The melding of the evangelical Christian community (that is to say, white evangelicals) with the contemporary Republican Party (led by Donald Trump, a man whose narcissistic fixations and malicious rancor are antithetical to veneration of the Gospel) is unequivocal. Few observers have grappled with this discordant amalgam as resolutely as folks inside the church who are repulsed by Trump.
Journalist Tim Alberta, a Christian ("a follower of Jesus"), believes that God "commanded us to love our neighbor, to turn the other cheek toward those who wish us harm, to show grace toward outsiders and let our light shine so they might glorify our heavenly Father." Raised in the evangelical megachurch that his father led as pastor for many decades, he hasn't strayed from his faith. But -- because he rejected the politics of Donald Trump and the MAGA Republican Party -- he found himself scorned by church members he had known since childhood.
Following the death of his father, Alberta returned home to deliver the eulogy at the funeral:
Now the crowd swarmed around us, filling the sanctuary and spilling out into the lobby and adjacent hallways, where tables displayed flowers and golf clubs and photos of Dad. I was numb. My brothers too. None of us had slept much that week. So the first time someone made a glancing reference to Rush Limbaugh, it did not compute. But then another person brought him up. And then another. That’s when I connected the dots. Apparently, the king of conservative talk radio had been name-checking me on his program recently—“a guy named Tim Alberta”—and describing the unflattering revelations in my book about Trump. Nothing in that moment could have mattered to me less. I smiled, shrugged, and thanked people for coming to the visitation.
They kept on coming. More than I could count. People from the church—people I’d known my entire life—were greeting me, not primarily with condolences or encouragement or mourning, but with commentary about Limbaugh and Trump. Some of it was playful, guys remarking about how I was the same mischief-maker they’d known since kindergarten. But some of it wasn’t playful. Some of it was angry; some of it was cold and confrontational. One man questioned whether I was truly a Christian. Another asked if I was still on “the right side.” All while Dad was in a box a hundred feet away.
It got to the point where I had to take a walk. Here, in our house of worship, people were taunting me about politics as I tried to mourn my father. I was in the company of certain friends that day who would not claim to know Jesus, yet they shrouded me in peace and comfort. Some of these card-carrying evangelical Christians? Not so much. They didn’t see a hurting son; they saw a vulnerable adversary.
Step back for a moment: there is something very wrong with this picture. This is not the evangelical Christianity (or Christianity plain and simple) that Alberta grew up with and continues to accept. The "Church has been radicalized," Alberta writes.
A community that has always felt misunderstood now feels marginalized, ostracized, even persecuted. This feeling is not relegated to the fringes of evangelicalism. In fact, this fear—that Christianity is in the crosshairs of the government, that an evil plot to topple America’s Judeo-Christian heritage hinges on silencing believers and subjugating the Church—now animates the religious right in ways that threaten the very foundations of our democracy.
“You sound like a hysterical maniac if you say the government’s coming after us. But I believe they are,” Robert Jeffress, the Dallas pastor and longtime Trump loyalist, told me in the book. “It happened in Nazi Germany. They didn’t put six million Jews in the crematorium immediately … It was a slow process of marginalization, isolation, and then the ‘final solution.’ I think you’re seeing that happen in America. I believe there’s evidence that the Biden administration has weaponized the Internal Revenue Service to come after churches.” (The “evidence” Jeffress cited in making this leap—bureaucratic regulations clearing the way for concentration camps—was nonexistent. When pushed, he mentioned a single court case that was ultimately decided in favor of religious liberty.)
Never mind evidence. Grievance, fear of an increasingly diverse America, misinformation and conspiracy theories are enough to fuel the unholy politics aimed at eradicating the wall between church and state, undermining democratic institutions, and embracing authoritarian governance sanctioned by a regressive religious vision.
The stakes couldn't be higher. A far right authoritarian regime is incompatible with the commitment to American pluralism and democratic governance. Americans (whether or not they focus on this dichotomy) will choose ten months from now. But of course the result, while consequential, will hardly settle the issue.
Religious zealots have captured one of our political parties, which seeks to impose a constricted view of what is permitted on all Americans, willing or not. By now this vile alliance has become deeply rooted. No matter what happens in November 2024, the GOP will continue to threaten democratic social norms and to reject realms of individual liberty that it once revered.