Trump's Going To Hell-- Will He Drag The Evangelical Church Down With Him? Has He Already?

Fascism Comes To America by Nancy Ohanian

Writing for Politico this week, Gabby Orr reported that only 1 in 4 Americans see Trump as a man of faith. Trump uses religion to manipulate his followers. Most Americans don't fall for it-- but 27% (of registered voters) do. 40% of evangelicals believe Trump is a Christian. "During an interview with former White House press secretary Sean Spicer last week," wrote Orr, "Trump, who was raised Presbyterian but infrequently attends church, was asked whether he’s 'grown in his faith' since becoming president. 'So I think maybe I have, from the standpoint that I see so much that I can do. I’ve done so much for religion,' he replied... Despite being perceived as religious by a majority of conservative Republicans, a slew of recent polls show that some key religious demographics are beginning to sour on the president-- a development that triggered alarm bells inside his reelection campaign late last month."

Data released last Thursday by the Public Religion Research Institute showed a 12-point drop in the president’s favorability since 2019 among white Catholics-- 60 percent of whom supported Trump over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton four years ago-- and a 20 percent decline in his support among evangelical voters since March. In May alone, Trump’s favorability among all white Christians declined from 57 percent to 46 percent, according to the PRRI study.

The erosion in Trump’s support among religious Americans, particularly white evangelical Protestants, disrupts a critical component of his 2020 strategy. To compensate for a staggering decline in the president’s appeal among suburban voters and women, his campaign has worked to strengthen his appeal for the religious right.

Die For Me by Nancy Ohanian

The American Conservative ran a Rod Dreher essay this week, The Coming Christian Reckoning, which begins with a long quote from Erick Erickson's final free post, which we'll get to in a moment. Dreher revisited his own book, The Benedict Option-- A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. "Fair or not," he wrote early in 2017, "conservative Christianity will be associated with Trump for the next few years, and no doubt beyond. If conservative church leaders aren’t extraordinarily careful in how they manage their public relationship to the Trump phenomenon, anti-Trump blowback will do severe damage to the church’s reputation. Trump’s election solves some problems for the church, but given the man’s character, it creates others. Political power is not a moral disinfectant. And this brings us to the more subtle but potentially more devastating effects of this unexpected GOP election victory. There is first the temptation to worship power, and to compromise one’s soul to maintain access to it. There are many ways to burn a pinch of incense to Caesar, and some prominent pro-Trump Christians arguably crossed that line during the campaign season. Again, political victory does not vitiate the vice of hypocrisy."

One reason the contemporary church is in so much trouble is that religious conservatives of the last generation mistakenly believed they could focus on politics, and the culture would take care of itself. For the past thirty years or so, many of us believed that we could turn back the tide of aggressive 1960s liberalism by voting for conservative Republicans. White Evangelicals and Catholic “Reagan Democrats” came together to support GOP candidates who vowed to back socially conservative legislation and to nominate conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The results were decidedly mixed on the legislative and judicial fronts, but the verdict on the overall political strategy is clear: we failed. Fundamental abortion rights remain solidly in place, and Gallup poll numbers from the Roe v. Wade era until today have not meaningfully changed. The traditional marriage and family model has been protected in neither law nor custom, and because of that, courts are poised to impose dramatic rollbacks of religious liberty for the sake of anti-discrimination.

Dreher is advocating that conservative Christians turn "inward to build (rebuild) our spiritual houses, and cultivate not passion for 'issues,' but disciplines of prayer, catechesis, and cultivating a willingness to suffer for our faith... Even if Trump is re-elected, don’t be deceived: we are in the twilight of Trumpism. He is a spent force. There’s a report that White House advisers are considering having the president give a speech to the nation on racial unity. The only passions such a pre-discredited speech would inspire would be anger and mockery. Events of this spring and early summer have emasculated him-- that, and the fact that he wasted his presidency tweeting, making a fool of himself, and demeaning the stature of his office. It’s over. Even if the Democrats somehow snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and America gets four more years of Trump, it’s over. As Erick Erickson points out, not only has Trump done little to stop the forces tearing the church apart in post-Christian America, he has actually accelerated them. To be fair, no politician could have stopped those forces, because they are spiritual and cultural forces, not primarily political ones. Still, he really has hastened the reckoning for believers, in part by anesthetizing a lot of them about the nature and severity of the crisis."

So here's the Erickson essay he referenced, He Cannot Save You, "he," signifying Señor Trumpanzee. Erickson is a conservative Republican and evangelical from Georgia, a former member of the Macon city council, the former editor-in-chief of RedState and, currently, an Atlanta radio host on WSB-AM. He famously described Trump as "a racist" and "a fascist," vowed "I will not vote for Donald Trump. Ever." In February 2019, he endorsed Trump's reelection bid. This week he wrote that he does not recall in his lifetime "seeing a President with so much public loyalty and private revulsion among the same people."

Righteous Violence by Nancy Ohanian

Describing rural Georgia Trump supporters in his new essay, Erickson wrote that "There is no real allegiance to the GOP, just to Trump. Republican candidates are forced to go through bizarre rituals to prove who is the most loyal. Some privately grumble. They know these voters will come for them if they are not loyal enough. There are others who stand with President Trump reluctantly. Frankly, for many evangelicals, the only person they can stand with is Trump even if they resent it. I imagine if he loses in November there’ll be a bit of a scene in some corners, not just among Senate Republicans, like the Witch of the West melting. Once Dorothy threw the bucket of water on her, the loyal soldiers were not so loyal. The flying monkeys might have been, but the soldiers definitely were not. We will see that among many in Washington who even now ostentatiously hump the President’s leg with reckless abandon. A number of begrudging Trump voters will be sad to see him lose because of the policies and appointments of Joe Biden, but even many of them will privately sigh some level of relief that perhaps the chaos and constant rage and rage tweets will subside. The President’s most hardcore voters will have dozens of would-be Trump poseurs to choose from for 2024 arguing over who best humped Trump’s leg or has the most Trumpian policies. The purges will happen with fights over loyalty in one corner of the right and fights over ever actually voting for the man in the other corner."

I have to say something to my evangelical friends-- Donald Trump will not save you. He cannot save you. In the rhetoric, tone, tenor, and levels of support for President Trump, I am struck by how many people still view him as some defense against the left.

True, he is to an extent. But Christians are dealing with spiritual problems, not political problems. They are dealing with the things unseen, not the things seen. Donald Trump is, like the forces they are fighting, of the world. The world cannot protect you from the world.

