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The genesis of the MAGA Bible Evangelicals could decide America's election

Will Trump overcome? (Credit: Nancy Lane/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty)

Will Trump overcome? (Credit: Nancy Lane/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty)


October 3, 2024   6 mins

It has been more than two decades since I walked away from the evangelical Christian faith in which I was raised as a preacher’s son, but I still know blasphemy when I see it. In an ad for his God Bless the USA Bible (yours for $59.99 plus tax and shipping; $1,000 for a signed edition), Donald Trump — with his marigold skin and porcelain teeth — looks less like a political leader, let alone a spiritual one, than a late night shopping channel host.

Still, there are few signs Trump’s desecration of scripture (dubbed by wags a “grift from God”) will cost him the support of the Americans who consider the Bible core to their identity. Evangelicals were slow to embrace Trump, a thrice-married adulterer who made no effort to evince a sincere faith. Even by polling day in 2016, when a record 81% of white evangelicals voted for him, many did so pragmatically: the Supreme Court was in the balance, Roe v Wade was in the crosshairs, and Trump was an imperfect candidate willing to trade favours for their support. But over the next eight years, something strange happened. Some fringe pastors began wearing MAGA hats and preaching that that Trump was divinely ordained to lead America in a showdown between Good and Evil. And a 2020 poll found that half of those who practise at least once a week believe Trump has been anointed by God. What began as a marriage of convenience has morphed, for some, into a full-blown spiritual love affair.

Evangelicals are a declining force in US electoral politics, but at 1 in 5 voters (down from 1 in 3 in 2000), they can still swing elections. Trump cannot win in November without their support.

Insofar as the evangelicalism of my childhood had any political implications, they were expressed by the parable of the Good Samaritan. In it, Jesus glosses the commandment “love your neighbour” by illustrating that your neighbour is anybody in need, including those you would normally shun. So how did so many evangelicals in America — who, after all, read the same Bible as my parents, and share with them a common theology and historical lineage — come to embrace an adulterous con man for whom the adjective “unchristian” might have been invented?

“Trump cannot win unless evangelicals turn out strongly for him in November.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about this question while reading a fascinating new book by the Yale historian Bruce Gordon. The Bible: A Global History tells the riveting tale of how the writings of a marginal sect in the ancient Near East came to be considered (together with the Jewish scriptures) the sacred texts of a new religion, before becoming — via medieval scribes, the early modern printing press and 20th-century mass production lines — the most reproduced and translated book ever.

Gordon emphasises the shapeshifting nature of the Bible: how over the centuries it has been used to justify slavery and abolitionism, genocide and the struggle against Apartheid, imperialism and socialism. But his story also shows how, among those Christians most passionately devoted to God’s Word, certain themes recur again and again. And in that story it’s possible to trace the psychology of MAGA evangelicals back to its roots in the first century.

We don’t know if Jesus of Nazareth really stormed the Temple in Jerusalem to drive out moneylenders who were operating there, but it’s revealing that this is the kind of story his followers told about him. A rabble-rousing doomsday prophet who condemned the hypocrisy and corruption of his day’s religious authorities, Jesus soon fell foul of the secular authorities too. After the Romans put him to death, his disciples became convinced he had come back to life to save the world, and began spreading that wild idea first around Judea and then the port cities of the eastern Mediterranean.

The leaders of this growing sect wrote letters to the churches they founded, arguing about theology, morals and church organisation; then, when living memory of Jesus was beginning to die out, they wrote accounts of his life to preserve oral traditions about his deeds and teachings. These texts reflected the communities that produced them: fringe sects with eccentric notions that, despite ridicule and oppression, held fast to their belief that they, and they alone, knew the way to salvation.

The early Christians were radical sectarians, distinguished by their fanatical rejection of religious norms, whether Jewish laws or Roman rites. They gloried in their status as outsiders, recalling that Jesus — who had been executed for sedition — had said: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” In their letters they reminded each other that “all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”. In the face of these trials, single-minded devotion was prized above all else: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?”

