Hispanics and the Prosperity Gospel

Our next book will look at the 2024 election, which had fascinating demographic features.

Michelle Boorstein at The Washington Post:

The mix of hope, drive for success and belief in a God who rewards faith, sometimes with financial accomplishments, has become dominant across the United States and Latin America, experts on Latino religion say. The belief system is sometimes called “seed faith,” “health and wealth gospel,” or “prosperity gospel.”

In the past half-century, driven by larger-than-life pastors, it has overtaken other more traditional theologies centered on God’s priority being poor and disenfranchised people, some experts said. This belief system, they said, helps explain what exit polls showed was a significant shift among Latino Christian voters to Trump, who they see as an uber-successful, strong and God-focused strive.
...
Nationally, network exit polls showed that between 2020 and 2024, Trump gained 14 points in support among Latinos, although a bare majority favored Harris, the Democratic nominee. In that same period, he gained 25 points among Latino Catholics and 18 points among Latino evangelical Protestants.
...

The prosperity gospel is rooted in American Pentecostalism and evangelical Protestantism, but experts say it’s become huge across faith in general, and especially among unaffiliated, often online spiritual influencers. Trump grew up in the church of the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, whose book “The Power of Positive Thinking,” was a huge bestseller and is considered a classic of the prosperity gospel.

A Pew Research Center survey in 2014 found wide majorities of Protestants and Catholics in almost all of Latin America agreed that “God will grant wealth and good health to believers who have enough faith.” In the Dominican Republic — the ancestral or birth home for many in Allentown — 76 percent of Protestants agreed and 79 percent of Catholics did. The firm PRRI asked a similar question in March and found 44 percent of U.S. Latinos overall agreed, higher than any other group except African Americans. What that means politically is that wealthy candidates like Trump are seen by some as both faithful and worthy of emulation.

Authoritianism and Republicans

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. 

 Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.   

He is planning an authoritarian agenda and would take care to eliminate any internal dissent.

Public Religion Research Institute:

Most Americans disagree that those convicted of crimes from Jan. 6th are being held hostage by the government or that Trump should do whatever it takes to be President if he is not declared the winner in 2024; authoritarians and Christian nationalists are more likely to agree.

• Just 23% of Americans agree that “the people convicted for their role in the violent Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol are really patriots who are being held hostage by the government.”
• A plurality of Republicans (43%), including half of those who hold favorable views of Trump (51%), agree with this idea, compared with 16% of Republicans with unfavorable views of Trump, 20% of independents, and 7% of Democrats.
• Christian nationalists and authoritarians are more likely to hold this belief than others, though Christian nationalists (44%) agree at higher rates than Americans who score high on the RWAS (38%) and CRAS (28%).
• Just 14% of Americans 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,” compared with 24% of Americans who score high on the RWAS and 28% of Christian nationalism supporters.

Republicans, authoritarians, and Christian nationalists are far more likely than other Americans to believe that the Democrats have “weaponized the Department of Justice to try and silence Donald Trump and his supporters.”

• While roughly four in ten Americans believe the Justice Department has been weaponized against Trump and his supporters (39%), a strong majority of Republicans (78%), particularly those who hold favorable views of Trump (88%), agree, compared with 37% of independents, and 8% of Democrats.
• The majority of white evangelical Protestants (69%) and white Catholics (54%) agree, compared with minorities of members of other religious groups.
• Christian nationalism supporters (67%) are more likely than those who score very high or high on the RWAS (61%) and CRAS (50%) to agree with the weaponization of the Department of Justice against Donald Trump and his supporters.

Right-wing authoritarians and Christian nationalists are most supportive of the need for a strong leader who is willing to break the rules.

• Just one in three Americans agree with the idea of a leader who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right (34%).
• More than half of Republicans who view Trump favorably (55%) agree that we need a leader willing to break some rules compared with 26% of Republicans with unfavorable views of Trump, 32% of independents, and 22% of Democrats.
• The majority of those who score high on the RWAS (59%) and those who qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers (55%) agree with the need for a leader who is “willing to break some rules,” compared with 44% of those who score high on the CRAS.

Americans remain broadly supportive of the separation of powers and believe presidents should not have immunity from criminal prosecution or be allowed to limit opposing parties.

