Thanks for sharing this. I appreciated how you interacted with the place of fear, and how that has driven Evangelicals into bad places.
My dad used to warn me of the danger of fear. He was a church history professor, and would talk to me about what 'fear of other' created leading up to WW2. He urged me to not give into that fear, and press into faith through tribulation.
My heart breaks by all the compromises I am seeing in Evangelicals. I plead with God to open eyes and renew hearts. In the meantime, I press into orthodox Christianity, and also have deep respect for the likes of Russell Moore and David French.
Thank you, Lynette, for this thoughtful response. Your father's counsel strikes me as deeply wise. Fear has always been one of the most powerful forces shaping both individuals and communities, and church history offers far too many examples of what can happen when Christians allow fear to eclipse faithfulness. I share your heartbreak. My concern isn't that Christians care deeply about politics or seek to protect important goods—we should. It's that fear can subtly tempt us to excuse what we would otherwise recognize as wrong, or to see our neighbors primarily as threats rather than people made in the image of God. Like you, I find myself praying more these days than arguing: that God would renew our hearts, give us the courage to tell the truth even when it's costly, and help us recover a Christian witness marked by both conviction and charity. Thank you again for taking the time to write.
Thank you for sharing, Lynette. I’m so glad the reflection encouraged you. We need that solidarity and encouragement to retain hope and have the courage and resolve to resist the temptation to give into cynicism or despair. Keep up the good fight!
One thing I take from this is the power of immediate social contexts. It can be very difficult to break out, even when alternative Xn social and moral visions are immediately adjacent.
I think this is so true! Having grown up in evangelicalism, I was slow to see its slide into a great deal of cultural capitulation on the right. I was largely conditioned to see problems on the left, not the right. I saw them on the left clearly; I was much worse at seeing them on the right. I recognize now, when I see evangelicals harping on the left, how it's this same pattern continuing on a daily basis. When that's the air one breathes all the time, it's easy to identify Christian faithfulness with one approach to political questions. I don't say this to defend myself; I really have no inclination to defend my voting for Trump twice. It was a mistake, I think, and I'm far from proud of it. I totally get some of the animus a few have expressed toward me on account of it, even in this thread, even if I don't think it's the most productive way forward. But folks have freedom to vent, I figure. At the root of their comments is something quite legitimate. But thanks, Dan, for your insight here; it's a good one! Blessings.
Your account was helpful to me in trying to understand what goes on with some others I know, and to be more patient with the processeses of change. We are all on our journeys, not all at the same place at the same time, not all drawing on the same sources and contexts etc. Thanks for having the courage to reflect publicly on your own journey!
Christians should never make any politician the measure of faithfulness, and character does not become irrelevant because a leader advances useful policies. But moral seriousness also requires precision. Broad judgments about millions of evangelicals—and grave accusations against public figures—need evidence and distinction. The answer to political idolatry is not a different tribe. It is one moral standard for every leader, including the ones we vote for.
Thanks for the comment! Agreed on the need for support for one’s judgments. Given the rhetorical context of Substack, this piece indeed mostly gestured toward the mountain of evidence and substantial reasons why David and I are so troubled by Trump, his administration, and evangelicals’ overwhelming support of it all (admittedly this support runs along a spectrum from the more tepid to enthusiastic and rabid defense of all he does). But I’m glad to clarify if you think we’re being unfair at all. There is much behind the conclusions we’ve drawn. We made none of our assessments lightly, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss the reasoning further. I’m wrapping up a book project right now but would be glad to engage after that (later next week). Thanks so much!
Thank you. I actually agree with much of what you've written. Christians should never make any politician the measure of faithfulness, and character does not become irrelevant because a leader advances policies we happen to support. I also agree that broad judgments require care and that serious accusations should be grounded in evidence rather than rhetoric. My concern is somewhat narrower than perhaps I conveyed. I'm not suggesting that all evangelicals think alike or that policy considerations are unimportant. Christians can and will disagree in good faith about taxes, immigration, foreign policy, abortion, religious liberty, and countless other issues.
What troubles me is that a significant segment of American evangelicalism has become willing to excuse conduct that it would once have regarded as morally disqualifying because acknowledging it might jeopardize political objectives. To me, that is less a political problem than a spiritual one. It reflects a point at which political solidarity begins to override moral judgment and Christian fidelity.
I also agree that the answer to political idolatry is not simply adopting a different tribe. In fact, that's precisely the point I'm trying to make. Christian moral judgment should be independent enough to criticize both the right and the left whenever either departs from truthfulness, justice, humility, compassion, or respect for the rule of law. My bigger concern than the left-right spectrum is the valuing people rightly vs. not doing so spectrum. Our political commitments should be accountable to our faith, not the other way around. If my wording suggested something broader than that, I appreciate the opportunity to clarify. My aim isn't to condemn evangelicals wholesale—I count myself among those who were slower than I should have been to recognize what was happening. The post is as much an act of self-examination as it is a critique of a movement I still care deeply about. Thanks again! Blessings.
I agree that our political commitments should be accountable to our faith and not the other way around. The challenge is making sure we apply that principle consistently. Political idolatry exists on the right, but it exists on the left as well. Christians should be willing to examine both with equal honesty. Once faith becomes subordinate to any ideology, tribe, party, or movement, we've already lost something important. 🙏🇺🇲
I couldn't agree more. Political idolatry is a perennial human temptation, not the property of any one party or ideology. Whenever our political loyalties become more determinative than our moral and spiritual commitments, we've lost our bearings. The reason I've focused on evangelicalism isn't because I think the left is exempt from that danger. It's because that's my own community, or at least was, and I believe we're called first to examine ourselves before we pronounce judgment on others. I can't speak with the same authority about communities to which I don't belong. My hope is simply that Christians recover the freedom to affirm what is good and criticize what is wrong wherever we find it—even when doing so is politically costly. I think that's part of what faithfulness requires. Thank you again for such a thoughtful interaction.
I’m graduating from Liberty University soon, and it’s been such a huge drain on my faith. It feels like in this culture, the Bible exists for people to harvest and use. I took a creative writing course there that suggested we use AI to find verses and biblical themes to shoehorn into novels or devotional books. That mind of cherry-picking scripture to fit into our lives feels like the core of my issue with the current evangelical culture.
Thanks for sharing, Bethany. That’s a powerful image you include, and it captures well the intellectual and spiritual habits trained in such an environment. David and I found we could no longer endure it, and leaving—as hard as it was—seemed the better course for our emotional and spiritual well being. I still have many friends there fighting the good fight, but it’s hard to push every day against the current, especially when it seems to me that the prevailing institutional values are at bottom anti-Christ. Will be praying for you, and please do reach out if you ever want to talk or process anything! I’m finishing a book right now but would be glad to talk after that and be a source of encouragement as I’m able!
Thank you for sharing that. I'm genuinely sorry that's been your experience. What you describe resonates with one of my deepest concerns—not simply in politics, but more broadly. Scripture ceases to function as an authority over us when we begin treating it primarily as a collection of quotations to support conclusions we've already reached or products we already want to create. At that point, we're no longer allowing the text to shape us; we're shaping it to serve our purposes. Sadly, I don't think it's unique to Liberty or even to evangelicals. It's a temptation for all of us, and I know I've had to confront it in my own life as well. The question is always whether we're willing to let Scripture correct us, especially when it challenges our assumptions, loyalties, or ambitions. I hope this experience doesn't drive you away from Christ or from Scripture itself or detract to any degree from your eminently sweet spirit. Sometimes, as you have already learned, the failures of a religious culture can obscure the beauty of the faith it professes. My hope is that we all of us can recover a posture of humility in which we approach Scripture not as a tool to wield, but as God's Word that first judges and transforms us. Blessings, and thanks again!
