Sometimes when people try to explain something, it can feel like they’re excusing it. 

When I was young and would gripe about some annoying kid at school, my parents might remind me that the child’s home life was possibly not very happy. Okay, I guess. But to me, it felt less like an explanation and more like an excuse.

I had a similar reaction recently while reading George Marsden’s “1976 Was a Turning Point for Evangelicalism” in the July-August issue of Christianity Today. In offering an historical explanation for why strong White evangelical support for Donald Trump shouldn’t be surprising, Marsden, it seemed to me, wasn’t simply explaining. He was excusing. 

Marsden’s essay is what you would expect from a scholar of his stature. It is a masterful march through history. Beginning with the US bicentennial, when born-again Jimmy Carter burst on the scene and introduced evangelicalism to mainstream America, it concludes with today’s national semiquincentennial and the White evangelical love affair with Donald Trump. Along the way, names I had happily forgotten, like Phyllis Schlafly or Ralph Reed, make cameo appearances.

It was, however, near the end of Marsden’s essay that I began to become uncomfortable and to disagree.

It’s abundantly clear that Marsden is no supporter of President Trump. He explicitly points to his “sexually libertine past” and notes his character is “about as far from any New Testament ideal as could be imagined.” Trump’s presidencies, according to Marsden, are a “string of scandals, trials, and open disdain for constitutional constraints on the presidency.” Marsden is not excusing Trump for his legion of misdeeds. 

My concern lies elsewhere — in how Marsden treats Trump’s followers. Explaining White evangelical support for Trump, Marsden moves toward excusing it or rationalizing it away, calmly shrugging it off. For example, he writes, “white evangelical support for Romney and Bush was barely lower than for the far-less-upright Trump” (emphasis mine.) 

In other words, Trump received greater support than Mitt Romney and George W. Bush. The libertine candidate, furthest from any New Testament ideal, inspired the highest level of evangelical support. That statistic should not assuage us. It should scare us.

I have deep disagreements with both Bush and Romney. That said, if either moved next door, I’d be fine, even eager to meet them. I’d sign a contract with them. I’d trust them to babysit my grandchildren. I expect I could enjoy the proverbial “Who would you rather have a beer with” presidential preference indicator with both, although I believe neither drink. 

I would do none of those things with Donald Trump.

Saying White evangelical support for Trump is unsurprising given previous support for Bush and Romney misses something essential. It is like saying “a great many people enjoy eating bleu cheese, so it shouldn’t surprise us that even slightly more people enjoy eating mold.” Or “Since campfires are very popular with many people, it is understandable that these same people eagerly endorse arson.” 

The difference between Bush and Romney in comparison with Trump is not quantitative. It is qualitative. 

That fact that eight out of every ten White American evangelicals could not detect this is indeed a very troubling sign for American Christianity. That White American evangelical support for Trump proved even stronger than for Bush or Romney is not merely a statistic to be studied. It is a noisy gong or clanging cymbal, an alarm that something is very wrong.

Is it really as simple as White evangelical loyalty to the Republican Party merely carrying over to Trump? If anything, isn’t it more the reverse? White Evangelical loyalty belongs first and foremost to Trump — the man, his policies, his methods, his style — and the GOP is the happy recipient, riding along on his coattails. 

Obviously, my crystal ball was cloudy and cracked. I wrongly thought that his marital infidelities, having no sins to confess, or “grabbin’ ‘em by the p- – -y” would have ended evangelical support for Trump in 2016. 

I expected evangelicals to know better — to say “No!” to Trump, even be repulsed by him. I was very wrong. And now, in 2026, if support for splitting up families, imprisoning children, and bullying people of color doesn’t indicate some sort of profound spiritual illness, what does?

Yet Marsden’s response to White evangelical support of Trump seems to be almost detached, brushing it aside, explaining-becoming-excusing.

* * * * *

Now, a few caveats and clarifications. 

Part of me did not want to write this blog. I do not know George Marsden personally. I have long admired and been blessed by his scholarship. I understand that among many RJ readers his name is spoken in reverential tones. As I already noted, his essay in no way supports, defends or excuses Trump. I especially don’t want to be that arrogant, aggressive lesser who seeks to make a name by attacking an esteemed and prominent scholar.

If I have some patience toward Marsden’s essay, it is because he is an historian. He looks at the big picture, the long arc of history, not blips on the radar screen — or today, the social media of the moment. His understanding of evangelicalism stretches far beyond Paula White-Cain or Charlie Kirk, but goes back to Whitefield, Wycliffe, maybe even Waldo. From that perspective, I suppose it is easier to not be especially alarmed at today’s evangelical obeisance to Trump

Yet this same historical distance can also create a nonchalance toward today’s evangelical responsibility and rot. It does little to acknowledge the incredible harm being done to immigrants, transgender people, the poor, federal lands, and so much more by today’s malevolent evangelicals.   

Interestingly, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, one of Marsden’s many distinguished students, makes a case somewhat similar to Marsden’s in her best-selling Jesus and John Wayne. White evangelical support for Trump isn’t really an historical anomaly. But the explanations differ dramatically. DuMez traces that support to a long history of toxic masculinity and hyper-nationalism in White American evangelicalism. Marsden, instead, expresses more of a “What did you expect?” attitude. “Nothing to see here. Just business as usual.”

I will try to be as clear as possible. I am not writing to MAGA evangelicals — to rebuke or change them. My appeal is to “evangelicals who know better,” like Marsden, those with connections and credibility in the White evangelical world. I urge you not to look away, explain away, or excuse them. Use your standing and trust to speak to them — strongly, honestly, and . . . lovingly. Call them to repentance. 

Marsden’s reticence, if I can call it that, reminds me of something I believe I read in Reinhold Niebuhr’s Leaves from the Notebook from Tamed Cynic. When asked why pastors do not challenge and chastise their congregations more, Niebuhr observed that it isn’t because pastors are weak or afraid or because the congregation pays their salary. It is because pastors love their people too much. 

* * * * *

One sentence from Marsden’s essay best displays my frustration and disagreement. “Trump’s success among evangelicals is not necessarily indicative of a whole new dark turn for American evangelicalism.” 

I cannot be so placid and indulgent toward American evangelicalism. 

When nearly half of Gen Z adults report that Christian support for Trump makes them less likely to ever attend church, it might tell us that a new dark turn is ahead. When over a quarter of self-identifying evangelicals understand it as a cultural-political label rather than a religious term and rarely or never participate in a local church, the future looks grim. 

American evangelicalism has taken a dark turn. We may try to expose it, even explain it, but we cannot excuse it. The larger Christian witness has been severely damaged. Over the next decades, there will be consequences, blame, shame, and a reckoning for the Church. 

And rightly so.