But evangelicals are also defined by how the world sees them, and this has become particularly complicated in the wake of the 2016 election. The statistic that 81 percent of the white evangelicals who voted chose Trump has been cited constantly over the last year and a half. All jokes about conservative Christians supporting a thrice-married, foul-mouthed casino owner have become canned. Non-Christians weren’t the only people who were shocked. “Most evangelical Christians like me exclaimed, ‘Who are these people?’” wrote Mark Galli, the editor in chief of Christianity Today, in his essay. “‘I know hardly anyone, let alone any evangelical Christian[s], who voted for Trump.’” [...]
This, above all, may be the fracture line within the church that Trump has most exacerbated: race. The authors of Still Evangelical? clearly see a non-white-majority future for the church—not just in America, but worldwide. In the U.S., Hispanics grew as a share of Catholics, mainline Protestants, and evangelical Christians between 2007 and 2014, according to Pew, and whites are more likely than either blacks or Hispanics to say they’re not religiously affiliated. A century ago, North America, Europe, and Australia dominated global Christianity; today, the faith is growing most quickly in regions like sub-Saharan Africa. While many predominantly white churches in the U.S. are aging and fading, multi-ethnic and immigrant-driven churches are increasing in size and vibrancy. [...]
Evangelicalism is not going to be remade into a progressive movement in the wake of Trump. In 2015, Pew found that 56 percent of evangelical Protestants identify as Republican or Republican-leaning, higher than any other religious group other than Mormons. While a small but vocal minority of leaders have pushed to create an evangelical left, that movement is still narrow. Even among the generally anti-Trump elites who wrote essays for this book, not all would want that future for their faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment