“This week we watched an insurrection of domestic terrorists, incited and fomented by the President of the United States.”
So spoke Russell Moore on January 11, after a mob broke into the U.S. capitol and sent member of Congress into hiding. In a soul-searching article on his website, Moore, a white evangelical Christian leader, denounced the attacks in no uncertain terms.
Polls and opinion pieces vary as to whether any significant change in 2020 occurred in the white evangelical support for Trump from 2016. However, the questioning of such support has increased. Christianity Today recently ran an interview on the subject of Christian nationalism. (“Christian Nationalism Is Worse Than You Think,” Morgan Lee, January 13, 2021)
Voting numbers for Americans without evangelical beliefs are almost the mirror opposite of their evangelical counterparts, with Biden holding a commanding 56 percent to 33 percent lead over Trump going into the election.
President Trump’s advantage among evangelicals, however, comes primarily from white evangelicals, among whom he led Biden 73 percent to 18 percent. African Americans with evangelical beliefs overwhelmingly planned to vote for Biden (69% to 19%).
(Numbers are from “Evangelical Vote Once Again Split on Ethnic Lines And far fewer plan to vote third-party in 2020, LifeWay finds,” Aaron Earls – Lifeway Research, September 29, 2020.)
Many evangelicals, it is said, are favorable to Trump for one reason: the abortion question, the sanctity of life. But how far does this sanctity of life go? Only to one group of people? What about babies killed with American bombs in Yemen because Trump said Americans needed money from arms sales to Saudi Arabia? What about American children who need health care which Trump would deny by abolishing affordable health care?
What about a Trump who relishes division over against a Biden who yearns for healing?
When any religious group attempts to force its beliefs, even admirable beliefs, by political power, that group almost always ends up being corrupted by that power and losing any moral authority.