Over the past forty years, since the election of Ronald Reagan, American evangelical Christian churches have consistently supported Republican candidates and presidents. They helped consolidate the most conservative demands within the party on ethical and civil rights issues and mobilized a significant number of voices through churches and pastors.
They continued to support Republicans in 2016, when Donald Trump won the primary and then became president, despite being a multi-divorced casino mogul politician who had until then paid little or no attention to religion. The support of the Protestant churches at that time was predominantly instrumental in nature and aimed at promoting identity struggles, such as the suppression of abortion rights.
Today, eight years later and days after the start of the Republican primaries, Trump is by far the preferred candidate of the electorate that identifies itself as evangelical, and analysts and experts on religious movements emphasize that no such pact has ever existed and convinced of a candidate. However, the evangelical movement itself has also changed, changing habits, priorities and approaches to faith: today, being evangelical is often a political rather than a religious decision.
The evangelical First Church of God in Des Moines, Iowa (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Evangelicalism does not provide for religious authorities or the need for consecrated churches: it is a theological movement within Protestantism (overwhelmingly majority in the United States) that focuses on reading the Bible, not interpreting it, but reading it as “the Bible “Word of God” can be considered and therefore indisputable. It rejects any theological superstructure and also considers aggressive and verbally violent attitudes towards those viewed as opponents. At the political level, many evangelical churches focus on resistance against abortion rights, against LGBT+ movements, against feminism and, in general, against drugs, which are criminalized in all their forms and in all forms of consumption.
Starting a church or a prayer group is easy, as a room with a few plastic chairs and a microphone can be enough: any believer with charisma and will can become a pastor.
In recent years, however, evangelical communities have also been losing believers as part of a broader distancing among Americans from traditional churches. In 2021, for the first time in history, fewer than 50 percent of Americans defined themselves as “members of a church.” In 2006, white evangelical Christians made up 23 percent of the population; today they make up 14 percent. The decline becomes even clearer when we look at actual religious service attendance: In 2008, half of evangelical Republicans reported going to church at least once a month; now half say they do this once a year. The decline is visible and is confirmed by the churches themselves, some of which have moved their headquarters to smaller buildings.
Those who distanced themselves from church services and active participation did so for different reasons: During the years of the pandemic, a certain lack of habitual attendance at church emerged, while online alternatives emerged on Facebook and YouTube. But for many people, leaving the church does not mean turning away from religion in general. Various research and studies report a new type of evangelicalism based on personal prayer and the use of online content such as podcasts, YouTube videos, and religious group pages.
This new approach is characterized by a greater focus on cultural and political identity: the new evangelicals primarily represent a worldview that sees them as representatives of good that is threatened by “evil”. Evil is identified in the development of mores in the liberal sense, in state structures viewed as “oppressive,” and in the Democrats' alleged persecutory activity against religion.
This vision fits perfectly with many theories of the American far right and with much of the political message of Trump, who describes himself as a persecuted champion of “true American values,” those that “made the country great.” Even Trump's style of religiosity, defined as personal and autonomous, is close to the new evangelical conception: In 2020, Trump announced that he no longer identified himself as a Presbyterian but as a non-denominational Christian, a definition often associated with evangelicalism is connected. Despite his infrequent attendance at religious services, he is perceived by most American voters as a “man of faith.”
His rhetoric often follows the more radical and conspiratorial views of evangelicals, who see themselves as under attack by the forces of “evil.” At a recent rally, Trump accused the Biden administration but also “the communists, the Marxists and the fascists” of persecuting Catholics, adding that “the evangelicals will be next.”
The concept of an America under attack by “forces within the nation that seek to distance it from its biblical foundations” is not new: It was promoted in the 1970s and 1980s by Moral Majority, a Christian right movement that contributed to it , pushing various Protestant movements in this direction positions are increasingly moving closer to the Republicans. Trump is proposing the same idea again, also leveraging the work and support of online preachers who are perhaps more influential today than traditional evangelical pastors.
A Trump supporter with a copy of the book “The Plot Against the King,” which tells of a battle between “good and evil” (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Ron DeSantis has also tried to woo evangelical voters in recent months. DeSantis is the governor of Florida and was for a time considered Trump's most feared opponent as the Republican candidate for president of the United States (then his candidacy faltered). DeSantis has invested heavily in winning the support of evangelicals in Iowa, the first state to have a primary, thanks in part to his fight against abortion and his cultural commitment: he has funded the main evangelical churches, for example. However, it appears that his efforts haven't produced great results, at least for now: polls show DeSantis trailing Trump by about thirty percentage points among evangelicals in Iowa.