Evangelical Dave: Reborners Ideal, Innate, Acts (as seen by God and others) Confess and Repent!
DONALD TRUMP DOING GOD'S WILL?
ARE YOU EXPERIENCING GOD?
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (1 Corinthian 13:1-7)
THUS THE LORD SAYS...
Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit as the “Advocate” (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7). Other translations use the word Comforter (kjv) or Counselor (rsv). Christ told His disciples that the Spirit would teach them “all things” and remind them of “everything” Jesus had said and taught (14:26). The Spirit is the very presence of God and will be with us “forever” (v. 16). On the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Christ’s resurrection, God sent the Holy Spirit to all believers in Jesus (Acts 2:1-4). Today, everyone receives the Holy Spirit when they receive Christ as Savior (10:44). We can trust what “the Spirit of truth” (John 15:26) speaks into our hearts and minds. The Spirit gives believers spiritual gifts to serve Jesus and to help us grow more like Him (1 Corinthians 12:1-11; Galatians 5:22-23). The Spirit also convicts unbelievers of sin and the need for salvation (John 16:7-11).
Making his preflight checks for a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to New York City, a flight attendant noticed a passenger visibly anxious and concerned about flying. He sat in the aisle, held her hand, explained each step of the flight process, and reassured her that she was going to be fine. “When you get on an aircraft, it's not about us, it's about you,” he said. “And if you’re not feeling good, I want to be there to say, ‘Hey, what’s wrong? Is there something I can do?’ ” His caring presence can be a picture of what Jesus said the Holy Spirit would do for believers in Him.
Christ’s death and resurrection and ascension were necessary and beneficial to save people from their sins, but it would also create emotional turbulence and deep sorrow in the disciples’ hearts (John 14:1). So He reassured them that they wouldn’t be left alone to carry out His mission in the world. He would send the Holy Spirit to be with them—an “advocate to help [them] and be with [them] forever” (v. 16). The Spirit would bear witness about Jesus and remind them of all Christ did and said (v. 26). They would be “encouraged by” Him during difficult times (Acts 9:31).
In this life, everyone—including believers in Christ—will experience the turbulence of anxiety, fear, and grief. But He’s promised that, in His absence, the Holy Spirit is present to comfort us.
Former President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the US military should be used to deal with “the enemy from within” on Election Day has reignited concerns about what he might ask US forces to do if he wins a second term as commander in chief.
And it is senior military leaders who served under him that have most clearly sounded the alarm about Trump.
The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, told Bob Woodward in his new book “War” that the former president “is the most dangerous person to this country … A fascist to the core.”
And on Thursday on The Bulwark podcast, Woodward said Gen. Jim Mattis, who served as Trump’s defense secretary, had emailed him to say that he agreed with the assessment that Milley had provided Woodward. On the podcast, Woodward said the thrust of Mattis’ email about Trump was “Let’s make sure we don’t try to downplay the threat, because the threat is high.”
Trump has long had a boyish fascination with the military, idolizing World War II generals George Patton and Douglas MacArthur. As a teenager, he reveled in his stint at a military-style boarding school in New York.
When he became president, Trump staffed his cabinet with senior generals. He appointed Mattis, a retired four-star general to head the Pentagon; his chief of staff John Kelly was another retired four-star general, and two of his national security advisers were three-star generals, Michael Flynn and H. R. McMaster.
Trump loves the pomp and ceremony of the military and lobbied for a massive Kremlin-style parade in Washington, DC while, he was in office. In the end, the parade never happened.
Despite Trump’s bromance with the military, senior retired generals and admirals haven’t loved him back. Some even seem to think that it is the former president who is the real “enemy within.”
Going back as far as four years ago, Mattis, provided a statement to The Atlantic magazine that “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.”
Similarly, Kelly told CNN’s Jake Tapper last year that Trump is “a person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”
In McMaster’s book, “At War with Ourselves,” a memoir of his time working at the Trump White House, McMaster wrote that in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat, Trump’s “ego and love of self… drove him to abandon his oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution,’ a president’s highest obligation.”
