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. Du Mez 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 of a 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.
44 Responses
I suspect you are correct.
Steve,
Thanks for reminding us all how to thoughtfully disagree with courage, clarity, and grace.
Thanks for this interesting take.
….”pastors love their people too much.” Perhaps, but I suspect they also intuit that the blindness is so pervasive that the messenger will inevitably be shot and nothing will be accomplished. A convenient (daily) lie is so much more attractive than a complex truth. And if you repeat that lie often enough, you can “believe” it. Lies are no longer sins, but strategies in an information age.
You’re absolutely right – and a very serious trend that has been in the making. We need OT-like prophets to proclaim the truth and expose the blindness.
Well, maybe if the democrat party would offer up something remotely close to what a moderate or slightly right-of-center Christian could support, the story would be different – some of a politician’s support is based on what they are; much of their support is based on what they are not.
I have no time to write the essay that would outline all of what today’s democrat part stands for, but abortion is just one example: they are so committed to abortion rights that they could not even bring themselves to vote in favor of protecting a child born alive after a failed late term abortion.
Grand Rapids own Hillary Scholten voted to end any federal funding of pregnancy resource centers that help low income women who choose not to abort their children – I suppose because prc’s advocate against abortion. And she spoke from the House floor, actually quoting the “you knit me together in my mother’s womb” Psalm as justification for her vote against the ‘born alive act’, noting that the Psalm said nothing about the government being involved (?!?). James Talarico claims the annunciation of Mary as support for abortion rights!
Maybe to a progressive mind-set, that all makes sense – RZ comments above that “if you repeat that lie often enough, you can ‘believe’ it”, so there you go. But to most of us it makes the opposite of sense and, in fact, makes us willing to accept very poor alternative.
Evangelicals twice chose Donald Trump in the primary where every other choice was “Pro Life”. Evangelicals love of Donald Trump has nothing to do with the Democrat party. Stop pretending to be a victim and start taking ownership of your choices.
Matthew 7:3-5
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
That’s not really true of my brand of “evangelical” (Dutch Reformed). Tim Carney’s excellent book (excerpted here: ( https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/16/donald-trump-support-2020-oostburg-wisconsin-chevy-chase-maryland-225161 ) lays out Trump’s rise through the primaries in 2016 and notes specifically that communities with Dutch reformed roots supported everyone but Trump until Trump was the only Republican remaining – Trump was not the first, second, or third preference, but once it came down to him or Hillary, the choice was clear. This well describes most of the conservative leaning people that I know
In 2024, for a lot of reasons, it was tough sledding for any other primary candidate to unseat him.
Note that Carney is an east coast Catholic, so he has no stake in painting the dutch reformed in a positive light, it’s just a trend he noticed in covering the campaign.
I think you’re right. To a large extent it was a one-issue vote. Question, tho: why was abortion not an issue in the Evangelical church until the 1970s?
It wasn’t on the radar because there was no debate about it to speak of, at least among the wider public. There was also a bipartisan consensus (or nearly so) that it was not desirable. 46 states outlawed it. Roe v. Wade (1973) put it on the map (and recall, the 7 justice majority in Roe included 5 Republicans, and likewise the dissent had a Democrat).
Tom Nolastname, There is a profound difference between pro-birth and pro-life. Many policies of current administrations, political and others, are only pro-birth as evidenced by the stripping away of life-giving rights and benefits from persons of all ages and ethnic backgrounds. That in itself is “a very poor alternative”.
The last name is Sinke, just so you know.
There’s a legitimate debate to be had re the appropriate levels of benefits, how they are best administered, and how effective those benefits are. To quote the Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions, only trade-offs”.
You note the difference between being ‘pro-birth’ and being ‘pro-life’. I suppose in saying that you mean to denigrate being pro-birth as being somehow worse than being pro-abortion. Well, given the alternatives on offer, I’ll take ‘pro-birth’ over ‘pro-death-of-an-unborn-child’.