• Just two in ten Americans agree that former presidents should be immune from criminal prosecution (23%); have the power to limit opposing parties (20%); or ignore Congress or the Supreme Court (19%).
• Among Republicans with favorable views of Trump, 50% agree that former presidents should be immune from criminal prosecution, compared with 19% of Republicans who do not hold favorable views, 20% of independents, and 10% of Democrats.
• Among Americans who score high on both authoritarian scales and who qualify as Christian nationalism supporters, around one-third or fewer agree with these three measures that would strengthen the power of the president, except for 42% of Christian nationalism supporters who agree with immunity for former presidents.

While most Americans reject political violence, those who score high on the RWAS, CRAS, and Christian nationalism scales, as well as Republicans with favorable views of Trump, are more likely to do so.

• Just 16% of Americans agree that “patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” 16% 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,” and 15% agree that armed citizens are needed as poll watchers to ensure a fair presidential election.
• Republicans are more likely than independents and Democrats to agree that patriots may have to resort to violence (27%, 15%, and 8%, respectively); Americans need to ensure the rightful leader takes office, even with violence (24%, 15%, and 10%, respectively); and that armed citizens are needed as poll watchers (24%, 10%, and 10%, respectively). Republicans with favorable views of Trump are more likely to agree with all three statements (32%, 27%, and 28%, respectively).
• Christian nationalism supporters are slightly more likely than Americans who score high on the RWAS or CRAS to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country (33%, 28%, and 21%, respectively) or to ensure that the rightful leader takes office (30%, 26%, and 20%, respectively), and that armed citizens are needed as poll watchers (29%, 25%, and 20%, respectively).

Apocalyptic religious views, support for “Seven Mountains” theology, and the idea that America was chosen to be a promised land for European Christians are strongly linked to support for authoritarianism and Christian nationalism, religion, partisanship, and news trust.

• Two-thirds of Republicans (65%) agree that “the final battle between good and evil is upon us, and Christians should stand firm with the full armor of God,” compared with 39% of independents, and 32% of Democrats. More than eight in ten Christian nationalists (84%) hold this apocalyptic position, as do 70% of Americans with high RWAS scores and 61% of those with high CRAS scores.
• More than three in four Americans who most trust conservative news sources (76%) and nearly seven in ten Americans who most trust Fox News (69%) agree with this apocalyptic statement, compared with 44% who do not watch TV news and 37% who most trust mainstream news.
• Just one in four Americans (25%) believe that “God wants Christians to take control of the ‘7 mountains’ of society,” including 39% of Republicans, 18% of independents, and 17% of Democrats, while fewer than two in ten Americans (17%) believe that America was chosen by God to be a new promised land for European Christians (30% of Republicans, 15% of independents, and 8% of Democrats).
• No religious group has majority agreement with these two statements, but white evangelical Protestants are the most likely to agree (48% and 33%, respectively).

Support for authoritarianism and Christian nationalism are associated with the belief that America is in danger of losing its culture and identity.

• Most Republicans (80%), particularly those who favor Trump (86%), along with 54% of independents and 38% of Democrats agree that America is in danger of losing its culture and identity.
• Most Christian nationalism supporters (82%) as well as those who score high on the RWAS (82%) agree that America is losing its culture and identity; most Americans scoring high on the CRAS do so as well (69%).
• Except for religiously unaffiliated Americans (41%) and other non-Christians (39%), majorities of other religious groups agree that America is losing its culture and identity, especially white evangelical Protestants (77%) and white Catholics (68%).

Most Americans reject patriarchal views that defend traditional gender roles; however, Republicans and Christian nationalists are more likely than others to support these views.

• Less than half of Americans believe that society has become too soft and feminine (41%), the husband is the head of the household (32%), society is better off when men and women stick to the jobs and tasks they are naturally suited for (32%), the truest vocation for any woman is to be a wife and mother (25%), and that women’s gains have come at the expense of men (17%).
• Across all five measures, Republicans, particularly those who favor Trump, are more likely than independents and Democrats to agree, and Christian nationalism supporters are more likely than those with high RWAS and CRAS scores to agree.

Views about immigrants’ impact on the economy and local communities as well as extreme views on immigration are strongly related to authoritarianism and Christian nationalism, as is partisanship.