If you are a Christian voting for Donald Trump because he is pro-life, not at war with Christians through public policy, has great judicial picks, and will defend the police, I’m with you.

But I continue to harbor a great belief that too many Christians are using Trump as a political savior for a spiritual problem both in their own lives and in the life of this country. Trump cannot stop the culture from turning against the faith and, if anything, more and more data shows Trump is a catalyst for the cultural turn. He is increasing the left’s turn against the faith at a more rapid pace as so many evangelical leaders constantly beclown themselves to hump his leg. He is also increasing the right’s turn against the faith at a more rapid pace as more political apparatchiks on the right do what is expedient for political victory, including tossing grace, truth, and love for neighbors to the wind.

I think we are in a great sorting. It is not a sorting of the world, but a sorting of the church. Those of us within the church are being sorted between those of us who truly believe Jesus is the answer and those of us who think we can find stopgaps on the road to glory. I don’t advocate for escalation or to bring on the persecution. But I do worry a lot of Christians have harmed their own witness in how they are engaging in the world and politics. Many younger evangelicals are abandoning even a passing interest in politics and voting.

Too many people, regardless of party, think they can and should behave like the President. They see him as a fighter, so they fight too. They have chosen to divide the world between us and them. They see the political fight of the day as a struggle between their way of life and something anathema to it. To a degree, they are right. But to a greater degree, they are so busy clinging to a way of life they identify as American or American Jesus that they cannot let go to cling to actual Jesus. Too many Americans on both sides of the aisle cling to the sovereignty of the presidency instead of to the sovereignty of God and fight accordingly.

We all get so worked up these days and I keep hearing Republicans say we need to fight like the other side or be like the other side or something else. Democrats, for what it is worth, always think the GOP fights nastier, dirtier, and is more united.

I’d just say we cannot do that. We are bound by a book with key lines carved in stone by the immortal Creator of all things who then carved those lines on our hearts. As we engage the culture, the world, and the politics of the age, we cannot be like those who are not bound by the Word. We shouldn’t even try. “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” (Rom 12:9)

We are in a period of sorting and trying for the church. Stand for what is true and good, not for any man. If you’re on the right, Donald Trump cannot save you from what is coming. If you’re on the left, Joe Biden cannot save you either. But you and I can all love our neighbors as we go through this turbulent time-- including the ones with whom we disagree on politics, policy, and the future.

I turned to my old friend, Dr. Samir Selmanović, founder of Faith House Manhattan, an interfaith community of Christians, Muslims, Jews and humanists/atheists, who also served on the Interfaith Relations Commission of the United States National Council of Churches and currently chairs Vote Common Good and is a chef and life coach. "These articles," he told me, "show us what the coming reckoning looks like from 'the other side.' This is what the insiders see. Public opinion, progressive and spiritually-grounded Christians, and honest insiders of the Christian Right: all three are in agreement now. It's like watching what's happening in 3D. Christian Right insiders like Dreher and Erickson are bemoaning a number of things and the visceral temptation here is for all sides to turn their post-partisan thumbs up and say 'Finally!' From where I stand, however, as a former pastor, a currently-practicing Christian, and someone who believes that spiritual truth and authority reside in life itself, I am actually grieving. Grieving that the Christian Right has again missed the boat. The Trump debacle has presented an incredible opportunity for the Christian Right to learn something priceless, that for decades seemed so distant and foreign to them, and that they still, even in this sort of spiritual-political crisis, never talk about:  the simple, essential act of receiving."

Babies In Cages by Nancy Ohanian

He was just getting going, noting that "They see society as their project for witnessing, conversion, and service. We, the rest of society, are their object. They give themselves sacrificially (making significant contributions of money, time, and energy) in order to bestow grace and truth upon the world. They see themselves as the ones tasked to change the world. This one-way-street dynamic is a fatal flaw. They cannot comprehend that people outside of their tribe also have grace and truth for them. They cannot imagine themselves as interdependent with the wider culture, in any need at all of insight, inspiration, and blessing from those who are not their kind of Christians. God is not among us, the Other, they maintain. Thus they see only two options: witness or withdraw. Two quotes from Dreher are illustrative: 

"To be sure, Christians cannot afford to vacate the public square entirely. The church must not shrink from its responsibility to pray for political leaders and to speak prophetically to them."

"There is nothing left for us but taking the Benedict Option, which is to say, turning inward to build (rebuild) our spiritual houses, and cultivate not passion for 'issues,' but disciplines of prayer, catechesis, and cultivating a willingness to suffer for our faith."

"Witnessing or withdrawing allows them to maintain their foundational premise that they are the only brokers of God to the world," Samir continued. "THEY are the only legitimate brokers of grace, truth, and love. That's why truth from the outside cannot be acknowledged, let alone received. That's why love and kindness from the outside are always suspect. Any 'outside' virtue is a threat to their elemental construct and must be explained away to preserve the undergirding view of the world as enemy territory. God cannot possibly be in the Other, they still maintain. Unlike Jesus, who was happy to receive from the other and be grateful for the other, the Christian Right has decided that where they are not in charge, God is absent. It is unlikely that the imminent and bitter denouement of their Trump Alliance will shake that. 'The world that God so loved' (John 3:16) is devoid of God, except maybe for beautiful nature, cool movies, and random and accidental kindnesses of the lost. That world, they are certain, has no real grace, real truth, or real blessing to accord them. And for God to reveal things to them from the outside (like God did in the Bible all the time by the way) would be tantamount to the capitulation of their religion to the world. That's what is so deeply sad. What was once a wonderful religion, refusing to deepen, to evolve, and turning on itself. The fear, cynicism, and victimhood will continue as long as they don't know how to receive from that God, the same as theirs, but who is comprehensively resident in the world. I pray every day that I am wrong about this. I fantasize that they will surprise us one day and come out, healed, humble, and all love. Perhaps joining a Jesus who is alive and well outside their churches, in a parking lot, tailgating with all the diverse, beautiful, powerful, and revelatory humans they have been missing out on."

Ralph Reed Demands Good Christians Obey Señor Trumpanzee

Republican Party continues to pervert Jesus' message to mankind

Crooked carnival tent barker and greed-obsessed power-monger Ralph Reed, who somehow managed to avoid prison for his role in the Abramoff bribery scandal, has a new book coming out before the 2020 election with two working titles, Render to God and Trump and For God and Country: The Christian case for Trump. Best short bio of Reed I ever saw was by award-winning documentary film producer, Alex Gibney, who made the 2010 movie Casino Jack And The United States Of Money.





Gibney also wrote a piece that year for The Atlantic, The Deceptions of Ralph Reed, that captures the essence of the man: "Let's say it plain: Ralph Reed is a fraud."