I will remind you of my original point: Hillary Scholten, who is (perhaps was?) a member of LaGrave CRC, as well all of the democrat party, voted against a law that, in the event that a baby was born alive after a botched abortion, would have required providing that child with the same medical care as any other living infant. This act has been proposed in six consecutive Congresses, has passed the House a couple of times when republicans control, but then blocked by democrats in the Senate.
I get that there is some political theater involved in that as you could say it’s relatively meaningless law. However, it’s very effective in terms of putting down a marker for how far to the extreme you’re willing to stake out your position. And virtually every democrat was willing to stake out this position: “If the intent was to kill this thing before it came out, but due to a screw up, there is now a living, breathing baby lying here on the table, then it’s OK to just let it die because it’s unwanted”.
I find that position disqualifying in someone who seeks my vote, and I can honestly say I’d find it disqualifying even if I agreed with every other position they held on taxes, welfare, healthcare spending etc.
The Republican Party specializes in creating opportunities for political theater. In 2002, both houses of Congress passed by unanimous consent the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act that states: In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words ‘person’, ‘human being’, ‘child’, and ‘individual’, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is bom alive at any stage of development. (see https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/2175 for full text).
This bill, coupled with hospital ethics and requirements for patient care, means that any infant born at any stage of fetal development must receive care that meets all medical standards. There is no need for any additional law(s) to deal with an exceedingly rare situation.
So why has the Republican party put forth additional bills? For no reason other than to convince people like you that members of the Democratic party are evil simply because they will not vote for these bills. The reason Congressional members like Rep. Hillary Scholten vote against these bills is simple. These bills include draconian penalties aimed at doctors and nurses who are providing medical care to the best of their abilities and consistent with their ethical standards. The proposed penalties interfere with the doctor – patient relationship.
It is so simple so say no abortions ever. But doing so covers up and ignores a host of issues that are morally complex and often heart-breaking.
I would hope that you, and others, could find it possible to look beyond simple one-issue litmus tests and examine the full character of those we elect.
Not sure how the Dems got in here. Weren’t we talking about a fine historian and White evangelicals? But, of course, it always and only comes back to abortion. Not really about ways to reduce abortions. Only about controlling women and criminalizing medical professionals. It never comes back to 150 school girls killed in botched bombing in Iran, or 21,000 children killed in Gaza plus about 4,000 Gazan children that are amputees, or the people in fishing boats killed off South America, or ¾ of a million people who will die because of the closing of USAID or those dying in ICE custody.
How did it the dems get in here? C’mon man. How about because they are the only alternative to Donald Trump! I know a lot of Christians who lean republican, only a small handful are gung-ho Trump supporters. You say “it always and only comes back to abortion”, but ignore my opening statement above that abortion is only the most obvious example of things that many right-leaning Christian’s find abhorrent about democrat policies.
Y’all are all about nuance and moral complexity – there’s a condescension there suggesting that people like me are not as thoughtful and wise as you. I’m accused by Dan above of having a plank in my eye – we’ll, there’s a lot of lumber floating around here.
So how about this: Next time you raise the awfulness of the war in Gaza, how about acknowledging the Old Testament style raping and pillaging that was perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023? How about noting that the explicitly stated goal of Hamas and their primary sponsor in Iran is the elimination of Israel and wiping away the Jewish people (and America, by the way). How about considering that perhaps it’s Hamas that is immiserating the people of Gaza, not Israel or the US? Or perhaps acknowledge that Israel is one of the few places in the middle east where a Muslim is allowed to vote?
Next time you lament 150 children killed in a botched bombing in Iran, perhaps mention that the Iranian government slaughtered somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 of their own people who were protesting the totalitarian mullahs that run that country? Or consider that fact that if Iran did succeed in developing nuclear weapons, the likelihood of them using it on Israel is frighteningly high?
Next time you rant about pro-lifers not caring about the baby after it’s born (a lie, by the way), how about acknowledging that the majority of abortions are done simply because having a child now is inconvenient for the couple that produced the child. and only 2 of the 3 people involved get a vote. (and don’t start in with the difficulty of understanding when ensoulment occurs, or tell me that Augustine struggled with and was inconclusive on this question – the science is settled and uncontrovertibly clear: a fetus is a separate human organism with its own unique genetic identity, distinct from the mother’s body; If Augustine could see a modern ultra-sound, I have a pretty good idea where he would land.)
