Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Many evangelicals themselves claimed to have “held their noses” when they voted for Trump as the lesser of two evils. It is true that concerns about Clinton’s moral character, corruption, and deficiencies on national security had reached a fevered pitch among conservative evangelicals, though it’s worth noting that similar—or significantly more serious—questions about Trump’s character, corruption, and security liabilities were more easily dispatched. Still, there was the Supreme Court to consider. Certain “character flaws” might be overlooked in the interest of defending religious freedom and protecting the lives of the unborn. Trump would indeed come through on this front as far as evangelicals were concerned. Yet in the weeks and months after the election, after the specter of Hillary Clinton had been vanquished and court appointments secured, few evangelicals seemed willing to critique behaviors they might otherwise have been expected to find repulsive, or at the very least troubling. White evangelical support held steady for the man who redefined the meaning of “presidential.” In the aftermath of the election, it was #NeverTrump evangelicals who ended up on the defensive. Russell Moore found his job in jeopardy when more than one hundred SBC churches threatened to withhold donations unless he resigned. (When Trump invited evangelical leaders to a Rose Garden ceremony to celebrate his executive order on religious freedom, Moore was not in attendance—a matter of grave c...