The change from the conservative movement that most Americans thought they knew.
By Jane Coaston
Reporter
The New York Times
Many white evangelical Christians love Donald Trump — a fact of American politics that has shaped the makeup and rulings of the Supreme Court, the culture and morality wars waged by the Republican Party and the political evolution and power of evangelicals themselves. At the same time, some forms of evangelical Christianity are becoming less Christian, with believers less likely to attend church and less likely to embrace some of the faith’s most bedrock beliefs.
How did this happen? How did millions of Americans go from “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” to Mr. Trump, who appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine? It was never ordained that he would become a man compared to biblical figures.
As Jon Ward sees it, truly understanding American politics right now requires us to have a much more nuanced and informed perspective on evangelical culture and history.
Mr. Ward is a journalist and the author of the book “Testimony,” which focuses on his upbringing in the evangelical movement from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, the appeal of a personal and direct relationship with God and the way politics and culture have changed since then. “There were a large number of Americans,” he told me, “many of whom were influenced by all of these factors, who just felt like the sky was falling and we had to go with some guy who was going to maybe destroy it all but maybe burn it all down and create something new.”
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