Their sense of themselves as “children of God”, set apart from the world, led at times to a sweeping rejection of earthly power and hierarchy. They formed tightly knit communities where ordinary social distinctions were subverted, their most prolific early author stipulating that among them there should be “neither man nor woman . . . neither slave nor free”. But as time went on and they faced the constant threat of violent suppression, some of them began to nurture fantasies of a coming apocalypse where God would wreak violent retribution on their enemies. The book we now know as Revelations, written some half a century after the earliest New Testament letters, reflects an insular and paranoid Christianity that saw itself as locked in combat with dark forces, and that lusted after a cataclysmic showdown between good and evil.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that, as Bruce Gordon shows, for most of Christian history Church authorities were wary of allowing the Bible into the hands of ordinary believers. From time to time, devoted students of the scriptures, provoked by the militant mood of the New Testament they read in Latin, would reject the authority of Rome and attempt to rouse the masses against it. Even after Luther’s Reformation — supercharged by the printing press and new vernacular translations — shook the Catholic Church’s foundations, zealous Christians believed their Bibles taught that the revolution needed to go further.

The Puritans who drove the early settlement of America were sure the English Crown was beholden to a Catholic Deep State, and that the authorities were PINOS: Protestants in Name Only. In place of maps of the New World, they had Bibles that told them they were a new Israel and that America was their Promised Land. Bruce Gordon shows just how integral the Bible was to 17th-century New England: literacy rates were remarkably high; there was a King James Version in most homes; and in 1663 the settlers briefly paused from killing the indigenous people to translate the scriptures into their language.

But by the mid-18th century, the New England Puritans had become the establishment and, just as their forebears once denounced the English Reformation for its sterile traditionalism, they came under attack from firebrand preachers convinced that only they practiced true, biblical Christianity. The so-called “evangelicals” of the Great Awakening helped make a nation out of the American colonies by spreading their faith across colonial boundaries and the disparate communities living in them. Evangelicalism became the characteristic American religion, and its New Testament spirit — restless, fervent, nonconformist, happiest when fomenting revival or rebellion — underwrote the democratic individualism that informed the new republic’s constitution.

Bruce Gordon ends his account of the Bible in America in 1945, with evangelicalism in retreat following the Scopes Trial, which pitted Darwinism against literal interpretations of Genesis. You wonder what he would make of MAGA evangelicalism and the God Bless the USA Bible. It’s easy to forget that, before the Eighties, the rise of a bellicose, revanchist Christian Right did not seem inevitable: the passing of Roe v Wade was a matter of no great concern to most evangelical leaders in 1973, and in 1980 white evangelical voters narrowly split for the Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher, Jimmy Carter. With conservative ideologues such as Jerry Falwell poised to assume leadership of the movement, it would be the last time evangelicals and the Democratic Party would find themselves on the same side of a presidential election.

Trump’s victory in 2016 gave his evangelical supporters at least some of what they had long been campaigning for. His Supreme Court led to the overturning of Roe v Wade, an outcome for which many had fervently prayed since the Eighties. And the 2018 relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem was marked by prayers from particularly fundamentalist pastors who, based on madcap interpretations of New Testament prophecies, support an expansionist Israel in the cheerful hope that war in the Middle East will trigger the End Times.

And yet MAGA evangelicalism today is a movement rooted in weakness, not strength. Just 7% of Gen Z Americans identify as white evangelical Protestants (compared with 35% who are “religiously unaffiliated”), and among those both church attendance and biblical literacy is down. Like the early Christians who wrote the New Testament, the evangelicals are again an embattled sect, increasingly marginal, fearful of persecution. In a sense, this is where they are always most comfortable. As secular liberalism continues its creeping takeover of American culture, Trump looks like a strong man who can keep the darkness at bay.

Trump is not the first US president to produce his own edition of the Bible. In 1820, Thomas Jefferson created a version of the New Testament with razor and glue, omitting the supernatural and keeping only what he saw as Jesus’s essential teachings of compassion for the poor and outcast. The MAGA Bible is a different kind of cut-and-paste job. Although it retains the rebellious, iconoclastic mood of the New Testament, its vision of Jesus is less the saviour of the gospels than the Christ of Revelations: a blood-soaked warrior-king set set for an imminent showdown with the forces of evil. As polling day nears and Trump prepares to contest the result if he loses, many hardcore fringe worshippers believe a battle is coming, and they explicitly identify the Washington establishment with the armies of Satan. It remains to be seen whether the book that helped create American democracy will come to play a role in its downfall.