Such a great articulation of what I have noticed as well. I am finding that this is the Christianity I grew up with — the kind based on political beliefs, authoritarianism, fear — and I now see it as being incompatible with authentic Christianity. When people say they are a Christian in America, I no longer know which kind they mean, and I struggle with how to lovingly engage with them when they are so adamant about political loyalties and beliefs that go directly against following Christ. It is rooted in fear and defensiveness, so when I feel angry about the Bible being misused, I know that speaking firmly about it will only cause them to dig their heels in further and it will not be productive. I think it’s important as Christians to not cut anyone off just because it would be easier than having to engage with them, but I don’t know how to engage with people in that camp anymore — whether to speak to them as fellow believers, or as people who are misusing the name of Jesus.
Thanks much, Anneka! On occasion I admit to finding it difficult not to put some distance between certain obstinate Trump defenders and myself. When I don't feel like they're being honest, when they trivialize legitimate concerns, when they don't seem to be arguing in good faith, when they should know better, when they're derogatory--in those cases I find it greatly tempting just to stop engaging since it doesn't seem to be yielding much fruit. Civil discourse is vitally important, but so too is civic virtue, intellectual honesty, epistemic humility, attentiveness to evidence, and the like. This is an issue with which I've been struggling for a while now. It's a really tough thing to negotiate sometimes. Thanks again for your response; much appreciated!
<<This has not been merely an intellectual journey. Several of my closest friendships have been deeply strained by these disagreements. These were not casual acquaintances but people I loved, admired, and with whom I collaborated professionally for many years. Losing those friendships has been among the saddest experiences of my life. The issue was never simply partisan disagreement. Rather, I gradually realized that we had come to understand questions of moral judgment and public virtue in fundamentally different ways.>>
I have been dealing with this as well. My first youth pastor from when I was 11 has been constantly posting MAGA-party-line things that are antithetical to the character of Christ.
I find myself asking how I find the balance between recognizing someone as a brother/sister in Christ while no longer recognizing them as a faithful minister of the gospel.
You know, I can empathize with the concerns here, but I will say this - in the first primary, I voted for Ted Cruz. But when it came to the general election I voted for Trump because that was the candidate who most closely represented the values I agreed with. My experience has been that many conservative evangelicals are really getting sick of Trump - his pugnacity, his arrogance, his rhetoric - but we vote for him because that is the only choice right now. We have a flawed system - as all systems are. We must work within that system if we are to accomplish the ends we have in mind. I hope all Christians will pray that their country returns to God, but doing nothing I don't think is the right choice either. We are blessed beyond measure to live in a country where Biblical Christians actually have a political voice - that is unheard of. I wish to goodness there had been another option other than Trump in either year, but he was the only person who would go toe to toe with the media and the Left on a larger scale, the only candidate who had a chance of winning. I completely understand why people are sick of Trump - I am too. But doing nothing is also not the right answer, and we have to live in reality. I think people forget what it would have been like before he came into office. I am glad we don't have men with breasts flashing on the White House lawn, I am glad we don't have biological men in women's sports, I am glad we have overturned Roe v Wade, I am glad we are a respected presence in the world again, I am glad we have a secure border, and I am glad we have a much greater modicum of religious freedom now than we would have. To me, that is worth some ghastly rhetoric.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response. I genuinely understand where you're coming from because, for a long time, I reasoned much the same way. I don't doubt that many Christians voted for Trump because they believed he would better advance certain policy goals they considered important. Where I've changed is that I no longer think this is simply a question of weighing competing policy preferences. For me, it has become a question of fundamental moral commitments—human dignity, truthfulness, the rule of law, and the character we are willing to reward with political power.
I understand why issues like abortion, religious liberty, border security, and fairness in women's sports matter deeply to many Christians. Those are legitimate moral concerns. But I have come to believe that the means by which we pursue moral ends matter profoundly. A politics marked by habitual dehumanization, contempt for truth, attacks on due process, the refusal to accept legitimate election results, pardoning those who assaulted police officers, and rhetoric that encourages division carries moral costs that Christians should not minimize.
My concern is not ultimately that Trump is conservative or Republican. If a Democratic leader displayed these same patterns, I would object just as strongly. This has become, for me, less a left-right issue than a question of what kind of nation—and what kind of church—we are becoming. One of my deepest concerns is that many evangelicals have narrowed the range of moral issues they regard as politically significant. Scripture calls us to care not only about abortion and religious freedom, but also about truthfulness, justice, mercy, the treatment of immigrants, the poor, the vulnerable, the abuse of power, and the equal dignity of every person made in God's image. I fear we've often emphasized some of these while neglecting others.
Reasonable Christians can disagree about policy. But I really don’t believe Christians have a moral obligation to support Donald Trump, and I worry that identifying Christian faith too closely with one deeply flawed political figure has done lasting damage to the church's witness. My hope is that Christians will recover a broader, more consistent moral vision—one that refuses to excuse grave moral failures simply because they come packaged with policies we happen to favor. Thanks again for engaging so graciously. I appreciate the conversation.
Those are all great points - I do think we need to engage politically, and I also think God can use even deeply flawed people to accomplish His will. That being said, manner matters, and I think a number of Evangelicals are in the same space I am - just waiting for this era to end. The good news is Trump seems to be one of a kind (for better or worse) - I don't think we would see a candidate like him again.
Thank you for engaging! I truly appreciate your comment. I do want to ask about your last point (that what Trump is doing positively is worth ghastly rhetoric). Do you think that the only issue with Trump is his rhetoric? Thanks in advance!
Everything in politics is a cost-benefit analysis. And many times, unfortunately, because of the nature of our adversarial system, the best choice we can make is "which candidate is less awful than the other"? To answer your question, no - I certainly don't agree with every decision he has made; frankly, some I think have been terrible (the tariffs for example are a huge mistake in my opinion) but I agree on the whole much more than I did for any position held by the other candidate. If the question is one of policy then I go with the party that most aligns with my values (remember, we are really voting for a party, not just one man). The Democrat party has lurched so far to the Left in recent election cycles that the middle has all but disappeared. This has left us with a choice between two values systems. As a Christian (Democrat or Republican, White or Black), I cannot in good conscience vote for anyone who supports abortion, trans promotion, or BDS Israel. Like I said, I voted for Ted Cruz in the primary; I also voted for DeSantos in the second primary - but when Trump won the primary, I felt I had no choice (I had already decided that sitting out was not an option). I hate his braggadocio, his constant pugnacity. But I also felt that if Harris won I would be partially to blame for all of the changes that would have taken place afterwards. But like I said to David, Trump seems to be a once in a generation personality - I don't think we will see this sort of divisiveness again. Evan Vance appears much more moderate
Thanks for taking the time to explain your reasoning. I genuinely appreciate it. We all have to make our own moral calculations in politics, and thoughtful people of good faith can certainly reach different conclusions about candidates and policies. My concern has never really been that every Christian must have voted differently from how you did. It's that, having made that decision, too many people have felt the need to minimize or explain away what I regard as Trump's very serious moral failures. In my estimation, those failures are profound, and I don't think they should be treated as merely a matter of personality, "mean tweets," or political style. Even if someone concludes that the alternative was worse, I think honesty requires acknowledging the gravity of those shortcomings rather than downplaying them.
I also think many evangelicals underestimate why so many fellow believers found support for Trump morally troubling. Those of us who raised those concerns often encountered not thoughtful disagreement like yours, but hostility or dismissal. That's unfortunate. If more of my conversations had looked like this one—respectful, candid, and charitable—I might not have become so disillusioned with much of evangelical political culture. So thank you for engaging in that spirit. We may continue to disagree about the overall political calculus, but conversations like this are exactly the kind I wish were more common.