On a recent radio show-- highlighted by a blog from People for the American Way-- Ralph Reed was chatting about his halcyon days as part of Jack Abramoff's lobbying machine. He recalled that his work with "Casino Jack," the once and famous king of K Street, "was outstanding, I'm proud of it, and it advanced sound public policy."

God Bless. What would that policy be? The legalized bribery of government officials?

To recap, Ralph Reed worked for team Abramoff by mobilizing Christians opposed to gambling to shutter casinos. The only hitch: Reed was usually paid by other casinos who had a financial interest in eliminating their competitors. Therefore, Abramoff needed to find a way to make Reed comfortable, and to protect him against critics and the likely fury of his own Christian followers-- who might have been upset if they had discovered that Reed was being paid by gamblers to do their bidding. The solution: Abramoff laundered the Indian casino payoffs to Reed by routing them through other organizations, including Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform and a phony "think tank" in Rehoboth Beach, MD, run by a life guard and a yoga instructor who were friends of Abramoff's pal, Mike Scanlon. Details of this can be found in my film, Casino Jack and the United States of Money.

...Reed correctly notes that he has never been charged with a crime and implies that he had been fully investigated by John McCain's Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. But the implication is deceptive. According to one very famous, disgraced former lobbyist, Reed was supposed to have been called before McCain's committee but Karl Rove intervened and pressured McCain not to call Reed. (Reed was an enormously powerful fund-raiser for the Republican Party.)

If true (McCain and Democratic Committee head Byron Dorgan refused to respond to my inquiries) it would be amazing. After all, McCain hated Reed for Reed's scurrilous personal attack campaign (funded by Abramoff) on McCain during the 2000 South Carolina Primary. And no one was more fundamental to Abramoff's Indian casino business than Reed. Yet Reed was never called. Why?

This leads to another intriguing part of the radio interview. Reed tries to downplay a famous statement of his: "I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag." He says it was just youthful hyperbole.

Really, the language is key to the militarized "take-no-prisoners" mindset of many movement conservatives. To them, politics is never about religion--or what's right or wrong--it's only about getting caught. By "painting his face and traveling at night," Reed avoided being called by the McCain Committee. To Reed, Abramoff committed the unpardonable sin of getting caught, and that's why Reed prays for him. Well, Abramoff did his time and now seems to be willing to speak the truth. Reed should pray for himself.

According to Gabby Orr's report in Politico yesterday, Reed intends to argue persuasively in his book that "evangelicals have a duty to defend the incumbent Republican leader against 'the stridently anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and pro-abortion agenda of the progressive left' [and] will also rebut claims by religious and nonreligious critics that white evangelical Protestants 'revealed themselves to be political prostitutes and hypocrites' by overwhelmingly backing Trump, a twice-divorced, admitted philanderer, in 2016."

Frank Schaefer, an apostate who once sat at the pinnacle of the Religious Right, is one of those critics. He noted that "As Politico notes, "The book’s author, Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, wants us to back a man that even fellow far right fundamentalist Trumpite, Pat Robertson, is now 'appalled' by Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria: 'The President of the United States is in great danger of losing the mandate of Heaven if he permits this to happen.' ... 'Ladies and Gentlemen,' Pat said, 'I want to say right now, I am absolutely appalled that the United States is going to betray those democratic forces in northern Syria that we are possibly going to allow the Turks to come in against the Kurds. The president, who allowed [Washington Post journalist Jamal] Khashoggi to be cut in pieces without any repercussions whatsoever, is now allowing the Christians and the Kurds to be massacred by the Turks,' he added. 'And I believe-- and I want to say this with great solemnity-- the president of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen.' Just a reminder: Love what Trump is doing by betraying the Kurds who have died by thousands frighting by America's side? Love that Trump is backing an Islamist militant leader in Turkey who murders opponents including Christians?-- Then thank a white evangelical American voter and evangelical leaders including Ralph Reed. Wait for the pictures of dead Kurdish children. Turkey's airstrikes against Kurdish villagers will inflame tensions between Trump and senior GOP figures including McConnell, Nikki Haley and Lindsey Graham already breaking with Trump with Mitt Romney calling it a 'betrayal.' And that’s the context even before we get to impeachment issues in which Trump-enabler Reed makes his pitch to support this anti-Christ and friend of men of blood to the bitter end."

Orr continued that "Reed, who once said Trump’s comments about women in the leaked Access Hollywood tape were low on his 'hierarchy of concerns,' belongs to an informal group of evangelical leaders-- including Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., Robert Jeffress and Paula White-- who have become some of the president’s most devoted fans and vocal defenders since he took office. They have cast his foray into politics as divinely inspired; equated him to biblical figures such as Esther, an Old Testament heroine; and frequently cited Scripture to rationalize his most controversial policies-- actions that other religious scholars and leaders have found particularly cringeworthy.

“I think evangelical efforts would be far better spent critiquing their own shortcomings than sanctifying a president,” said Matthew Rowley, a research associate with the Cambridge Institute on Religion and International Studies at Clare College.

For his part, Trump has inspired loyalty among his white evangelical base by positioning himself as a warrior against the secular culture they fear. He’s frequently appeared at conferences hosted by conservative Christian groups, including the “Road to Majority” summit put on by Reed’s organization each summer; strengthened conscience protections for religious Americans in the labor force; nominated dozens of socially conservative judges for lifetime federal appointments; and fervently supported Israel.

“Part of the reason why many religious leaders support Trump is because he is great on life, religious freedom, judges, Israel, taxes, conscience protections, fetal issue and also because Hillary Clinton and his would-be opponents next year are so awful on all of the above,” a senior administration official said.

But the same official said there‘s a difference between the president’s alliance with influential evangelical leaders and his private reaction to those who publicly fawn over his administration. Asked about Reed’s book, in particular, this person responded, “Oh, for crying out loud.”

“It shows how little they understand Donald Trump. He actually abhors obsequiousness,” the official said.

Indeed, the president has been known to mock right-wing television personalities and former aides who have showered him with praise on their shows and in books. After an on-air interview with Sean Hannity in which the pro-Trump Fox News host admitted to warning Trump on Election Day that he was likely to lose, the president reportedly complained to aides about Hannity’s “dumb” softball questions. Trump also teased former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who now serves as one of his personal attorneys, after he unabashedly defended him in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape scandal, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

...Reed’s book is expected to be released next April, seven months before voters will decide whether to reelect Trump. He has written seven books, including three political novels.