Matt Rowland Hill is the author of Original Sins and he writes on Substack


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Brett H
Brett H
2 months ago

I have to say, regardless of the story or writer, I’m really tired of statistics inserted into a story to somehow support an opinion. I don’t really have much faith in stats. Research is an industry that plays with numbers that mean very little on the ground. For each set of stats I can find another set that denies them.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

Unsurprising. About 30% of people hold similar views.

Brett H
Brett H
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Source?

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
2 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

I think it was a joke. Maybe your comment was too. Now I’m really confused.

Brett H
Brett H
2 months ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Yes, I was aware it was a joke. So was mine. Comments is not the best place for sarcasm or humour.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
2 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

These days 94.37% of UnHerd comments include fake statistics.

B Emery
B Emery
2 months ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Facts aren’t allowed anymore. That’s why the west is f*cked.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

I can’t speak for Brett H, but my comment was definitely a joke. It’s like “I don’t believe in astrology, but that makes sense, because Geminis are known for being skeptical”.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Or else: “If God had meant for us to be atheists, He would have created us with a much better capacity for logical reasoning.”

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

“Oh people can come up with statistics to prove anything Kent, forty percent of all people know that”

Seb Dakin
Seb Dakin
2 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

Statistics are like humans. Isolate them, slap ’em around a bit, and they’ll tell you anything.

Brett H
Brett H
2 months ago
Reply to  Seb Dakin

So true.

k. clark
k. clark
2 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

So you prefer your opinions straight with no stats chaser ? Some /sarc but there is a serious question there – would you just prefer pure opinion ungrounded in any sort of fact ?

Brett H
Brett H
2 months ago
Reply to  k. clark

Stats aren’t facts.

Tony Price
Tony Price
2 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

They are almost the definition of facts – it’s the context that determines their applicability. If you are interested in dissection of stats then listen to ‘More or Less’ on BBC Sounds.

Tony Price
Tony Price
2 months ago
Reply to  Tony Price

To put my comment into perspective, here are a couple of stats on another of today’s Unherd articles (subject immaterial): “In the real world, a mere six Tory MPs voted in favour of decriminalisation that year, even as polls showed that 63% of Britons supported the decision.”
So – ‘six Tory MPs’ is presumably an undeniable fact as it would be recorded in Parliamentary proceedings. ‘63% of Britons’ needs to be seen in the context of: the actual question being asked; the sample size; the sample make-up, the definition of ‘Britons’ etc. (eg it most certainly will not be 63% of all Britons as those aged 0 – 16 probably weren’t included). And of course Tim Harford’s favourite question: ‘is that a big number?’.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Tony Price

63% isn’t a big number. It’s a lot less than 110%.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago

As secular liberalism continues its creeping takeover of American culture, Trump looks like a strong man who can keep the darkness at bay“. Yes, because he’s such an observant and pious Christian himself.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago

I wonder what the Evangelicals will make of the fact that Melania is apparently pro-Abortion?

Philip Hanna
Philip Hanna
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Isn’t Trump as well?

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Philip Hanna

Well, not in the same sense. Trump is intrinsically neither pro nor anti anything. He supported ditching Roe v Wade because it made Evangelicals vote for him. He now realises that the flip side of that is that a lot of American women won’t vote for him, so he is back-pedalling furiously. However, it seems that Melania is actually pro-abortion as a matter of principle.

k. clark
k. clark
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Do you have a source for this ?

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  k. clark

A source for which bit of it? I think Melania is now (as of 24 hours ago) on record as saying she is pro-abortion. It is in her memoirs, apparently.

Brett H
Brett H
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

apparently
Oops.

Chuck Burns
Chuck Burns
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Melania isn’t running for President.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Chuck Burns

So, you don’t think that her pro-abortion stance will hurt Trump? Don’t evangelicals believe that a wife should obey her husband?

