote — in fact, I've done it myself — but I feel we have been too timid in our approach. Stronger language and a pure rejection of evangelical theology is needed. From a purely Christian point of view, the evangelical leadership are false teachers teaching a false doctrine. Trumpism cannot be defeated without first facing down evangelicalism. Jesus Christ, who these people claim as their savior, himself provided a warning against these religious hypocrites in Matthew 23:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

The only real threat to Christianity is Christianity itself. Leading evangelical pastors like Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress made a passionate plea for Christian voters to ignore Trump's shortcomings as a man because he stands with the Christian church on all things that are right and true. Apparently, that means Christians must shut the door to all LGBTQ people, abortion providers, liberals, immigrants, Muslims and anyone who happens to mention taxing the wealthy.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

Many of the false American evangelical teachers demonize and look down upon the people in poorer countries. I have seen these "missionaries" in places like Haiti building their churches and making sure "proper doctrine" is followed. It is this type of modern-day colonialism that has provided foreign governments the religious authority to enact terrible anti-LGBTQ laws and restrictions on reproductive rights for women.

Woe to you, blind guides! You say, "If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath."You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?

False teachers have always believed that their financial wealth means favor with God. I have seen many Christian leaders give praise to God for their big homes, nice cars and million-dollar sanctuaries. This belief that God has blessed them with great stuff prevents them from ever understanding the need to fund programs that provide equality in the education, health care, justice and economic systems.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

These false evangelical leaders may have stayed within the law, but they know nothing about being merciful. They could never understand the message to reach out to undocumented immigrants because of God's call to treat the foreigner as native born — because we were once foreigners ourselves. They only understand the language of rules and law without mercy and grace.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

Many of these false evangelical leaders have spent a lot of time and money making sure their public image is clean. Ideal marriages, wonderful children, kind and loving people who are financially affluent and pay their taxes. Christ reminded his followers to be careful of such a well-crafted persona. Behind the curtain there are many filled with hypocrisy and wickedness.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, "If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets." So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

Many of these current evangelical leaders love to quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his message of love and forgiveness. Many would like to forget that most conservative Christian leaders rejected Dr. King's message while he was alive, and some believed he was a communist. It is no mystery to me why there is no picture of the great Rev. Billy Graham marching with Dr. King. These false evangelical leaders expose themselves again as they reject the Rev. William J. Barber II's message about honoring and uplifting the poor, which is far more clearly based in Christian doctrine than anything they preach. These false evangelical Christian leaders never understood Dr. King's message to follow Jesus into those places in America where poor people struggle and suffer and too often die, and they never will.

I was raised by a pair of wild hippies, so my heart has always been committed to liberal ideology. As a Bible-believing Christian, however, I was surrounded by evangelical theology throughout my youth, in various churches, Bible camps and so on. When I decided to enter the ministry to attempt to change that conservative theology, I attended an evangelical seminary. It was clear on my first day on campus that no reform was going to occur.

If I happened to mention voting for Al Gore, I was told by my classmates that God keeps a record of my voting history and that I had voted for a man who endorses baby-killing and tearing down the American family. Honestly, I was just hoping that President Gore might help save the planet and not make up a reason to go to war in Iraq. Anyway, in my 10 years in ministry, I had even less luck making any changes, which is why I left the formal ministry a couple of years ago.

The truth then, and even more so now, is that we cannot separate Republicans, and now the Trumpists, from the evangelicals. I have seen my fellow "Christian left" types attempting to reform the God vote — in fact, I've done it myself — but I feel we have been too timid in our approach. Stronger language and a pure rejection of evangelical theology is needed. From a purely Christian point of view, the evangelical leadership are false teachers teaching a false doctrine. Trumpism cannot be defeated without first facing down evangelicalism. Jesus Christ, who these people claim as their savior, himself provided a warning against these religious hypocrites in Matthew 23:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

The only real threat to Christianity is Christianity itself. Leading evangelical pastors like Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress made a passionate plea for Christian voters to ignore Trump's shortcomings as a man because he stands with the Christian church on all things that are right and true. Apparently, that means Christians must shut the door to all LGBTQ people, abortion providers, liberals, immigrants, Muslims and anyone who happens to mention taxing the wealthy.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

Many of the false American evangelical teachers demonize and look down upon the people in poorer countries. I have seen these "missionaries" in places like Haiti building their churches and making sure "proper doctrine" is followed. It is this type of modern-day colonialism that has provided foreign governments the religious authority to enact terrible anti-LGBTQ laws and restrictions on reproductive rights for women.

