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THE CHRISTIANS WHO SEE TRUMP AS THEIR SAVIOR  
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Aleem Maqbool
November 16, 2024
BBC [[link removed]]

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_ White evangelical Protestant voters were the strongest backers of
Trump over Harris; Black Protestants were exactly the opposite. As
some are revelling in the promise of governance influenced by
Christianity, others are undoubtedly nervous. _

Donald Trump gives victory speech, Nov. 5, 2024, screen grab

 

STANDING ON A PODIUM IN A FLORIDA CONVENTION CENTRE ON THE NIGHT OF
THE ELECTION, A ROW OF AMERICAN FLAGS BEHIND HIM AND A JUBILANT CROWD
LOOKING ON, DONALD TRUMP DECLARED: “MANY PEOPLE HAVE TOLD ME THAT
GOD SPARED MY LIFE FOR A REASON, AND THAT REASON WAS TO SAVE OUR
COUNTRY AND TO RESTORE AMERICA TO GREATNESS.”

This was one of the most striking themes of his election campaign -
that he had been chosen by God. Yet even before the attempt on his
life on 13 July in Butler, Pennsylvania, millions of Americans already
felt guided by their faith to support the former, and now future,
president.

Some cast the election in an apocalyptic light and likened Trump to a
Biblical figure.

Last year, on the Christian show FlashPoint, TV evangelist Hank
Kunneman described “a battle between good and evil”, adding:
“There's something on President Trump that the enemy fears: it's
called the anointing.”

Jim Caviezel, an actor who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s The Passion
of the Christ, proclaimed, albeit jokingly, that Trump was “the new
Moses”. Then, in the months leading up to the election, many of his
supporters referred to him as a “saviour”.

The question is why. What makes so many see this man, who isn’t
known to have an especially strong faith, as sent from God?

And what does that say about Christianity more broadly in a country
where the numbers of churchgoers is in rapid decline?

‘All of us have sinned’

Reverend Franklin Graham is one of America’s best-known evangelists
and the son of Billy Graham, arguably its most famous preacher. He is
one of the Trump believers, convinced there is no doubt that the
president-elect was chosen for this mission by God.

“The bullet that went through his ear missed his brain by a
millimetre, and his head turned just at the last second when the gun
was fired,” he says. “I believe that God turned his head and saved
his life.”

The questions asked about Trump’s character - including accusations
of sexual misconduct, and his alleged affair with adult film star
Stormy Daniels and associated hush-money trial
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Graham’s view.

“Remember when Jesus told the crowd, ‘Let the one without sin cast
the first stone’ and that slowly, the entire audience began to
disappear? All of us have sinned.”

Part of the reason some Christians may find it easier to look past
questions of character is that during Trump’s first term in office
he delivered on a particular promise: to appoint anti-abortion judges
to the US Supreme Court.

Mr Graham points to this as evidence that the president-elect is a man
of integrity.

“This is a big win for Christians, for evangelicals,” he says.
“We believe the president will defend religious freedom where the
Democrats would not.”

The selection of Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel is already a
hint that faith might shape some foreign policy. US evangelicals
including Huckabee are among the country’s most fervent supporters
of Israel.

Many of them believe that Jews should populate the whole of the area
of biblical Israel, including what is now the occupied West Bank and
Gaza, in order to precipitate events leading to the Second Coming of
Jesus Christ.

A religion in rapid decline

In the past Donald Trump had talked about having had a Presbyterian
upbringing. But despite his strong support from Christians in last
week’s election, he never tried hard to convince them in his most
recent campaign that he was one of them.

“I think he realised it was going to be a bit of a stretch to argue
that he himself is a religious man, but instead he adopted a quid pro
quo approach,” says Robert Jones, founder and president of the
Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), which has long tracked
religious trends in the US.

That approach centred on changes in demographics and dwindling numbers
of churchgoers.

In the early 1990s, about 90% of US adults identified as Christians -
a figure that had fallen to 64% earlier this decade, with a large
increase in the number of those unaffiliated to any faith, according
to data from Pew Research Center.

This, says Dr Jones, was something Trump was able to draw upon.

“Trump’s message was: ‘I know you're in decline, I know your
numbers are waning. I know your children and grandchildren aren't
affiliated with your Churches anymore, but if you elect me, I'm going
to restore power to the Christian Churches”,’ he says.

Not all Christians in the US were won over, however. For some, their
faith has guided them to precisely the opposite impression of Trump.

