Historian Niall Ferguson once said “Civilization operates on the edge of chaos”. That truth has made a permanent home in my soul.

When I first heard him say this, I cringed and barely believed him. But I’ve come around. A people group never knows when they will lose their democracy, political autonomy, physical security, or financial security. All empires fall.

A smaller truth is “all movements move”. I suppose we could say if a movement moves far enough, or fast enough, it will topple the empire it occupies. For the purpose of this article, the two movements I’m interested in are American Evangelicalism and American Republicanism. 

Why these two movements? This was me. These were my identities. I was an Evangelical and I was a Republican. This is not a theoretical exercise.

Over the last ~nine years, American Evangelicalism and American Republicanism have betrayed their core values, behaved insanely, and destroyed themselves. 

It’s an understatement to say these movements have moved. 

Betrayal

I feel betrayed by the Evangelical movement and by the Republican party. 

This has been shocking, bewildering, alienating, and disorienting. These were my two major identities. And I don’t know of anything harder than an identity shift.

For the longest time I’ve said: I haven’t changed, the Republican party has. I’m really not that informed on individual political details, so I could be wrong on some details. I remember as a kid noticing that Republicans didn’t seem to control spending any more than Democrats, so I observed hypocrisy on the Republicans’ parts. They always said they were fiscal conservatives! This was part of the reason I never bonded emotionally with the party; I didn’t trust them that much. They were violating their word regularly on a major platform claim. But this is nothing, this is absolute peanuts compared to violating principles of much higher significance, such as embracing lies, authoritarianism, and violence. 

But the way of Jesus is my biggest concern. There has been a respectable force for good in the US for decades, possibly centuries, known as Evangelicalism. Professor Randall Balmer reviews that history of goodness here ¹ (minute 7:00) in part to demonstrate how far the movement has fallen. I think it’s beautiful to bask for a minute in the past goodness of this movement or to appreciate it for the first time, if you did not already know. 

In more recent years, Evangelicalism produced the political movement called the “Moral Majority”. But I have to stop there. If the cultural children of the “Moral Majority” have since produced nearly unwavering support (~80%) for the least-moral political leader in living memory (Mr. Trump), then the joke is on them. The joke is on Evangelicals! And thus the joke is on Jesus. 

The “Moral Majority” was a pretty presumptuous name to start with (effectively condemning everyone outside the group), but at least they were publicly pointing themselves to a beautiful thing we call “morality”. Obviously the morality of Evangelicalism is now a laughing stock, which most people aren’t laughing at, because it is not funny. It’s betrayal. And unfortunately all of this is tied to the mission of Jesus. How is a person outside of the way of Jesus supposed to take seriously the faith, when a loud majority of his followers can not be taken seriously?

Losing Our Religion

Leading Evangelical Russel Moore recently published Losing our Religion (a book which Skye Jethani gives quick, helpful insight into in the first few paragraphs of his article). Moore believes Evangelicalism is changing so significantly that we are losing our religion. To me the phrase “losing our religion” is a nice way of saying “betrayal”. 

This short clip from The Mehdi Hasan Show is also a helpful look into Mr. Russel’s book and experiences. Russel Moore says “We have arrived at the point at which, for many people who name the name of Jesus Christ, Christlikeness is compromise.” If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.

Mr. Moore also says “Jesus taught his disciples to ‘count the cost’ of following him. We should know, he said, where we’re going and what we’re leaving behind. We should also count the cost of following Donald Trump… To do so would mean that we’ve decided to join the other side of the culture war, that image and celebrity and money and power and social Darwinist ‘winning’ trump the conservation of moral principles and a just society.” This Evangelical leader believes that we’ve “joined the other side”. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what it is. 

Speaking of sides, which I don’t usually like to do because that tends to require problematic oversimplification, Professor Randall Balmer points out in his talk (minute 41:24) that, when he was a young Evangelical, “we had a very strong sense of ourselves not merely as a subculture but as a counter culture. …We were standing against the larger culture.” Now, as Russel Moore points out, we’ve “joined the other side” and we are no longer countering that culture at all. Looks like betrayal to me. 