Thank you for this response. Rarely do I see Trump supporters engage in good faith, so I truly appreciate your sharing your thought process here. It has given me much to reflect on as I think about how we can move forward productively.
Thanks, Baggett. Hope you're well. I think last I saw you might've been in Oxford ~2006 (CS Lewis Institute).
Funny enough, you might appreciate some parallel points in the essay I posted today, though once again it's rather too long. Much easier to edit others than myself, I find!
I think there's a great deal of truth in what you're saying. People naturally want to protect themselves, their families, and the things they cherish. Christians are no exception, and I don't think they should simply withdraw from public life or stop defending legitimate interests. Where I think we differ is that Christianity has always insisted there are moral limits to what fear or self-preservation can justify. The question isn't whether Christians may defend themselves politically, but whether, in doing so, they remain answerable to the same standards of truthfulness, justice, humility, and integrity they profess in every other area of life.
I also think our moral vision has sometimes become too narrow. Many evangelicals seem to assume that almost everything identified with the political left is somehow contrary to the Christian faith. I don't see it that way. Caring for hungry children, extending humanitarian relief, making health care more affordable, welcoming the stranger while maintaining the rule of law, and pursuing justice for the vulnerable are all concerns Christians have good reason to take seriously, even if we disagree about the best public policies for addressing them. The range of Christian moral concern is broader than the priorities of either political party.
The biblical story isn't that God's people always avoid the lions. Quite often they don't. It's that faithfulness sometimes requires accepting real costs rather than compromising the very convictions we're trying to preserve. That's a difficult standard—I certainly haven't always lived up to it—but I think it's still the Christian standard. Thanks again.
Is that attitude something to praise and encourage? I thought the lesson of the lions den was that we should trust God to fight for us?
Also, it seems that if we measure God fighting for us, we might keep in view what we see in Jesus, where fighting looks a whole lot like surrender. Or maybe you think I’m being pretentious.
Nice summary but I really dont care. I only care that you voted twice for a man who talked openly about sexuality assaulting women beforehand , who called for executions of black criminals, who cheated his employees and businesses.
Trisha, the message may be for others—perhaps those who are still supporting Trump even now. I never did myself, and those to whom David is writing quickly cut me off as leftist, deranged, driven by TDS and not worthy of listening to (as you are doing with him now).
It might be that David can reach those that you or I can’t. Maybe they’re too far gone (as you seem to think David was by having voted for him at all). But maybe not. It’s worth trying at least I think. Another option is to be indulgent and renounce anyone who has supported him in any capacity whatsoever as forever to be shunned. To my mind I think that’s just going to get us more of the same. But you might think otherwise.
Hi Trisha. Thanks for your comment, and I know it comes from a place of deep and eminently understandable and laudable conviction. I really do understand, and you ask a fair question. If I were to venture an answer, I might say that I don't ask anyone to forget that I voted for Trump twice. In fact, I mention it precisely because I don't want to write as though I stood outside what happened. I was part of it, to my shame and chagrin. It was a failure of discernment on my part, as far as I'm concerned. So, if my past judgment means you don't want to hear what I have to say, I understand completely, and that is, of course, your prerogative.
But by way of just a gentle push back with which you can do as you will, I might also add that people should be allowed to acknowledge when they were wrong, reflect honestly on how they got there, and encourage others not to repeat the same mistakes. People mess up, all of us, at one time or another, sometimes spectacularly. We need grace for ourselves, and we need to ask for it from others. We need to forgive ourselves, and to ask others to forgive us, and we need to forgive others--otherwise life is a lonely venture. As a Christian I believe God's grace is sufficient for all of us, if we avail ourselves of it. My post isn't an attempt to erase my past. It's an attempt to take responsibility for it. Whether that earns your attention and respect is entirely your decision. Personally, I'd rather we be friends than be at odds. Take good care.
You might also check out the attacks David has gotten from the right in response to this post. Easier of course to think all wickedness is on the other side, but we’ve seen enough in our own circles to know that is not the case. Enjoy your resentment!
David is essentially complaining that evangelicals are starting to act and vote as an ethnic bloc, rather than as a meditative spiritual exercise.
And that’s fine. To be honest I’d hate going to a church that acted like a Trump rally.
But voting like ethnic blocs is something us tiresome humans do when there is in fact an enemy side that doesn’t want you to exist, and actually does have policy levers to make your public existence at least much harder.
It’s true that the Bible teaches us to trust God. But most Christians also have savings accounts, support the existence of police, use our turn signals etc.
And vote right to protect themselves. And don’t expect breaking ranks to actually bring any thanks from the left, just like the comment above me had no thanks for you or David.
I don’t hate either of you.
But ‘pretentious’ is appropriate because the whole goal here is to be ‘above’ the partisan reality every other group faces
I would encourage you to re-read the piece. David is concerned about the spiritual consequences of supporting one like Trump. Yes, it's a vote, but it's also a matter of character formation and about the shaping of one's mental and emotional habits in all that one has to absorb, deny, capitulate to, and enable in their full-throated endorsement. I also think that it's dangerous (you may say pretentious) to think that one's vote is merely about self-preservation and has nothing whatsoever to do with one's view of the world and understanding of our obligations to our neighbors. It seems to me that this is just another way of saying that evangelicals really don't believe the gospel they claim to have allegiance to. And what's tragic is that the whole notion of evangelical, thanks to support of Trump, is now absolutely reduced to a voting bloc.
Thanks for taking the time to explain and for your engagement. That said, I don’t think that this quite captures my argument. I am not complaining simply that evangelicals tend to vote together, nor suggesting that political participation should be a detached “meditative spiritual exercise.” I explicitly recognize that Christians have legitimate interests to protect, serious policy disagreements with the left, and good reasons to participate vigorously in democratic politics.
My concern is about what happens when political solidarity becomes strong enough to override moral judgment. Voting practically as a bloc is one thing. Treating loyalty to a political leader or party as a reason to excuse dishonesty, cruelty, corruption, contempt for legal constraints, or attacks on constitutional institutions is another. The central question is not whether evangelicals may defend themselves politically, but whether the means they embrace and the character they tolerate remain answerable to the faith they profess.
Part of the reason this matters so much to me is that it has reshaped the direction of my own life. My wife and I left secure academic positions to attend law school because we had become convinced that questions of law, authority, justice, and constitutional order are among the defining moral questions of our age. My own scholarly work has increasingly focused on jurisprudence—particularly the nature and justification of authority. The deeper I have explored those questions, the harder it has become to ignore what I regard as a growing willingness among many evangelicals to subordinate the rule of law and constitutional norms to political expediency. My concern is therefore not merely partisan or even primarily political. It is jurisprudential, moral, and theological. If Christians lose the ability to distinguish rightful authority from the mere possession of power, we have compromised something far more fundamental than a political strategy.
Nor am I trying to place myself “above” partisan reality. I voted for Trump twice, so I am hardly writing from a position of untouched purity. If anything, I write as someone who has had to reconsider his own judgments. The effort is partly an acknowledgment that I was slow to recognize what was happening. My point is that Christians should never regard the moral standards of their faith as luxuries that can be suspended whenever they feel politically threatened.
The analogy with savings accounts, police, and turn signals therefore misses the issue. Prudence is entirely compatible with Christian faithfulness. But prudence does not require us to call vice virtue, minimize serious wrongdoing, or treat every political opponent as an existential enemy. Indeed, once a community becomes convinced that “the other side doesn’t want us to exist,” nearly any compromise of principle can begin to look like an act of self-defense. History suggests that this is precisely the point at which moral vigilance becomes most necessary.