• Nearly two-thirds of Americans agree that immigrants are generally good for America’s economy (65%), but 56% also agree that the growing number of newcomers burdens local communities. Significantly fewer Americans agree that immigrants increase crime rates in local communities (38%).
• Republicans are significantly more likely than independents and Democrats to agree that immigrants are a burden to local communities (84%, 54%, and 35%) and increase crime rates (67%, 35%, and 17%), with a larger gap between the views of Republicans who view Trump favorably and unfavorably on immigrants as increasing crime rates (75% vs. 37%, respectively) compared with immigrants burdening local communities (88% vs. 74%).
• Most Christian nationalism supporters and Americans who score high on the RWAS agree that immigrants burden local communities (79% and 77%, respectively) or increase crime (63% and 59%, respectively).
• Roughly one-third of Americans agree with the statements that immigrants who enter the country illegally are poisoning the blood of our country (35%), we should round up all immigrants who are in the country illegally (35%), and immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background (33%).
• About six in ten Republicans agree with all three statements (64%, 63%, and 60%), compared with three in ten independents (30%, 31%, and 30%), and under two in ten Democrats (16%, 17%, and 14%). Republicans who hold favorable views of Trump are more than twice as likely as those with unfavorable views to agree with all three statements.
• Except for white evangelical Protestants (54%, 56%, 55%), no religious group reaches majority agreement for any of these three statements.
• Over six in ten Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers (64%), 59% of those who score high on the RWAS, and 48% of those who score high on the CRAS agree that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. 

God and Man and Trump

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

 Zachary Basu at Axios:

Few politicians have commanded the loyalty of the religious right like former President Trump, whose decision to begin selling $60 Bibles for Holy Week has outraged his critics — but drawn little reaction from evangelical leaders.
...
What we're watching: 

• On the 2024 campaign trail, the religious undertones employed by Trump and his allies have grown more apocalyptic — even messianic — as his legal troubles have mounted.In one video shared on Truth Social and played at Trump's rallies, a narrator's voice booms: "On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, 'I need a caretaker.' So God gave us Trump."
• On the first day of his New York civil fraud trial in October, Trump shared an AI-generated courtroom sketch depicting himself sitting next to Jesus.
• This week, Trump posted a message he said he received from a follower: "It's ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you."

The bottom line: 64% of Republicans view Trump as "a man of faith," according to a November poll by Deseret News — more than his former vice president and vocal evangelical Mike Pence.

Christians, Troops, GOP

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad." -- Donald J. Trump, March 13, 2019

Ruth Graham at NYT:

As a core faction in the Republican coalition, conservative evangelicals have long influenced the party’s policy priorities, including opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. And the influence extended to conservative culture, where evangelical norms against vulgarity were rarely challenged in public.

In some ways, they remain intact. Most pastors don’t cuss from the pulpit, or at all. Mainstream conservative churches still teach their young people to save sex for marriage and avoid pornography.

Yet a raunchy, outsider, boobs-and-booze ethos has elbowed its way into the conservative power class, accelerated by the rise of Donald J. Trump, the declining influence of traditional religious institutions and a shifting media landscape increasingly dominated by the looser standards of online culture.

...

Others see the cause as partly technological. Evangelicalism is a decentralized movement, and has always embraced new technology as a way to reach more people. But the old institutions and personalities that defined the culture are fading: Church attendance has declined at the same time that several lions of the movement have died, retired or been felled by scandal. Influencers and outsiders have filled the vacuum.

Risa Brooks at Foreign Affairs:

Perhaps the most sobering example of the effort to inject partisan politics into military appointments is the right’s treatment of Charles Q. Brown, Jr., an air force general who now serves as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Prior to becoming chairman, Brown was confirmed as air force chief of staff in 2020 in a Senate vote of 98-0. Then, last July, leaders of 30 political groups on the right signed an open letter opposing Brown’s appointment as chairman. Despite his accomplished career as fighter pilot, 11 Republican senators voted against him when he was confirmed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. The number of “no” votes for the chairmanship was unprecedented, as were the stated reasons for them. Tuberville attributed his “no” vote to the general’s support for “equal opportunity” in the military. Senator Mike Braun, an Indiana Republican, asserted that the general, who is Black, had favored “woke policy initiatives” over effectiveness in the air force.

...