All I can think of about all this is 2 Tim 4:2-5, “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” It is hard to keep our heads in 2026 and preach the Word against all the myths & lies.
Great essay. Thank you. I take some comfort in realizing that, despite the “dark turn”, evangelicals since 1976 are now a force to be reckoned with. We need a better people (and policies) to follow than Trump and co..
There’s a rain garden in the sidewalk to the north of our church building, part of the City’s infrastructure. It has short metal railing/fence around three sides of it on which some graffiti has shown up: “f…Trump and f… Charlie Kirk.” When it showed up I wondered: Do they (whoever put the graffiti on) think we the Church support Trump and Kirk? Why did they write it here?
The line I find most concerning in your essay is the repercussion of these times. “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.” I wonder and am concerned about this regularly.
This is one of the best essays I’ve recently read … as for me, a retired PCUSA minister, reared in the RCA, educated at Calvin and then Western, ordained January, 1970, I resonated with some of the more conservative views of life, because I love theology, and believe good theology leads to a liberal sociology (that’s what I told my Classis mentor prior to my examination for licensure by the Classis of South Grand Rapids [1969], an exam that went south quickly, and within the week, I was a candidate for ministry in the PCUSA).
Over the years, in the 70s, I paid attention to evangelical claims for why they were growing and we were shrinking. In the 90s, I attended a lot of stuff at Willow Creek .. though I was always proactive on end-of-life choices, a woman’s right to an abortion, and the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ in the life of the church. It was a mixed bag for me.
In the last 30 years or so, I have come to believe that evangelicalism, with its believer-centered faith, is fundamentally, and hopelessly, flawed. It begins with the believer, and that’s where it ends. A cycle from which there is no easy departure, to a God-centered faith. In the former, Paul’s “love chapter” cannot breathe; only in a God-centered world does love a chance to thrive.
Your essay make clear: we’re dealing with a deadly virus – it kills the soul, and a dead soul always courts death for others.
I, too, appreciate Marsden’s work … but the one calling out evangelicals and correctly naming their story is Du Mez. And she’s not alone. Which is, perhaps, a reminder: that women and children have paid a terrible price for the lies and deceits of evangelicalism, whereas men have paid a lesser price, so to speak. Marsden is a man, and so am I – and that requires of us a willingness to listen all the more carefully to the immediate victims crushed by evangelicalism.
Thank you for this essay … will share.
Just a reminder that a majority of white women voted for Donald Trump in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 elections. Indeed, Trump’s share of their vote grew over that time span. Trump also increased his share of the Black and Latino votes over the span of those three elections.
So, yes, “listen carefully” to the marginalized segments of our society and what they might be saying with such behavior. But be careful not to cherry-pick only those voices that are telling you what you already want to hear.
A turning point for evanglicalism was January 2016, when Donald J. Trump, speaking in Dordt University’s chapel, promised evangelicals power. As the New York Times reported about that speech, Trump said this:
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” He went on to say, “I will tell you, Christianity is under tremendous siege.”….
Christians make up the overwhelming majority of the country, he said. And then he slowed slightly to stress each next word: “And yet we don’t exert the power that we should have.”
If he were elected president, he promised, that would change. He raised a finger.
“Christianity will have power,” he said. “If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.”
In his crude attempt to be a fisher of men, Trump’s hook into his evangelical followers was the lure of power.
AMEN to the lure of power. It feeds a waging of war, male dominance, MAGA, and possibly the CRCNA’s recent trend.
George Marsden is not only a historian, with a deep and wide familiarity with the twists and turns of the past, but an immensely intentional and careful writer, as one needs to be when addressing complicated nuanced topics.
Reading his work requires a similar carefulness on the part of the reader. Small words qualifying larger points make all the difference in how we’re to appropriate those larger propositions.
Marsden says, eg, “And, though *puzzling*, Trump’s success among evangelicals is not necessarily indicative of a whole new dark turn for American evangelicalism.”
