The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism

by Tim Alberta

“When Jesus said that a man should leave his father and mother, it wasn’t just about getting married and starting a new family,” Olson told me. “It was an instruction, I think, to challenge the things you’re taught in your upbringing—with the things you’re taught in your upbringing.” He ran both hands through his curly black hair. “That’s the hardest part of this,” Olson said. “These things we inherit, when it comes to faith and family, we don’t want to question them.” I could relate. And so, too, I told Olson, could many of the Christians I’d met in my journeys. Despite our different labels and traditions, we were crumbling under the weight of a shared spiritual legacy. We were saddled with a heritage that felt unsustainable; we were handed down an identity that no longer fit.

In October, when the Washington Post published an old audio recording of Trump boasting that he had pressured a married woman to sleep with him, and that he could get away with sexual assault because of his celebrity status, Moore waited to see if any of Trump’s evangelical backers would jump ship. None of them did. In fact, they all circled the wagons. “What a disgrace. What a scandal to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to the integrity of our witness,” Moore tweeted. A day later, he added: “The political Religious Right Establishment wonders why the evangelical next generation rejects their way. Today illustrates why.”