When President Trump won the White House by a landslide four years ago, conservative Christians could not believe in his good fortune.
At every turn of his presidency, he gave them everything they needed: two hundred federal judges appointed for life. An embassy in Jerusalem. Anti-abortion policies two judges of the Supreme Court and then in the last hours, a third. He was defending his country at the time, when he knew the country, and his place in it was changing. And they brought their movement to the pinnacle of political maturity.
Now Joseph R. The election of Biden Jr. marks a new chapter for conservative Christian power, culminating in Mr. Trump’s presidency. As Republican evangelicals across the country process the events of the week, they reflect on how much they have achieved in the last four years and the fears of what could happen under the Biden administration. They also wondered when and how they would gain power.
In Sheldon, Iowa, where eight out of ten voters supported Mr. Trump, Leah Shunhuve raised concerns about the Biden presidency over three single-space pages. She was concerned that the election results had been corrupted, and that Mr Biden would promote Mr Trump’s priorities, from building a border wall to promoting evangelical ideals on religious freedom.
“He is not a Christian at all; Maybe he’ll prove me wrong, “he said of Mr. Biden, a Catholic. “It simply came to our notice then. Not everything that Trump did is going to do that. ”
“I don’t think our world will ever come back, when you have this country divided,” he said.
Donna Rigney, a pastor whose church is in Salt Springs, Fla. In RV Park’s lodge, he has supported the president since 2016, when he saw it as a direct message from God to nominate him.
After this election, she sent an email to people in her prayer circles, urging them not to give up. He wrote, “We must pull Donald Trump to the finish line with faith, worship, fasting and prayer instead of loving and forgiving our enemies.”
But he said Friday that if this Trump era comes to an end, he was grateful for the work he has done for the country, and comforted that he would suffer fewer attacks. “It will be fine, God’s hand is on it,” he said. “It would be better not to have a president and not to attack every day. But I really think this will be terrible for the nation. ”
Mr. Trump’s president has repeatedly called for a divide between white Christians and others of faith, or a lack of faith. Mr Biden’s narrow margins of victory in many of the warring states showed that cultural clashes between these groups were far from over. Eight out of ten White Evangelical voters backed Mr. Trump in the 2020 election, according to the AP Votecast, which he did in 2001. Mr. Biden’s coalition included many black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, and religiously insecure Americans.
Mr. Trump won a larger share of Latino voter support overall than he did four years ago. And Mr. Sacramento Pastor Rev. Trump praying at Trump’s 2017 inauguration. For Samuel Rodriguez, the lesson of the 2020 election was what the Latinos called the “quantitative swing vote.”
Mr. Rodriguez saw a legacy of the Trump era redefining the former approach to the question of the character of American evangelicals politicians. His devotion to Mr. Trump, which required language and behavior that he found disgusting, proved that personal character is not everything to him after achieving so many tangible goals.
“The policies are fairly significant,” he said.
Forty years ago, when it would not have been imaginable to vote for a person like Donald Trump, when they emerged as a powerful group behind Ronald Reagan’s victory, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, R.C. Said Albert Mohall. Q.
Today, he said, “they clearly feel that the culture is becoming hostile and increasingly secular in a clear sense.” Evangelicals are voting with the same values, but with a different set of priorities. ”
Mr. Mohaler did not vote for Mr. Trump in 201 Trump. But this year, he spoke publicly about his plans to vote for the president, despite constant reservations, calling Trump’s victory an alternative “increasingly impossible.”
Like the president, a number of evangelical leaders refused to accept the outcome in which Mr. Trump lost. Moments after most major news networks counted that Mr. Biden had won the race, Franklin Graham, whose promoter, warned that the results were “not official.”
And Mr. Graham warned that under a bidon administration, Christian businesses would soon be targeted for things like not selling cakes for gay weddings, as he said happened during Mr. Obama’s presidency.
“America is in such a moral collapse,” he said. “We are becoming a more violent country. I am afraid for our country. ”
In Texas, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas, Robert Jeffreys, announced how Christians should respond to the Biden president to preach the whole sermon in the city.
“There are consequences that millions of Christians will be disappointed with.”
“Joe Biden’s victory cannot erase all the positive accomplishments he owes to President Trump,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a way to count all the good things he’s done.”
Some socially-minded political groups were already leading other political battles, such as securing Republican control of the Senate, which could be decided by a two-run election in Georgia in January. The continued Republican control of the Senate could rob him of his achievements under Mr. Trump, and make it difficult for Democrats to do things like funded parenthood or increase the size of the Supreme Court, several organizers said.
“To plan for the Biden administration, we will have a back stop; Otherwise it’s Armageddon that we initially feared, ”said Marjorie Dannefels, president of Susan B. Anthony List.“ That’s why Georgia is so important. The other side also knows it. ”
On Saturday, as the Biden campaign declared victory, the Faith and Freedom Coalition began knocking on doors across the state, preparing to distribute 1 million voter guides across 4,000 churches.
Social activists said at least 15 new women who opposed abortion rights had more than doubled their numbers in the previous Congress celebrating the House election. About half of the 15 seats in the Democratic hands.
And social activists had another reason to stay positive: despite Mr. Trump’s defeat, he believes the judiciary’s monetary control over what he has enabled will have a lasting effect.
“I’m going to celebrate when Amy Connie Barrett writes a majority decision protecting Christian foster care and adoption agencies,” said Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women of America. “We’ve put some issues on the board.”