“What I can say, regarding white Evangelicals, is, yes, political passion is consuming American Evangelicalism, and yes, the Republican Party platform has become more important than the Gospel for many who identify as Evangelicals.” Marvin Olasky says in The Sixty Years’ War: Evangelical Christianity in the Age of Trump.

In the same article Olasky says: “In 2011, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found only 30 percent of Evangelicals saying character didn’t count much in political leaders. In 2016, in a PRRI poll conducted soon after Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape became public, that proportion jumped to 72 percent. Many white Republican Evangelicals faced a quandary: change your view of Trump or change your view of acceptable ethics. Many did the latter.”

Doing the latter is betraying core values. 

And from the same article: “Religious-studies professor Stephen Haynes notes that Trump’s ‘evangelical supporters may have given up on Christianizing Trump; yet no one can dispute that he has succeeded in Trumpifying American Christianity.’”

Marvin Olasky largely closes out his article with “Becoming a Christian in 1976 and then having a pen-pal relationship with World readers let me interact for 40 years with great people, compassionate and self-sacrificing. Since 2016, I’ve seen the slow growth of callous conservatism among some politicized Evangelicals — and since 2020 it’s metastasized. Will Evangelicals who said character didn’t count now also say craziness doesn’t count?”²

He is being much nicer than I am. To me this is betrayal of core values. 

On a personal level, I have two friends, a married couple, who are big MAGA supporters. While I haven’t personally witnessed this (because I don’t hang out with this couple enough), a couple of trusted friends shared with me that this couple has gotten increasingly angry and profane over the last handful of years. In other words, they are changing. These are not the friends we knew. Many of their friends, including me, have been forced to spend less and less time with them due to their angry, profane political outbursts.  

My neighbor across the street has a giant Trump flag in her garage. (Not outside, just inside on the garage wall.) It is huge, looks official, and it says “Trump 2024. Fuck your Feelings”. I don’t really know what that means – it is incomprehensible to me – but she has entirely managed to convey unending anger and tremendous hostility, with room for other potential deeply-negative motivations and feelings.

There’s a cost to “losing our religion” and betraying core values, which I think these two examples above demonstrate.  

Sacred text addresses morality, not policy

I’ve appreciated others who’ve pointed out to me that the sacred text of the Christian faith does not speak to governmental policy, but it does speak to morality. Practically the point of the Old Testament was to show that ancient Israel had no morally-good political leaders. The leaders it did have were always roundly criticized for their immorality. I believe only two were considered morally good. So the one thing our Scriptures talk about with force and clarity is the morality of the political leader. 

And that is the one thing we’ve ignored. 

So I hear betrayal when someone says they support Mr. Trump for “biblical” reasons. The sacred text speaks clearly and forcefully on morality in leaders and says nothing of policy.

A Primary Purpose of the Church within Society

I understand a primary purpose of the church within society is to call it to morality, to call out the immorality of its leaders. This is the idea of “speaking truth to power”. The Evangelical movement has literally done the opposite. 

This is betrayal. 

In case I’m not being clear, I’m referring to the myriad of times Evangelicals could have said “while we continue to support Mr. Trump politically, we condemn X behavior or Y statement” but did not. That is speaking truth to power. 

According to my memory, the only instance in which Evangelicals spoke truth to power was when Mr. Trump bragged about his ability to sexually assault women. This was condemned for a brief time, but that’s it. His myriad of other abusive behaviors were left uncondemned (and ultimately Evangelicals indirectly supported these abusive behaviors by voting him back into office).  

And it’s easy to say words! Condemning should have been the easy part!

This is betraying a basic responsibility. 