 If elected, Trump may seek to appoint a pliable general to replace Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is customary for secretaries of defense to compile a list of potential candidates from which a president chooses a chairman. A healthy rapport between the president and a candidate for chairman is usually an important criterion for selection. The candidate’s party affiliation is not. That norm might be one of the first to go.

The Stakes of a Trump Presidency

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  The 2024 race has begun.

Inbox: Biden campaign singles out the NYT.
“For the political press corp – especially our friends at the Gray Lady – it’s time to meet the moment and responsibly inform the electorate of what their lives might look like if the leading GOP candidate for president is allowed back… pic.twitter.com/gSKSmPhtHS

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) November 14, 2023

At The Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein says that the Biden release sums up the president's strategy.  It is not a referendum on the incumbent as much as a choice between two incumbents.

The silver lining for Biden is that in Trump he has a polarizing potential opponent who might allow him to do just that. In the 2022 and 2023 elections, a crucial slice of voters down on the economy and Biden’s performance voted for Democrats in the key races anyway, largely because they viewed the Trump-aligned GOP alternatives as too extreme. And, though neither the media nor the electorate is yet paying full attention, Trump in his 2024 campaign is regularly unveiling deeply divisive policy positions (such as mass deportation and internment camps for undocumented immigrants) and employing extremist and openly racist language (echoing fascist dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in describing his political opponents as “vermin”). Eventually, Trump’s excesses could shape the 2024 election as much as Biden’s record will.

If the GOP renominates Trump, attitudes about the challenger might overshadow views about the incumbent to an unprecedented extent, the veteran GOP pollster Bill McInturff believes. McInturff told me that in his firm’s polling over the years, most voters usually say that when a president seeks reelection, their view about the incumbent is what most influences their decision about whom to support. But in a recent national survey McInturff’s firm conducted with a Democratic partner for NBC, nearly three-fifths of voters said that their most important consideration in a Trump-Biden rematch would be their views of the former president.

“I have never seen a number like this NBC result between an incumbent and ‘challenger,’” McInturff told me in an email. “If 2024 is a Biden versus Trump campaign, we are in uncharted waters.”

 Philip Bump at WP:

I was driving with my kids on Sunday, mind wandering as I steered. I was looking at a cluster of leafless trees when the first words from a social media post by Donald Trump popped into my mind.

“2024 is our final battle.”

...

Trump has used this expression a lot this year. He used it at the Conservative Political Action Conference. He used it at his first campaign rally in Waco, Tex. — an event that came during the 30th anniversary of the deadly standoff between government agents and a religious cult in that city. He used it again when speaking to Turning Point Action this summer. Over and over, the same framing: The final battle is nigh.

...

So we arrive at the final battle. If your immediate point of reference for that phrase wasn’t to the Book of Revelation’s depiction of the apocalypse, you are probably not a Trump supporter. (A 2012 poll from PRRI found that the religious group most likely to say that the end times as predicted in Revelation would occur during their lives was evangelicals.)

On Thanksgiving, Trump attacks the judge’s clerk in his civil fraud trial by name—a day after the court released some of the deluge of antisemitic threats she’s gotten.

In a sworn affidavit, a court officer said these threats spike when he attacks her. https://t.co/TMsHtHW8Vj

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 23, 2023

Catastrophism

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession. 

Damon Linker at NYT writes that MAGA intellectuals are saying that Democratic victories will literally doom America.

A coalition of intellectual catastrophists on the American right is trying to convince people of just that — giving the next generation of Republican officeholders, senior advisers, judges and appointees explicit permission and encouragement to believe that the country is on the verge of collapse. Some catastrophists take it a step further and suggest that officials might contemplate overthrowing liberal democracy in favor of revolutionary regime change or even imposing a right-wing dictatorship on the country.

...

Those on the right primarily concerned about the fate of traditionalist Christian morals and worship in the United States insist that we already live in a regime that oppresses and brutalizes religious believers and conservatives. And they make those charges in a theologically inflected idiom that’s meant to address and amplify the right’s intense worries about persecution by progressives.

Among the most extreme catastrophists writing in this vein is Stephen Wolfe, whose book “The Case for Christian Nationalism” calls for a “just revolution” against America’s “gynocracy” (rule by women) that emasculates men, persuading them to affirm “feminine virtues, such as empathy, fairness and equality.” In its place, Mr. Wolfe proposes the installation of a “Christian prince,” or a form of “theocratic Caesarism.”

