According to exit polls, 81% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump for President in 2016. This did not simply reflect disproportionate support for Republicans among this group. Even when Trump was competing against other Republicans in the later primary states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, his share of the vote among white evangelical voters exceeded his support among those who were not members of this demographic group. Many of the most prominent white evangelical leaders encouraged their followers to vote for Trump in the primaries. Even more did so after he became the Republican nominee. A number of important white evangelical leaders opposed Trump, but they were clearly not as politically influential as those who supported him.
At first glance, this enthusiastic support from so many white evangelical leaders and rank and file voters seems bizarre, if not inexplicable. Remember, we are talking about a man who seldom attends church, boasts of his libertine lifestyle, was credibly accused of sexual assault by several women and shamelessly repeated vicious lies about his political rivals (even to the point of accusing Ted Cruz’s father of being part of the conspiracy to kill President Kennedy). In addition to these disquieting aspects of his character, the essence of his campaign was to promote fear of and hatred for Mexican immigrants, Muslims, environmentalists and supporters of trade agreements, a message profoundly at odds with Christ’s Golden Rule.
There is an explanation, however. In part it lies with a progressive narrowing of the focus of the political issues many white evangelical Christians have come to consider of primary importance. Making abortion illegal, often even in cases of rape or incest, and preventing same-sex marriages from becoming legal have come for many evangelical Christians to mark the beginning and the end of their agenda as Christians in public life. Once Trump promised to appoint pro-life and anti-same sex marriage judges to the Supreme Court, many evangelical leaders and the vast majority of their followers were all-too-willing to turn a blind eye to or dismiss as unimportant the many elements of his character, message and policies which were so profoundly anti-Christian.
Unfortunately, I believe this is only a manifestation of a deeper problem. For the past several weeks I have been participating in rehearsals for a play our Church is presented on the evening of Maundy Thursday during Holy Week. Re-reading the accounts of Holy Week in the Gospels it is hard not to be struck by the parallel between the fear and hatred motivating the conduct of the white evangelical leaders supporting Trump and that of the Jewish religious leaders who called for Christ’s execution. Just as Trump supporters in 2016 feared changing social and religious norms and hated and feared those accepting and promoting them, the high priests saw Christ as a dangerous heretic and blasphemer challenging important dogmas and orthodoxies. That fear and hatred led them to demand his execution, even if it meant freeing a convicted robber and murderer.
The Bible warns us strongly against succumbing to the temptation to confuse religious zeal with the human tendency to fear and hate those who differ from us. 2nd Timothy 1:7 tells us that “God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound mind.” This echoes the teaching of the Old Testament prophet, Micah, that what God requires is not zeal in persecuting our enemies but “to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with thy God.” Similarly, in the Gospel of Matthew, Christ teaches that the two essential commandments are to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and to love our neighbour as our self.”
Why is it important to resist appeals to protect us from those we fear? The English writer, George Orwell summed it up well in his 1945 essay about ideological thinking based on fear and hatred. Once these emotions gain control over our political thinking, Orwell warned, “the sense of reality becomes unhinged and…the sense of right and wrong becomes unhinged also.” Later, in the same essay, Orwell goes on to point out that the fears and hatreds against which he warns, “are part of the make-up of most of us whether we like it or not. Whether it is possible to get rid of them I do not know, but I do believe that it is possible to struggle against them, and that this is essentially a moral effort.”
Evangelical white Christian leaders who found neither Trump nor Clinton worthy of their support as Christians could have written in another candidate for president or simply refrained from voting for that office. Why did so many of them choose to enthusiastically vote for and support Trump? The answer is that they were not able or willing to make the moral effort Orwell spoke of to recognize that the essence of Trump’s message represents open contempt for some of the central teachings of the faith they espouse.
Just how far the spirit of fear and hatred has corrupted so many white American evangelical leaders and their flocks can be illustrated by comparing two messages. The first was a summary of Christian teaching expressed in a popular song of the mid 1950’s, whose chorus went “Have faith, hope and charity. That’s the way to live successfully. How do I know? The Bible tells me so.” The second, implicitly endorsed by 80% of white Evangelical voters in November 2016 has changed to something like this: “Have fear, selfishness and hate. That’s the way to be truly great. How do I know? Don Trump tells me so.”