Author’s Note: The following is a response to Peter Wehner’s recent article, “The Evangelical Church is Breaking Apart,” that appeared in The Atlantic. The article is about the recent pushback against the Left that has swept through Evangelical churches. What follows is my critique. Before I begin, let me first say in full disclosure that I am not an Evangelical, I am a Catholic. However, because Wehner’s critique is political, rather than theological in nature, I feel that I can offer my thoughts on the article in question. The political issues that concern Evangelicals are ones I share as a Catholic. Plus, I have heard similar critiques of the traditional Catholic movement.
Evangelicals attacking other Evangelicals for backing Trump has become something of a cottage industry in the past few years. Peter Wehner, who is himself an Evangelical, has become the latest one to do so. Much of what Wehner says is not breaking new ground i.e. the over-politicization of churches, Trump’s personal behavior, meanness, conspiracy theories, racism, you know the drill. But, what does set Wehner apart is that he has a far bigger microphone than most, and that is what I want to address here.
The biggest, overarching problem the article has, and the one by which all other problems flow, is Wehner’s refusal to address the elephant in the room – the radicalization of the Democratic Party in the past 30 years and, especially, in the past decade. As is typical with this type of article, the transformation of the Democratic Party can never be discussed, its omission makes it far easier to demonize traditional Christians. For example, the 1990s Democrats, at least on a national level, were a pro-abortion party. However, it was not uniformly so and there was a sizable portion of the party fighting to remake it into a pro-life party, men like Bob Casey Sr. and Howell Heflin were at the front lines in this attempt. By 2005, it was clear that the national party was going to be pro-infanticide, but there was still a great deal of toleration for the party’s pro-life minority. Flash forward to today, and no such toleration exists. The Democratic Party even went after its last solidly pro-life representative, Dan Lipinski. Keep in mind that other than abortion and some social issues, Lipinski was a pretty standard liberal. But, that was not enough.
By 2020, the old Clinton slogan of “safe legal, and rare” was not enough. Nothing but the total and complete adherence to infanticide was sufficient. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has greatly moderated on the issue since his days as governor, but even he is targeted by the Left. The demographics of West Virginia is the only reason he is still there. John Bel Edwards is a solid pro-life guy, but he will be gone in 2023 and even there the jungle primary of Louisiana essentially keeps him safe by diluting the votes of hardcore Democrat voters. This has all happened in 30 years.
And, abortion is not the only issue the Democrats have radicalized on. I can remember when Democrats thought marriage could be between two men (those were actually rare, at least openly before 2010) but still did not subscribe to the “bake the cake” mandate. Today, that is a mainstream position of the Democratic Party. I am old enough to remember when Christians warned that opponents of gay marriage would face discrimination lawsuits if homosexual marriage were to be legalized. The Left, by and large, agreed not to do that. That compromise was quickly forgotten. The idea of “Drag Queen Story Hour” would have been beyond the pale, but today’s Democrats are lockstep behind it.
It is one thing to go up against the Democratic Party of 1990, for all their problems back then, they at least didn’t openly hate and fantasize revenge against Christians. The Democratic Party of 2021 does just that and faced with that enemy, Evangelicals, and all other Christians honestly, have no choice but to wake up. Wehner, of course, ignores all that, because he wants to place the blame on Evangelicals, but the radical change of the Democratic Party must be the starting point to understand what has happened.
This is essential to understanding why Evangelicals have stuck by Trump. Remember, Trump was not the choice of Evangelicals in 2016, Ted Cruz was. There was an inverse relation between Church attendance and support for Trump in the primary, and Trump was worried that they would stay home. The only way picking Mike Pence makes sense is if Trump was worried about his support among Evangelicals. And, then Hilary Clinton let the mask slip and ran a Far Left campaign built on getting revenge on Heritage America.
Evangelicals, not to mention orthodox Catholics, understood that their protection depended upon holding their nose and supporting Trump. Being picky is not an option when people who hate you are nearing power. Evangelicals were cold to McCain and abandoned Newt Gingrich because of their affairs. The same thing happened to Herman Cain. I remember telling someone in 2007 that as soon as Republicans found out something about Rudy Giuliani (other than 9/11), namely his socially liberal policies and his affair, they would ditch him. There’s even the thought that Dubya lost the popular vote in 2000 because enough Evangelicals were distraught by his drunk driving arrest in the 1970s. As close as that election was, it is certainly plausible, and Karl Rove thought this was the case, hence the heavy targeting of Evangelicals in 2004. Back then, they could be picky, Democrats were not openly running on destroying Heritage America.
Wehner then goes on to complain about how political Evangelical churches are becoming. In the broad strokes, I agree; the purpose of the Church is to spread the Gospel. Political causes, even those I agree with, are not the purpose of the Church. But, once again, Wehner leaves out several inconvenient facts, namely that liberal churches tend to be far more political than conservative ones. Conservative churches may talk about abortion, but they also talk about non-political doctrinal issues and personal righteousness. They also talk about helping the poor. For liberal churches, this is not the case. Liberal politics takes precedent over everything, and is seen as the point of being a “Christian.” Such is the natural outcome of downplaying, if not outright denying, the reality of hell.