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who revolutionized Joint Special Operations Command, the unit responsible for killing Osama bin Laden in 2011, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times three weeks ago saying he is voting for Vice President Kamala Harris because of her “character.” Unstated in his op-ed was McChrystal’s assessment of Trump, though in the past, McChrystal has said Trump is “immoral” and “dishonest.”
The leader of the bin Laden operation was Adm. Bill McRaven, who in 2020 wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about Trump, saying, “when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security — then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.”
In early June 2020, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen wrote in The Atlantic that he was “sickened” to see peaceful protestors who were protesting the recent murder by police of George Floyd “forcibly and violently” removed from around the White House.
It’s hard to think of any American president who has earned the opprobrium of so many senior officers.
That isn’t to say that Trump doesn’t have some fans among “his” generals. While Trump was in office, New America, a research institution where I work, compiled public statements for and against Trump by retired and active-duty flag officers. We found that five times more flag officers, 255, were critical of Trump, while 54 supported the Trump administration.
One of Trump’s fans is Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served as national security advisor to Vice President Mike Pence. Kellogg appears in Woodward’s new book “secretly” meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this year. After the trip, Kellogg told Trump, “They are not going to go along with a cease-fire.”
Kellogg is one of the few senior advisers in the Trump White House who didn’t resign or get fired during Trump’s term in office. Given his longstanding loyalty to Trump, Kellogg will likely return to some senior role if Trump wins in November.
If Trump won the election, he wouldn’t be commander in chief until January 20, so he couldn’t order the US military to do anything on Election Day, as he suggested to Fox News. But if Trump were to win the White House – which is a coin flip right now given the close race – as commander in chief and with a pliable secretary of defense, he could order the Pentagon to do pretty much anything he wanted. According to senior officers who served under him, that would be a troubling prospect.
As a young girl, Amy Carmichael (1867-1951) wished she had blue eyes instead of brown. She even prayed that God would change her eye color and was disappointed when it didn’t happen. At age 20, Amy sensed that the Lord was calling her to serve Him as a missionary. After serving in various places, she went to India. It was then that she realized God’s wisdom in the way He had made her. She may have had a more difficult time gaining acceptance from the brown-eyed people if her eyes had been blue. She served God in India for 55 years.
We don’t know for sure that Amy was more readily accepted because of her eye color. But we do know and believe that it is the Lord “who has made us, and not we ourselves” (Ps. 100:3). As we submit to His wisdom in everything, we can serve Him effectively.
Amy knew what submission was. When asked about missionary life, she replied, “Missionary life is simply a chance to die.” Jesus said, “Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matt. 16:25).
That describes the devoted Christian’s life as well— total surrender to God’s plans and will for us. May we submit to Him today.
When American evangelicals flocked to Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe in the late twentieth century to fulfill their Biblical mandate for global evangelism, their experiences abroad led them to engage more deeply in foreign policy activism at home. Lauren Frances Turek tracks these trends and illuminates the complex and significant ways in which religion shaped America's role in the late–Cold War world. In To Bring the Good News to All Nations, she examines the growth and influence of Christian foreign policy lobbying groups in the United States beginning in the 1970s, assesses the effectiveness of Christian efforts to attain foreign aid for favored regimes, and considers how those same groups promoted the imposition of economic and diplomatic sanctions on those nations that stifled evangelism. Using archival materials from both religious and government sources, To Bring the Good News to All Nations links the development of evangelical foreign policy lobbying to the overseas missionary agenda. Turek's case studies—Guatemala, South Africa, and the Soviet Union—reveal the extent of Christian influence on American foreign policy from the late 1970s through the 1990s. Evangelical policy work also reshaped the lives of Christians overseas and contributed to a reorientation of U.S. human rights policy. Efforts to promote global evangelism and support foreign brethren led activists to push Congress to grant aid to favored, yet repressive, regimes in countries such as Guatemala while imposing economic and diplomatic sanctions on nations that persecuted Christians, such as the Soviet Union. This advocacy shifted the definitions and priorities of U.S. human rights policies with lasting repercussions that can be traced into the twenty-first century.