Other authors aspire to greater nuance by calling the dictatorship weighing down on religious believers soft totalitarianism, usually under the rule of social-justice progressivism. These writers often draw direct parallels between the fate of devout Christians in the contemporary United States and the struggles of Eastern Europeans who sought to practice their faith but were harshly persecuted by Soviet tyranny. Establishing the validity of that parallel is the main point of the most recent book by the writer Rod Dreher, “Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents.” (The title is drawn from the writings of the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.)

Some Christian Leaders Turn on Trump

 In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

Caroline Kitchener, Amy B Wang and Michelle Boorstein at WP:

A televangelist who served as a spiritual adviser to Donald Trump says the former president has the tendency to act “like a little elementary schoolchild” and suggests that Trump’s focus on minor spats was preventing progress on larger goals.

“If Mr. Trump can’t stop his little petty issues, how does he expect people to stop major issues?” James Robison, the president of the Christian group Life Outreach International, said Wednesday night at a meeting of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL), a conservative political group that focuses on social issues.

...

The televangelist then started criticizing Trump, prompting the crowd to grow quiet.

“Everything you wanted him to hear — every single thing you ever prayed for him to hear — came through these lips right straight into his face,” Robison told the crowd Wednesday, his voice growing lower and louder. “And with the same force you’ve heard me talking to you, I spoke it to him.”

By now, Robison was shouting, practically spitting his words out as he recalled what he said he told Trump.

“ ‘Sir, you act like a little elementary schoolchild and you shoot yourself in the foot every morning you get up and open your mouth! The more you keep your mouth closed, the more successful you’re gonna be!’ ” Robison said.

...

The sharp words from Robison, who after the 2016 election called Trump “a supernatural answer to prayer,” came just a day after Trump announced he would run for reelection in 2024. His campaign announcement has been met with a relatively muted response from Republicans and public figures who used to be his most fervent supporters, including from the evangelical church.

...

In an essay sent to The Washington Post earlier this month, Mike Evans, a former member of the evangelical advisory board, said he would not vote for Trump again and recalled how he once left a Trump rally “in tears because I saw Bible believers glorifying Donald Trump like he was an idol.”

“All of us knew that Trump had character flaws, but we considered our relationship with him transactional,” wrote Evans, a Texas author and Christian Zionist who raises money for outreach and support in Israel. “We wanted Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. We wanted his support of our biblical values. We all wanted his support for the State of Israel. Donald Trump indeed kept and exceeded his promises to us.”

However, Evans said Trump had done damage by turning “the pulpit that we preach from” into a political platform.

“Donald Trump can’t save America. He can’t even save himself. He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us,” Evans wrote. “I cannot do that anymore.”

Trumpian Christian Nationalism Is Invisible to the Elite

 In Divided We Stand, we discuss how the cultural divides that helped Trump in 2016 and almost brought down the government in 2021.

 David French:

While there may be some Christian nationalists in seminaries, or in the pews of big, highly-educated suburban churches, or in the leadership of America’s largest denominations, you’re far more likely to find the true believers in exactly the kind of nondenominational, independent, and often-charismatic churches that populate the list of ReAwaken America tour stops.

Pentecostal Christianity, despite its immense size, is about as far from elite American culture as Mercury is from Mars. And this means it’s quite distant from elite Evangelical culture as well. Right-wing blue-check theologians and pastors who speak disdainfully of warnings about Christian nationalism because it’s not something they see in their churches never darken the door of a Pentecostal church.

They’re almost wholly unfamiliar with the world of “prophets” and “apostles” who have helped fuel much of the fervor for Trump. It’s no coincidence that Paula White, a pentecostal pastor herself, was Trump’s spiritual adviser. Trumpism penetrated pentecostalism early. I do not mean to say that all pentecostals are Trump supporters, much less Christian nationalists. But you can’t understand the Trumpist Christian core without understanding its pentecostal connection.