I’ve highlighted Marsden’s “puzzling” because Mathonnet-VanderWell nowhere grapples with the import of that little word in this context, he rather slides right past it as if it holds no meaning. The short version of my response to his essay would a) merely point out Mathonnet-VanderWell’s mistake in either not noticing the term, or not understanding it, or perhaps intentionally leaving it out of consideration, and then b) asserting that even a minimal appreciation of what Marsden is saying here renders Mathonnet-VanderWell’s essay here entirely unnecessary.
If you’ve ever said to someone who has behaved in a morally disappointing way, “I’m puzzled by your behavior, but not surprised,” you might understand what Marsden was getting at. We might disapprove, we might not in fact understand how they could do such a thing–we’re puzzled and disturbed by them–but if they’ve disappointed us over and over again in the past in just this way, then we’re not surprised.
Historians don’t claim to be always able to unravel all the mysterious psychological and spiritual tendrils that compose a person’s or group’s motivations. But we can note patterns and point to them (and then let the theologians and political theorists go to town on them).
Marsden is reminding us that evangelicals are often surprising in their political choices. Evangelical Baptists and Methodists and others supported Thomas Jefferson for president. Many of these voters were very strict about their dogmatic commitments, their moral standards (sleeping with a woman you aren’t married to but happened to own would be out), and were in fact anti-slavery at the time. Jefferson was a notorious free-thinker, which extended to his bedroom behavior, and he not only retained hundreds of slaves, but held his own children by Sally Hemmings as slaves as well. He set the model for future southern state development on this question, and evangelicals set a precedent for elevating self-interest (here especially on the religious establishment question) over fidelity to their own commitments and to righteousness on behalf of the oppressed.
So yes, evangelicals voting for Trump is puzzling–how could such genuine believers enable such cruelty?–but also far from being a “whole new dark turn” for them. Indeed, this is not the tie, but we could devote many pages to the grim and distiurbing moral compromises evangelicals have made throughout our history. Donald Trump not only isn’t anything new, he’s far from the worst.
But isn’t the point that it is not “puzzling”, not anymore, certainly not after Kobes Du Mez’s work?
It doesn’t really matter if anyone agrees with him, what’s relevant for the matter before us is George finds it “puzzling,” and his full sentence is “And, though puzzling, Trump’s success among evangelicals is not necessarily indicative of a whole new dark turn for American evangelicalism.” Mathonnet-VanderWell quotes only the last part of the sentence, without indicating that he’s edited George’s sentence, and changed its meaning. Mathonnet-VanderWell implies, if not directly accuses, George of “nonchalance toward today’s evangelical responsibility and rot” on the basis of the partial sentence he’s quoted, without alerting his readers to George’s qualifier at the front end, which makes clear that George, whatever his faults might be–I’m not aware of them–isn’t “nonchalant” about “rot.”
That’s why I say that if we understand what Marsden is saying, it renders Mathonnet-VanderWell’s essay entirely unnecessary.
You can ask George precisely what he finds puzzling about the white evangelical support for Trump. And I won’t try to offer a full-blown review of Kristin’s excellent work, but only say, it explains what it explains, but it doesn’t explain everything (I don’t think she’d disagree).
Let’s just note for now that, as I mentioned in a comment above, that a majority of white women *generally* not only voted for Donald Trump in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 elections Trump’s share of their vote grew over that time span. Trump also increased his share of the Black and Latino votes over the span of those three elections. These are not communities that are visiting Christian bookstores, listening to CCM, or getting indoctrinated by Focus on the Family or the white evangelical teaching and culture Kristin explores. While what she analyzes is a real thing, it’s clear there are other motives extant for supporting Donald Trump, and evangelicals are capable of caring about those things , too, and even having their votes driven by those concerns.