Derek Smith
Derek Smith
2 months ago

“Still, there are few signs Trump’s desecration of scripture (dubbed by wags a “grift from God”) will cost him the support of the Americans who consider the Bible core to their identity. Evangelicals were slow to embrace Trump, a thrice-married adulterer who made no effort to evince a sincere faith.”

For many years US Evangelicals were told by their political detractors that voting was not about electing America’s Pastor, and that ‘values’ didn’t matter. Having then voted for Trump, they were told ‘No, we didn’t mean it that way’. Damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Philip Hanna
Philip Hanna
2 months ago

I don’t think most people are concerned with his character at this point. They either like his policies, or hate Kamala’s policies (whatever those morph into). Although, sometimes it feels like Trump has created his own religion.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Philip Hanna

If people are still supporting Trump at this point, they are definitely not concerned with his character.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
2 months ago
Reply to  Philip Hanna

I disagree. I think very few people are interested in policy. No one ever talks policy, certainly not the regime media. Trump and Vance will talk policy on podcasts, but that’s about it. Harris and Walz never talk policy, on any platform.

Vidar Bøe
Vidar Bøe
2 months ago

It seems the writer is more concerned about denouncing the christian belief itself than writing about evangelicals and the upcoming election. IMHO most people do not vote for Trump, but for an alternative to liberal democrats ushering in politics that threaten the core values of a christian society.

Eric Mader
Eric Mader
2 months ago
Reply to  Vidar Bøe

Article is basically an overlong review of the Gordon book, sexed up with offhand dissing of Christians.

And this: “After the Romans put him to death, his disciples became convinced he had come back to life to save the world.”

An amazingly off take on the Atonement and Resurrection for a supposedly learned ex-evangelical. One suspects this preacher’s son left *something*, but that mainly it wasn’t Christianity.

I agree with him on his opening gambit. He sees blasphemy in the sale of a MAGA Bible. Me too.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
2 months ago
Reply to  Eric Mader

It is interesting to mock evangelicals who will vote for Trump out of sincere belief in saving our freedoms and not mention those filled to the brim with TDS, who will vote for anything else but Trump with equal fervor.

Eric Mader
Eric Mader
2 months ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

Absolutely. For millions, likely tens of millions, Trump is far from ideal. But not voting for him is to give the federal government to an arrogant clique that literally loathes our First Amendment.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago
Reply to  Vidar Bøe

That’s one take. Mine is that he’s actually writing about his daddy issues – from start to finish.

Konstantinos Stavropoulos
Konstantinos Stavropoulos
2 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Very much so..!

David Kingsworthy
David Kingsworthy
2 months ago
Reply to  Vidar Bøe

You are correct, but the author also misunderstands Christians and our eschatological views. The statement “many hardcore fringe worshippers believe a battle is coming” is true, but most Christians do not intend to actually take up arms; instead we believe the war will eventually be waged between the armies of God and Satan.
I realize that sounds unhinged to non-believers, but the point is, we won’t take part in the destruction of America and the West.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago

Ok, so the Army of Satan will be led by his No.1 Son, Donald J. Trump. Remind me who will be leading the Army of God?

Liakoura
Liakoura
2 months ago

“Some fringe pastors began wearing MAGA hats and  div > p > a”>preaching that that Trump was divinely ordained to lead America in a showdown between Good and Evil.”
So obviously Trump being a convicted felon is Evil but who is good? 

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
2 months ago

Just another year where democracy will be ‘fortified’ in the Democrats favour i.e. the vote count will be stopped overnight and the requisite number of ballots shipped in.

William Amos
William Amos
2 months ago

“…the Scopes Trial, which pitted Darwinism against literal interpretations of Genesis.”
And yet the truth is stranger and darker than that. The Scopes trial was as much about Eugenics and forced sterilisation as it was about Evolution. The dignity and sanctity of human life was at question. Darwinian Eugenics and Euthanasia were very much the fashionable progressive ideas of the moment.
The Butler Act (which did not mandate the teaching of the literal intepretation of Genesis as is so often claimed) was specifically enacted to prevent the denial of the “Divine Creation of man” and to proscribe the suggestion that “man has descended from a lower order of animals”. The question was put in the context of a society that was beginning to consider some people biologically unworthy of life and reproduction.
Lest we forget Thirty-three US states passed sterilisation laws on the ‘lower orders’ and ‘untermenschen’, and some 60-65,000 people were forcibly sterilised. Indiana became the first state to pass such a law in 1907, and Oregon was the last to abolish the practice, and only in 1983.
Eugenics and Darwinism were (perhaps still are) inseperably linked, not least in the minds of those in the court room at the time.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago
Reply to  William Amos