Trumpist Christianity

 In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

Katherine Stewart at NYT:

The role of social and right-wing media in priming the base for the claim that the election was fraudulent is by now well understood. The role of the faith-based messaging sphere is less well appreciated. Pastors, congregations and the religious media are among the most trusted sources of information for many voters. Christian nationalist leaders have established richly funded national organizations and initiatives to exploit this fact. The repeated message that they sought to deliver through these channels is that outside sources of information are simply not credible. The creation of an information bubble, impervious to correction, was the first prerequisite of Mr. Trump’s claim.

The coup attempt also would not have been possible without the unshakable sense of persecution that movement leaders have cultivated among the same base of voters. Christian nationalism today begins with the conviction that conservative Christians are the most oppressed group in American society. Among leaders of the movement, it is a matter of routine to hear talk that they are engaged in a “battle against tyranny,” and that the Bible may soon be outlawed.

A final precondition for the coup attempt was the belief, among the target population, that the legitimacy of the United States government derives from its commitment to a particular religious and cultural heritage, and not from its democratic form. It is astonishing to many that the leaders of the Jan. 6 attack on the constitutional electoral process styled themselves as “patriots.” But it makes a glimmer of sense once you understand that their allegiance is to a belief in blood, earth and religion, rather than to the mere idea of a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

David French:

Of all the remembrances of January 6, the most searing for me was a simple tweet thread. It came from a Presbyterian pastor named Duke Kwon, and it was a photo compilation of Christian imagery on January 6. There were crosses, Bibles, public prayers, and Christian flags amid the tear gas. In fact, Christian flags and symbols were on the front lines of the fighting, carried like men used to carry regimental colors into battle.

It’s hard to think of the worst image, but the picture below—which combines the Christian flag with an American flag and a Trump flag—almost perfectly captures the syncretism of Trumpist Christianity:

Duke Kwon @dukekwondc

"Nothing." 🤷🏻‍♂️ (📷: Lev Radin/Sipa USA)

January 7th 2022

32 Retweets824 Likes

I’ve written at length about Christian nationalism generally and the specific version of Christianity that was suffused throughout Trump’s effort to steal a national election. But I want to write about something a bit different, about the definition of a “Christian nation” and the sense that America is (or was) a Christian nation that is now moving to a “post-Christian” future where it will become increasingly difficult for faithful Christians to find a home here and to feel welcome in their own communities.

...

But as much hostility as I’ve seen and experienced from some secular leftists in response to the public expression of my Christian values, nothing compares to hostility I’ve seen and experienced from self-identified Christians when I rooted my opposition to Donald Trump in the same Christian values that sometimes earned me scorn in the Ivy League.

In other words, Christians were more hostile to my public expressions of my values than the secular left ever was. And I’m far from alone. Where does that cut on the question of whether it’s easy or hard to publicly and authentically live out your Christian faith? And who’s hostile to that faith?

New Apostolic Reformation

 In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.

Stephanie McCrummen at WP:

This is the world of Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White and many more lesser-known but influential religious leaders who prophesied that Trump would win the election and helped organize nationwide prayer rallies in the days before the Jan. 6 insurrection, speaking of an imminent “heavenly strike” and “a Christian populist uprising,” leading many who stormed the Capitol to believe they were taking back the country for God.

Even as mainline Protestant and evangelical denominations continue an overall decline in numbers in a changing America, nondenominational congregations have surged from being virtually nonexistent in the 1980s to accounting for roughly 1 in 10 Americans in 2020, according to long-term academic surveys of religious affiliation. Church leaders tend to attribute the growth to the power of an uncompromised Christianity. Experts seeking a more historical understanding point to a relatively recent development called the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR.

A California-based theologian coined the phrase in the 1990s to describe what he said he had seen as a missionary in Latin America — vast church growth, miracles, and modern-day prophets and apostles endowed with special powers to fight demonic forces. He and others promoted new church models using sociological principles to attract members. They also began advancing a set of beliefs called dominionism, which holds that God commands Christians to assert authority over the “seven mountains” of life — family, religion, education, economy, arts, media and government — after which time Jesus Christ will return and God will reign for eternity.

None of which is new, exactly. Strains of this thinking formed the basis of the Christian right in the 1970s and have fueled the GOP for decades.

What is new is the degree to which Trump elevated a fresh network of NAR-style leaders who in turn elevated him as God’s chosen president, a fusion that has secured the movement as a grass-roots force within the GOP just as the old Christian right is waning. Increasingly, this is the world that the term “evangelical voter” refers to — not white-haired Southern Baptists in wooden pews but the comparatively younger, more diverse, more extreme world of millions drawn to leaders who believe they are igniting a new Great Awakening in America, one whose epicenter is Texas.

