WHY EVANGELICALS LOVE TRUMP

Evangelical Christians form the core of the Trump base this year as in past years. In the elections of 2016 and 2020, 80% of them voted for Trump. If anything, at least as many support him this go around. The question at hand is: Why are Evangelical Christians so fervently devoted to Donald Trump? Here is my take on it.

First, one has to define what we mean by the term "Evangelical Christian." They are the "born again" Protestants such as fundamentalists, pentecostals, conservative mainstream. I would put the Anglican Church in North America in this grouping.  However, it is important to note the racial element here. We are talking about white Evangelicals and not black ones. It is the white Evangelicals who are the devoted followers of Trump.

The most fervent of this group see Trump as God's agent in the world, a sort of new messiah sent to redeem the world of its present sin. With this view, they can forgive everything else about Trump which is saying a great deal considering his personal life and his policies and procedures as president. Trump was arguably the most unchristian president ever. 

To understand this strange, even bizarre, phenomenon of the attraction of opposites, we have to go back to the mindset and world view of the white Evangelicals. This is a subject of which I can speak with some knowledge having spent my first twenty-one years in a thoroughly fundamentalist church. If I know anything at all, I know these people.

The worldview of the Evangelicals is strictly vertical. God is the great ruling force of the universe, an object in outer space somewhere, like us humans only stronger. Human beings are born corrupt and sinful and are condemned to eternal punishment if they do not submit to this idol-like God. The universe is a Manichean battle ground between good and evil, that is, God and Satan. You are on one side or the other. There is no in between. You are "saved" or "unsaved." If you are saved, you go to the blissful realm of God. If you die unsaved, you go to hell.

God controls the Universe. So, changing social and cultural norms is not up to humans. That is the prerogative of God since he created everything and controls everything. Evangelicals believe the calling of man is to reconcile himself to God and to serve God in his life. So, white Evangelicals are drawn to Trump as God's way of restoring the social and cultural norms of the past that they believe God created and intended for mankind. Most visibly, this means returning women to the submission of men. That means a national ban on abortions and illegalization of all forms of birth control. It also means reversing and abolishing all rights of homosexual and transgendered people. Evangelicals see the recent democratic reforms in America as the work of evil forces. So, they tend to regard Trump as the messiah to defeat the evil forces that have "taken over" modern life. To them, he is not just another politician. He is God's special agent, even similar to the agent God sent to save the world two thousand years ago. "Christian Nationalism" is also popular among the Evangelicals.

It is not just what Evangelicals think. It is the way they think that is at issue here. Children are brought up in this environment to believe Evangelical cosmology as the only truth. Many of them get it not only in church but in private schools and home schooling. Believe, obey and follow are the code words of the day. Thus, children grow up without developing critical thinking skills. By the time they become adults, their brains are deficient in reasonable and rational problem solving. In short, they struggle to think for themselves. They were taught what to think and not how to think. The Evangelicals of today were the Evangelical children of yesterday.

Again, I know whereof I speak. I taught in college for decades in Florida and Alabama. Every year I taught Freshmen, a great many of them fresh out of the Evangelical cocoons of their growing up years. Most of them away from home for the first time. Very few of them had skills of reasonable and logical thinking. Typically, their approach to education was to memorize the information and repeat it on the tests without really understanding or internalizing what the material meant, the same way they had been taught to approach the Bible.

Every year I struggled to get my students to develop reasonable and logical thought in the context of the history courses. I told them I was there to tell how how to think and not what to think. I doubt that I ever reached the majority but I know I reached a good number. I started with the most simple and basic approach: 1-state a problem or question, 2-present the appropriate information, and 3-draw conclusion(s) based on the information presented. On every test I ever gave (50,000 in my whole career) I required an essay. It was gratifying to see those students who actually followed the simple pattern. I was getting through to them. That was enough to keep me going.

I know I had some effect because for years afterwards, my former students would sometimes tell me so. One told me that after she took a teaching job, all the teachers in her school turned to her whenever there was a report to be written because she knew how to do it. She had learned the three step approach. She knew how to solve problems logically and put it on paper.

Of course, critical thinking can be a dangerous thing, as the Evangelical leaders know well. Over the years I had a number of students who came to me in my office questioning everything they had been taught growing up. They wanted to know what to do. My answer was always the same: I cannot tell you what to think but I can tell you how to think. You are an individual. God gave you a brain and the power of reason. You are in college. Keep an open mind. Learn all you can. Then, draw your own conclusions. I always gave an ear because I could see myself in them. There I was years ago.

In conclusion, Evangelicals support Trump because of what they see in the world and how they see it. Now do not get me wrong. Evangelicals are not bad people. Far from it. Some of the individuals I knew in church as a child were among the best people I have ever known. It was just that their religion was primitive, undeveloped, and immature. They could not get beyond the vertical experience when it should have been only the beginning of the best Christian life and not the ending.

A word to the Democrats. Do not disparage the white Evangelicals. Do not question their motives. Realize you are not going to change their minds. Do not try it even though you know, as I do, that what they are doing is destructive to Christianity and American democracy. If you want votes against Trump, reach out beyond the white Evangelicals to the millions of Americans who are open to reason and logic as well as morality for the common good.

The best book on the subject of the Evangelicals and contemporary politics is:

Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. 2023.