Samir Selmanović, a brilliant writer and seminarian and co-chair of Vote Common Good, thought about Reed's efforts and told us that "The saddest story behind Reed's campaign is monumental falling apart of Evangelical theology. What kind of a God do they believe in? It is a kind of god who cannot get shit done without Trump. No kidding. Trapped god. God the Hostage. The number of putdowns, destruction, and hostility that this god had to hoist on human beings by choosing Trump as his new man of the hours is staggering. Evolution, for example, would be quite a divine way to get things done. At least everyone participates in giving their lives for the advancement of others. In Trump's world, zero-sum game and looking for oneself is the ideal and only truth. More of a hunger-games approach to work, relationships, and self. Trump's words are unequivocal in supporting everything they used to want to be delivered from. But the fear of not being in charge is too much to bear for them. Anything less than being in charge renders them as victims. And as victims, they need a villain, which is the role they give to liberals. They also need a hero to save them. Down the escalator, arrives Trump!

"With Ralph Reeds as the whisperers of the official story about what is really going on, most Evangelicals are not paying attention to what's happening outside of their circle of wagons. And what is happening outside this large encampment is not hatred for Evangelicals, but the love of humans for each other, love for the earth, and love for the mystery we all are living with. Outside of their circle of certainty and fear, there is truth, grace, and compassion. They are losing touch with what love looks like and that is the greatest tragedy here. What used to be a great American religion, championing grace above all, is now known for its self-serving self-centredness, using up most of its energy in devising new ways to judge others and hate this world that, as the Jesus says, 'God so loved.' We have lost a wonderful religion."

Prayer Without Works Is A Dead Thing.

There seem to be so many Republican members of Congress announcing that they're not running next year-- and some in districts that Democrats can win. Yesterday Kenny Marchant, a conservative Republican who represents a district north of Dallas, said he's had enough. He's the 4th Republican from Texas to tell the NRCC that he's not running again. Candace Valenzuela, his progressive opponent, said that "Marchant, who coasted to victory eight straight times before 2018, is calling it quits because he knows he can’t win again... Beto O’Rourke won this district when he ran for Senate in 2018. It’s a suburban district, like many of the seats Democrats won last cycle. It’s also a majority-minority district." Who'll be next? Yesterday, the NY Times said they expect it will be Michigan's Fred Upton. Others expect to see John Katko bail from his Syracuse-based seat. His opponent, progressive Democrat Dana Balter, is too busy campaigning for the issues that motivate her run, to pay much attention to what Katko is doing. "Enough with medical bankruptcies," she told me today. "Enough with parents not taking their children to the doctor because they are uninsured. Enough with people dying because they have to ration their insulin. No one should have to choose between buying food and buying medicine. Yet many of our neighbors are forced to make that choice every day. We know how to fix this problem and it's long past time. Let's transition from our very broken healthcare system to Medicare-for-all."

So what's holding that up? What hold everything up? Conservatives. Conservatives-- of both parties-- held up Medicare from being enacted from 1915 'til 1965 (after the LBJ/Goldwater Democratic landslide wiped out the conservatives' grip on Congress). Today the same evil shit-eating conservatives-- whether Mitch McConnell or Status Quo Joe Biden-- are preventing Medicare-For-All from moving forward. We may be too late to save much of the worse from the ravages of Climate Change. Why? Conservatives? Again, not just McConnell, but Biden and the Blue Dogs as well. Look at the U.S. senators who have endorsed Biden-- Doug Jones (AL), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Tom Carper (DE), Chris Coons (DE) and Bob Casey (PA), 5 conservative Democrats who oppose Medicare-For-All and the Green New Deal. Sure, Republicans are worse, or, better put, even worse. Conservatives are screwing up the world. The French had the right idea of how to deal with them as part of their Revolution... until it got out of hand. Be honest-- how angry would you be if you saw Trump and his family-- not Barron-- marched up to the guillotine? Would you watch it on TV? Would you cry tears of joy? Many would not... to put it mildly. And not just GOP base fascists and racists.

One of the foremost thought-leaders among non-commercial American evangelicals, Samir Selmanović, wrote "American Evangelical leaders are making an indelible impact on Christian history. They are also affecting countless individual lives, especially those who have been a part of Evangelical churches. The movement is now redefining Jesus from a symbol of love, wisdom, and humility into a dramatically different symbol which stands for gun rights, prosperity theology, anti-science, defunding/diminishing/blaming of the government, a hysterical sense of victimhood while being in charge, and fierce nationalism-- all of that in this life-- and then sending everyone else to hell in the next.

The good part of Good News (Evangelion) is gone. The news part of Good News is gone. Evangelicalism is now offering to the world something that is neither good nor new.

Something, deep inside, is shifting. I know, I entered it at the expense of estranging my Muslim father, Roman Catholic mother, and atheist friends, ending up living without a home for two years in my late teens. I had also become an ordained pastor within it and have baptized hundreds.

This moment in church history will be in future textbooks. It is a turning point for many who have been following Jesus and are now dumbfounded with the apparent Evangelical inability to love all people, believe in God, and serve something larger their own tribes.

Tribe members are awakening and opting to take their faith further and leave behind what used to be good and new, but no longer is. Evangelical political dogmas, isolated and ingrown communities, and cultures of churches (tiny or mega), fundraising-driven theologies and moral outrages, and exhausting (never spoken but always nurtured) guilt and fear.

The New Exodus is beginning, quietly and unstoppably, like tectonic plates deep below. People are still coming to sit at worship, be with friends at church baseball games or Christian badass youth concerts, look for a date, or simply hang out in the church's lobby cafes away from the too complicated world.

But something broke and is now dying. First to leave are people's discerning hearts, almost imperceptibly, quietly. Minds then follow hearts. New thoughts begin to open the doors at the edges. And soon, people will be ready to follow Jesus further and leave with their feet. Reality will win. Jesus never invited them saying "Here is Christianity, join it." He said, "Here is the Kingdom/Commonwealth of God (Reality), enter it.

And as they step into the world, a joyous surprise is awaiting them. They are finding Jesus there, in the world that God loves so much, alive and well, Jesus everywhere, and busy! Among all people!

I need a cleansing experience and a celebration of a new beginning. I wish we could set up baptismal pools on the streets and baptize people out of Christianity. I would like to go first.

When you baptize me, you can say "I baptize you out of Christianity. Welcome to the world!" Then you immerse me and wash me, give me dry and colorful clothes, and then we dance together on the public square along with all the loving people there.

Whaddya think? Please, somebody, baptize me!

