The Evangelicals Backing Trump Now,Left The Church to Hear Their God Directly

Intro by Adam::

The type of godly animal now backing Trump is different. These are the nongoing to church Evangelicals,.

I, an ex Seminarian used to ask people what they needed to go to church all the time? If god was in the church he would also be in your home and where you are. Now I feel kind of bad. You see the Evangelical that does not go to church is like a dangerous animal that has been out of the pen and now it can go where it wants and damage anyone's field.  Nothing to hold him/her back except their conscience but as we have discovered many go around missing that part. 

What is the difference?

The church-going at least has something that can remind him about maybe what their god wants. True that the churches in the Evangelical denomination became in the last two Presidential elections more like indoctrination sites. Still, there is hope that the politics of the Pulprit which are illegal according to the IRS since they don't pay taxes so are supposed to remain in the middle and just do good and preach. 

You will read below an evangelical woman who says she grew up in church and used to have perfect attendance. But she found out it was not necessary. She has had a little conversation with god and she knows what to do. She could do what but since she had the little secret conversation with god she could do whatever her imaginary god and voice told her to do. Thus my thinking.

In 2008, over half of Republicans reported attending church at least once a month, according to data Mr. Burge compiled from the Cooperative Election Study at Harvard University. In 2022, over half reported attending church once a year or less.

Mr. Trump himself has become a model for embracing evangelicalism as an identity, not a religious practice. In 2020, he announced he no longer identified as a Presbyterian but as a “nondenominational Christian,” a tradition closely associated with evangelicalism. He is rarely seen in church, but a poll this fall by HarrisX for The Deseret News found that more than half of Republicans see Mr. Trump as a “person of faith.” That’s more than any other 2024 Republican presidential candidate and substantially more than President Biden, a lifelong Catholic who attends Mass frequently.

An increasing number of people in many of the most zealously Trump-supporting parts of Iowa fit a religious profile similar to the former president’s. “Iowa is culturally conservative, non-practicing Christians at this point,” Mr. Burge said. “That’s exactly Trump’s base.”

In the farming communities of Calhoun County, for instance, church adherence fell 31 percent from 2010 to 2020 — the steepest decline in the state — even as 80 percent of the population continued to identify in surveys as white Christians. More than 70 percent of the county’s voters cast ballots for Trump in 2020.

“I voted for Trump twice, and I’ll vote for him again,” said Cydney Hatfield, a retired corrections officer in Lohrville, a town of 381 people in Calhoun County. “He’s the only savior I can see.” Raised as a Baptist, Ms. Hatfield no longer attends church. “I just try to do right,” she said. “I pray to God every night.”

For evangelicals who do not embrace Mr. Trump’s politics, the politicized identity now regularly attached to the label has occasioned some soul-searching. 

“It was becoming very difficult,” said Dale O’Connell, a Presbyterian pastor in Lucas County, who retired from the ministry in 2016, after 50 years, in part because of an increasingly right-wing atmosphere in some of the congregations he served. Mr. O’Connell, 82, is liberal in his own politics, and for years described himself as an evangelical. But he no longer does.

“I don’t know if there’s a politically and theologically satisfying word that I can even find now,” he said. “I really don’t.”

Dale O’Connell, a retired Presbyterian pastor, described himself as an evangelical for years, but no longer does. “I don’t know if there’s a politically and theologically satisfying word that I can even find now,” he said. Credit...Rachel Mummey for The New York Times

New Causes, New Leaders

The evolving evangelical identity is already scrambling how politicians appeal to these voters. Mr. Burge’s research has found that “cultural Christians” care relatively little about bedrock religious-right causes like abortion and pornography.

In interviews across Iowa, non-churchgoing Christians who supported Republican candidates, even those who said they believed in governing the country by Christian principles, cited immigration and the economy most often as their top issues in this year’s election.

 

While they almost universally opposed abortion, they were also often skeptical of the more uncompromising policies that candidates like Mr. DeSantis have championed.

Abortion policy is “one thing I don’t really stress,” said JoAnn Sweeting, who pulled her eighth-grade son out of school to attend a rally for Mr. Trump last month in Coralville, Iowa. Referring to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, she said: “I feel like the policies set for us now seem to be working.”

Ms. Sweeting described herself as an evangelical but does not attend church anymore. She sees Mr. Trump as a man who believes in God and prays. But the reasons she supports him, she said, are his approach to the economy and his progress on building a wall along the southern border.

She also likes his bluntness. “He doesn’t try to sugarcoat things,” she said.

Shifts in evangelical identity have also threatened the influence of the evangelical leaders whose posts at large churches, Christian media companies and faith-based organizations for decades made them power brokers in Republican politics.

In recent months, Republican candidates competed for the endorsement of Bob Vander Plaats, a power broker in Iowa’s evangelical politics. But polls show his endorsement of Mr. DeSantis in November having little effect on the loyalties of evangelical voters, who continue to favor Mr. Trump broadly. Mr. Vander Plaats said he thought “there’s a lot more wiggle room” than the polls suggest.

 

At Mr. Trump’s rally in Coralville, it was Joel Tenney, a 27-year-old local evangelist who does not lead a church, who delivered the opening prayer.

The crowd responded tepidly to his impassioned recitation of several Bible verses. But the rallygoers roared to life when he set aside the Scripture and told them what they had come to hear.

“This election is part of a spiritual battle,” Mr. Tenney said. “When Donald Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country.”

By:

Ruth Graham is a national reporter, based in Dallas, covering religion, faith, and values for The Times. More about Ruth Graham

Charles Homans is a reporter for The Times and The Times Magazine, covering national politics. More about Charles Homans

The New York Times