'Trump has demeaned and debased'

In recent months, from the pulpit of Bible Ways Ministries in Atlanta,
Georgia, Reverend Monte Norwood has been sharing a very different
message to that of Franklin Graham.

He, for one, was dismayed at last week’s election result.

“Trump has demeaned and debased just about anybody he could, from
immigrants to minorities to women to those who are disabled,” he
says.

“White conservative Republican Christianity that ignores character
is just hypocritical."

He has long been opposed to the idea of a second Trump presidency, and
he has voiced this on social media and through activism encouraging
voter turnout - such as by helping other black voters to register to
vote and access free rides to the polls.

“I am a Matthew chapter 25 kind of Christian - where Jesus said:
‘When I was hungry you fed me, when I was thirsty, you gave me
something to drink.’”

In history: Christian voting patterns

PRRI’s research has looked into voting records in history, not just
by religious practice and belief but also by race, and found that when
it comes to political views, there has been a clear trend for decades.

“Almost without exception, white Christian groups have tended to
vote Republican in presidential contests,” says Dr Jones.
“Non-white Christian groups, non-Christian groups and religiously
unaffiliated voters have tended to vote Democrat.”

This pattern dates back to the 1960s, he adds, when the Democratic
party became associated with the civil rights movement and white
Christian groups began migrating to the Republican Party.

Polling ahead of the 2024 election looking at voter intention
suggested that for the most part this pattern held. “From our
polling, we have a Republican party that is 70% white and Christian,
and a Democratic party that's only a quarter white and Christian.”

According to the PRRI’s survey
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5,027 adults, white evangelical Protestant voters were the strongest
backers of Trump over Harris by 72% to 13%. White Catholic voters also
backed Trump, with 55% supporting him and 34% aligned with Harris.
White “mainline” non-evangelical Protestants showed a similar
split.

By contrast 78% black Protestants supported Harris while just 9%
backed Trump, according to the survey. Harris’s backers also
included Jewish-Americans, the religiously unaffiliated and other
non-Christian Americans, according to the PRRI.

When it came to the actual vote, there were signs of departures from
familiar patterns.

The results from Michigan showed a clear lurch towards the Republican
Party by Muslim voters in the state, likely the result of the Biden
administration’s role in aiding Israel in its war in Gaza.

Analysis also shows that more Latino Catholics voted for Trump than
expected, when previously they have tended to lean Democrat.

Economic hardship brought about by soaring inflation, among other
factors, is likely to have resulted in “non-traditional”
Republican voters being drawn to vote for Trump.

As for his appeal to traditionalist Christians, Dr Jones argues that
there has been a faith component to the idea of “Making America
Great Again”, with the promise of restoring the country's Christian
character.

“His has been a campaign of grievance and loss and nostalgia,”
argues Dr Jones, “and that includes nostalgia from a faith
perspective.”

The future of faith in the US

For all his political strength, one thing that Trump cannot do is hold
back the tide of demographic change in the US - including the move
away from faith.

While the number who define themselves as “atheist” remains lower
in the US than in most Western countries, those who say they are
“religiously unaffiliated” is growing.

There is a generational component to that, along with the familiar
trends of personal economics meaning that people have greater autonomy
to move away from the accepted norms in their communities. But there
are other reasons too.

A third of American atheists or agnostics say they disaffiliated from
their childhood religion because of high-profile Church abuse
scandals, according to a PRRI study.

In 2020 the Catholic Church released lists of living members of clergy
in the US found to have been accused of abuses, including some linked
to child pornography and rape. There were around 2,000 names.

Two years later, the Southern Baptist Conference collection of US
Protestant Churches released a list of hundreds of Church leaders
accused of child abuse between 2000 and 2019.

It shows the scale of the issue that Trump faces. Nevertheless,
Franklin Graham is optimistic.

“Church attendance is not going to go up next week because President
Trump has been elected - but what I think it does mean is that
legislation that we might have seen coming down the road that that
would make it very difficult for people of faith will not come,” he
says, referring to the idea of more progressive legislation around,
for example, abortion and gay and trans rights.

“He will protect people of faith, he will protect religious freedoms
in this country. I don't talk about just Christian religious
freedoms… [but] all people of faith.”

As to whether he is right, Americans can only watch and wait. But just
as some are revelling in the promise of governance influenced by
Christianity, others are undoubtedly nervous.

_Aleem Maqbool is BBC religion editor. @AleemMaqbool
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