We used to think morality and power go together

I haven’t seen the Oppenheimer movie, but I would like to. In experiencing a review of the movie I learned that Mr. Oppenheimer – who was ultimately filled with horrible psychological regret for his help to harness nuclear power – was motivated to spearhead this morally-questionable endeavor because he thought this kind of power should be in the hands of good people before it gets into the hands of bad people, i.e the Nazis. In other words, morality and power go together. In fact, this was our entire view of World War II. It was good to fight because we were the good guys and they were the bad guys. So where has the morality gone? And why? Why is it okay for us to have nuclear codes now? How can we fight a just war without actually being just? Since morality was so important to us at one time, on what basis can we let go of it now?

How is this not betrayal?

If Mr. Trump can’t even be trusted to follow simple rules like “leave classified documents at the White House”, why should he be trusted with anything else? If he can’t even be trusted to work in concert with his own government on a simple and essential matter like who won an election, how can he be trusted with anything?

Immoral people do immoral things. It seems to me a betrayal of logic to trust someone like Mr. Trump and, as I said earlier, a betrayal of an American belief that only the moral should have great power.³

Family Values

Professor Balmer, during the question and answer part of his talk (minute 56:55) said “The 2016 election allowed the religious right finally to drop the pretense that this was a movement about family values. You can not make that argument and vote for Donald Trump. I mean if somebody wants to make that argument I’ll listen to it but it’s hard for me to imagine how that would be persuasive. And it allowed the religious right finally to circle back to its charter principle which was racism.”⁴

I wonder. What will the Republican party’s platform be after Mr. Trump leaves? They obviously can’t go back to “family values”. That’s been shattered. Especially with others like Matt Gaetz being part of the Republican club. 

It doesn’t make sense for me to list Mr. Trump’s many violations of family life and love. The whole world knows his violations. And I think his base is tired of hearing it. So, isn’t that a betrayal? The people who once came from the “Moral Majority” and from Jesus (who condemns divorce and supports women) instantly dismiss the entire litany of Mr. Trump’s violations? 

This is betrayal of a core value shared by both Evangelicalism and the Republican party.  

I don’t understand. 

Also, if this isn’t normalizing, I don’t know what is. How can we ask future leaders of our country to be moral if we bent the knee so badly to Mr. Trump? This was the ONE thing the church could do: speak truth to power. And, Evangelicals literally did the opposite. 

The Conventions are Changing, extremely

I watched parts of the DNC (Democratic National Convention) and RNC (Republican National Convention) this past year.

You know what I thought after I finished watching a good chunk of the DNC? “Sanity and goodness.” That’s all. That’s all I want and it sometimes feels like that’s all I can ask for anymore. Isn’t “sanity and goodness” the bare minimum? How did we degrade so far that this is all I can ask for? And yet “sanity and goodness” are beautiful things and I’m grateful they still exist.

I watched part of the RNC and I thought: “deranged”. I don’t even recognize this group anymore. The RNC doesn’t invite or attract former Republican presidents to speak anymore. Mr. Trump largely does not praise former Republican leaders. Forget Republican leaders. He largely never even praises former American leaders. Forget praising. Mr. Trump doesn’t largely even acknowledge the existence of former American leaders. Washington! Jefferson! Lincoln! Roosevelt! Reagan! (He positively mentioned Reagan once in his RNC speech.) Is this lineage nothing to him? Have you noticed he instead praises authortians? How can I do anything other than conclude that Mr. Trump is remaking the RNC in his own authoritarian image? Of course he must oust the memory of all that is democratic. As former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan says he’s no conservative, he’s authoritarian.

This is betrayal. 

It was the DNC that invited former Presidents to speak. The DNC that referenced Reagan, positively! The DNC is praising Republican leadership and the RNC largely no longer can?! The RNC barely even acknowledges the existence of former Republican leaders! But the RNC leader, Mr. Trump, is happy to praise authoritarians! It seems there is only one party right now that is still in touch with our democratic past and that is the Democratic party. 