I also do not expect thanks from the political left, and that was never the goal. Christian integrity cannot depend on whether another political coalition rewards it. The question is whether our conduct remains faithful, truthful, just, and humane even when doing so is politically costly.
You may still think my judgment is mistaken. But calling it “pretentious” does not identify the error. It merely assumes that refusing complete partisan identification must be an exercise in moral superiority. I see it instead as an attempt—an imperfect one, to be sure—to keep political allegiance subordinate to moral and religious conviction, and to ensure that the authority Christians acknowledge in politics never eclipses the authority they profess to recognize in Christ. Thanks again for your time. Blessings.
I have replied to you elsewhere already, so I don't mean to belabor the point. I would simply add that I don't see any of this as a matter of joining one political tribe or another. I've largely left behind my old preoccupation with left-right battles—not because they are unimportant, but because I increasingly fear they can obscure deeper moral and spiritual questions. My concern is simply whether we're willing to apply the same moral standards to our own side that we readily apply to our opponents. If acknowledging that I was wrong about some things comes across as pretentious, I'm not sure what the alternative is. I'd rather admit my mistakes than pretend I never made them. At this stage of my life, I'm less interested in winning arguments than in trying to be honest. People will reach different conclusions, and that's okay. As Paul wrote, "Let each be fully convinced in his own mind." Blessings, and thanks for the post.
Boo-hoo. You people already had an evangelical in the White House, name of Jimmy Carter. Lifelong church attender and daily Bible student, deacon of the Southern Baptist congregation he'd grown up in, and probably the most decent man who ever sat in that accursed office.
And you threw him out like garbage, in favor of a senile movie cowboy who gave more rousing speeches, and whose Hollywood image-maker teams knew how to make deals with crackpots like your Falwells, to make their guy look like something resembling a believer.
You betrayed the man you already had, and you got what you paid for.
I saw this apostate ersatz-theocratic dictatorship coming, with you chest-pounding attention-whore professional fake Bible-bangers slithering along as the useful idiots, all the way back then, 46 years ago.
Don't insult my intelligence and pretend you didn't.
YOU PEOPLE DID THIS.
Rats from a sinking ship are always a pathetic spectacle,
but your kind will still find a way to make money off it.
Matthew 6:5. Maybe you should read it again, though by all indications you never have.
I think it was the auto-moderation that hid your comment, @framersqool. I didn’t see it until I looked at the “hidden replies.” I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish with it though. Just hard to know what to do with the point you’re making. I was 7 when Reagan was elected. David was 14. Neither of us had much to do with the election or anything leading up to it.
I get that there’s a point to make about the roots of what we see today. And definitely it’s worth sorting through that history, reckoning with it well, and doing what we can to move forward positively (I think that’s what David’s post is trying to do—perhaps you think that he should be sporting sack cloth and ashes and assuming the blame for where we’re at? I do think there’s a place for that for those who are enthusiastically and knowingly supporting the wickedness of the Trump administration!).
I honestly get the frustration. We are in a very bad place. Very bad. We didn’t get here by just a few missteps. Gonna take a whole lot of work to recover. Part of that will be taking ownership of our role in it all. Will definitely take wisdom, too, to know how to encourage others toward the light. All the best.
Thanks for the engagement. Hope you are doing well today. I agree with part of what you're saying. The evangelical movement bears real responsibility for many of the political dynamics we see today, and I think we should examine that history honestly. That's part of why I've been writing about these issues. Where I disagree is with treating millions of people as though they're all the same, or assuming everyone who voted Republican over the past forty years did so out of hypocrisy or bad faith. Reality is more complicated than that. For what it's worth, I voted for Trump twice. I wasn't "above" the problem; I was part of it. My concern isn't to pretend I saw everything clearly from the beginning. It's precisely that I came to believe I had been too willing to overlook abject moral failures for political reasons. That's a confession before it's an accusation. I also don't think the answer to evangelical political failures is contempt for evangelicals. If we're going to call Christians back to greater integrity, we should do so with the same commitment to truth and charity that we're asking of them. Thanks again for your comment. Blessings.
Nice try, but you clearly give me little credit for having seen and lived through the things I have witnessed among evangelicals, since before you were born. You wallow in a cult of insecurity and ignorance, reward yourselves with worldly wealth and advantage while claiming to be 'in the world but not of the world', debase yourselves before one mortal cult of personality making appealing noises after another and call it for the glory of God, and you will do it all again, because a cult is a cult, and you have yet to recognize that this is what you serve. What you call my contempt for evangelicals is something closer to pity, but I doubt you possess the wisdom to have the least notion of why: the most dangerous people are not vicious or venomous by nature, they are weak and stupid, and available to be led by the vicious and venomous. You are sheep in wolves' clothing, and until you are prepared to regard yourselves as human beings rather than as this 'christian' thing, yes, you will fall right in line and serve the next demagogue to come along making the right appealing noises to pander to your insecurity and ignorance. This current US head of state did not invent this by a long stretch, he has only leveraged your insecurity and ignorance with more cynical detachment than usual, because you make it available. I pity you for how gullible you are, which is not worthy of my contempt.
I appreciate your taking the time to explain your perspective, even though we clearly see this very differently. I don't deny that there is much in American evangelicalism that deserves searching criticism. In fact, that's precisely why I wrote what I did. Where we differ is that I don't think the failures of a movement justify concluding that everyone within it is irredeemably gullible, ignorant, or beyond the possibility of repentance and growth. You may well be right that many of us—including me—were slower than we should have been to recognize what was happening. That's a painful admission, but I think it's an honest one. What I can't accept is the conclusion that because people have been wrong, they are incapable of learning, changing, or recovering moral clarity. I do think some of your judgments are broader than the evidence warrants, but I don't define you by those words. They represent a snapshot of this exchange, not the whole of who you are. I believe we're all capable of learning, changing, and doing better. I wish you well and all the best. I suspect we've both said what we can profitably say to one another.
What’s up with the worldly wealth charge? Extremely bizarre if you knew anything of the sacrifices we have made to get from what we see now as a toxic subculture. Hoping you will take a step back and realize how many unfounded assumptions you are making about what you have no idea of. All the best.
There you go again, diagnosing me, for what you perceive to be my 'attitude.' Burn the witches? Who, other than you, said anything about burning witches? As for grace and mercy, only these have prevented me from summarily blocking the both of you. Absent grace, my lifetime of informed grievances could be expressed in far, far harsher language. Absent mercy, maybe I would be out to simply humiliate you. But this is what you do: you treat your own doctrines, however derived, whichever is their current version, as the baseline for defining all good and evil, and then strain to fit all reality into these definitions. Then first you try to gaslight me with head-patting condescension meant (apparently) to pass as compassion (or something), then when I stand right up to you unimpressed, you accuse me of wanting to burn witches. What's next? Intercessory prayer on my behalf? Give it a go.
I think we've reached the point where continuing this conversation is more likely to generate heat than light. Thank you for sharing your perspective. I wish you well.
Thanks for sharing this. I appreciated how you interacted with the place of fear, and how that has driven Evangelicals into bad places.
My dad used to warn me of the danger of fear. He was a church history professor, and would talk to me about what 'fear of other' created leading up to WW2. He urged me to not give into that fear, and press into faith through tribulation.
My heart breaks by all the compromises I am seeing in Evangelicals. I plead with God to open eyes and renew hearts. In the meantime, I press into orthodox Christianity, and also have deep respect for the likes of Russell Moore and David French.