After I became a born-again Christian (abbreviated as reborners here) when I prioritize myself within the plan of God as my life, I could had gone to the mission field and actually participated and had some preliminary training for this regard. I attended overseas missionary conferences and was encouraged to go to China joining its Belt and Road Initiative. The idea was that white people in Islamic countries were seen with suspicion while Asians were welcomed in the Middle East and Africa. What better way to have educated Chinese to bring Gospels to the un-reached people. I would had grab the first opportunity where God provided to fulfill the Great Commission.
Well, apparently that wasn't God's plan. At the time President Xi Jinping was seen as a reformer follow the footsteps of his father Xi Zhongxun who played a key role in China's opening up after the disastrous Proletarian Cultural Revolution. We thought he would make China more open in both politics and economics. I could work with my Chinese reformist contacts for a greener, more egalitarian and democratic future. Since there are so many fervant Christians in China, we will be good Christian soldiers marching into the land of the caravans to expand God's kingdom.
We all know how everything turned out with Chairman Xi. My fertile plan and ambition were as real as mirages hovering over the Silk Road dunes.
If I were to follow up on that course of action I would get beheaded by ISIS in short order or in the best of fortune charged as imperialist spy in China or put under surveillance by the United States government for being Chinese asset. So unlike my bible studies buddy Raj who everyday, with his family, has to contend heroically with persecution in India, I just settled for babysitting grandchildren, showing Christ's love to those my evangelist brethren scorn and warning reborners the danger for being a Trumpite. It's more cushingly to do bible studies, Sunday schools and attend church services.
Nevertheless it's important for us to understand the whole picture of the Christian evangelical movement both here and abroad as describe in the above book. Matters are not as pure, simple and innocent we envisaged as we welcomed those heroic and selfless missionaries who present their wonderful works during church visits. Being disciple of Christ is more than Bible Studies knowledge and listening to our beloved pastors. It requires wide awareness of the greater effect of our community actions and their consequence, political and social ramifications, on the Kingdom and the wider world. God gave us the Bible for guidance, eyes for us to see, and the mind to learn. Most importantly, Christ sent the indwelling Spirit to discern and follow the path provided for us to traverse. Such are the rewards, the promise, and the richness God engendered in us living an authentic Christian life. So we should learn, learn, and learn.
In the final chapter of his book "The Final Babylon: America and the Coming of Antichrist", Douglas Krieger described how evangelicals can be deceived by the thought, words and action of the Antichrist. It served a warning to Christians.
This book was written well before Donald Trump descended his golden escalator running for the Presidency. Inasmuch a fabulist and stable genius the 45th is, he is not the Antichrist. But he is more than qualified to be his Apprentice. Trump's ability to lead evangelical Christians by the nose, both church pastors and congregants alike, is just phenomenal. I cannot fail to be amazed by the fidelity of my brothers and sisters in Christ exhibit to his every pronouncement and respond to his personal charisma. Nothing he said or done, no matter how outrageous or blasphemous, could offend born-again Christians' emotional sensitivity. Excuses were given to every offense. Everything we learned and understood in our Bible studies, during Sunday school - heard and preached in our weekly sermons - might as well be cast out the window as they apply to Donald Trump. He had a way to make born-again Christians feeling good, energetic and holy, with pastors and religious leaders affording him with utmost devotion. There is this magnetism that scripturalist Christians could appropriate the personhood of Jesus Christ to serve Trump's very needs, totally surrendering to his plan and will. He is Tha God! It's just amazing. And Anathema to the True God, Creator of Heaven and Earth.
But serving idol, i.e. Donald Trump, is abomination. I used to give short shift to Tim LaHaye's Left Behind book series. But no more. The tragedy is that most Trumpist Christians, my brothers and sisters, would be left behind with the Anti-Christ rather than raptured up to be with Jesus. There would be much weeping and gnashing of teethes. If not confess and repent, this would be just consequence for serving as foot soldiers for the Prince of the Air and Creature of Chaos, the Devil's Apprentice. I hate to see it. This is the Lord's warning!!
Public opinion polls show that 47 percent of registered voters support Donald Trump in the 2024 election. This appears to be both Trump’s basement and ceiling of support. Like a cult leader, he has a near-iron grip on his MAGA supporters and the Republican Party. Trump can attempt a coup, channel Hitler, be convicted of multiple criminal felons, publicly praise tyrants, promise to become America’s first dictator for “day one” of his return to power in 2025 and threaten his “enemies” with "retribution."