John, “Far from the worst” is always so comforting. Please go share that with your Latino neighbors in hiding. I’m reluctant to say too much more because I don’t want my vexation with you to be mistaken for frustration with Marsden. You seem to be making a great deal out of the one word “puzzling.” If Marsden had wanted to make *your* point more clearly he could have written “And, while *revealing or eye-opening or telling or disappointing or disheartening or oddly incongruous or seemingly discordant or extremely disconcerting or certainly dangerous* Trump’s success among evangelicals is not necessarily indicative of a whole new dark turn for American evangelicalism.” But he did not. If you want to use the title “historian” to put on blinders to the atrocities and scandals too numerous to count and the White evangelical zeal for them, I’m sure I can’t change your mind. While my own prognostication record is mixed, if there is a tricentennial for the US in 50 years and some form of Christian journalism comments on it, I would predict the writers will be wondering how their grandparents and great-grandparents could have supported Trump and his minions. Or to borrow a phrase originally used for another of today’s tragedies, “One day everyone will have been against this.”
I’m not sure where you got the idea that I (or George for that matter) were “putting on blinders” to Trump’s “atrocities and scandals.” You didn’t find it in my or his writings.
Perhaps you simply concluded that unless someone insists that white evangelical voting preferences at the current moment are the worst choices they’ve ever made, that therefore they must be defending or excusing white evangelical choices now. That would be a simplistic conclusion. It would also be guilty of failing to do the work of actually reckoning with the historical record.
One does not need to be a professional historian–just a reasonably educated person–to recognize, eg, that white evangelical support for slavery–in the South of course, but a lot in the north also–did much more harm that anything Trump has done, as bad as that is. White evangelical churches in the south were also strong supporters of the Civil War, and some argue it was those pastors who kept morale and hope up in the south long past the time there was any reasonable expectation of success thus prolonging the bloodshed and helping create the astronomical body count of that war.
Strong majorites among white evangelicals supported the Vietnam War for a variety of reasons, which killed nearly 60,000 Americans and around 3 million Vietnamese. More recently white evangelicals overwhelmingly supported George W. Bush’s Iraq War, which killed thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Even Barack Obama was more nonchalant–to borrow a word–about risking American lives (in Afghanistan) than Trump has thus far shown himself to be.
For all his faults Donald Trump *seems* (we shall see) to have learned one or two lessons from the recent past, chief among them that putting in large number of American ground troops in a Middle Eastern war is a recipe for disaster. Many of his supporters have aligned themselves with him precisely for this reason.
So, yes, “far from the worst” might be a judgment call, but it’s hardly a controversial one.
You seem to want to reduce all these various issues–from the relative magnitude of the many atrocities and crimes and immoral poliies America has committed with evangelical support, to your loose approach to assessing and even quoting the writers you criticize–into a referendum on Donald Trump. As if we could judge the truth of a proposition by how much it indicts or even inflates the man’s already immense culpability. That is not really a very intelligent way to proceed in these matters. I can only assume your zeal to see justice done in this land has compromised some of your otherwise admirable critical faculties.
Thanks for sharing this piece by Marsden and for your insightful and honest critique.
I was brought up, in college, in the Kuyperian Transformationalist tradition in the CRC. I saw my profs hold “secular” culture at arm’s length while also trying to engage with it redemptively. They also held evangelicalism at arm’s length–dispensationalism and works righteousness being key problems. I’ve done much the same in my career as well. But it is also a bubble that isolates me from the world.
The fundamentalists of the early part of the last century turned inward and created their own bubble, or perhaps more accurately, a whole bunch of bubbles. In the 70s they turned outward, not to engage but to dominate. The Christian book store of the the 80s and 90s is perhaps the quintessential artifact. A store with everything you need: Bibles, novels, music, videos, art work, and mountains of “Jesus junk”. Create retreat centers in beautiful remote locals so that every summer you get a spiritual/emotional high. Create Christian TV and radio so you never have to hear anything but Biblical truths.
In those bubbles, you only ever see one side of an issue, the correct side according to the leaders in that bubble. You don’t see the dark side or failings of your own position.
Thus Marsden is sort of right that the current state of affairs not “a whole new dark turn.” (Which he follows with a whataboutism that cuts his main thrust off at the ankles.) What he fails to mention (he hints at it) is that it became dark long ago at its core. The change is that the dark core is now exposed for all to see. But those in the bubbles have long been acclimated to not seeing it. That is DuMez’s point in Jesus and John Wayne, to expose the dark side so that maybe those in the bubbles (and outside of them too) can see it.