Thank you, Lynette, for this thoughtful response. Your father's counsel strikes me as deeply wise. Fear has always been one of the most powerful forces shaping both individuals and communities, and church history offers far too many examples of what can happen when Christians allow fear to eclipse faithfulness. I share your heartbreak. My concern isn't that Christians care deeply about politics or seek to protect important goods—we should. It's that fear can subtly tempt us to excuse what we would otherwise recognize as wrong, or to see our neighbors primarily as threats rather than people made in the image of God. Like you, I find myself praying more these days than arguing: that God would renew our hearts, give us the courage to tell the truth even when it's costly, and help us recover a Christian witness marked by both conviction and charity. Thank you again for taking the time to write.
Thank you for sharing, Lynette. I’m so glad the reflection encouraged you. We need that solidarity and encouragement to retain hope and have the courage and resolve to resist the temptation to give into cynicism or despair. Keep up the good fight!
One thing I take from this is the power of immediate social contexts. It can be very difficult to break out, even when alternative Xn social and moral visions are immediately adjacent.
I think this is so true! Having grown up in evangelicalism, I was slow to see its slide into a great deal of cultural capitulation on the right. I was largely conditioned to see problems on the left, not the right. I saw them on the left clearly; I was much worse at seeing them on the right. I recognize now, when I see evangelicals harping on the left, how it's this same pattern continuing on a daily basis. When that's the air one breathes all the time, it's easy to identify Christian faithfulness with one approach to political questions. I don't say this to defend myself; I really have no inclination to defend my voting for Trump twice. It was a mistake, I think, and I'm far from proud of it. I totally get some of the animus a few have expressed toward me on account of it, even in this thread, even if I don't think it's the most productive way forward. But folks have freedom to vent, I figure. At the root of their comments is something quite legitimate. But thanks, Dan, for your insight here; it's a good one! Blessings.
Your account was helpful to me in trying to understand what goes on with some others I know, and to be more patient with the processeses of change. We are all on our journeys, not all at the same place at the same time, not all drawing on the same sources and contexts etc. Thanks for having the courage to reflect publicly on your own journey!
Christians should never make any politician the measure of faithfulness, and character does not become irrelevant because a leader advances useful policies. But moral seriousness also requires precision. Broad judgments about millions of evangelicals—and grave accusations against public figures—need evidence and distinction. The answer to political idolatry is not a different tribe. It is one moral standard for every leader, including the ones we vote for.
Thanks for the comment! Agreed on the need for support for one’s judgments. Given the rhetorical context of Substack, this piece indeed mostly gestured toward the mountain of evidence and substantial reasons why David and I are so troubled by Trump, his administration, and evangelicals’ overwhelming support of it all (admittedly this support runs along a spectrum from the more tepid to enthusiastic and rabid defense of all he does). But I’m glad to clarify if you think we’re being unfair at all. There is much behind the conclusions we’ve drawn. We made none of our assessments lightly, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss the reasoning further. I’m wrapping up a book project right now but would be glad to engage after that (later next week). Thanks so much!
Thank you. I actually agree with much of what you've written. Christians should never make any politician the measure of faithfulness, and character does not become irrelevant because a leader advances policies we happen to support. I also agree that broad judgments require care and that serious accusations should be grounded in evidence rather than rhetoric. My concern is somewhat narrower than perhaps I conveyed. I'm not suggesting that all evangelicals think alike or that policy considerations are unimportant. Christians can and will disagree in good faith about taxes, immigration, foreign policy, abortion, religious liberty, and countless other issues.
What troubles me is that a significant segment of American evangelicalism has become willing to excuse conduct that it would once have regarded as morally disqualifying because acknowledging it might jeopardize political objectives. To me, that is less a political problem than a spiritual one. It reflects a point at which political solidarity begins to override moral judgment and Christian fidelity.
I also agree that the answer to political idolatry is not simply adopting a different tribe. In fact, that's precisely the point I'm trying to make. Christian moral judgment should be independent enough to criticize both the right and the left whenever either departs from truthfulness, justice, humility, compassion, or respect for the rule of law. My bigger concern than the left-right spectrum is the valuing people rightly vs. not doing so spectrum. Our political commitments should be accountable to our faith, not the other way around. If my wording suggested something broader than that, I appreciate the opportunity to clarify. My aim isn't to condemn evangelicals wholesale—I count myself among those who were slower than I should have been to recognize what was happening. The post is as much an act of self-examination as it is a critique of a movement I still care deeply about. Thanks again! Blessings.
I agree that our political commitments should be accountable to our faith and not the other way around. The challenge is making sure we apply that principle consistently. Political idolatry exists on the right, but it exists on the left as well. Christians should be willing to examine both with equal honesty. Once faith becomes subordinate to any ideology, tribe, party, or movement, we've already lost something important. 🙏🇺🇲
I couldn't agree more. Political idolatry is a perennial human temptation, not the property of any one party or ideology. Whenever our political loyalties become more determinative than our moral and spiritual commitments, we've lost our bearings. The reason I've focused on evangelicalism isn't because I think the left is exempt from that danger. It's because that's my own community, or at least was, and I believe we're called first to examine ourselves before we pronounce judgment on others. I can't speak with the same authority about communities to which I don't belong. My hope is simply that Christians recover the freedom to affirm what is good and criticize what is wrong wherever we find it—even when doing so is politically costly. I think that's part of what faithfulness requires. Thank you again for such a thoughtful interaction.
I’m graduating from Liberty University soon, and it’s been such a huge drain on my faith. It feels like in this culture, the Bible exists for people to harvest and use. I took a creative writing course there that suggested we use AI to find verses and biblical themes to shoehorn into novels or devotional books. That mind of cherry-picking scripture to fit into our lives feels like the core of my issue with the current evangelical culture.
Thanks for sharing, Bethany. That’s a powerful image you include, and it captures well the intellectual and spiritual habits trained in such an environment. David and I found we could no longer endure it, and leaving—as hard as it was—seemed the better course for our emotional and spiritual well being. I still have many friends there fighting the good fight, but it’s hard to push every day against the current, especially when it seems to me that the prevailing institutional values are at bottom anti-Christ. Will be praying for you, and please do reach out if you ever want to talk or process anything! I’m finishing a book right now but would be glad to talk after that and be a source of encouragement as I’m able!
Thank you for sharing that. I'm genuinely sorry that's been your experience. What you describe resonates with one of my deepest concerns—not simply in politics, but more broadly. Scripture ceases to function as an authority over us when we begin treating it primarily as a collection of quotations to support conclusions we've already reached or products we already want to create. At that point, we're no longer allowing the text to shape us; we're shaping it to serve our purposes. Sadly, I don't think it's unique to Liberty or even to evangelicals. It's a temptation for all of us, and I know I've had to confront it in my own life as well. The question is always whether we're willing to let Scripture correct us, especially when it challenges our assumptions, loyalties, or ambitions. I hope this experience doesn't drive you away from Christ or from Scripture itself or detract to any degree from your eminently sweet spirit. Sometimes, as you have already learned, the failures of a religious culture can obscure the beauty of the faith it professes. My hope is that we all of us can recover a posture of humility in which we approach Scripture not as a tool to wield, but as God's Word that first judges and transforms us. Blessings, and thanks again!
Such a great articulation of what I have noticed as well. I am finding that this is the Christianity I grew up with — the kind based on political beliefs, authoritarianism, fear — and I now see it as being incompatible with authentic Christianity. When people say they are a Christian in America, I no longer know which kind they mean, and I struggle with how to lovingly engage with them when they are so adamant about political loyalties and beliefs that go directly against following Christ. It is rooted in fear and defensiveness, so when I feel angry about the Bible being misused, I know that speaking firmly about it will only cause them to dig their heels in further and it will not be productive. I think it’s important as Christians to not cut anyone off just because it would be easier than having to engage with them, but I don’t know how to engage with people in that camp anymore — whether to speak to them as fellow believers, or as people who are misusing the name of Jesus.
