I've got to admit that, as a pastor, I became very cynical about the effect of regular church attendance on the attitudes of my parishioners (except they seemed more and more to agree I had to go. In my defense, I'll point out that church never called another full-time pastor after me, and has now merged with a "gay" church which was renting its space, because they didn't have enough members left alive to avoid the choice. But none of that means I was a good pastor.). However:
Barker presented research from the Democracy Fund’s 2018 Voter Study Group Data, which measured Trump favorability among GOP voters by different groups on a scale of 0 to 1, with 1 being the most supportive of Trump while 0 was the least supportive.
Barker split evangelicals into two categories. “Inactive Evangelical Christians,” who subscribe to evangelical beliefs but rarely attend church, and “Active Evangelical Christians,” those who subscribe to evangelical beliefs and are involved in church.
The research found that while “Inactive Evangelical Christians” had a 0.81 favorability for Trump, “Active Evangelical Christians” had a 0.74 favorability for Trump, which was the same as the “Seculars” category (0.74) but slightly higher than the “overall mean” (0.71).
“Being religious actually leads you to support Trump less among this group,” Barker said. “The highest level of support we see among religious people are people who identify as born-again Christians but aren’t actually doing anything about that most of the time.”
In addition to Piacenza and Barker, other panelists included Emily Ekins, research fellow and director of polling at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute and Emma Green, staff writer at The Atlantic who specializes in politics, policy, and religion.
Daniel A. Cox, research fellow at AEI who formerly served as research director at the Public Religion Research Institute, moderated the panel discussion.
During his introductory remarks, Cox noted that the “relationship between Trump and the conservative Christian movement defies easy explanation.”
“From the earliest days of Trump’s campaign, an open question was how would Trump, a thrice-married admitted adulterer, fare among social conservatives? Well, he’s actually fared fairly well,” stated Cox.
“Even amidst the relentless series of scandals and controversies plaguing the Trump administration, Evangelical support has been a consistent bright spot. It’s the reason that a primary challenge against Trump would probably fail if it ever even materializes and why he would remain a viable contender for 2020.”
The panel entertained multiple factors, such as a sense by evangelicals that they are singled out for persecution by mainstream culture and a concern by evangelicals over the sweeping changes in the culture, especially on issues like gay marriage and gender identity.
When analyzing factors, Ekins of Cato said that Trump, like former President Ronald Reagan, was able to make evangelicals feel he was “looking out for” them.
“It’s not necessarily about which political leader best embodies your particular set of values. Its which party is looking out for you,” explained Ekins.
“I think that Trump communicated that to them. Ronald Reagan was also personally not the most religious person … but he spoke to religious people and said ‘you have moral authority. Your beliefs matter and I’m going to defend that in the arena of politics.’ And I think Trump did something similar.”
In March, a Pew Research Center analysis found that white evangelical support had fallen 9 percentage points between February 2017 and February 2019, going from 78 percent to 69 percent.
The 9 point decline represented the largest decrease in support of any religious groups surveyed by Pew for their report, with the second largest being among white Catholics, who went from 52 percent in 2017 to 44 percent in 2019.
“An August 2018 survey found that roughly half of white evangelicals do not think that Trump has set a high moral standard for the presidency since taking office,” explained Pew in their March report.
“Some prominent evangelical leaders, such as Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, have expressed ambivalence about Trump and concern about some of his policies. Others, such as Beth Moore, founder of Living Proof Ministries, openly oppose the president.”
Probably a bit more detail than you wanted; if, that is, you wanted a simple story about how evangelicals are turning against Trump. What I read here is that people who attend church don't pay attention to Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Franklin Graham and the rest of Trump's grab-bag of non-church affiliated "leaders." What most of those "leaders" lead are TV audiences or purchasers of merchandise (books, tapes, etc. Yeah, I bet they still buy tapes, not downloads.), which makes people "leaders" to journalists who measure everything by its market value (only the Democratic candidates with enough donations are "serious", for example.). Trump is "defending" the "moral interests" of evangelicals by issuing proclamations that don't really add anything to existing law, but make them think he's taking care of their business. Who needs reality when appearance will do?
And notice this support matters largely within the GOP. Trump fights off primary contenders because of evangelical support, the article says. That doesn't mean he wins in the general election with that support alone. The Texas Legislature, dominated still by the GOP (but less so than 2 years ago) apparently learning nothing since the bathroom bill debacle two years ago, and the strong challenge to Republican hegemony in Texas last November, wants "Bathroom Bill 2: Electric Boogaloo" by allowing licensed professionals in the state (which includes barbers!) to discriminate based on sincerely held religious beliefs (thanks, Justice Kennedy and Hobby Lobby!). Discriminate, of course, against LGBTQ+, but nothing in the law limits them to just that (will Justice Roberts declare the Civil Rights bill no longer necessary?). Business in Texas doesn't want to do business that way, and if this passes a lot of conventions in Texas will pull out of Texas (they already have clauses in their contracts, implemented after the bathroom bill almost became law). And, I suspect, a number of Republican incumbents will lose their seats in 2020; but at least evangelicals will be pleased.
Well, the ones who don't lose any business, anyway.
Like Trump's recent orders on medical care and "religious belief", this proposed law doesn't really change Texas law, which offers no protection to LGBTQ+ anyway. It's at most a sop, but at worst a terrible bit of public policy that puts the force of the state behind the idea "these people" are damned and we're damned if we associate with them. It's a very ugly bit of public theology by people who wouldn't acknowledge the legitimacy, much less the authority, of theology. One more reason to keep church and state separated, eh?
There may be people in churches who think this way; in fact, I'm sure there are. What's interesting is the people outside of churches are more likely to think of people they don't know as "other." Slightly more likely, but slightly is good enough for highway work. They are comfortable doing this because what they know of Christianity they get directly from Falwell and Graham and the like, in the comfort of their own homes, without having to go to a building sit next to people they might not otherwise sit next to, and join in a common practice that doesn't involve sports or pure spectatorship, and then be expected, however mildly, to socialize with such people.
And we shouldn't overlook that Pew report about evangelical support (I presume for Trump), which has fallen over two years. I suspect support for Trump has fallen, too. A steady state of approval that keeps him 10 points underwater for his entire presidency is not exactly a rousing cheer for his continued occupation of the office. And the declining influence of TeeVee evangelists (Jr. runs a university, not a church and a university, like Daddy did. Franklin doesn't have 1/10th the respect his father garnered. The rest of Trump's panel run mega-churches that would collapse tomorrow if they retired.) means the support for Trump in the greater population of "evangelicals" is itself declining.
Like the GOP in the Texas Lege, I think these guys are on the backside of history. Texas is not going to turn blue in my lifetime (it took the Great Depression and then a few generations of Texas politicians and LBJ to even get Texas to be less hardshell conservative, if only for awhile), but it may turn a deeper shade of purple. It almost certainly will if the Texas GOP continues to act like its only constituency are the evangelicals (and the rich, but that's a tax issue and a subject for another time). In that, Texas is a microcosm of the country, and I think the country is ready for a shift to blue; especially if blue can do something for the people, and not just for pressure groups.
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