The other problem Wehner has is that he ignores the idea that some political positions are indeed evil. Nations have the right, within certain humane limits, to make its own immigration laws; and more to the point, immigrants have an obligation to obey those laws. War can be a great evil, but it is not an intrinsic evil, and there is such a thing as just war. The use of capital punishment is sanctioned by Holy Scripture. By contrast, nations have a duty to protect the innocent, and the unborn are certainly counted among the innocent. Not all moral issues have equal weight.
As if a moment of intellectual honesty is about to emerge, Wehner states that today’s Evangelicals should take a note from how early Christians reacted to life under Pagan Rome. In one sense is he right, we absolutely pray to God for eventual deliverance. But, I do not think that Pagan Rome is the most relevant historical example here, Pagan Rome was never Christian. I think a better example would be the Spanish Civil War. In 1930s Spain, a radically anti-Christian government took power and Christians, led by Francisco Franco, fought back. A defensive war is a better model to understand what is going on.
Jumping from that, I do think it is worth pointing out that Evangelicals, and not just in the U.S., are in a historically unprecedented scenario. The reasons why are far too complicated for a single article (it would be more appropriate to be a book), but radically anti-clerical governments have been more of a feature in Catholic and Orthodox nations – see the French Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Calles government in Mexico, and the Russian Revolution. But, Evangelicals in the U.S. are now facing the same rapidly anti-Christian sentiment that was seen before in France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia. They are behaving as they should, Christians are called to protect what is theirs – see the military history of ancient Israel.
Wehner, however, wants to ignore all of this. To discuss the historical context would have likely resulted in The Atlantic refusing to publish the article, and he wants to make a name for himself by shaming those mean Trump-voting Evangelicals. Trump (and the Dissident Right as a whole) could never survived in 1990, the Left was not openly anti-White and anti-Christian (at least, it wasn’t as prevalent). There would have been no justification for Franco to overthrow a far more moderate government, but when one is facing evil on the scale of the Spanish Republic, it becomes justified. Such is the same with modern American Christians facing globohomo. To think one can discuss Trump, the Dissident Right, and American Christians without discussing the threat of a radical Left is certainly foolish. But, Wehner wants to do just that.
Anything they will print in The Atlantic is a dead give-away, like the Washington Post, because only stuff that advances the message they want will get printed. Wehner is hardly alone, you will be hard pressed to find many evangelical leaders who have not been exposed over the last five years as cucks. There are three I can think of but the vast majority are just worried about keeping their hustle alive.
Thanks for your perspective from outside. It’s accurate, and although I am a confessional Presbyterian and not an evangelical, in resided in these circles.
It seems that a few misconceptions have steered you wrong, but on the whole you are headed in the right direction.
The Democrats were a Southern Party at one time, as much as any Party can be in this fake and gay Yankee sham of a government. They were corrupted by “Progressives” which is just what the Communists called themselves back then, if the name was not a big enough give away. Then we switched to Republicans only to try and change it from the inside, the biggest mistake we ever made in my opinion. The residual resistance to Marxist stances in the Democrat Party, such as abortion, which was just another one of their power grabs and not based in any real ideological beliefs, came from what are called Blue Dog Democrats, Southerners who held out from back when it was our Party, but the 90s was about the time they ended as well. The idea that Boomer Judeo-Christians were representing all Protestants is just false. It goes back to switching to the Republican Party being a mistake. Southerners being robbed of our history, really by and large did not even know we used to be Democrats and believed that America was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs, which did not even exist until the mid 40’s along with many, many other decisions that were purely as a result of the generational destruction and attacks upon our identity by Yankees and their Jewish masters, along with their global allies the world over, including the press. The Bush family are Yankees in the Deep State from Connecticut, supporting them or anyone else for that matter, was largely made because of the Kabuki theater that is the Yankee occupational government leaves no real choice, coupled with the fact that our cultural identity and history have been the main targets of their efforts. As has been said before, if voting mattered then they would not let us do it.
All of that was all the consequences of what was done to boomers, especially during the 60s. They wanted to make the right choices, but out of ignorance of our own history and no real way to gather and decimate information, they just went along with whatever their local Republicans were selling in that particular grifting cycle or what the Blue Dog leaders were shilling as the virtuous position. Our actual choices are not to be found, those are illegal under the occupation. That’s all largely behind us now and while Bush Jr. May have gotten away with carpetbagging and lying, thank the Lord we had regained enough savvy, thanks largely to gen-x’ers such as myself and the internet, not to fall for Jeb! when they tried to force him down our throats.
You cannot underestimate the consequences of those indoctrination camps that we were forced into as children. We knew nothing of our own history while being fed poison during our formative years. All of the issues you speak of must always be looked at through the lens of what that generation along with the boomers was suffering from in terms of reconstruction and systemic oppression at the hands of a foreign people and nation. Their attacks focused on our faith as well as our history as those two things form the pillars of our identity. That must be borne in mind when considering their decision making, you have to understand we did not choose any of this and have always known it would fail. We were being slowly genocided, we made the best decisions we could at the time, just trying to pump the brakes.
In lew of any real Southern organizations whose main focus was on education, organization and holding us together as a people, we turned to the Republican Party for guidance, most not even knowing they were the Party of Lincoln or their history at all and they cut our thoats. None of the decisions made since the invasion have truly been ours and should not be held up as such or taken on face value, especially not Judeo-Christianity, either of the political Parties and the consequences thereof. Those were not our true actions made out of free will.
Turning Republican was the biggest mistake the South ever made, but in the end as in the beginning, there is no political solution.