I’m with your argument all the way. One small quibble, however. It is not true that 80 (or85)% of evangelicals voted for Trump. The truth is that 80 (or 85)% of evangelicals WHO VOTED, voted for Trump. The percentage of all evangelicals who voted for Trump is unknown. Is the difference significant ? I honestly don’t know. But it’s a matter of being careful with statistics and with bearing true witness. I know plenty evangelicals who just didn’t vote for either of the two major party candidates for president because they couldn’t vote for Trump.
Thanks Steve. I also find the political choices of my evangelical brothers and sisters puzzling when it comes to Trump, and even more, I find those choices appalling. I have been surprised nearly every presidential election year since 1980 that the majority of these dear siblings of mine vote for the candidate that they do. You would think I’d be used to it by now, but I’m not. I am grateful for all the wonderful evangelical teachings concerning our personal relationship with God, and how that gets lived out in the family and within the church and nearby neighbors. And, if it were not for media and social media, that’s where we live nearly all our lives (much like Christians in the first century). But, then (with the exception of abortion and LGBTQA+ matters), I’m shocked how evangelicals go off in a strange direction with regards to larger social and cultural matters. Don’t they believe the concerns of God expressed in the law, the prophets and the gospel? I don’t get it. And then with Trump, they even set aside the personal morality issues, as well as the social ones. That’s even more puzzling and appalling. I do think evangelicals are shooting themselves in the foot, but I’m looking to Jesus to heal his own body from its self-inflicted wounds.
I agree with what John Haas wrote. Marsden is a historian. Steve’s essay wishes he was a politician. Note that in Marsden’s article that he is not claiming to be an expert on present-day evangelicalism. I’ve talked to him, and he is not claiming expertise in that regard. As any reputable historian will tell you, it’s too soon to know where current day evangelicalism is headed, however much we despair of the voting record.
Wow! I thought I was simply a Christian writing to Christians
Thank you Steve. I really appreciate your thoughts. One of the interesting things about evangelicals on the right, is they are one issue voters. So long as you are pro-birth, you are in. The progressive right is much more diverse on abortion. They are much more diverse on nearly every issue.
Many white evangelicals that I know did not pick Donald Trump as their first choice. When he became the nominee, most felt that the alternatives were worse. And lately, those alternatives do seem even worse than before. What I find puzzling is that so few Democrat leaders are not aggressively criticizing the DSA, which advocates ending the Supreme Court, abolishing prisons, universal free housing, elimination of debt, closing all military bases, and so on. Isn’t this a dark turn in the Democratic party? Who would rule in such a Brave New World? I’m afraid it would be someone worse than Donald Trump.
Nice try!
Steve, I wouldn’t be so quick to blow the dangers of DSA off if I were you, especially since quite a few in that movement have ties to radical Islamists. Read Dr. Michael Youssef’s book, An Unholy Alliance: How Progressivism Brought About An Islamist Invasion. This is something that people in both parties should be concerned about.
there are about 4 million muslims in the usa today—in a country of 340 million. that’s not 2% of the population. even if all of them were part of an unholy alliance with a subset of evil progressives, it wouldnt amount to much of anything.
you may want to consider that youssef is simply enflaming xenophobic and bigoted fears.
Jonathan, you may want to consider reading his book. Michael Youssef has been helped by many peaceful Muslims who came to his aid as a persecuted Christian in Egypt. He sympathizes with peaceful Muslims who are afraid to speak out. Why would he want to spread bigotry? He acknowledges that both the Republican and Democrat parties are seriously flawed. At least he is honest that both parties are a mess. I’ve never heard a discouraging word about Democrats from RJ. In a fallen world, isn’t that strange?
The Blog post expresses discomfort with the reticence in Marsden’s article (which I have not read.) We live in an age where reticence is discouraged as weak conviction or cowardice. But could reticence in fact be a virtue in some cases?