On the other hand, the RNC brought Hulk Hogan, an entertainer in the fake wrestling industry who ripped his shirt off. No former-President George W. Bush. Just Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt.

After watching the DNC I realized the DNC was effectively the traditional Republican party + abortion. And the traditional Republican party? Where is it? Obliterated. The MAGA Republican party has obliterated it and in its place is an unrecognizable group. Well, sadly, they are recognizable: these are the people who stormed the capital, are comfortable with violent language, and don’t get shivers down their spine when Mr. Trump talks about terminating the constitution, using the military against political opponents, terminating media outlets, shooting protesters in the legs, silencing late night hosts, and shooting Liz Cheney in the face.

This is betrayal.

Dissidents Are Not Allowed

I want to be clear about one thing: I stand with the media outlets, I stand with late night hosts, I stand with Liz Cheney, I stand with all of Mr. Trump’s political opponents, and I stand with the Constitution. Not because I agree with a thing they say. But because I agree with their right to freely say it. I’m an American. This is what Americans do. But Mr. Trump is an authoritarian, i.e. someone opposed to historically-American ideals. 

So let me be even more clear: Mr. Trump wants to jail me.  

I will continue doing everything in my power to protect what I was taught from childhood was so beautiful: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, the marketplace of free ideas, the rule of law and thus the value of the court system, dedication to a constitution, NOT to a man. 

I’m only one person, but I will continue giving my money to outlets which support historic American ideals. And I will be marching in the streets with them.  

Because Mr. Trump wants to use the military against his political opponents and wants to jail and silence those who disagree with him, I proudly oppose him, so Mr. Trump wants to jail me. 

As a democrat – meaning a person who supports people being able to freely and safely voice their values and vote for who they want – I am not telling anyone who to vote for. I am instead only trying to paint the picture of corrupted democracy. In a corrupted democracy, dissidents are threatened. Well I am a dissident and I feel the threat.

And I hate it.

I have lived in peace and safety and security, even in happiness, my entire life. 

This is betrayal. 

Navalny is no longer with us, murdered by the dictator Putin, whom Mr. Trump praises. The Navalany documentary is one I haven’t watched but would like to. This was a dissident with real power in a society with less freedoms and safety than ours. He’s dead now. Murdered. I honor men like Navalny over men like Trump. That is how I was raised. 

Rule of Law

A major support to Democracy is the rule of law. Part of this idea is that no person is above the law. It is painfully and unendingly ironic to me that the Republican party, who has been so anti-elitist, is now doing the most elitist-loving thing it can possibly do: let our greatest elite off the hook, the criminal Mr. Trump. He is a criminal whether anyone agrees with section 175.10 of New York state law. He is a felon, whether anyone agrees with section 175.10 of New York state law. I watched this court case unfold every single day. It was conducted professionally and with great deference to Mr. Trump. Any other defendant would have been jailed early on based on his continual violations of court requirements, requirements simply meant to keep all participants safe and the verdict untainted. He violated these orders at least ten times. Most defendants are jailed after the first or second violation, but they never jailed him. 

That our people have elected a criminal and a felon to the highest position of the land is further evidence of the decay of our democracy. Why would we trust an unrepentant law-breaker with upholding the law?

This is crazy.

I really like the law. It keeps us safe. It keeps order.

This is betrayal. 

Abortion

Mr. Trump has flipped on abortion. I wonder how many people have noticed. He overtly supported the pro-life cause earlier. Now, he provides no overt support. He simply says “states can decide”. Leadership is taking a position. He is no longer taking a position. Leaders carry weight. He is not using his weight. Now it’s all about “states can decide”. Does he care? Did he ever care?

I am pro-life. This is a betrayal of a core Republican value. 

Multiple public thinkers have pointed out that there is no pro-life party anymore. Not only does it look like the pro-life value was betrayed, but the pro-life movement got used and is now politically homeless. 

