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In the United States, white evangelicals make up a quarter of the electorate. 81 percent of them voted
2016 for Donald Trump, but some now lament the unholy association. That could be crucial.
Television preacher as the president’s faith advisor: Here Donald Trump prays alongside Paula White in Miami.
Photo: Imago Images / Media Punch
By the 2016 election, Jennifer Schnabel had been a longtime apostate. At least by believing in those who had taught her that only if she voted Republican could she be a good Christian. It was the Bush years when she began to question her identity as an evangelical Christian. “If you don’t vote for Bush, you kill babies, they told us. And we followed him. “Then he saw the images of the Iraq war, of dead young children, killed in the rain of American bombs, commanded by President George W. Bush.” It was out of me, “he says in the video call. Tears flow as if it happened yesterday, “my kids were a similar age.” But it wasn’t until 2012 that she could make up her mind to vote for a Democrat: Barack Obama. And she stood firm. In 2016, she voted for Hillary Clinton, not for Donald Trump.
Gun ownership and Christianity
It sounds paradoxical. Many say that Trump could not speak for a minute without lying. Dozens of women accuse him of having been sexually abused by him. Trump mocks minorities, exposes people, insults them. But staunch Christians of all people stand behind him like no other group. About a quarter of all those who voted in the 2018 midterm elections identify as white evangelicals. In 2016, 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump.
But because a quarter of voters identified as white evangelicals, a change of just a few percentage points could be a big deal for Trump. And it seems to be happening. In a poll commissioned by the renowned PEW Center, 78 percent of white evangelicals interviewed said they wanted to vote for Trump. A proud figure, but in August it was 82 percent. The difference is small. “But it might be enough,” says Robert Schenk, director of the nonprofit Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute in Washington.
From his office, Schenk has a nice view of the Supreme Court, where this week with Amy Comey Barrett, not an evangelical Christian, but a very conservative Catholic judge took his place. A few years ago, Schenk would have applauded. At the time he was still head of an evangelical organization, defending the right to own guns and fighting abortion and gay marriage. In the early 1990s, Schenk became something of a figurehead for right-wing evangelicals. But when an abortion gynecologist Barnett Abba Slepian was shot and killed by a supporter of his organization in 1998, a process of rethinking began for him, as Schenk himself puts it.
It started with Ronald Reagan
Today Schenk is horrified when he thinks of that image of Trump in the Oval Office: the president surrounded by evangelical leaders, eyes closed in prayer, head bowed. Schenk knows everyone, they were colleagues. Today he condemns his closeness to Trump: “They abuse the holy prayer by putting it at the service of a political actor.” They allowed themselves to be abused to ensure Trump’s power: “We have made a pact with the devil.”
The pact was made first with Ronald Reagan. Before that, white evangelicals were a fairly apolitical democratic group without clear leadership. The separation of politics and religion was one of the binding principles. Influential preachers wanted to change that. Jerry Falwell, for example, one of the most famous television preachers of his time. He saw white evangelicals as a powerful movement.
In the divorced Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan, Falwell saw the right partner. Falwell would give him the evangelical votes in 1980. Reagan should secure his influence for this and bring his themes to the big stage. The deal worked: 67 percent of white Protestant voters supported Reagan. With the help of evangelicals, both Bush and Trump were elected in 2016.
Donald Trump as savior
Trump’s promise to evangelicals was to fill as many judicial positions as possible with anti-abortion opponents and defenders of the right to own guns, which he succeeded. Above all, he promised that they would be a power in Washington. He also saved that. With Mike Pence as vice president or Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, he elevated evangelicals to the highest positions. Trump also brought together the most famous television preachers as religious advisers. Paula White, for example, who preached that wealth is an expression of closeness to God.
He’s also an Evangelical: Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence in an election campaign appearance.
Photo: Keystone
These TV preachers tell millions of followers that Trump is their God-sent savior who can end the culture war for abortion, women’s rights and gay marriage in their favor. For them, Trump is a “short cut” to finally ending this long and grueling fight, Schenk says. It helps that Trump isn’t behaving like a godly Christian, Schenk says. “The justification consists in the fact that God repeatedly used evil characters to do his work.”
Many are very concerned about this. Since the beginning of October, the ballot call for a group of evangelical leaders called “Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden,” anti-abortion Biden, has been online. Theologians who always voted for the Republicans were among the first to sign. Biden, so his election call does not have to be the first choice for Christians. But always the first option compared to Trump.