Woe to you, blind guides! You say, "If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath."You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?

False teachers have always believed that their financial wealth means favor with God. I have seen many Christian leaders give praise to God for their big homes, nice cars, and million-dollar sanctuaries. This belief that God has blessed them with great stuff prevents them from ever understanding the need to fund programs that provide equality in the education, health care, justice and economic systems.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

These false evangelical leaders may have stayed within the law, but they know nothing about being merciful. They could never understand the message to reach out to undocumented immigrants because of God's call to treat the foreigner as native born — because we were once foreigners ourselves. They only understand the language of rules and law without mercy and grace.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

Many of these false evangelical leaders have spent a lot of time and money making sure their public image is clean. Ideal marriages, wonderful children, kind and loving people who are financially affluent and pay their taxes. Christ reminded his followers to be careful of such a well-crafted persona. Behind the curtain there are many filled with hypocrisy and wickedness.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, "If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets." So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

Many of these current evangelical leaders love to quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his message of love and forgiveness. Many would like to forget that most conservative Christian leaders rejected Dr. King's message while he was alive, and some believed he was a communist. It is no mystery to me why there is no picture of the great Rev. Billy Graham marching with Dr. King. These false evangelical leaders expose themselves again as they reject the Rev. William J. Barber II's message about honoring and uplifting the poor, which is far more clearly based in Christian doctrine than anything they preach. These false evangelical Christian leaders never understood Dr. King's message to follow Jesus into those places in America where poor people struggle and suffer and too often die, and they never will.

It is difficult to carry a message like mine, one that doesn't have a real audience. As a Bible-believing liberal, I lose the liberals with the whole "Bible believing" thing, and I lose the Bible believers with the whole "liberal" thing. At times I feel like the only person in America with this perspective. I am not into converting anyone, either: Each individual's faith journey is their own. I am also not sure I can change the hearts of many of the followers of the evangelical movement, so that is also not my goal. I do believe, firmly, that for this country to progress it needs true liberal progressives in positions of power and influence for a long time. This will not happen if people overlook or underestimate the power of these Christian nationalists. Secondly, I see a clear way to stop this evangelical political nationalist movement.

Two reasons we can't simply ignore the evangelicals, post-Trump

The first reason is that they have lots and lots of resources: Think tanks in Washington, massive "nonprofit" ministries that bring in millions of dollars, Fox News, Newsmax, QAnon, talk radio, all their current politicians in office, plus one crazy ex-president.

I understand the temptation to just move ahead without facing down the evangelicals, but recent history suggests it is a mistake. Two recent presidential candidates who struggled to connect to the evangelicals were Hilary Clinton and John Kerry. Both had incredible résumés and were much more qualified than the people they were running against, but the evangelicals greatly favored George W. Bush and, more recently, Donald Trump.

During the Bush campaign Karl Rove put together a state-by-state push to get evangelical issues on state ballots to motivate the evangelical votes in various swing states. At the time Bush's approval ratings were terrible, the economy was a disaster, and the country was stuck in a war that many Americans disapproved of — yet the evangelicals bridged that gap and gave Bush four more years. The story around Clinton losing to Trump is well documented, and the fact that at least 80% of evangelicals voted for Trump is well known.

These political victories for lesser candidates were not accidents. The evangelical movement is well financed and has far-reaching influence. All the recent activity since Trump lost the 2020 election has only emboldened them further. The evangelical leadership, because of its vast network, is funding political campaigns, news networks and legal defense teams for Trump — through an organization called the American Center for Law and Justice — in a never-ending push to overturn Roe v. Wade and create some form of Christian theocracy. Ignore them at your political peril.

The second reason is that the evangelical message of returning America to traditional Christian values connects with millions of voters. Anytime people talk about the "good ol' days" and how evil the world is now, that connects. No one is better at that then these evangelicals. We're all guilty of this a bit, by the way. I am 44, and I hate how things are right now. It's a world where Bruce Springsteen is selling cars and Bob Dylan sells lingerie, and every actor, musician and athlete is a brand to themselves. The movies all look the same, the music all sounds the same and millennials drive me nuts. It's a tempting message, and they know how to communicate it.