Insanity

“The threat [on January 6] against our republic is different than any we’ve faced before. Unlike the Nazis or Islamic terrorists, the threat is not driven by foreign fanatics. And unlike the Civil War or the Cold War, today’s danger is not led by those with evil, but sincerely held beliefs. We are witnessing a new kind of danger utterly detached from reality, fueled by cynicism, and capable of inciting terrible violence at a stunning speed. Because this fight is between truth and lies, America’s pastors and Christian leaders have a vital part to play—one we dare not neglect because what we witnessed on January 6 wasn’t just an attack on America’s democracy. It was an attack on America’s sanity.” This is how Skye Jethani concludes his article titled America Has Seen Political Violence Before. Here’s Why the MAGA Attack Is More Dangerous.

I recommend that entire article.

In addition to Mr. Trump and his Republican enablers spreading the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, Mr. Trump has overtly lied to our faces over and over again. Just as standard operating procedure.

It feels insane to trust a person like this. 

It feels insane to honor a person like this.

And it feels insane to dishonor the Presidency by putting a man of his character in that role.

He is abusing us. He can do no other. He is an abusive person, most likely because he was abused. (One of his main biographers refers to Mr. Trump’s father as a “monster”.) 

I have no problem with Mr. Trump personally. Our nation is large enough to hold a wide variety of people (i.e. every family has a crazy uncle) and has always valued diversity and freedom. What I have a problem with is a person like this holding power. He is not deserving. Because he is abusive, he will abuse that power. 

And a primary way he has abused that power is by lying to our faces about the most basic of things – an election – and enabling what Mr. Jethani calls insanity. 

God?

Mr. Trump has been showing this clip at his rallies.

If the above video were a joke, it would be terrifying and not very funny. But it’s real. And that makes it insane. 

I believe his campaign is serious in showing this. Or at least they are seriously comfortable abusing God, religion, and the goodness and intelligence of their constituency. Note: more abuse. If there’s one word I would associate with Mr. Trump and MAGA it is abuse. 

Destruction

“After a long and lingering illness, Evangelicalism died on November 8th, 2016. On that day, 81% of white American evangelicals, who for decades claimed to be concerned about family values, registered their vote for a twice-divorced, thrice-married, self-confessed sexual predator whose understanding of the faith is so truncated that he can’t even fake religious literacy.” This is Dartmouth Professor Randall Balmer kicking off a speech at the University of Florida. 

His words make me want to cry. Why would we do this?

Movements move. 

In the 1800s, Republicans were liberal and Democrats were staunch conservatives. Today it’s the opposite.

Movements move. 

But their names don’t always change. 

I believe by betraying core values of Evangelicalism, the leaders of that movement have killed that movement. The name is still here, but we know it’s a different movement now. “…either Trump is one of the greatest proselytizers of the past 2,000 years or the definition of “Evangelical” has changed.” Marvin Olasky says in his article The Sixty Years’ War: Evangelical Christianity in the Age of Trump. His point is Evangelicalism has changed, i.e. moved. And if we believe an authority on Evangelicalism, Professor Balmer, then the movement has not just moved, it has died. In its stead is a different movement of the same name. 

I mourn this death. 

I remember when Mr. Trump was elected the first time. I was dumbfounded. Not because he was elected, but because my people did it. 

I considered it immoral to vote for him! Voting for him was immediately and obviously impossible for me. He was a known quantity! I practically had nothing to think about. Not because I didn’t think, but because the equation was so easy. 

And yet not only did some do so, millions did. 

Betrayal.

Betrayal of core values which has led to the destruction of the Evangelical movement. 

Trump Has Changed What it Means to be Evangelical 

Shadi Hamid at The Washington Post wrote the following in June of 2024. (Bolding and underlining is mine). Because this article is so helpful and also behind a paywall, I’ve included most of it below. It is titled Trump Has Changed what it Means to be Evangelical.