Evangelicals Campaigning To Flip The House

Kara Eastman rallying with Vote Common Good in Omaha

Saturday after the vile outbreak of anti-Semitic violence at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh-- 11 dead, many injured-- the Washington Post's Max Boot, wrote that he is "so sad. I am so heartbroken. What is happening to our country? Tolerance for political and religious differences is a non-negotiable part of the social contract in the United States. It is the very core of our national identity, even if it has all too often been honored more in the breach than the observance. We settle our political differences through debate followed by voting. Political terrorism and sectarian bloodletting-- these are the sorts of horrors that occur in the Balkans or the Middle East. Not here. Not in the land of the free. We’re better than this. We’re Americans. Except now the horror show has arrived on our shores." You think any of this is comprehensible to an ignorant, unschooled asshole like Donald Trump-- or the third of the country that worships him? You think he or they understand the concept of a social contract?

After the #MAGAbomber and the #MAGAshooter Trump's political director, Bill Stepien circulated a memo to the White House staff telling them what to expect next Tuesday: defeat at the polls. Basically,, according to Alex Isenstadt at Politico, the memo lowers expectations for retaining control of the House while positioning any wins in the Senate as purely Trump's to take credit for.

Decision Magazine, run by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association: "The past 22 months have brought significant progress in restoring religious liberty in the United States. But if Christians do not remain engaged, those gains could be brought to a screeching halt or even lost after next month’s midterm elections. If progressives reclaim a majority in Congress, not to mention in state and local governments, believers will once again be open targets for punishment by left-wing activists bent on silencing those who wish to live out their faith in society."

Even before the shooting at Tree of Life,, The Guardian reported that actual followers of Jesus-- as opposed to the fake Christians who follow Trump-- are working towards flipping the House as Christian resistance to Trump, compelled by faith, gathers steam. "Progressive churchgoers," wrote Harriet Sherwood from Greensboro, North Carolina, "are becoming increasingly vocal about 'toxic Christianity' and the 'gospel of Trump' while promoting biblical commands to protect the poor." The topic: the Vote Common Good 30-city tour we've been telling you about for months. Last night they did a rally at Stagecoach Community Park in Carlsbad with Mike Levin. Tonight they'll be at The Wayfarer in Costa Mesa with Harley Rouda. And tomorrow evening they're rallying with Katie Porter at the United Congregational Church in Irvine (on Alton Parkway).

Vote Common Good [is] urging Christians to use their votes in next month’s midterm elections to flip control of Congress to the Democrats.

The message is the most politically explicit of a number of progressive Christian groups seeking to push back against conservative evangelical support for Trump. Whereas most focus on Jesus’s teaching to protect the poor and vulnerable, Vote Common Good is honing in on places that voted in Republican representatives in 2016. Exercise your democratic right to get them out, is the essence of its campaign.

“We have been really dumbfounded and dismayed by the level of support that evangelical leaders have given to Trump,” said executive director Doug Pagitt. “We have a moral obligation and a religious obligation to offer a different voice. Our faith compels us to speak out.”

In the 2016 presidential election, 81% of white evangelical Christians voted for Trump. Two years on, Pagitt estimates that between five and 20% of those voters are “moveable.”

He said: “They may have voted for Trump, but they are not supportive. Many of them had no idea it could be this bad. They’ve watched the rhetoric turn into horrible life implications for people, such as separating children and parents at the border, and they see it as contrary to human decency.

“They are generally silent, and most feel alone and isolated. We want to stand with them, look them in the eye and tell them their faith calls them to do something different in the polling booth this time.”

The resistance of progressive Christians to Trump and his policies is gathering momentum. In May, some two dozen faith leaders including Michael Curry, the Anglican bishop who shot to global stardom after preaching at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, launched a manifesto, Reclaiming Jesus.

Warning of a “dangerous crisis of moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches”, it rejected specific hallmarks of the Trump administration. Among them were the resurgence of white nationalism and the use of racial bigotry for political gain; misogyny, sexual misconduct and abuse; growing attacks on immigrants and refugees; reducing programs for the poor while cutting taxes for the rich; the normalisation of lying by the nation’s highest leaders; xenophobia; and environmental mismanagement.

The manifesto was the product of deep concern about “the cultural, political, spiritual and religious climate of this country, and also concern that the moderate religious voice was not being heard in the public square,” Curry, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, told The Guardian.

“Representatives of Christianity were buying into political agendas that very often do not reflect the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth,” he added. Those that did not follow the example of the Good Samaritan, or biblical commands to protect the poor and vulnerable, “cannot claim to be Christian,” he said.

At around the same time as the launch of the Reclaiming Jesus manifesto, another group of faith leaders was attempting to recapture the moral agenda with a revival of Martin Luther King’s grassroots Poor People’s Campaign.

Its demands include a repeal of tax cuts and federal and state minimum wage laws. Liz Theoharis, its co-chair, told The Guardian in May that the campaign intended to have a political impact. “We are surely trying to make sure that our elected officials take these issues seriously. But this goes far beyond any one election or election year,” she said.

Meanwhile, Red Letter Christians has also been actively challenging the dominance of the Christian right. In April, Shane Claiborne, one of the organisation’s leaders, was threatened with arrest and up to 12 months in jail if he attempted to preach on the campus of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, whose president Jerry Falwell is an ardent Trump supporter.

Claiborne and other members of the organisation were holding a revival meeting in Lynchburg to protest at “toxic Christianity” and the “gospel of Trump”, and promote biblical commands to protect the poor and vulnerable. Another Red Letter Revival is planned for Dallas next month.

“This movement started because the word evangelical had collected a great deal of ugly baggage,” said Tony Campolo, a veteran pastor and activist who helped found Red Letter Christians. “If I describe myself as evangelical, the red flags go up. People immediately assume I’m anti-gay, anti-women, anti-environmental, anti-immigrant, pro-gun-- all these things that I am not.

“The word evangelical had negative connotations before Trump, but it has picked up momentum because of Trump.”

Christians in the US had become extremely polarised, he said. Although there had been strong Republican support among white evangelicals for some time, “never before have evangelical leaders come out supporting a candidate like we saw in the last election. They said things like, ‘This is the man that God ordained for America, this is the saviour that God mapped for our nation, this is the man that’s going to make America Christian again.’

“And that’s scary. Almost implied in all of this is an attempt to create a theocracy here in America. And we are frightened because that’s just the opposite of what America should be about.”

Red Letter Christians was not a partisan organisation, said Campolo. “We want policies that serve the interests of the poor and protect the vulnerable.”

