'Tool of God': Expert sounds alarm on the religious right's growing grip on Republicans

Ideological differences within Christianity can be enormous. Members of the Episcopal Church had a booth at Philadelphia's gay pride festival on Sunday, June 1, as did a Lutheran group — and both made it clear that they welcome LGBTQ Christians in their denominations. Many far-right Christian nationalists, in contrast, think that Pridefest events should be illegal.

The Religious Right gained a great deal of influence in the Republican Party during Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign, much to the chagrin of the late Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona). Goldwater was a scathing critic of the Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr.'s Moral Majority and the Rev. Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, and he believed the Religious Right was terrible for the GOP and terrible for the conservative movement. But far-right evangelicals maintained a stranglehold on Goldwater's party, and they became even more militant with the rise of Donald Trump's MAGA movement in 2016.

Robert P. Jones, president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and author of the book "White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity," discussed the alliance between Christian nationalists and the second Trump Administration during an early June interview with Salon's Chauncey DeVega. And he warned that "evangelical" Christian nationalists and MAGA aren't growing any less "authoritarian."

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Jones told DeVega, "I was prepared for Trump's return to the presidency to be ugly and disastrous. But seeing the reality of it — especially up close here in Washington, DC, where so many patriotic public servants' lives have been decimated by Trump's attacks on our government institutions — has been very upsetting. I love my country, and it is painful to watch it being dismantled and destroyed by Trump and his MAGA forces."

Jones warned that Trump's second administration represents a mixture of religious fanaticism and "white supremacy."

"Now, it is more common to hear white Christians instead claiming that he is a tool of God and prophecy," Jones told DeVega. "Ultimately, white conservative Christians are trying to find a theological justification for what is really a political transaction that gives them the power they want in American society — and Trump is making it increasingly clear that much of that power is oriented around the preservation of white supremacy…. Now, their appeals are about how 'Trump is going to protect our way of life' and 'Trump is going to protect our religion.'"

Jones continued, "Only the thinnest veil of Christian morality is pulled over the MAGA movement today — it is transactional and about power. Even the cruelest policies, such as Trump's illegal renditions of immigrants to hellhole prisons in other countries without due process guaranteed to all by the Constitution, evoke little protest. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that, if we take this support seriously, such cruelty is in fact a reflection of the values of these voters."

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Chauncey DeVega's full interview with Robert P. Jones for Salon is available at this link.