The adoration and loyalty that his MAGA supporters— and Republicans and right-leaning independents more broadly — show for Trump is a cause of great consternation and frustration for Democrats. While a new public opinion poll from CBS/YouGov shows that Kamala Harris continues to gain momentum, the race remains a statistical tie in the key battleground states that will determine the final outcome in the Electoral College. Experts continue to warn that the 2024 election, at this point, is the closest in recent history.
In this conversation, Jones explains the almost mythical and divine role that Trump occupies in the collective minds of white right-wing Christians. Jones also discusses his new research which shows the frightening overlaps between white right-wing Christians and support for authoritarianism and political violence as seen on Jan. 6 and its implications for the future of American democracy and society in the Age of Trump and beyond.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
What story are the polls telling us about the 2024 election?
So far in the 2024 election cycle, the polling for the presidential election has told us only one thing that we can say with confidence: The contest remains a dead heat.
Because of the Electoral College, the national polls are irrelevant. At the state level, despite the breathless headlines of “Trump leading by three” or “Harris up by two,” we have yet to see either candidate pull into a lead that is firmly outside the margin of error in the polling averages in any swing state. There are also typically 5-6 percentage points of respondents who either refuse the vote question or say they remain undecided. The state polls are also of limited help with understanding subgroups because of smaller sample sizes. For example, if you wanted to understand Black voters in Michigan, even with a poll of 1,000 voters, you’d likely have at most 150 African Americans in the sample and estimates of their opinions would have a margin of error of +/- 10 percentage points.
The most obvious, but perhaps also most surprising thing particularly given Donald Trump’s increasingly outright racist and erratic rhetoric, is how little the voting patterns have shifted since 2020 or even 2016. For example, despite everything Trump has done and even been convicted of, there’s no evidence of any erosion of support for Trump among white Christians or white frequent churchgoers. It’s a good indicator of what a death grip partisanship has on American voters.
The news media is obsessed with novelty and the “new” in the “news.” When you look at Trump and Trumpism in longer, and much more important historical and cultural terms, how are you making sense of this crisis?
As dangerous as Trump is for democracy, he is a symptom, not the disease. While we at PRRI are continually taking the pulse of contemporary public opinion, those results can only be fully understood when placed in historical context. There are clear historical throughlines. For example, the authoritarian tactics currently deployed by Trump have historical precedents both in the US and in early 20th century Europe. PRRI’s most recent study, "One Leader Under God: The Connection Between Authoritarianism and Christian Nationalism in America." tapped the sociological literature that arose to understand the rise of fascism in Europe in the early 20th century.
In "The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future," I also connected the dots between the threat of Christian nationalism we are facing today and 500 years of Christian doctrine going back to the European colonial period. This deeper historical context helps us see that many of the perplexing features of our current conflicts are new occurrences of old unresolved questions. Today, the changing demographics of the country has thrown us back to a fundamental question: Are we a pluralistic democracy, in which everyone stands on equal footing regardless of race or religion, or are we a white Christian nation, a kind of promised land for European Christians?
What do we know about Trump’s messianic martyr appeal for his White Christian right-wing followers?
Trump has long played into the idea that he was specially chosen by God to save the country from evil and destruction. This appeal is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. Even before the two attempts on his life, he was using language that directly compared himself to a messianic figure who was being wounded and persecuted on behalf of his righteous followers. He made this case overtly last spring in a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters, an organization created by leaders of communications outlets that operate specifically in the white evangelical world. His language was not subtle: "I'm a very proud Christian, actually. I’ve been very busy fighting and, you know, taking the the bullets, taking the arrows. I'm taking 'em for you. And I'm so honored to take 'em. You have no idea. I'm being indicted for you….And in the end, they're not after me. They're after you. I just happen to be standing in the way.”