Despite an effort to overthrow an election and a bevy of criminal charges, Donald Trump has managed to solidify and even expand his support among core demographics. It remains the eternal Trump question: Who are his supporters and why are they so devoted to him?

The voters most loyal to the former president are White evangelicals. More than 80 percent backed him in the 2020 elections. And this has long presented a puzzle: How can people who prize moral rectitude and personal witness to Jesus so faithfully support the most secular president in American history, someone who seems by his behavior at best indifferent to Christianity?

Part of the answer is that Trump has been able to change the meaning of “evangelical.” This is no small feat.

…

After evangelicals embraced Trump, something odd happened. As other Christian denominations hemorrhaged members, evangelicals saw their ranks grow; from 2016 to 2020, their share of the White adult population increased to 29 percent, from 25 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. The catch was many of these new evangelicals didn’t go to church. They became evangelicals because of what it meant politically, most of all because it was a way to signal support for Donald Trump. Among White Trump supporters who were not evangelicals in 2016, 16 percent began to identify as evangelical by 2020, suggesting again that politics rather than religion was the driving factor.

The idea of evangelicals who don’t go to church was once unusual. Now, it is surprisingly common. In 2008, only 16 percent of evangelicals said they never or seldom attended church. By 2020, 27 percent did.

Evangelicalism, in short, has become about shared political convictions. In one survey of Christian attitudes, for example, 43 percent of evangelicals said they did not believe in the divinity of Christ. But it gets even more bizarre. According to the 2022 Cooperative Election Study, 14 percent of Muslims (and 12 percent of Hindus and 5 percent of Jews) described themselves as “born-again” or evangelical Christians. This is not a joke.

If we look more closely at the numbers, what’s happening becomes clearer — and it’s fascinating. About three times more Republican Muslims and Republican Jews identify as “evangelical” than their Democratic counterparts, according to an analysis of the data by political scientist Ryan Burge. In an America that is rapidly secularizing — in just two decades, church membership has plummeted to under 50 percent, from about 70 percent — partisan commitments are replacing religious affiliation as people’s overarching source of identity.

This has unsettling implications for U.S. politics and the presidential campaign to come. It means we will see more intense political polarization around religion. Now that White evangelicals are so disproportionally and unapologetically Trump-supporting, the share of Democrats who view Christianity negatively is likely to remain high or perhaps even increase.

…

Americans are becoming less religious, but more of them are becoming evangelicals — or at least claiming the label as a badge of partisan identity. Trump’s ability to turn out evangelicals, both religious and nonreligious — including the growing ranks of Muslim, Jewish and Hindu “evangelicals” — to the same overwhelming degree that he did in 2020 could very well decide a close race. Religion matters, even when it’s not really about religion.

By betraying core values, Evangelicalism has allowed itself to be redefined and specifically redefined by those whose motivation is not Jesus. Evangelicalism is becoming a cultural religion, which Jesus had a thing or two to say about. This is “God and country” thinking, which Jesus notably was really not into because he didn’t help his own people get their land back, not one iota. He didn’t display a drop of nationalism. In fact, he did the opposite; his message of hope was meant for all countries; the boundaries of the Israeli border he made meaningless.  

Redefinition is a form of destruction.

White Evangelicalism’s New “Lost Cause”

Skye Jethani also sees destruction, but for him it’s a bit more on the horizon rather than something fully realized. In his article White Evangelicalism’s New “Lost Cause”, he makes an interesting comparison between the theologically-warring Christians during the Civil War (Christians in the south and the north who held opposing “biblical” viewpoints on slavery) to the theologically-opposed Christians of today (Christians who hold opposing “biblical” viewpoints on Christian Nationalism). 