Would Not Vote For...

Gallup reports on the acceptability of presidential candidates of various background characteristics.

The news is likely worst for Sen. Bernie Sanders. At one point, Americans might have withheld their votes from him because of his Jewish faith -- fewer than half said they would support a Jewish candidate in 1937 -- but today his socialist ideology, given Americans' views on voting for a socialist candidate, could hinder his candidacy more.

To a lesser degree, evangelical Christian candidates may suffer, in that one in four Americans say they will not vote for an evangelical Christian. Candidates of various faiths who court American evangelicals, like Southern Baptists Cruz and Huckabee, or Catholic Santorum, could suffer from their association with the evangelical faithful and the social issues they take firm stances on.

Jeb Bush and Christian Conservatives

Tim Alberta and Tiffany Stanley write at National Journal:

[P]owerful Christian conservatives are operating what amounts to a stealth campaign on Bush's behalf. Some are old allies from the Florida days; others are holdovers from George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns. Some are both, including Ralph Reed, president of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a longtime friend of Jeb's who served as Southeast regional chairman of George W.'s 2004 reelection effort (and thus practically lived in Florida). Multiple GOP sources say that Reed has been urging Jeb Bush for several years to make a 2016 run and spoke with him recently to game out the campaign. Like many of the organizations that Bush's supporters lead, Reed's coalition demands impartiality from its leaders, so Reed can't openly back his man—unless, as some suspect will happen, Reed ultimately decides to join the campaign officially. (Reed declined to comment for this story.)

While the candidate isn't hitting the hustings to woo rank-and-file Christian voters, he's been busy surreptitiously building a formidable coalition of socially conservative luminaries. Last summer, Bush flew to Colorado for a private luncheon with the brass of Focus on the Family. Several of America's best-connected evangelicals broke bread with Bush, including Jim Daly, Focus's president, whose radio program reaches a large, loyal audience, and Tim Goeglein, who was the faith liaison in George W. Bush's White House. People familiar with the meeting—and unaffiliated with Bush—say the former governor made a striking impression, one that echoed through the uppermost echelons of the evangelical world. (Neither Daly nor Goeglein would comment.)
...
In this endeavor, his old friend Jim Towey will be a key asset. When Bush first ran for governor in 1994, Towey was on the other side, serving as Gov. Chiles's director of Florida's Health and Human Services agency. The loss that sparked Bush's conversion led to an after-election lunch with Towey, a relative stranger but also a high-profile Catholic whose brain Bush was eager to pick. The two quickly became the closest of friends, and that friendship, in turn, led to Towey's appointment as the second director of George W. Bush's faith-based initiatives. Towey is now president of Miami's Ave Maria University, one of the nation's foremost incubators of conservative Catholic doctrine, while serving unofficially as Bush's point man for religious outreach.

GOP Factions: A Diagram

A new study from the Public Religion Research Institute Institute  nicely sums up the relationship of the GOP, the Tea Party, and the Christian Right.  They overlap, but are not identical.




This analysis is roughly consistent with what Henry Olsen observed earlier in the year:

REPUBLICAN VOTERS fall into four rough camps. They are: moderate or liberal voters; somewhat conservative voters; very conservative, evangelical voters; and very conservative, secular voters. Each of these groups supports extremely different types of candidates. Each of these groups has also demonstrated stable preferences over the past twenty years.

The most important of these groups is the one most journalists don’t understand and ignore: the somewhat conservative voters. This group is the most numerous nationally and in most states, comprising 35–40 percent of the national GOP electorate. While the numbers of moderates, very conservative and evangelical voters vary significantly by state, somewhat conservative voters are found in similar proportions in every state. They are not very vocal, but they form the bedrock base of the Republican Party.

Santorum to Israel

A release from Patriot Voices:

Former U.S. Senator, former Republican presidential candidate and Chairman of Patriot Voices Rick Santorum will travel to Israel on Sunday, August 17, for a 3-day mission with prominent conservative and business leaders.