Certainly there is a rising enthusiasm for theocracy, both among non-Christians and Christians, in various places. It is hard to spin a scenario where this trend is a good thing. And certainly there are “Christians” who have no intent to follow Jesus; their “Christianity” is merely a cover for something else. It seems fairly obvious to identify those as heretics.
But it seems more gracious, and probably more Christian, to grant that each Christian subculture may be faithfully following the Lord as best they/we know how. If so, the discouraging tragedy is that, even after 2 millennia of our best work, Christians do not agree what Jesus was all about. For me the operative question is: “(how) can we grow together as brothers and sisters in Christ?”
I recently suggested, in the context of a dispute in my church, that it might be worthwhile to reexamine our understanding of what the faith really is (or should be) about. The elders told me quite firmly that this is something we do not do. Nevertheless, of course, this is exactly what the Christians (in the USA) are collectively doing right now, in the form of discussions like this, deliberations and decisions of various ecclesial bodies, and politics. I wish this process was not so painful and counterproductive, but my prayer is that in the end we will be reformed again, according to God’s will.
Thanks for all the comments. I’m glad my article sparked some discussion.
Since a good bit of this commentary deals with questions concerning my point of view and motives, I think I can help clarify those.
Since 2016 I have not puzzled over any question more than that of how so many apparently otherwise good Christians do not see—or do not acknowledge–what a reprehensible egotistic criminal character Trump is. My essay is about how the evangelical political prominence of 1976 eventually led to this sort of political blindness. And I end the essay talking about how the political temptation is one of the three that Satan offers to Christ—and I thought that ending would help indicate that I thought the overwhelming white American evangelical support for Trump was indeed reprehensible.
It is true that explanation can sometimes sound like excusing, but excusing was not my intention. I just wanted to point out that the overwhelming white evangelical support for a Republican candidate was not a new thing. That Trump won even slightly more is indeed disturbing. But I think we should also notice that not all white evangelical Republican voters are like Eric Metaxas or Franklin Graham or are of the sort who wear MAGA hats. At least some simply cannot imagine voting for the Democratic alternative and so hold their noses as they vote for what looks to them to be the safer Republican alternative.
As to the sentence: “And, though puzzling, Trump’s success among evangelicals is not necessarily indicative of a whole new dark turn for American evangelicalism”: note the fudge words: “not necessariy” and “whole new.” Part of the point of the article is to suggest that that succumbing to the political temptation is not a whole new dark turn—but can be traced back to the 1970s and earlier. And it’s helpful to point out that Kristin Du Mez makes the same point from a different angle. Still, I had hoped that through my characterization of Trump I had made clear that I thought that the turn was indeed dark.
Finally, I may have led some readers to think I was apologizing for evangelical Trumpism because I do apologize for evangelicalism as a whole. My point is simply that the overwhelming white American evangelical support of Trump does no tarnish all of world evangelicalism. Even in the U. S. there are a fair number of ani-Trump American evangelicals (CT did not seem reluctant to publish my negative characterizations of Trump). More broadly, one should not dismiss all of evangelicalism because of white American Trumpism anymore that one should dismiss all of Catholicism because most Italian Catholics supported Mussolini. As I say in the article, evangelicalism, because it is market-driven often has lots of faults—much like the free enterprise system. But it also often flourishes around the world with a helpful Gospel message, the wheat and the tares growing together—as they do in all our churches.
Once again, thanks for all your comments.
Thank you, George
Yep, we’re all scratching our heads in these interesting times.
My experience with family members who are evangelical Christians is that they are disciples (followers), not scholars. Each are ends of the a spectrum, but still within the circle.
WOW! What an enlightening discussion! This may be an over simplification however, a nugget I’ve gathered in reading over the last few years is: give up trying to change another’s point of view but try to find the the common ground you agree on. That involves REALLY listening to the other point of view — as in this discussion—to find that common ground. I’m in the last pages of reading Theo of Golden. Even Theo doesn’t do it perfectly but he tries and gains a different perspective in the process. I wonder if might be how, as David Landegent says: “looking to Jesus to heal his own body from its self-inflicted wounds.” might be a beginning.