Thanks much, Anneka! On occasion I admit to finding it difficult not to put some distance between certain obstinate Trump defenders and myself. When I don't feel like they're being honest, when they trivialize legitimate concerns, when they don't seem to be arguing in good faith, when they should know better, when they're derogatory--in those cases I find it greatly tempting just to stop engaging since it doesn't seem to be yielding much fruit. Civil discourse is vitally important, but so too is civic virtue, intellectual honesty, epistemic humility, attentiveness to evidence, and the like. This is an issue with which I've been struggling for a while now. It's a really tough thing to negotiate sometimes. Thanks again for your response; much appreciated!
<<This has not been merely an intellectual journey. Several of my closest friendships have been deeply strained by these disagreements. These were not casual acquaintances but people I loved, admired, and with whom I collaborated professionally for many years. Losing those friendships has been among the saddest experiences of my life. The issue was never simply partisan disagreement. Rather, I gradually realized that we had come to understand questions of moral judgment and public virtue in fundamentally different ways.>>
I have been dealing with this as well. My first youth pastor from when I was 11 has been constantly posting MAGA-party-line things that are antithetical to the character of Christ.
I find myself asking how I find the balance between recognizing someone as a brother/sister in Christ while no longer recognizing them as a faithful minister of the gospel.
That is hard, man. I sympathize; thanks for sharing this!
You know, I can empathize with the concerns here, but I will say this - in the first primary, I voted for Ted Cruz. But when it came to the general election I voted for Trump because that was the candidate who most closely represented the values I agreed with. My experience has been that many conservative evangelicals are really getting sick of Trump - his pugnacity, his arrogance, his rhetoric - but we vote for him because that is the only choice right now. We have a flawed system - as all systems are. We must work within that system if we are to accomplish the ends we have in mind. I hope all Christians will pray that their country returns to God, but doing nothing I don't think is the right choice either. We are blessed beyond measure to live in a country where Biblical Christians actually have a political voice - that is unheard of. I wish to goodness there had been another option other than Trump in either year, but he was the only person who would go toe to toe with the media and the Left on a larger scale, the only candidate who had a chance of winning. I completely understand why people are sick of Trump - I am too. But doing nothing is also not the right answer, and we have to live in reality. I think people forget what it would have been like before he came into office. I am glad we don't have men with breasts flashing on the White House lawn, I am glad we don't have biological men in women's sports, I am glad we have overturned Roe v Wade, I am glad we are a respected presence in the world again, I am glad we have a secure border, and I am glad we have a much greater modicum of religious freedom now than we would have. To me, that is worth some ghastly rhetoric.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response. I genuinely understand where you're coming from because, for a long time, I reasoned much the same way. I don't doubt that many Christians voted for Trump because they believed he would better advance certain policy goals they considered important. Where I've changed is that I no longer think this is simply a question of weighing competing policy preferences. For me, it has become a question of fundamental moral commitments—human dignity, truthfulness, the rule of law, and the character we are willing to reward with political power.
I understand why issues like abortion, religious liberty, border security, and fairness in women's sports matter deeply to many Christians. Those are legitimate moral concerns. But I have come to believe that the means by which we pursue moral ends matter profoundly. A politics marked by habitual dehumanization, contempt for truth, attacks on due process, the refusal to accept legitimate election results, pardoning those who assaulted police officers, and rhetoric that encourages division carries moral costs that Christians should not minimize.
My concern is not ultimately that Trump is conservative or Republican. If a Democratic leader displayed these same patterns, I would object just as strongly. This has become, for me, less a left-right issue than a question of what kind of nation—and what kind of church—we are becoming. One of my deepest concerns is that many evangelicals have narrowed the range of moral issues they regard as politically significant. Scripture calls us to care not only about abortion and religious freedom, but also about truthfulness, justice, mercy, the treatment of immigrants, the poor, the vulnerable, the abuse of power, and the equal dignity of every person made in God's image. I fear we've often emphasized some of these while neglecting others.
Reasonable Christians can disagree about policy. But I really don’t believe Christians have a moral obligation to support Donald Trump, and I worry that identifying Christian faith too closely with one deeply flawed political figure has done lasting damage to the church's witness. My hope is that Christians will recover a broader, more consistent moral vision—one that refuses to excuse grave moral failures simply because they come packaged with policies we happen to favor. Thanks again for engaging so graciously. I appreciate the conversation.
Those are all great points - I do think we need to engage politically, and I also think God can use even deeply flawed people to accomplish His will. That being said, manner matters, and I think a number of Evangelicals are in the same space I am - just waiting for this era to end. The good news is Trump seems to be one of a kind (for better or worse) - I don't think we would see a candidate like him again.
Thank you for engaging! I truly appreciate your comment. I do want to ask about your last point (that what Trump is doing positively is worth ghastly rhetoric). Do you think that the only issue with Trump is his rhetoric? Thanks in advance!
Everything in politics is a cost-benefit analysis. And many times, unfortunately, because of the nature of our adversarial system, the best choice we can make is "which candidate is less awful than the other"? To answer your question, no - I certainly don't agree with every decision he has made; frankly, some I think have been terrible (the tariffs for example are a huge mistake in my opinion) but I agree on the whole much more than I did for any position held by the other candidate. If the question is one of policy then I go with the party that most aligns with my values (remember, we are really voting for a party, not just one man). The Democrat party has lurched so far to the Left in recent election cycles that the middle has all but disappeared. This has left us with a choice between two values systems. As a Christian (Democrat or Republican, White or Black), I cannot in good conscience vote for anyone who supports abortion, trans promotion, or BDS Israel. Like I said, I voted for Ted Cruz in the primary; I also voted for DeSantos in the second primary - but when Trump won the primary, I felt I had no choice (I had already decided that sitting out was not an option). I hate his braggadocio, his constant pugnacity. But I also felt that if Harris won I would be partially to blame for all of the changes that would have taken place afterwards. But like I said to David, Trump seems to be a once in a generation personality - I don't think we will see this sort of divisiveness again. Evan Vance appears much more moderate
Thanks for taking the time to explain your reasoning. I genuinely appreciate it. We all have to make our own moral calculations in politics, and thoughtful people of good faith can certainly reach different conclusions about candidates and policies. My concern has never really been that every Christian must have voted differently from how you did. It's that, having made that decision, too many people have felt the need to minimize or explain away what I regard as Trump's very serious moral failures. In my estimation, those failures are profound, and I don't think they should be treated as merely a matter of personality, "mean tweets," or political style. Even if someone concludes that the alternative was worse, I think honesty requires acknowledging the gravity of those shortcomings rather than downplaying them.
I also think many evangelicals underestimate why so many fellow believers found support for Trump morally troubling. Those of us who raised those concerns often encountered not thoughtful disagreement like yours, but hostility or dismissal. That's unfortunate. If more of my conversations had looked like this one—respectful, candid, and charitable—I might not have become so disillusioned with much of evangelical political culture. So thank you for engaging in that spirit. We may continue to disagree about the overall political calculus, but conversations like this are exactly the kind I wish were more common.
Thank you for this response. Rarely do I see Trump supporters engage in good faith, so I truly appreciate your sharing your thought process here. It has given me much to reflect on as I think about how we can move forward productively.
