Within Christianity, President Donald Trump is drawing everything from adulation to intense disdain.
The adulation is mostly coming from a specific demographic: far-right white evangelicals. Among fundamentalist white evangelicals, Trump’s approval in recent months has ranged from 78 percent (Pew Research Center) to 83 percent (Public Opinion Strategies).
But not all Christians are associated with the evangelical Religious Right.
Pew Research found that Trump’s support among non-evangelical white Christians is 51 percent. Among Catholics, Pew found only 42 percent support for Trump. And Trump’s support among Black Protestants, according to Pew, was a mere 10 percent.
In an op-ed published by The Guardian on December 21, two Mainline Protestant ministers — the Revs. Doug Pagitt and Lori Walke — offer a scathing critique of Trump’s second presidency and “MAGA Christianity.”
“MAGA Christianity represents a self-serving, commercialized version of the Christian faith — putting power over service and empathy — and it is everywhere in our federal government,” Pagitt and Walke explain. “In February, Trump announced a task force led by (U.S. Attorney General) Pam Bondi with the goal of rooting out ‘anti-Christian’ bias. In September, Trump announced his plans to protect prayer in schools. Later that month, he issued a memorandum identifying anti-Christianity as a potential driver of terrorism.”
The reverends continue, “These are not just one-off incidents. This is a national effort to push the MAGA Christianity agenda on Americans, and we’re already seeing the consequences.”
Pagitt and Walke lay out a variety of ways in which “MAGA Christianity” and “Christian nationalism,” they argue, are unchristian.
“Despite the Bible’s clear call to ‘love thy neighbor,’” the pastors lament, “the MAGA movement has used its version of the Christian faith to oppress immigrants, oppose the rights of women and condemn the LGBTQ+ community. At the same time, we’ve seen shootings at places of worship and arrests of faith leaders at peaceful protests.”
Pagitt and Walke continue, “As faith leaders, our greatest strength during Trump 2.0 and the rise of Christian nationalism is our local congregations. It’s our ability to physically come together in our communities, communicate with one another, support our neighbors in need and elevate our own Christian values that set us apart. Faith leaders have a powerful role to play, especially as the Trump Administration continues to use religion to divide us.”
Rev. Doug Pagitt and Rev. Lori Walke’s full op-ed for The Guardian is available at this link.
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