Going to Church, Skipping Donald Trump

Last updated on: September 16, 2015 at 2:51 pm by Samuel James

Going to Church, Skipping Donald Trump 2015-09-16T14:51:01-04:00 Samuel James

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Keith Miller writes a very helpful piece for The Federalist, demonstrating that reports of evangelical support for Donald Trump don’t quite say what you might think.

Among the 40 percent of GOP primary voters who say they are evangelical or born again, Trump only polls 25 percent compared to his 38 percent support among all other GOP primary voters. Even that overstates the amount of Trump support you would find in an evangelical pew on Sunday morning. Of those evangelical GOP primary voters who go to church at least once a month (80 percent of that subgroup), Trump polls just 21 percent. By contrast, among those attending church less frequently, Trump doubles his support.

Trump polls differently among different religious subgroups more generally, dividing the GOP primary electorate into three segments: churchgoing evangelicals, other churchgoing Christians (mostly Catholics and non-evangelical Protestants), and the unchurched. Again, only 21 percent of churchgoing evangelicals support Trump, while Trump wins 42 percent of the unchurched, and 32 percent of other churchgoing Christians.

Of course, this data raises a couple important questions, like whether this is a matter of churchgoing evangelicals not feeling the “anger” that Trump is supposedly tapping into or whether it’s more indicative of Trump’s phony conservatism. My answer would be: Both.

Remember that churchgoing evangelicals are, in terms of beliefs and practices, one of the most conservative blocs in the country. These are the Americans who are most likely to say that Jesus Christ is the only way to God and that there is an objective right and wrong. And yes, churchgoing evangelicals do, statistically, tend to vote conservative Republican. So if these evangelicals are not flocking to support Donald Trump, why not? The simplest answer is that the content of serious, “born again” evangelical religion is diametrically opposed to most of who Trump is and most of what he stands for.

When Trump says he’s never asked for forgiveness from God, or when he describes communion as taking “my little wine and my little cracker” and feeling a bit better about himself afterwards, he is denigrating the very ecclesial experiences of these evangelicals. When he brags about how many women he’s slept with, or when he describes Hispanic immigrants with words like “rapists,” he is insulting millions of women and Hispanics who attend evangelical churches. This is pretty simple logic, but it gets obscured for two reasons. One, many media outlets don’t know how to describe evangelical religion outside of its recent support for Republican politics. Secondly, Trump supporters–as well as a fair share of pundits– have assumed that Trump is a kind of super-authentic conservative who is bringing the debate back to the Right, if in a less than ingratiating way.

The truth is that it’s the conservatism of Donald Trump that is fake and deceptive and compromising. Crank conservatism is not conservatism at all, but mere showmanship that hijacks the language of populism. Church going evangelicals are better equipped to recognize this because of their participation in the institution of the local church, an institution that is conservative in its very nature. By contrast, the hyper-individualized, “choose your own adventure” type of evangelical is far more susceptible to the hokum of crank conservatism, with its historical ignorance, moral apathy, and piecemeal worldview.

Previous Post

September 16, 2015

The Trouble With Facebook

Next Post

September 17, 2015 Russell Moore on Evangelicals and Donald Trump

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion bible books Christianity Current events DVD of the Week education Essays Ethics Fun Liberal Christianity life Mailbag Monday media Movies My Essential Movies philosophy Politics pop culture Quotes religion Southern Baptist Convention sports theology Uncategorized video Weekend Roundup

Select a Month October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 November 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Three of the four beasts from Daniel's vision are: a bear with three ribs in its mouth, a leopard with four wings and four heads, and a terrifying beast with iron teeth and ten horns. Which beast is missing?

Select your answer to see how you score.

A bull breathing fire A lion with eagle's wings A dragon with seven heads A ram with two sets of gilded horns