You might like my work https://www.wjkbooks.com/bookproduct/0664269214-the-seven-mountains-mandate/
Thanks, Matthew!
Thanks, Baggett. Hope you're well. I think last I saw you might've been in Oxford ~2006 (CS Lewis Institute).
Funny enough, you might appreciate some parallel points in the essay I posted today, though once again it's rather too long. Much easier to edit others than myself, I find!
-Elizabeth Glass Turner
Much appreciated your blog! Nice to hear from you after so long!! Hope you are well!
Thank you, Dr.Baggett.
Ultimately, even if there is a Bible story about god saving the faithful from a lion, normal people still don’t want to be fed to lions.
So evangelicals will follow whoever is fighting those that are fighting them
I think there's a great deal of truth in what you're saying. People naturally want to protect themselves, their families, and the things they cherish. Christians are no exception, and I don't think they should simply withdraw from public life or stop defending legitimate interests. Where I think we differ is that Christianity has always insisted there are moral limits to what fear or self-preservation can justify. The question isn't whether Christians may defend themselves politically, but whether, in doing so, they remain answerable to the same standards of truthfulness, justice, humility, and integrity they profess in every other area of life.
I also think our moral vision has sometimes become too narrow. Many evangelicals seem to assume that almost everything identified with the political left is somehow contrary to the Christian faith. I don't see it that way. Caring for hungry children, extending humanitarian relief, making health care more affordable, welcoming the stranger while maintaining the rule of law, and pursuing justice for the vulnerable are all concerns Christians have good reason to take seriously, even if we disagree about the best public policies for addressing them. The range of Christian moral concern is broader than the priorities of either political party.
The biblical story isn't that God's people always avoid the lions. Quite often they don't. It's that faithfulness sometimes requires accepting real costs rather than compromising the very convictions we're trying to preserve. That's a difficult standard—I certainly haven't always lived up to it—but I think it's still the Christian standard. Thanks again.
Is that attitude something to praise and encourage? I thought the lesson of the lions den was that we should trust God to fight for us?
Also, it seems that if we measure God fighting for us, we might keep in view what we see in Jesus, where fighting looks a whole lot like surrender. Or maybe you think I’m being pretentious.
Nice summary but I really dont care. I only care that you voted twice for a man who talked openly about sexuality assaulting women beforehand , who called for executions of black criminals, who cheated his employees and businesses.
And now you think you are worth my time?
Trisha, the message may be for others—perhaps those who are still supporting Trump even now. I never did myself, and those to whom David is writing quickly cut me off as leftist, deranged, driven by TDS and not worthy of listening to (as you are doing with him now).
It might be that David can reach those that you or I can’t. Maybe they’re too far gone (as you seem to think David was by having voted for him at all). But maybe not. It’s worth trying at least I think. Another option is to be indulgent and renounce anyone who has supported him in any capacity whatsoever as forever to be shunned. To my mind I think that’s just going to get us more of the same. But you might think otherwise.
Hi Trisha. Thanks for your comment, and I know it comes from a place of deep and eminently understandable and laudable conviction. I really do understand, and you ask a fair question. If I were to venture an answer, I might say that I don't ask anyone to forget that I voted for Trump twice. In fact, I mention it precisely because I don't want to write as though I stood outside what happened. I was part of it, to my shame and chagrin. It was a failure of discernment on my part, as far as I'm concerned. So, if my past judgment means you don't want to hear what I have to say, I understand completely, and that is, of course, your prerogative.
But by way of just a gentle push back with which you can do as you will, I might also add that people should be allowed to acknowledge when they were wrong, reflect honestly on how they got there, and encourage others not to repeat the same mistakes. People mess up, all of us, at one time or another, sometimes spectacularly. We need grace for ourselves, and we need to ask for it from others. We need to forgive ourselves, and to ask others to forgive us, and we need to forgive others--otherwise life is a lonely venture. As a Christian I believe God's grace is sufficient for all of us, if we avail ourselves of it. My post isn't an attempt to erase my past. It's an attempt to take responsibility for it. Whether that earns your attention and respect is entirely your decision. Personally, I'd rather we be friends than be at odds. Take good care.
I love this reply to him. I love that this was the reward for his pretentiousness.
It’ll be even funnier when the Bulwark et Al outlive their usefulness and act surprised when the socialist administrations get rid of them
You might also check out the attacks David has gotten from the right in response to this post. Easier of course to think all wickedness is on the other side, but we’ve seen enough in our own circles to know that is not the case. Enjoy your resentment!
Curious why you find David’s post pretentious. Thanks in advance!
David is essentially complaining that evangelicals are starting to act and vote as an ethnic bloc, rather than as a meditative spiritual exercise.
And that’s fine. To be honest I’d hate going to a church that acted like a Trump rally.
But voting like ethnic blocs is something us tiresome humans do when there is in fact an enemy side that doesn’t want you to exist, and actually does have policy levers to make your public existence at least much harder.
It’s true that the Bible teaches us to trust God. But most Christians also have savings accounts, support the existence of police, use our turn signals etc.
And vote right to protect themselves. And don’t expect breaking ranks to actually bring any thanks from the left, just like the comment above me had no thanks for you or David.
I don’t hate either of you.
But ‘pretentious’ is appropriate because the whole goal here is to be ‘above’ the partisan reality every other group faces
I would encourage you to re-read the piece. David is concerned about the spiritual consequences of supporting one like Trump. Yes, it's a vote, but it's also a matter of character formation and about the shaping of one's mental and emotional habits in all that one has to absorb, deny, capitulate to, and enable in their full-throated endorsement. I also think that it's dangerous (you may say pretentious) to think that one's vote is merely about self-preservation and has nothing whatsoever to do with one's view of the world and understanding of our obligations to our neighbors. It seems to me that this is just another way of saying that evangelicals really don't believe the gospel they claim to have allegiance to. And what's tragic is that the whole notion of evangelical, thanks to support of Trump, is now absolutely reduced to a voting bloc.
Thanks for taking the time to explain and for your engagement. That said, I don’t think that this quite captures my argument. I am not complaining simply that evangelicals tend to vote together, nor suggesting that political participation should be a detached “meditative spiritual exercise.” I explicitly recognize that Christians have legitimate interests to protect, serious policy disagreements with the left, and good reasons to participate vigorously in democratic politics.
My concern is about what happens when political solidarity becomes strong enough to override moral judgment. Voting practically as a bloc is one thing. Treating loyalty to a political leader or party as a reason to excuse dishonesty, cruelty, corruption, contempt for legal constraints, or attacks on constitutional institutions is another. The central question is not whether evangelicals may defend themselves politically, but whether the means they embrace and the character they tolerate remain answerable to the faith they profess.
Part of the reason this matters so much to me is that it has reshaped the direction of my own life. My wife and I left secure academic positions to attend law school because we had become convinced that questions of law, authority, justice, and constitutional order are among the defining moral questions of our age. My own scholarly work has increasingly focused on jurisprudence—particularly the nature and justification of authority. The deeper I have explored those questions, the harder it has become to ignore what I regard as a growing willingness among many evangelicals to subordinate the rule of law and constitutional norms to political expediency. My concern is therefore not merely partisan or even primarily political. It is jurisprudential, moral, and theological. If Christians lose the ability to distinguish rightful authority from the mere possession of power, we have compromised something far more fundamental than a political strategy.
Nor am I trying to place myself “above” partisan reality. I voted for Trump twice, so I am hardly writing from a position of untouched purity. If anything, I write as someone who has had to reconsider his own judgments. The effort is partly an acknowledgment that I was slow to recognize what was happening. My point is that Christians should never regard the moral standards of their faith as luxuries that can be suspended whenever they feel politically threatened.