But it was hampered in delivering its message by lack of funds. “We’ve never had the financial support to get off the ground, whereas the religious right owns hundreds of radio and television stations. Their control of the microphone is enormous, and they use it very cleverly.”

Pagitt acknowledged he and his fellow campaigners were facing “an uphill battle, and that the great majority of religious people support Republican candidates. But we will keep on encouraging religiously-motivated faithful voters to consider the common good when [they] exercise their democratic rights.”

It was author, filmmaker and ex-evangelical Frank Schaeffer who introduced Ted Lieu and I to the Vote Common Good folks so that we could help them plan a route and introduce them to candidates. Today he told me that "Trump somehow sunk lower than he ever has before. He treated a string of assassination attempts using bombs against elected officials and former presidents as false-flag conspiracy-theory 'bomb stuff.' After 11 people were killed in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Trump says he had to hold a campaign rally tonight because of 9/11. He claims the New York Stock Exchange opened the day after September 11 attacks. It did not. The NYSE was closed from September 11-September 17."

Trump has no class. This is not a president. This is a national sick joke. Bombs sent to Democrats, Jews shot, anti-Semitic violence on the rise. Trump is supported by Nazis. He said some of them are good people. You get what you pay for. Why do white Evangelicals go along? The shooting comes during a sharp spike in anti-Semitic activities in the U.S., according to an Anti-Defamation League report released earlier this year. Evangelicals claim to love Jews. So why do they support the man of blood and evil-- Trump?

Trump has repeatedly slammed "globalists" in his public rhetoric, despite warnings that the term is understood to mean Jews in anti-Semitic circles. Trump is unleashing blood, bombs and death. Trump is an evil man. This is the man white evangelical voters love.

You'll have to click on the image to enlarge it

Dear Evangelicals...

This afternoon, our friends at Vote Common Good pulled the big tour bus up to the Miller Park Pavilion in Omaha and did an evangelical "Flip Congress" rally with progressive Democrat Kara Eastman. Tuesday the bus will be at Wichita Farm and Art Market Plaza in Wichita for a rally with another progressive candidate, James Thompson. Evangelicals haven't been seriously pursued by Democrats since Jimmy Carter ran for president. Vote Common Good is working to change that. They're still buzzing after their event in Sioux City with J.D. Scholten (in the middle):

VCG co-chair Samir Selmanović assured Democratic candidates this cycle that they "can reach religious and values voters in a grounded, confident, and impactful way. Addressing them directly, he wrote that "Vote Common Good is here to help you turn your perceived weakness into real strength. Vote Common Good team members have worked as pastors, coaches, activists, and spiritual directors for decades, and we are equipped with 'insider' knowledge, empathy, and the best practices of religious communication. As a part of our overall strategy, we want to help you tap into your authentic self when you communicate to religious voters. In front of any religious audience, your authenticity can become more compelling than the lingo, posturing, or hubris of your opponents." He went on the explain the VCG goal now:

Help Democratic candidates become more confident talking about religion in a way that is both authentic and persuasive to religious voters, particularly Evangelicals who are ready for your message. Many of them are on the brink of turning their vote to the left in order to follow their conscience, be faithful to their religious experience and story, and cross the line (in the booth or in public) to recover their personal integrity.

• We do this through coaching and advising, helping you as a candidate be in touch with your spiritual experience (for what it already is, nothing more), broaden your story, learn to articulate it in public, and connect with the religious sensibilities of the electorate.
• You can be you. And you will know how to “turn the table” of faith on Republican religionists so to speak. This is more simple to do and more powerful in its impact than most Democrats can imagine.
• We will help you ground and deepen your “presence” (presence eats arguments for breakfast) and tell a bigger story in which others can find themselves.

As a result, some previously Republican voters will flip their vote, some will stay home and not vote Republican, while some will double down their commitment against you and progressive values you hold. We are focused only on the first two groups. Offending (or often scaring) some in the third group is an inevitable byproduct of doing this right.

• The voters we want to reach have already begun to change on the inside. They only need to acknowledge what is already true for them and cross a threshold with their actions. Voting is that action.
• Many voters are not willing to take on more and more of the incremental fear dispensed by Republicans and much of the Evangelical establishment. Instead of trying to convince these voters with arguments on issues (level of mere reason), you will learn how to speak in a way that invites them drop into their formative faith (level of emotion, values, and social connections) and embody their faith in their political choices (level of behavior).
• You will learn how to help them cross the line by naming what they are right about, not what they are wrong about. We are asking them to manifest deeper loyalty to the religious/spiritual path they are already on. In their heart of heart, they can’t wait to migrate from fear to faith.

Importantly, in our experience, the voter impact for Democratic candidates working on this is vastly underestimated by most candidates. The margin for growth is huge. Teachings and values of religion in general, and example of Jesus in particular, now overlap with Democratic platform and values more than with the Republican. In other words, this effort provides a small lever to open a large door for Democratic candidates.

White evangelicals are a major part of the Republican base. Laura Clawson at Alternet wrote that "a majority of them [are] happy to excuse Donald Trump’s lying and infidelities and crudeness and general lack of anything resembling Christian values as long as he picks anti-abortion judges. But there’s evidence of at least a little erosion of rock-hard Republicanism among evangelical women in Texas, the New York Times reports:

“I care as much about babies at the border as I do about babies in the womb,” said Tess Clarke, one of Ms. Mooney’s friends, confessing that she was “mortified” at how she used to vote, because she had only considered abortion policy. “We’ve been asleep. Now, we’ve woke up.” [...]

“I keep going back to who Jesus was when he walked on earth,” she said. “This is about proximity to people in pain.”

Rep. Beto O’Rourke, running for Senate against Ted Cruz, is doing some careful outreach to women like Tess Clarke and her friends, including doing a podcast segment with a popular evangelical woman author. O’Rourke’s ability to appeal to such women-- even if some of them are keeping it hidden from the men in their families-- may be one more reason Republicans are pulling out all the stops to back Cruz, despite the fact that most people who know him dislike him, with John Cornyn, Cruz’s fellow Texas senator, doing a fundraiser for him hard on the heels of campaign visits by Donald Trump Jr. and Mike Pence.

In another sign of the tight spot Cruz finds himself in, the vaunted college debater who previously challenged O’Rourke to five debates has backed out of a CNN town hall event, leaving O’Rourke with an hour-long televised town hall all to himself. Not exactly what confidence looks like, but it’s true that the contrast of smarmy, smug, oily Ted with charismatic Beto might not be to Cruz’s benefit.