Thanks for this important clarification

Konstantinos Stavropoulos
Konstantinos Stavropoulos
2 months ago
Reply to  William Amos

Sad and dreadful details I wasn’t aware of..!
Still, Dariwinism as an idea outside a purely scientific discussion (if there is any left) is most usually an egopathic notion of the Übermensch..! Full of hate and despise for the lower, or now days the non-“enlightened” and the un-evolved.!

Lord have mercy upon us and upon thy world..!

Ivan Kinsman
Ivan Kinsman
2 months ago

Trump is the alternative to the liberal political elite. Period. Evangelicals recognise this and will vote for him, as will the Mormon and Amish communities.

Christopher Barry
Christopher Barry
2 months ago
Reply to  Ivan Kinsman

When there are two bad choices, it is possible to show your values by voting for a smaller party. Little hope of winning this time but sends a message.

A Christian publication advocated the ASP recently:
https://www.solidarity-party.org/

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Ivan Kinsman

I’d suggest that if it turns out that Trump is the Antichrist, and he establishes Satan’s dominion on Earth, they’re all going to be pretty embarrassed.

Peter Jenks
Peter Jenks
2 months ago

I really do not understand why intelligent, educated people need a “faith organisation” between them and their God. God is. everywhere and one can talk to God anywhere and anytime.
Is there really much difference between supporters of militant Islam and militant Protestantism? I fear not, both are wrapped in anger and hate and it seems to me that they want to enforce their views on others,

Terry M
Terry M
2 months ago
Reply to  Peter Jenks

I am not familiar with a branch of Christianity that commits terrorist acts on thousands of people throughout the world. Maybe that’s the difference? And not the only one. It’s been a few centuries since apostates were killed.

Dave Canuck
Dave Canuck
2 months ago
Reply to  Terry M

How about bringing on Armageddon and the end of times, that’s fanatical stuff and very evangelical Christian. And totally irrational

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago
Reply to  Terry M

Shock and Awe is terrorism, violently supported by mad evangelicals.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
2 months ago
Reply to  Peter Jenks

Is there really much difference between supporters of militant Islam and militant Protestantism?
other than the former is prone to violence, issues fatwahs, treats women like property, and kills gay people, no difference at all. The two are identical.

Rex Adams
Rex Adams
2 months ago
Reply to  Peter Jenks

Why not include the militant Hebrews in this?
(except the last part)

John T. Maloney
John T. Maloney
2 months ago

Unherd and Matt Rowland Hill are now suborning domestic and international assassination of the leading political candidate for president of the USA?!?

Cecil Skell
Cecil Skell
2 months ago

“…I was raised as a preacher’s son, but I still know blasphemy when I see it….”
Then:
“…bla bla bla bla bla bla bla….”
Left or right, any author beginning with a pronouncement of insider knowledge keeps me from reading anything further.

Tony Price
Tony Price
2 months ago
Reply to  Cecil Skell

indeed, who needs experts eh?

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
2 months ago
Reply to  Tony Price

Not anyone seeking factual guidance on Covid or govt budgeting or the climate or other things, probably including a few that you can name.

Tony Price
Tony Price
2 months ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Indeed, why would someone who knows something about something be worth listening to – stick to ignorant pontification, it’s so much easier!

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
2 months ago
Reply to  Tony Price

I am always sceptical of THE experts, who are promoted and supported by politicians and the entire MSM. As we now know, most of them misinformed or just made things up and tried very hard to discredit critical voices. The same is true about Climate Change. All the “experts” tell us about the huge Crisis of man made CO2, which is bringing the Earth‘s Climate to a boiling point (according to the UN Secretary) But thank God there are still scientists, who are brave enough to offer different views. Most of them only able to speak out after retirement.