Republicanism Gone

Of secondary importance is the destruction of the Republican party. It is a corrupt party. Its core values, norms, and behaviors are gone; I’m thinking of family values, morality in leadership, the ability to hold a leader to task (i.e. Nixon), the desire to uphold elections under all circumstances including loss, treating political opponents with respect, treating dissidents (including internal dissidents) with respect, completely avoiding violence in language, defending NATO, aiding other democracies around the world, valuing bi-partisanship when it serves the people, valuing free trade, being pro-life, etc. I call that destruction. 

Again, movements move. They may keep the same name, but it’s a different movement. 

Making it Real

I want to share a personal story. Last year I worked very hard for my company on a particular project. I went above and beyond. I was praised by everyone who knew about it. This project could have helped reshape part of one of the industries my company is part of. Pretty cool credentials for my company, right? 

Instead, I ran into a person of power and she put a stop to the whole thing. No one will ever know exactly why. 

I very carefully had all the right people involved in the project, and I made the decision making of the project as transparent as possible. It could not have been better documented. I literally did everything right and got praised for it repeatedly.

Then this person of power decided I was threatening her (by including people of a higher rank than herself in the conversation) and she ended my entire project. That’s not so bad, right? It’s really not. What is really bad is what happened when I conversed with my manager’s manager. He made it abundantly clear that pursuing this project further would threaten my career. 

What?! Threaten my career?

By going above and beyond and by doing everything right and by doing something that would have greatly enhanced the reputation of my company, I was threatening my own career? The missing element was that, underneath it all, I was being unjustly threatened by this person of power. 

Here’s the point: she is only a Director within one company. But she’s abusive. Guess what the most powerful person in the world, who is also abusive, can do? (Remember, he wanted to shoot the legs of American protesters. His own people!) 

It’s destructive to give power to abusive people. You never know which direction they’re going to go because they simply abuse what’s in their way. Mike Pence? A good man? He’s gone. He was in the way. 

It vaguely makes me think of two people who risked their careers to say something negative about Mr. Trump: the woman who revealed that Mr. Trump was abusing America’s relationship with Ukraine to find “dirt” on his political competitor Mr. Biden (an act for which Mr. Trump was impeached) and the Director of CISA, Christopher Krebs, who stated in advance that he would lose his job if he said the 2020 election was secure. He went on to say that (in conjunction with many other federal agencies) and then, sure enough, he lost his job.

I don’t have reason to believe Mr. Trump will restrain himself. An abusive person with power is the worst thing, and I’ve experienced it personally. It is impossible to control and it is terrifying. 

My Biggest Concern: wide-scale destruction through the most powerful means possible which is culture

My biggest concern is the cultural change Mr. Trump is producing. I have shared most of that concern in this post: To My Dear Dad: Why I Place Country Over Party. Policies are relatively easy to revert or change. But cultures take years and decades and sometimes centuries to revert or change. There is no greater power than the power of culture. And Mr. Trump is changing culture by normalizing overt lying, normalizing abuse to our democratic systems, sowing doubt in our court system, sowing doubt in our electoral system, and simply normalizing abuse in general; I see a deep and disgusting cynicism underneath his abusiveness. He is changing our culture. Which is exactly what a leader should do. Except we usually elect moral leaders. This one is anything but. 

Character really is destiny.

Wrapping it Up

Mourning

Kris and Charlie wore black the day after the election. For them that day was a day of mourning. My cousin Rick (the only U.S. diplomat in our family) views Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy and for this reason no longer recognizes America. Mike from Britain (a former British diplomat) tells me every single time I speak with him that he and Europe are so afraid Mr. Trump will be elected⁵ and he understands Mr. Trump to be a threat to democracy. All of these people see what I see.

I don’t need myself and my former identity groups, Evangelicals and Republicans, to agree on fundamental policy. Forget policy. At this point, we’re just talking about style of government: do we want a democracy or an autocracy? Is Mr. Trump untrustworthy or is he trustworthy? Did Mr. Trump try to steal an election or didn’t he? Is Mr. Trump immoral or is he acceptably moral? Is Mr. Trump above the law? Is the culture of MAGA poisonous or is it acceptably moral? 