He’s continued to use this language that evokes the theological logic of substitutionary atonement, where he bravely offers himself to be sacrificed on behalf of his followers. But Trump the messiah promises to bring not love or righteousness, but the restoration of power to white Christians in a changing America. In the same speech, Trump made a promise to his white evangelical followers: "I get in there, you're gonna be using that power at a level that you've never used it before. It's gonna bring back the churchgoer…. We're gonna bring it back. And I really believe it's the biggest thing missing from this country. It's the biggest thing missing. We have to bring back our religion. We have to bring back Christianity in this country.” Trump’s white Christian base has largely remained with him not because they necessarily believe he is one of them but because they believe he’ll restore what they see as their rightful place of power in a white Christian America. At root, Trump’s appeal to white Christians is not his values, but his value for achieving their Christian nationalist ends.
Donald Trump is a symbol, not just a man. Trumpism and American neofascism will exist for a long time after he is gone. The hope-peddlers and happy-pill sellers in the news media and political class are doing the American people a great disservice by not emphasizing this fact.
I recently wrote about the social psychology of this phenomenon. The transformation of Trump from a person to a symbol is the key to understanding the power of the MAGA movement and the internal logic of its upside-down world. It is true that every presidential candidate becomes, to some extent, a symbol or totem. We read into their biographies and project onto their bodies a broader set of principles, values and worldviews. But typically, in healthier times than ours, the connection between a candidate’s character and actions on the one hand, and their idealized symbolic projection on the other, remains visible and therefore functional. Any significant misstep may be enough to break the magical, often fragile social spell that binds the person to the symbol.
When the leader becomes the totem, no transgression is capable of separating him from his acolytes. A totem can’t lie or be vulgar. A totem doesn’t have marriage vows that can be violated. A totem can’t sexually assault a woman. A totem can’t commit fraud. A totem can’t betray an oath to the Constitution. A totem has no innate human characteristics at all. It is a mirror, reflecting the collective fears and aspirations of the group, who both generate its image and receive it back reinforced. And this is why Trump the totem, much more than Trump the man, poses such a unique danger to democracy and the rule of law.
Your new polling and other work examine the role of the authoritarian personality in support for Donald Trump and his neofascist MAGA movement, specifically among white Christians. How do you define “authoritarianism” in this new research? What do we know about authoritarianism and “conservatives” in the Age of Trump?
PRRI recently released a groundbreaking new study, "One Leader Under God: The Connection Between Authoritarianism and Christian Nationalism in America," based on more than 5,000 interviews with Americans this summer. Revisiting work first developed over concerns about the rise of fascism in early 20th century Germany and Italy (e.g., in Theodor Adorno et al’s 1950 classic "The Authoritarian Personality"), PRRI developed a Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWAS) based on agreement with four highly correlated measures of authoritarian attitudes. PRRI finds that 43% of Americans score high or very high on the RWAS, compared with 37% who score low or very low; two in ten Americans qualify as having mixed opinions (20%).
But these attitudes are not evenly distributed across the political or religious landscape. Republicans are clear outliers. Two-thirds of Republicans score high on the RWAS (67%), compared with only 35% of independents and 28% of Democrats. Notably, Republicans who hold favorable views of Trump are nearly twice as likely as those with unfavorable views of Trump to score high on the RWAS (75% vs. 39%). In short, this study demonstrates how overwhelmingly the authoritarian impulse has taken over the Republican Party.
Donald Trump’s strongest supporters have consistently been white Christians. What does your new research reveal about authoritarian values and members of that group?
White evangelical Protestants (64%) are the religious group most likely to score high on the RWAS, followed by slim majorities of Hispanic Protestants (54%) and white Catholics (54%). As a reminder, each of these groups also strongly supported Donald Trump in the 2020 election: 84% of white evangelical Protestants; 56% of other non-white/non-Black Protestants, and 57% of white Catholics. No other religious groups have majorities scoring high on the RWAS.
The PRRI study clearly shows how these authoritarian orientations — so pronounced among Republicans and their white evangelical Protestant base—translate into concrete attitudes and support for actions that undermine our democracy. Just two examples. First, nearly half of white evangelical Protestants (48%) and nearly four in ten Republicans (39%) agree with the theocratic vision of Christian dominionism, that “God wants Christians to take control of the ‘seven mountains’ of society, including the government, education, media and others.” Second, nearly half of Republicans (49%) — and a majority of Republicans with a favorable view of Trump (55%) — agree that “Because things have gotten so far off track in this country, we need a leader who is willing to break some rules if that's what it takes to set things right.” Four in ten white evangelicals (40%) also support rule-breaking by a strong leader.