Antony Standley
Antony Standley
2 months ago

A long time ago I read this, it is appropriate. An “ex” is a ‘has been’ & a “spert” is a ‘drip under pressure’.

Cecil Skell
Cecil Skell
2 months ago
Reply to  Tony Price

Being a preacher’s son makes you an expert in what, exactly?

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Cecil Skell

I don’t think you have got the lyric right. It goes “The only one who could ever reach me was the son of a preacher man….”

Robert
Robert
2 months ago

Interesting article. I enjoyed it. I liked the history of the Bible. I’ve been trying to make sense of it for a bit after finally reading the whole thing (and the Koran). I can better see where Trump fits in as well as how some of the most ardent evangelicals such as David French are just apoplectic about their brethren being Trump supporters. Add in Jews and Muslims and the battle(s) over ‘The Holy Land’ and it gets quite interesting.
I’m going to get that book he referenced.
Thanks, UnHerd!

Chuck Burns
Chuck Burns
2 months ago

“As secular liberalism continues its creeping takeover of American culture,” Cultural Marxism is the real enemy of America. Everything the Democrats do is to destroy America with the sole aim of grabbing power by any means possible. They will install a single political party by counting the votes so that the result is always a Democrat.

Tony Price
Tony Price
2 months ago
Reply to  Chuck Burns

You seem to have got your political parties mixed up – that makes rather more sense if you substitute ‘Republic’ for ‘Democrat’ in your comment.

Chuck Burns
Chuck Burns
2 months ago

“It remains to be seen whether the book that helped create American democracy will come to play a role in its downfall.”
Does this mean the absence of the book will play a role in America’s downfall?

Spiro Spero
Spiro Spero
2 months ago

So MAGA can now be traced back to the1st century, apparently?

For an ‘ex-evangelical’, son of a pastor, etc. this writer’s knowledge of Christian history appears to be fairly deficient.

Christianity, needless to say has always been considerably more than just some ‘doomsday sect’. Eh! Take a look around. The Book of Revelation was ‘read’ very differently by Christians before the (ahem!) ‘parting of the ways’ in the sixteenth century. It is still ‘read’ differently by Catholics and Orthodox to this day, namely it is prayed communally as the ‘epilogue’ to the whole of Jewish and Christian revelation, the wedding feast of the Lamb. Its only in recent centuries that some have developed wild fantasies out of the text, everything blowing-up, blood-soaked, etc. It does no service to the early Christians to start reading you’re own biases ‘back’ into people’s understanding of their faith, when they lived over 2000 years ago. Perhaps the insistence by church authorities over the years that the biblical text should be read within the Christian community’s ‘tradition’ was not so stupid after all. From empire and slavery to Paisley and Trump to what’s currently unfolding in the Middle East its hardly uncontroversial to suggest that ‘sola scriptura’ has produced some rather rotten ‘fruit’.

All of this is of course avoiding the elephant in the room. For Christians as for others there is an obvious hierarchy when it comes to morality. Some ‘sins’ are much bigger than others. Trump, his weird mafioso persona and questionable personal morality notwithstanding, is a known villain who despite everything supported those who oppose abortion, among other serious matters, that is why many Christians, Evangelical, Catholic etc. vote for him. Not because he is the messiah but because they judge him the ‘lesser evil’. One would have thought the son of a pastor would know at least that much.

General Store
General Store
2 months ago

I’m a Catholic. I wouldn’t vote FOR Trump. I would vote AGAINST Harris, against dragqueen story hour, against race-baiting identity politics, against open borders….

Judy Johnson
Judy Johnson
2 months ago

I am in the UK. Here evangelical Christians are across the political spectrum; one of our party leaders was a Christian who led the Liberal Democrat party.
I don’t understand why voting Republican is almost universal among evangelical Christians in the USA.
Could someone explain please.