Not All Evangelicals Want To See Trump Mocking Jesus From The Oval Office

The VoteCommonGood bus tour started out on Tuesday night in Bethlehem, PA with a rally for progressive Democrat Sue Wild in a swing district the Democrats are counting on flipping. Not all evangelicals are happy with Trump-- not with his demeanor, not with his policies and not with the way he's been handling his job. Vote Common Good is seeking to introduce evangelical communities across the country to Democratic candidates in the hope of helping to flip the House. Last night they were in Lancaster doing exactly that with Jess King. Tomorrow they'll be in Asheville, Tennessee. Christina Tatu and Laura Olson covered the first rally for the Morning Call: Bucking their brethren, Evangelical group brings message to Lehigh Valley: Vote Democratic to flip U.S. House. "Darlene Sinclaire of Allentown considers herself a Christian," they wrote, "but unlike most of her church-going friends, she doesn’t plan to vote for the conservative candidate in this year’s election. Sinclaire, who was once a registered Republican and is now a Democrat, was among those attending a rally in Bethlehem on Tuesday night to sway religious voters to Democratic candidates. 'I’m upset with the current administration. … I feel like there’s a general lack of humanity,' she said during the Vote Common Good rally at Bethlehem’s Rose Garden Park. Most of Sinclaire’s religious friends support President Donald Trump because they believe he could overturn abortion, but Sinclaire says voters need to 'look at the bigger picture. I can’t look at just one issue anymore,' she said, citing women’s issues and immigration as among her top concerns."

Robb Ryerse is an evangelical pastor from Arkansas as well as the VoteCommonGood political director. He came up to Pennsylvania for the start of the bus tour. "Beautiful things get born in places called Bethlehem," he reminded us. "Yesterday, a new movement was born, a movement to call people of faith back to the common good as our motivating impulse for political engagement." Back to Tatu and Olsen:

Conservative evangelical voters have been a reliable constituency for Republicans for years. In 2016, more than 80 percent of white evangelical voters supported Trump, according to Pew Research Center.

But organizers of Tuesday’s rally in Bethlehem believe the demographic can play a role in seeking to flip the U.S. House of Representatives to the Democrats.

“Religion is lock step with Republicanism without any concern about what kind of Republicanism it is,” said said Doug Pagitt, a pastor from Minneapolis who is leading the Vote Common Good effort.

“We believe there are people who are not comfortable with the choices. Their faith calls them to one thing and their Republican impulses call them somewhere else,” Pagitt said, describing some of those involved as frustrated with Trump’s nomination in 2016 and others who found they could no longer support him after he was elected.

So Pagitt and others are embarking on a 31-city tour across the country, bringing their message to voters in districts seen as the most likely to flip parties and where they made connections with similar-minded pastors and activists working on the ground on immigration and other issues.

Pagitt said he’s a bit of an activist and has been involved in rallies for issues like abolishing the death penalty and stricter gun control. Part of his activism is getting other church leaders to participate, which led him to organize Vote Common Good.

The effort has support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to the New York Times, with Democratic nominees across the country participating.

Democrat Susan Wild, who is running to represent the Lehigh Valley in Congress, said Tuesday that she is seeing more voters “cross the aisle” from Republican to Democrat for a variety of reasons, from wanting to see more women in office to the stance on immigration.

“I don’t think this is a partisan experience. I think this is a moral experience. People who cross the aisle this year are doing so because of their moral compass,” she said, adding that this year’s slate of political candidates seems to be more diverse than ever before.

Wild said she attended the rally to reach out to religious voters, who make up a significant portion of the Lehigh Valley’s voting population.

The event was also about unity and working together for the common good instead of against each other, she said.

“I want to reach across the aisle. The only way we can move forward is together,” Wild said.

There were about 60 people at the rally Tuesday night. The majority of those in attendance were Democrats.

Organizers said the event was intended to feel more like a “block party” than a political rally, with a positive message and live music. Organizers also shared their own stories, like Christy Berghoef from Holland, Mich., a mother of four young children who decided to spend the next five weeks touring with Vote Common Good.

“My friends have said, ‘Why are you doing this? Why would you leave your four young children to travel in cramped quarters for five weeks?’” said the lifelong Republican.

For Berghoef the decision was easy.

“We have a responsibility to balance systems that oppress. We have a responsibility to feed the hungry and care for the sick,” she said. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. As a follower of Jesus, I believe we need to leave the world brighter than we left it,” she said.

On Wednesday, Democratic congressional candidate Jess King will join organizers for an event in Lancaster. The rest of the tour includes stops in the Carolinas, West Virginia, Texas and New Mexico, before ending in California.

Pagitt said Wild and King have the “right spirit and attitude,” and said many of the candidates they are supporting on the tour are women.

A spokesman for Wild’s opponent, Republican Marty Nothstein [another GOP sex predator], said in a statement before Tuesday’s event that Vote Common Good “appears to be another wing of the Democratic campaign.”

...“From fear to faith, we are calling on people to set aside their fears, whether they have faith in God or believe in this country,” Pagitt said.

Our friend, Samir Selmanović, who is on the tour, explained what this journey means to him. "Something outrageous is going on in the world. And it requires a response that asks us to take new and outrageous risks. We will no longer be subsumed into an 'American Christian' stereotype built by the Right, be marginalized due to our faith by the Left, or be politically timid for fear of appearing partisan.

"We will use our voices and wield our votes as we work together towards the Common Good that Jesus invited us to imagine and embody. As such, we reject any special privilege, position, or influence accorded Christianity by the American nation in its principles, laws, or practice.

"We measure the value of our religion by the value it brings to its non-adherents. Especially to its non-adherents. Right now, interested only in privileging Christianity, Christianity of self-serving sort, Republican Congress and the President could not possibly care less about Jesus and about what is, for them, Jesus' naive worldview and agenda.

"For most Christians in Congress, Jesus is a liberal wussy. For us, he is the teacher and the Lord."

Samir and the rest of the VoteCommonGood crew is up against quite a machine in this David v Goliath battle. The religionist right has been bullshitting their congregants for a long time that the profane and anti-God Trump is "the chosen one." And now they have a film. "More than 1,000 US cinemas are screening The Trump Prophecy-- which posits that God chose the philandering billionaire to restore America’s moral values." Far right crackpot, Franklin Graham, said last year that Trump’s victory was the result of divine intervention. "I could sense going across the country that God was going to do something this year. And I believe that at this election, God showed up."

The filmmaker claims that "Trump will serve two terms, the landmark supreme court ruling on abortion in the Roe v Wade case will be overturned, and that next month’s midterm elections will result in a 'red tsunami,' strengthening Republican control of both houses of Congress. Barack Obama will be charged with treason and Trump will authorise the arrest of 'thousands of corrupt officials, many of whom are part of a massive satanic paedophile ring.' Trump will also force the release of cures for cancer and Alzheimer’s that are currently being withheld by the pharmaceutical industry."