From my perspective, Republicans and Evanglicals sold their core values for power, a cheap orange power which will turn on them any time it wants. Do we have reason to think Mr. Trump cares for Republicans? Do we have reason to think Mr. Trump cares for Evangelicals? He was a registered Democrat for 8 years and, I am sure, if a voting block larger than Evangelicals emerged, he would ditch Evangelicals like he ditched Mike Pence.

Republicans and Evangelicals made a deal with the devil, and they’re losing their souls. 

But I’m not writing this to point fingers. I am writing this because I pay a high cost for these groups “losing their soul” because these were my identities. This was my soul.

The corruption of both these groups is proof of what abusers can accomplish with speed. Mr. Trump is abusing the evangelical community like abuse is going out of style; the Trump Bible? Or what about Trump coins? Trump sneakers? Apparently he will sell anything to make a buck. Coins, sneakers, the Bible. It appears to be all the same to him: a way to make money. (I am not aware of any other politician selling things. Shouldn’t a politician have more substantial things to be thinking about and accomplishing?)

And the Republican Party is no more. What we have now is authoritarian leaning and allows no significant internal dissent and is hideous for its refusal to condemn Mr. Trump’s claim that Asians and Africans are poisoning the blood of America, his public fantasy of shooting Liz Cheney in the face, and his desire to use violent force against Americans who disagree with him. 

Yes, we have a Republican Party, but it is MAGA, it is not the traditional Republican Party. And while that party was imperfect, at least it believed in democracy. And a group named “Evangelical” still exists but a significant portion of that group is not motivated by Jesus, but is motivated by “God and country” thinking and, worse, a subset of that group accepts violence. (This makes me think of C.S. Lewis’s observation: “Of all bad men, religious bad men are the worst”.)

Home and Hope

I need a home. And what I mean by “home” is a place where I feel safe and where I feel me and my communities are within range of each other ideologically. Not in agreement. Just within range of each other. 

I mourn that we do not mourn the same things. 

We’ve elected a criminal and it breaks my heart that the heart of my former communities isn’t broken.

Like Professor Randall Balmer says at the end of his lecture (minute 30:30), as a believer in Christ I believe in resurrection! I know that a healthy spiritual community could replace Evangelicalism⁶ and that our country may have two healthy political parties someday, rather than only one. Hope remains. Balmer says “The death of evangelicalism is not irreversible. Evangelicals after all believe in the power of conversion. They also believe that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.” Hope remains. 

But sadness covers me now. And I mourn.

Footnotes

1. Donald Trump and the Death of Evangelical Christianity is a talk Professor Randall Balmer gave in 2020 at the University of Florida. He is the son of an Evangelical minister, is either a current/past Evangelical, is a Historian and religion writer, teaches at Dartmouth, and due to his decades of study in the field is an authority on Evangelicalism. The video of the lecture is at the bottom of that page or can be accessed here. His talk starts at minute 6:20. ↩︎
2. Olasky’s article is excellent. It was published in 2022 by the politically-conservative publication the National Review. He presents support for his above conclusions from interactions with hundreds of readers. That support/evidence is fascinating and revealing. ↩︎
3. I recognize this is an abusable belief, potentially incredibly self-serving, and worthy of plenty of investigation at how this has played out over time. ↩︎
4. I hadn’t been aware until the last five or so years of the racist origins of the movement (specifically segregationist academies). This is not a slur. It’s just history. Feel free to listen to the rest of his talk for clarity on the historicity of that claim or to the Holy Post’s explanation of Evangelicalism. Both address this origin. ↩︎
5. I completed writing most of this before the election (November 2024). Personal circumstances blocked me from publishing this until several months after the election. ↩︎
6. I say “replace” rather than “revive” because I think the word “Evangelicalism” is damaged beyond repair. Even if the movement contained all the same people, in a revived state, using a different word seems wise and necessary to me. ↩︎