How is support for authoritarianism correlated with support for political violence among White Christians?
About one-quarter of Republicans (27%) — and 32% of Republicans with a favorable view of Trump — agree that “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country.” Republican support for potential political violence is twice as high as Americans overall (14%) and three times higher than Democrats (8%). Nearly one in four white evangelical Protestants (23%) also express potential support for political violence.
The PRRI authoritarianism survey also provided two disturbing measures of the lengths Trump’s base supporters may be willing to go to ensure he returns to power.
One in four Republicans (24%) — 29% of Republicans with a favorable view of Trump—and one in five white evangelical Protestants (20%) agree that “If Donald Trump is not confirmed as the winner of the 2024 election, he should declare the results invalid and do whatever it takes to assume his rightful place as president.”
One in four Republicans (24%) — and 27% of Republicans with a favorable view of Trump — agree that “if the 2024 presidential election is compromised by voter fraud, everyday Americans will need to ensure the rightful leader takes office, even if it requires taking violent actions.” One in five white evangelical Protestants (18%) also agree with this sentiment.
Is Christian nationalism, at this point, a violent ideology? Is support for violence as a means of bringing about the end of multiracial pluralistic secular democracy and society almost a prerequisite for such beliefs?
Christian nationalists are more likely than other Americans to think about politics in apocalyptic terms and are about twice as likely as other Americans to believe political violence may be justified. Nearly four in ten Christian nationalism adherents (38%) and one-third of sympathizers (33%) agree that “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country,” compared with only 17% of Christian Nationalism skeptics and 7% of rejecters.
The danger of the Christian nationalist worldview is that it raises the stakes of political contests exponentially, transposing political opponents into existential enemies. Politics are no longer understood to be disagreements between fellow citizens of goodwill but to be apocalyptic battles over good and evil, fought by agents of God against agents of Satan. Political opponents should not just be defeated in fair electoral contests but should be jailed, exiled, attacked, or even killed.
How does your new research inform our understanding of Project 2025 and the larger neofascist plan that Trump and his MAGAfied Republicans will implement to end America’s multiracial pluralistic democracy?
The most disturbing thing about Project 2025 isn’t its extreme policy and political recommendations but the way it marshals Christian nationalist commitments to distort beyond all recognition fundamental American values like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The following passage in the Foreword should send chills up the spines of all Americans who value our Constitution and the freedoms we hold dear in our democracy:
When the Founders spoke of the “pursuit of Happiness,” what they meant might be understood today as in essence “pursuit of Blessedness.” That is, an individual must be free to live as his Creator ordained — to flourish. Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought. This pursuit of the good life is found primarily in family — marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like.
If you read this passage quickly, it’s possible to miss the rhetorical sleight of hand at play here — one that substitutes an impoverished conception of liberty that is captive to a conservative Christian nationalist determination of the good life for true individual liberty that is determined by each citizen. There is a powerful normative white Christian worldview lurking in those images (and a non-coincidental resonance with JD Vance’s problematic claims about marriage and children). If Trump succeeds in getting elected and implementing Project 2025, I’m sure he’ll still speak about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But the rest of us will only be free to do what they believe we ought.
What positive role, if any, can “Christians” play in the pro-democracy movement?
While the authoritarian and Christian nationalist MAGA movement has captured a supermajority of white evangelical Protestants and majorities of both white non-evangelical Protestants and white Catholics, these Trump-leaning white Christian groups are not the only face of Christianity in America. In fact, even combined, all white Christians only comprise 41% of Americans today. Approximately one in four Americans are nonwhite Christians who have a very different history, one that supports rather than opposes an inclusive democracy. And even within white Christian contexts, there are groups such as Christians Against Christian Nationalism that are facing this threat to democracy and to the Christian faith itself directly.
The good news is that while three in 10 Americans are either Christian nationalism adherents or sympathizers, two-thirds of the country rejects this anti-democratic ideology. And among Americans under the age of 50, opposition rises to nearly three-fourths. So, this is not an ascendant movement but a desperate, last-ditch effort to secure minority rule in the face of a rapidly diversifying nation.