Vote Common Good, isn't completely in feeling the Trump Regime is a fraud when it comes to Jesus' message. Yesterday America's nation’s largest coalition of Christian churches, the National Council of Churches issued a statement that they believe Brett Kavanaugh has "disqualified himself from this lifetime appointment and must step aside immediately." They were offended by his lying and stated that he "exhibited extreme partisan bias and disrespect towards certain members of the committee and thereby demonstrated that he possesses neither the temperament nor the character essential for a member of the highest court in our nation."

Why Are Evangelical Religious Leaders Helping Trump Remove Jesus From Christianity?

Over the weekend the NY Times' in house conservative, Ross Douthat, used his column to opine on Conservatism After Christianity. Funny, I've been thinking a lot about the same topic from another perspective: what happens to evangelical Christianity after the stink of Trumpism becomes apparent even to the suckered carnival tent and snake-oil consuming idiots? "One of the many paradoxes of the Trump era," wrote Douthat, "is that our unusual president couldn’t have been elected, and couldn’t survive politically today, without the support of religious conservatives … but at the same time his ascent was intimately connected to the secularization of conservatism, and his style gives us a taste of what to expect from a post-religious right."

If you follow DWT with any regularity, you've been reading lately a series of posts about a Jesus-oriented evangelical Christianity and a movement called Vote Common Good. They are reaching out directly to evangelicals who are unhappy and confused about Trump-- and pointedly asking them to support Democrats running for Congress as a way of putting a check on Trump's excesses and on the spinelessness of Trump's congressional enablers. Robb Ryerse, a pastor in Arkansas and the VoteCommonGood political director told us that "In Jesus, we see someone who sided with the marginalized and the oppressed. We see someone who spoke truth to people with religious and political power. We see someone who welcomed refugees and immigrants as neighbors. We see someone who offered people the healthcare they needed without blaming them for being poor. We see someone who was really quite progressive. What if we could help others see this same Jesus we do? What if we could convince them to vote, not just the way they always have or for their own self-interests, but for the common good of all people?"

Douthat wrote that "during the Republican primaries, when the most reliable churchgoers tended to prefer Ted Cruz but the more secular part of the party was more Trumpist. But it was obscured in the general election, and since, by the fact that evangelical voters especially rallied to Trump and have generally stood by him. Now, though, a new survey reveals the extent to which a basic religious division still exists within Trump’s Republican Party. The churchgoers who ultimately voted for Trump over Clinton still tend to hold different views than his more secular supporters, and the more religious part of the G.O.P. is still the less Trumpist portion-- meaning less populist on economics, but also less authoritarian and tribal on race and identity... The more often a Trump voter attended church, the less white-identitarian they appeared, the more they expressed favorable views of racial minorities, and the less they agreed with populist arguments on trade and immigration."

[A] quarter of Trump voters who never attend church describe being white as “very important” to their identity; for the most frequent churchgoers voters, it was 9 percent. Among non-churchgoing Trump voters, only 48 percent had warm feelings toward black people, compared to 71 percent of weekly churchgoers; the same sort of pattern held for views of Hispanics, Asians and Jews.

Churchgoing Trump voters were still more culturally conservative than Hillary Clinton voters-- more likely to support the death penalty, more skeptical of immigration-- and their views of Muslims, interestingly, seemed to have been influenced by Trump’s own rhetoric, becoming more hostile between 2016 and 2017.

But in general, churchgoing Republicans look more like the party many elite conservatives wanted to believe existed before Trump came along-- more racially-tolerant, more accepting of multiculturalism and globalization, and also more consistently libertarian on economics. Secularized Trump voters look more like the party as Trump has tried to remake it, blending an inchoate economic populism with strong racial resentments.

Interestingly in the survey the different groups make about the same amount of money, which cuts against strict economic-anxiety explanations for Trumpism. But the churchgoers and nonchurchgoers differ more in social capital: The irreligious are less likely to have college degrees, less likely to be married and more likely to be divorced; they’re also less civically engaged, less satisfied with their neighborhoods and communities, and less trusting and optimistic in general.

This seems to support the argument, advanced by Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner among others, that support for populism correlates with a kind of communal breakdown, in which secularization is one variable among many leaving people feeling isolated and angry, and drawing them to the ersatz solidarity of white identity politics.

Meanwhile frequent church attenders, already a minority within the wider society, are also a minority within the Republican coalition. Relatively few Republicans are explicitly religiously unaffiliated (though that number has been climbing too), but only about a third of Trump’s 2016 voters are in church on a typical Sunday, and almost half attend seldom or not at all.

This suggests a possibility that should worry both Trump’s religious supporters and anyone who finds his style of conservatism racially toxic. Despite their resistance to that toxicity, the churchgoers in this survey did vote for him, making a pragmatic bet that his policies on abortion and religious liberty were worth living with his Caligulan personal life and racial demagoguery. To defend that bet, some historically-inclined believers have cited past cases where Christians accepted bargains with a not-particularly moral leaders-- including the way the early church accepted the patronage of Roman emperors, from Constantine onward, whose personal piety was limited at best.

But the Constantinian bet involved a rising religion allying with a worldly power to accelerate its growth and gains. The bet under Trump involves the reverse sort of situation: A Christian community trying to make the best of its decline, and allying with a leader whose core appeal depends upon and possibly furthers the de-Christianization of conservatism.

Such a bet might be understandable as an act of desperation. But it’s hard to see how it can reverse de-Christianization, and easy to see how it might accelerate it. Which, on the evidence of this survey, is something that secular liberals should fear as well.

Many of the progressives working with Vote Common Good and Ted Lieu on this project include candidates DWT readers are very familiar with-- like Randy Bryce (WI), Kara Eastman (NE), Dayna Steele (TX), James Thompson (NE), Katie Porter (CA), J.D. Scholten (IA) and Ammar Campa-Najjar (CA)-- and who are not evangelical Christians but who want to be able to effectively communicate with all their constituents and to represent all their constituents in Congress, including, of course, people of faith. Samir Selmanović, one of the directors of VCG, offers to help Democratic candidates "become more confident talking about religion in a way that is both authentic and persuasive to religious voters, particularly Evangelicals who are ready for your message. Many of them are on the brink of turning their vote to the left in order to follow their conscience, be faithful to their religious experience and story, and cross the line (in the booth or in public) to recover their personal integrity."