Change does not come easy to anyone. I have seen this in my ministry and my educational career, and perhaps more so in my work in the trades. Anyone who has ever had a job for a while, only to see some new idea come out at their company or school has had this experience. People resist. I know I do. Furthermore, people tend to remember the way things were in a much better light than the way things are. Evangelicals tap into this tendency brilliantly, and make the same kind of connection in talking about America. Any information that threatens this false version of American history and the connection to God is seen as coming from an enemy.

Many of the messages I hear on evangelical radio talk about biblical societies that turned their backs on God, and felt God's wrath soon afterwards. There is a clear and obvious warning that America has done just that. They certainly do not mention that America's relationship with Christian values is complicated, to say the least The facts and the real history does not matter: The fantasy of the way things were is what works works. As I suggested earlier, this kind of message works on most people. People fantasize about how things were in past relationships, in old work situations, in almost everything. So the evangelical leadership and the politicians they support tap into this human desire to bring back the good times.

Two ways to stop the evangelicals and break their political power

First of all, we must call out their leaders — the evangelical leadership care only about wealth, power and proving their own righteousness. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops that they selected issues that raised money and kept them in positions of power and influence. They are the very religious hypocrites that Christ himself warned his followers about.

Calling these leaders out is easy, but convincing their followers that their leaders are conmen has proven to be difficult. I go biblical here, which is hard for my fellow liberals. Many of the liberals I know have put aside their faith for some solid reasons. For some it's about rejecting the experiences they had in church as kids, and for some it's simply a matter of choice to reject all this God stuff. I get that. Believing in God is no joke: An old guy in the sky with rules, heaven and hell, and a son on the cross dying for our sins. It is a big leap.

But this lack of faith means that evangelical leaders are easily able to dismiss liberals' arguments. That's why I go biblical on these evangelical hypocrites. The Bible is a problem for these guys in many ways. My best argument lies in two places in the book of Matthew, the first of those being the only time Jesus loses his cool. The religious leaders of Christ's time had turned God's house into a den of robbers and thieves, and this is the case again. I cannot get through five minutes of listening to some evangelical minister without them selling me their books or asking for a donation. Most followers notice this and question it in their hearts, so it's time to announce that these evangelicals are nothing short of the robbers and thieves that Christ confronted.

The other passage from Matthew is a sermon by Christ warning about religious hypocrites. The basic gist is about religious leaders obsessing over how they must appear to the public as holy and righteous. The outside of their cups are clean but inside they are full of all kinds of evil. Remind you of anyone? This is how we take away some of the political power of the evangelical leaders. They are a poison in the veins of this country, and their own savior condemned them more than 2,000 years ago.

The second thing we need to do is address the concerns of the evangelical followers. These people, in real life, don't care what happens with the LGBTQ population and, believe it or not, don't care much about abortion. They mostly care about their own families and their ability to take care of them. This is where the connection can come in.

I know it sounds wrong-headed to believe that the followers of these evangelicals are concerned about anything besides issues around Christian "liberty," abortion and gay rights, but I promise that in their heart of hearts they do not care about anything but taking care of their own family and finding a job that gives them value. It is hard to see through all the embarrassing behavior of the evangelical movement to find something worth addressing, but it's there.

I am not denying that much of the reason they follow Trump reveals some serious ignorance around race, women's rights and immigration. I am not saying that we all need to be friends. But it is important to understand the core of what many people from the blue collar working-class poor need, of all races and faiths. They want to be heard, valued and even loved. Reaching them is simply a matter of talking to them. That is all the evangelical leadership has ever done. They've never truly done anything for them truly and neither have the politicians they support, but they gave the blue-collar evangelicals love and a sense of value. That goes a long way.

Liberals can give them the same thing but actually offer them the real progress that can come from supporting leaders who will pursue policies that actually benefit the working class. Understand that to ignore this group sends this country down a path of bitter division. Just focus on the economic disparity that so clearly exists in this country. Finding common ground on core issues like that has been the basis of all progress in this country. Every great leader in the past 200 years has understood the need to find common ground and we should do likewise.

America's issues around religion, politics, power and oppression are not going away anytime soon. But perhaps for a little while the better angels of our nature can lead this nation away from the selfishness and greed that have driven it for so long. In this moment I choose to focus on one key article of faith: Theocracy is never a good idea.