Dave Canuck
Dave Canuck
2 months ago
Reply to  Judy Johnson

Don’t even try to understand the logic of it because there isn’t any, but I think bringing on Armageddon has alot to do with it, many of these Republicans seek the end of this world in the fantasy of a new and better world to replace. Brainwashing works.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
2 months ago
Reply to  Judy Johnson

This happens because the American left is openly hostile to Christianity. It panders to Islam but it hates the Jesus people. They represent too many of the country’s norms – the nuclear family, children, groups of people with common interests who are willing to cooperate without govt mandates, etc. The church folks are also the ones most vocal in opposition to the sexualization of children, whether that means drag queens, gender confusion, or surgical mutilation.

Janis Barnard
Janis Barnard
2 months ago
Reply to  Judy Johnson

From what I’ve read and heard, our Republican and Democratic parties today don’t transfer well to your Tories and Labour. The operative word is “today.” In the past, most working class people voted Democrat. That included a whole lot of first and second generation immigrants, union members, Catholics and minorities. But these people also hold strongly to tradition.
So although there’s been movement towards acceptance of changing mores in this population, the Democratic Party has moved so far and so quickly beyond anything ever considered a norm, that traditional Democratic Party voters have turned right. Republicans, or conservatives as they’re also known, value the conservation of traditional values. Democrats want change, post-haste. And that divide has become very stark.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Janis Barnard

While I am not American, I’d hazard a guess and say that what constitutes the “norm” in New York and San Francisco is different to what constitutes the “norm” in Boise, Idaho and Greenville, Mississippi.

Judy Johnson
Judy Johnson
2 months ago
Reply to  Janis Barnard

That is very interesting. Until the 60s and 70s our Labour and Conservative parties were largely workers and professionals/upper middle class respectively. Our centrist party, the Liberal Democrats represented a wider variety of people. I think it still does but is no longer a main party.

Kelly Madden
Kelly Madden
2 months ago

Totally absent: Any analysis of what this printing of the Bible contains. Back to that in a minute.
As a Christian, this means of raising money for Trump is revolting to me. But “Ugh!” is not an argument, even to myself. What precisely is wrong here? It IS like late-night televangelism. But as much as I loathe the form their faith takes, those guys still get a lot right. So that’s not a dealbreaker. Again, what’s off?
The King James Bible is in the public domain. Whoever did this didn’t need the participation of ANY Christian to publish this. Which Evangelicals, exactly, are promoting this edition? Are there any?
We are not told here.
I’m not going to do the author’s job for him. So I’ll just paste what we have at the link he provided:
GOD BLESS THE USA BIBLE
Easy-to-read, large print, and slim design, this Bible invites you to explore God’s Word anywhere, any time. This bible has been designed so that it delivers an easy reading experience in the trusted King James Version translation. This large print Bible will be perfect to take to church, a bible study, work, travel, etc.
This Bible also features a copy of:
Handwritten chorus to “God Bless The USA” by Lee GreenwoodThe US ConstitutionThe Bill of RightsThe Declaration of IndependenceThe Pledge of Allegiance
That’s it?! That’s all?
“God bless the USA” is a prayer. I prefer better songs, such at the one that adds: “May God thy gold refine!” But this is hardly a scandal. Trump doesn’t even claim to be a Christian.
So for the first time, I’ll be voting Trump, nose firmly pinched. It’s better than the alternative.

Dave Canuck
Dave Canuck
2 months ago

Test

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Dave Canuck

Did it work?

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
2 months ago

“Evangelicals were slow to embrace Trump, a thrice-married adulterer who made no effort to evince a sincere faith.”
I just have to stop here, get in my time machine and travel back to one of this guy’s dad’s sermons and poke his 10 year old self in the ribs so he wakes up and pays attention to what Pops is preaching up there.
Christianity does not preach that we should love and cherish only those who are without sin. Instead, it reminds us that we are all sinners. Especially the adulterers, the prostitutes, the murderers…for while those things are failings, they are not deadly sins. Pride is a deadly sin, which is why Jesus’ forgives the prostitute and not the Pharisees in Luke 7:36.
Salvation is not achieved by living a squeaky clean life. It is achieved by faith alone in Jesus Christ.

Christopher Barry
Christopher Barry
2 months ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Faith depends on repentance, which Trump has shown no sign of.

Pride is not unforgivable – see Paul. Nor is sexual sin – see David.

