Donald Trump, a 77-year-old Bible salesman from Palm Beach, Florida, has emerged as the nation’s most prominent Christian leader. Trump is running for president as a divinely chosen champion of White Christians, promising to sanctify their grievances, destroy their perceived enemies, bolster their social status, and grant them the power to impose an anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ, White-centric Christian nationalism from coast to coast. That Trump doesn’t attend church and has obviously never read the book that he hawks for $59.99, seems of interest exclusively to his political opponents.
What might catch the attention of some evangelical conservatives, however, is that Trump’s ostentatious embrace of White Christian militantism coincides with a precipitous decline in religious affiliation in the US. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, one-quarter of Americans in 2023 said they were religiously unaffiliated. “Unaffiliated” is the only religious category experiencing growth. In a single decade, from 2013 to 2023, the percentage of Americans saying that religion is the most important thing, or among the most important things, in their life plummeted to 53% from 72%.
Yeshua (i.e. “Jesus”): “Treat everyone with love and respect. Welcome the stranger. Don’t worry about other people’s perceived shortcomings, worry about your own; live and lead by example. Pay your taxes. Share everything you have with others, especially the less fortunate, the needy, and the hurting. All of it. If you are rich, you aren’t doing this, and you will not enter the Kingdom of God. Profit from my faith and I will end you.”
Religious MAGAs: “Kill foreigners. I’m “good people” but those others who want to be left alone and live differently than me need to be beat into submission. Taxation is theft. And socialism! My bank account is God’s will! Let those poors pull themselves up by their bootstrings. My pastor needs a new limousine to spread the Good News of supply-side Jesus! Hey, why are all the people leaving the church?”