The trip will focus on three goals:

• To show solidarity with the State of Israel - with her courageous people and leaders - who are engaged in a fight for their lives and freedom against the twin evils of Radical Islam and Repugnant Anti-Semitism.
• To reaffirm the moral and strategic imperative of maintaining a strong, close, enduring U.S.-Israeli alliance.
• To pray for the peace of Jerusalem and all who live in the Middle East.

The trip will be mainly in Jerusalem and also include a visit to an Iron Dome facility. The delegation will make visits to Mount of Olives, City of David, Mount Herzl Military Cemetery and other sites.

Senator Santorum and the delegation will meet with Israel government and military leaders, Israeli soldiers, local residents directly affected by the violence, religious leaders, and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer.

The delegation will include:

• Pastor Douglas M. Bankson, Pastor (Florida)
• Dr. Mark T. Barclay, Pastor (Michigan)
• Former Congressman Gresham Barrett (South Carolina)
• Simon Conway, WHO radio host (Iowa)
• Foster Friess, Businessman (Wyoming)
• Pastor Cary Gordon, Cornerstone World Outreach (Iowa)
• Quin Hillyer, nationwide columnist and writer (Alabama)
• Greg Rothman, businessman (Pennsylvania)
• Bob Vander Plaats, President of The Family Leader (Iowa)
• Joel C. Rosenberg, author, will join the delegation upon arrival in Israel.

GOP Voter Contact

Some recent articles have discussed high-tech voter contact efforts for Romney and the GOP.  But will they be enough to counter the other side?

The New York Times looks at the return of Ralph Reed:

Three years ago, Mr. Reed formed the Faith and Freedom Coalition and began assembling what he calls the largest-ever database of reliably conservative religious voters. In the coming weeks, he says, each of those 17.1 million registered voters in 15 key states will receive three phone calls and at least three pieces of mail. Seven million of them will get e-mail and text messages. Two million will be visited by one of more than 5,000 volunteers. Over 25 million voter guides will be distributed in 117,000 churches.

...

To identify religious voters most likely to vote Republican, the group used 171 data points.
It acquired megachurch membership lists. It mined public records for holders of hunting or boating licenses, and warranty surveys for people who answered yes to the question “Do you read the Bible?” It determined who had downloaded conservative-themed books, like “Going Rogue” by Sarah Palin, onto their e-readers, and whether those people also drove pickup trucks. It drilled down further, looking for married voters with children, preferably owners of homes worth more than $100,000.

Finally, names that overlapped at least a dozen or so data points were overlaid with voting records to yield a database with the addresses and, in many cases, e-mail addresses and cellphone numbers of the more than 17 million faith-centric registered voters — not just evangelical Protestants but also Mass-attending Catholics. The group is also reaching out to nearly two million more people who have never registered to vote.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution adds:

Reed has taken data from consumer marketers and the Republican National Committee, mixed with his own files from the George W. Bush campaigns — when Reed helped Bush court social conservatives — and the Christian Coalition. FFC narrowed its efforts primarily to voters in presidential swing states. It will contact each of them between seven and 12 times – a text message, a call, an email, a postcard, a knock on the door.

When early voting begins in each swing state, FFC’s targeted voters will each get a text message telling them to vote, and the message links to a map for smartphone users showing them where their early voting site is.

“Not everybody in a church is going to vote Republican; not everybody in the most conservative evangelical church is going to vote Republican, for a variety of reasons,” said Sasha Issenberg, journalist and author of “The Victory Lab,” a new book about the science of campaigns. “So this type of politics is always a game of margins, we have just gotten a lot better. The most advanced tools have made us a lot better about shrinking the margins that you’re playing with." 

The Washington Post reports:

In the key battleground states, Obama’s celebrated network of organizing experts and neighborhood captains is being challenged by a conservative coalition that includes the National Rifle Association, the billionaire-backed Americans for Prosperity and a newly muscular College Republicans organization with a $16 million budget.

The conservative groups “are fully funded and ready for hand-to-hand combat,” said Steve Rosenthal, a Democratic organizer.

Rosenthal co-founded the Atlas Project, which is tracking voter statistics and other data to guide Democratic groups as they design precinct-level voter-outreach strategies. He describes the Obama operation as “second to none,” but in reviewing data in recent weeks, he has grown alarmed by what he views as a successful years-long campaign on the right that could alter the landscape.