The analogy with savings accounts, police, and turn signals therefore misses the issue. Prudence is entirely compatible with Christian faithfulness. But prudence does not require us to call vice virtue, minimize serious wrongdoing, or treat every political opponent as an existential enemy. Indeed, once a community becomes convinced that “the other side doesn’t want us to exist,” nearly any compromise of principle can begin to look like an act of self-defense. History suggests that this is precisely the point at which moral vigilance becomes most necessary.
I also do not expect thanks from the political left, and that was never the goal. Christian integrity cannot depend on whether another political coalition rewards it. The question is whether our conduct remains faithful, truthful, just, and humane even when doing so is politically costly.
You may still think my judgment is mistaken. But calling it “pretentious” does not identify the error. It merely assumes that refusing complete partisan identification must be an exercise in moral superiority. I see it instead as an attempt—an imperfect one, to be sure—to keep political allegiance subordinate to moral and religious conviction, and to ensure that the authority Christians acknowledge in politics never eclipses the authority they profess to recognize in Christ. Thanks again for your time. Blessings.
I have replied to you elsewhere already, so I don't mean to belabor the point. I would simply add that I don't see any of this as a matter of joining one political tribe or another. I've largely left behind my old preoccupation with left-right battles—not because they are unimportant, but because I increasingly fear they can obscure deeper moral and spiritual questions. My concern is simply whether we're willing to apply the same moral standards to our own side that we readily apply to our opponents. If acknowledging that I was wrong about some things comes across as pretentious, I'm not sure what the alternative is. I'd rather admit my mistakes than pretend I never made them. At this stage of my life, I'm less interested in winning arguments than in trying to be honest. People will reach different conclusions, and that's okay. As Paul wrote, "Let each be fully convinced in his own mind." Blessings, and thanks for the post.
Boo-hoo. You people already had an evangelical in the White House, name of Jimmy Carter. Lifelong church attender and daily Bible student, deacon of the Southern Baptist congregation he'd grown up in, and probably the most decent man who ever sat in that accursed office.
And you threw him out like garbage, in favor of a senile movie cowboy who gave more rousing speeches, and whose Hollywood image-maker teams knew how to make deals with crackpots like your Falwells, to make their guy look like something resembling a believer.
You betrayed the man you already had, and you got what you paid for.
I saw this apostate ersatz-theocratic dictatorship coming, with you chest-pounding attention-whore professional fake Bible-bangers slithering along as the useful idiots, all the way back then, 46 years ago.
Don't insult my intelligence and pretend you didn't.
YOU PEOPLE DID THIS.
Rats from a sinking ship are always a pathetic spectacle,
but your kind will still find a way to make money off it.
Matthew 6:5. Maybe you should read it again, though by all indications you never have.
I think it was the auto-moderation that hid your comment, @framersqool. I didn’t see it until I looked at the “hidden replies.” I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish with it though. Just hard to know what to do with the point you’re making. I was 7 when Reagan was elected. David was 14. Neither of us had much to do with the election or anything leading up to it.
I get that there’s a point to make about the roots of what we see today. And definitely it’s worth sorting through that history, reckoning with it well, and doing what we can to move forward positively (I think that’s what David’s post is trying to do—perhaps you think that he should be sporting sack cloth and ashes and assuming the blame for where we’re at? I do think there’s a place for that for those who are enthusiastically and knowingly supporting the wickedness of the Trump administration!).
I honestly get the frustration. We are in a very bad place. Very bad. We didn’t get here by just a few missteps. Gonna take a whole lot of work to recover. Part of that will be taking ownership of our role in it all. Will definitely take wisdom, too, to know how to encourage others toward the light. All the best.
Thanks for the engagement. Hope you are doing well today. I agree with part of what you're saying. The evangelical movement bears real responsibility for many of the political dynamics we see today, and I think we should examine that history honestly. That's part of why I've been writing about these issues. Where I disagree is with treating millions of people as though they're all the same, or assuming everyone who voted Republican over the past forty years did so out of hypocrisy or bad faith. Reality is more complicated than that. For what it's worth, I voted for Trump twice. I wasn't "above" the problem; I was part of it. My concern isn't to pretend I saw everything clearly from the beginning. It's precisely that I came to believe I had been too willing to overlook abject moral failures for political reasons. That's a confession before it's an accusation. I also don't think the answer to evangelical political failures is contempt for evangelicals. If we're going to call Christians back to greater integrity, we should do so with the same commitment to truth and charity that we're asking of them. Thanks again for your comment. Blessings.
Nice try, but you clearly give me little credit for having seen and lived through the things I have witnessed among evangelicals, since before you were born. You wallow in a cult of insecurity and ignorance, reward yourselves with worldly wealth and advantage while claiming to be 'in the world but not of the world', debase yourselves before one mortal cult of personality making appealing noises after another and call it for the glory of God, and you will do it all again, because a cult is a cult, and you have yet to recognize that this is what you serve. What you call my contempt for evangelicals is something closer to pity, but I doubt you possess the wisdom to have the least notion of why: the most dangerous people are not vicious or venomous by nature, they are weak and stupid, and available to be led by the vicious and venomous. You are sheep in wolves' clothing, and until you are prepared to regard yourselves as human beings rather than as this 'christian' thing, yes, you will fall right in line and serve the next demagogue to come along making the right appealing noises to pander to your insecurity and ignorance. This current US head of state did not invent this by a long stretch, he has only leveraged your insecurity and ignorance with more cynical detachment than usual, because you make it available. I pity you for how gullible you are, which is not worthy of my contempt.
I appreciate your taking the time to explain your perspective, even though we clearly see this very differently. I don't deny that there is much in American evangelicalism that deserves searching criticism. In fact, that's precisely why I wrote what I did. Where we differ is that I don't think the failures of a movement justify concluding that everyone within it is irredeemably gullible, ignorant, or beyond the possibility of repentance and growth. You may well be right that many of us—including me—were slower than we should have been to recognize what was happening. That's a painful admission, but I think it's an honest one. What I can't accept is the conclusion that because people have been wrong, they are incapable of learning, changing, or recovering moral clarity. I do think some of your judgments are broader than the evidence warrants, but I don't define you by those words. They represent a snapshot of this exchange, not the whole of who you are. I believe we're all capable of learning, changing, and doing better. I wish you well and all the best. I suspect we've both said what we can profitably say to one another.
Also, it’s my suspicion that this burn the witches, no mercy, no grace attitude just might be contributing to the culture you purport to be lamenting.
What’s up with the worldly wealth charge? Extremely bizarre if you knew anything of the sacrifices we have made to get from what we see now as a toxic subculture. Hoping you will take a step back and realize how many unfounded assumptions you are making about what you have no idea of. All the best.
There you go again, diagnosing me, for what you perceive to be my 'attitude.' Burn the witches? Who, other than you, said anything about burning witches? As for grace and mercy, only these have prevented me from summarily blocking the both of you. Absent grace, my lifetime of informed grievances could be expressed in far, far harsher language. Absent mercy, maybe I would be out to simply humiliate you. But this is what you do: you treat your own doctrines, however derived, whichever is their current version, as the baseline for defining all good and evil, and then strain to fit all reality into these definitions. Then first you try to gaslight me with head-patting condescension meant (apparently) to pass as compassion (or something), then when I stand right up to you unimpressed, you accuse me of wanting to burn witches. What's next? Intercessory prayer on my behalf? Give it a go.
I think we've reached the point where continuing this conversation is more likely to generate heat than light. Thank you for sharing your perspective. I wish you well.
Mark 12:31
Keep lying to yourself. Go ahead and block and do us both a favor.