Since the 2016 election, pundits, preachers and politicians have been asking why more than 80% of white evangelical voters threw their support behind the most corrupt, ill-informed, vulgar and intentionally divisive politician in American history. Gradually, a consensus emerged. Donald…
Tom Ascol has the wrong apostates in mind
In a recent article titled “Some Will Apostatize,” Tom Ascol breathes fire and brimstone over those he is certain will desert the Christian faith as he defines it. 1 Timothy 4:1 seems to be the text of his sermonic outburst:…
Charles Marsh has a story to tell of evangelical anxiety
Charles Marsh knows something about evangelical anxiety. He grew up in the middle of it as the son of one of the most prominent pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC of Marsh’s childhood was the racially tinged Mississippi…
Why a potential indictment of Donald Trump will matter so little to most of his Christian supporters
The country is collectively holding its breath this week to see whether former President Donald Trump will be indicted for falsifying business records to cover up the payment of $130,000 of “hush money” to adult film actress Stormy Daniels on…
White evangelicals are three times more likely than Americans in general to support Christian nationalism
New research shows white evangelical Protestants and Republicans are increasingly embracing the ideology of Christian nationalism at much higher rates than the general U.S. population. The survey of more than 6,000 Americans by Public Religion Research Institute and Brookings Institution…
For every critic of Jesus and John Wayne there are many more positive responses Du Mez says
Some conservative Christian leaders continue to blast Kristen Kobes Du Mez for writing Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, the Calvin University historian said during a recent webinar on evangelicalism in the…
Trump and his allegedly disloyal white evangelical supporters
In a recent interview, David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network asked former President Donald Trump what he thought about the reticence of some white evangelical Protestant leaders, such as Southern Baptist megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, to endorse his candidacy…
The costly victory of evangelicals and Catholics
Have evangelical leaders and Catholic bishops made a strategic blunder? When they decided the cultural war battlefield needed to be the Supreme Court, they engaged in a decades-long battle to have the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade. In the…
I asked people why they’re leaving Christianity, and here’s what I heard
For some time now, Christianity has been on the decline. According to a September 2022 Pew study, people identifying as Christian have decreased from 90% of the U.S. population in 1972 to 64% in 2020. But it’s not just researchers…