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As Donald Trump’s first term rolls on, two realities are emerging that work devilishly together to corrupt the American evangelical moral witness. First, when it comes to policy, Trump has proven to be better than many evangelicals hoped. Second, however, when it comes to his character, Trump has proven to be just as bad as most Americans feared. Combine these realities, and you confront evangelicals with an overwhelming temptation to excuse and rationalise his worst conduct for the sake of preserving a positive influence on his better policies.
To make this concrete, for Christian conservatives his judicial nominations have been outstanding. His cabinet agencies, especially to the Department of Health and Human Services, have aggressively defended religious liberty and rights of conscience. The military has been effective in fighting ISIS, and by all accounts his administration has been responsive to concerns about Christian persecution abroad. In many important ways, then, Trump has delivered concrete returns to the constituency that did more than any other to put him in office.
At the same time, however, Trump’s character deficiencies have been on full display. Details keep emerging of an alleged affair with a porn star — and of hush money payments made just before the election. He launches vicious, deeply personal attacks against critics, lies with regularity, and continues to fend off claims that he’s sexually harassed or assaulted more than a dozen women.
A healthy evangelical movement could applaud the administration’s good decisions while still condemning his character defects. A healthy evangelical movement could apply the same standard to Trump as it does to Democrats who’ve engaged in similar behavior. In other words, a healthy evangelical movement could act as the conscience of the administration.
Yet we’ve seen something different. We’ve seen evangelical leaders go the extra mile to excuse behaviour they’ve once condemned. We’ve seen evangelicals flip from being the American population most concerned with character in political leaders to the population least concerned. In other words, time and again, when evangelicals are asked to choose between long-held moral and political principles and Donald Trump, they choose Trump.
Why?
I’d suggest the reasons are rooted both in human nature and in the unique character of the president. The human nature element is simple. People like to think of themselves as good and moral, and they want to be part of political movements that are good and moral. It’s one thing to vote for the so-called “lesser of two evils,” it’s another thing entirely to keep supporting a man you don’t like or respect. It turns out that evangelicals don’t want to be part of an “evil” movement at all — even if it is “lesser” than the alternative. They want to be part of something good and if Trump isn’t good in real-life, he can at least be good in their imagination.
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