I love the story of the forgiven sinful woman from Luke 7. She shows her change of heart by anointing Jesus’ feet. There is no comparison with Trump.

The best political decision for voters is another matter, of course. Christians don’t have to vote for Christians. But do so with your eyes open.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago

Christians don’t have to vote for Christians, but you’d have thought they’d steer clear of voting for agents of the Devil….

Christopher Barry
Christopher Barry
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Sure, choose your vote carefully. But the Bible teaches that all authorities are installed by God, not the devil. He’s in control whatever November’s outcome.

Romans 13:1 NIV
[1] Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
2 months ago

All true. I think Trump is on a path to redemption. I pray for him.

Dave Canuck
Dave Canuck
2 months ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Only when it suits his ambition, hypocrisy has no limits

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
2 months ago
Reply to  Dave Canuck

Indeed it knows none. Even those commentators on UnHerd – Christlike in their lived virtue – have been guilty of it, from time to time.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago

This article is hilariously bad.
‘Jesus glosses the commandment “love your neighbour” […] including those you would normally shun. So how did so many evangelicals in America — who, after all, read the same Bible as my parents, and share with them a common theology and historical lineage — come to embrace [Trump]’ in the same paragraph? Without irony?

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
2 months ago

Some fringe pastors began wearing MAGA hats and  div > p > a”>preaching that that Trump was divinely ordained to lead America in a showdown between Good and Evil.
I doubt anyone will contest the belief that the American ideal is in trouble, threatened by the further implementation of the “fundamental transformation” promised by the second-emptiest suit to seek the presidency after Kamala. I am not saying Trump is ordained but not deity would send down a perfect being. People are too cynical for that. The vehicle has to be someone who is flawed, and Trump is that. He is also outside the mold of the typical politician who, irrespective of party label, has created the conditions everyone can see.

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Well, if the Deity wanted someone who is “flawed”, there could be few better picks than Trump!

Patricia Hardman
Patricia Hardman
2 months ago

The book we now know as Revelations,

The book of Revelation.

Matthew 24:3-5, 23-24, 30 ESV
[3] As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” [4] And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. [5] For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.
[23] Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. [24] For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.
[30] Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Christopher Barry
Christopher Barry
2 months ago

Well said. The Bible books are consistent with each other.

Mark Phillips
Mark Phillips
2 months ago

Testing!

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago
Reply to  Mark Phillips

Yes. It is….

Konstantinos Stavropoulos
Konstantinos Stavropoulos
2 months ago

Pathetic Matt..!

Anti-Christian rage and support of the most decadent era of the Democrats. For no other reason than pure contempt..!

“in 1663 the settlers briefly paused from killing the indigenous people to translate the scriptures into their language.” If this is your sum after experiencing a Christian upbringing than there something very wrong about those early years of yours..!

Please excuse my language manners..! After reading this article I could only react directly to your profound anger and denial..! Leaving the space open for better days and empathy more kin to the good Samaritan ways..!

May God bless America and save the whole world my lad..! You do push me to support the orange man you know..!

Martin M
Martin M
2 months ago

Good idea! Vote for Trump to annoy the author! That makes perfect sense!

Konstantinos Stavropoulos
Konstantinos Stavropoulos
2 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

You are such a great mind reader..!

Lillian Fry
Lillian Fry
2 months ago

“ Christian nationalism” is the left’s latest boogeyman. Apparently some people advocate putting the Bible in US public school classrooms and that this is terrifying. They conveniently ignore the fact that k-12 education is totally owned by the left along with the media children consume as a steady diet. In addition, if the book Shepherds for Sale is to be believed, evangelical churches are fast becoming “woke” themselves!
I am not even a believer myself, but if the Bible used is the King James, kids will at least learn something about the power of fine poetry. They certainly won’t learn it from the curriculum which is larded with bowdlerized history and literature with the goal of Balkanizing the population. With predictable results: in Minnesota, home of VP candidate Walz, less than half of students are proficient in math and reading.

Will D. Mann
Will D. Mann
2 months ago

The Gospels have gone through so much editing, translating, reinterpretation and actual censorship over the past two millennia that almost any interpretation can be put on them and any action justified. If that doesn’t work one can always fall back on the old testament.