Protestant Christiainty has been a cornerstone of American society since white settlers first colonized North America in the seventeenth century. The English settlers who arrived in Jamestown in 1607 were members of the Anglican faith, a Protestant denomination. In 1620, English Puritans and Separatists began arriving in the newly-formed Massachusetts Bay Colony. This group of settlers were religious at their core and allowed the Puritan Protestant denomination to guide them and dictate their cultural norms and practices. Four hundred years later, Protestantism still, considerably, influences American society and culture. In the past few decades, a new type of Protestant has emerged in the American public sphere. Evangelical Protestants, belonging to a multitude of different denominations but sharing certain key beliefs, have become known for their unwavering support of the modern Republican Party and their strict adherence to the Bible. Today, modern evangelicalism is closely tied to conservative thinking and the Republican Party, due to historic southern segregationist policies and present day endorsements of Republican candidates, who in turn work hard to appeal to traditional evangelical values.
In his 1989 book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History From the 1730s to the 1980s, David W. Bebbington defines evangelicalism using four main tenets: a strict adherence to and reverence for the Bible, an emphasis on Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for mankind, the importance of conversion, or being “born-again,” and the belief that the gospel needs to be proselytized and it is one’s duty to convert others to evangelical Protestantism. While evangelicals share similar core beliefs, they come from a multitude of different Christian denominations. However, although evangelicals vary in terms of denomination, they are far from diverse in terms of race: over three quarters of evangelical Protestants in the United States are white.
As the white evangelical identity rose in popularity after the Civil Rights Movement, Republicans leaders adopted a more socially restrictive party platform in order to woo the largely white evangelical demographic, concentrated in the American south. After the Supreme Court ruled in favor of desegregation in 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education, the white south recoiled and met the push for integration with firey opposition. Lerone Martin, a professor of religion and politics at Washington University in St. Louis commented that, “...a number of white evangelical communities opened private schools as a way to oppose school desegregation, framing their hostility to Brown v. Board as an expression of religious freedom rather than a defense of racial segregation.” The Republican Party used this same rhetoric, claiming segregationist policies were not racist, but an expression of religious freedom and an act that upheld states’ rights. Michelle Brattian, a professor of history at Georgia State University writes about the fallacy of states’ rights as a national value, saying, “‘states' rights’ has only worked as an amoral mantra of national conservatism when stripped of its ties to white Southern heritage.”
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as millions of Americans pushed for racial equality, Republican lawmakers coyly claimed that progress being made during the Civil Rights movement violated states’ rights and individual liberties and disturbed law and order. Famously religious evangelical Christians latched on to this idea, asserting school integration was an infringement on their “religious freedom,” demonstrations were a violation of “law and order,” and the rise of feminism was an attack on traditional the Christian family structure and evangelical morality. During the late 1960s, Richard Nixon capitalized on this, playing upon the racial prejudices and religious identities of white southern voters to sway them in favor of the Republican Party. Nixon emphasized law and order and Christian virtues, pushing back against Civil Rights demonstrations and the perceived promiscuity that was infecting “hippie” youth culture, much to the dismay of pious Christians. Nixon was able to subtly connect with southern evangelicals’ religious identities, which shunned the “free love” culture of the era while also playing off of the demographic’s frequently racist underpinnings. Since Nixon’s election in 1968, the white population in the Bible Belt has been largely loyal to the Republican Party.
As more and more white evangelicals embraced this message of strict morality and segregation, Republican leaders began to connect further with the demographic. In 1980, Ronald Reagan strengthened the relationship between evangelicals and modern conservatism when, while campaigning for the presidency, he spoke in front of over 15,000 Christians at the First Baptist Church of Dallas. Reagan was joined by the Southern Baptist Convention’s president at the time, Bailey Smith and Evangelist Jerry Falwell, whose controversial comments such as, “the idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country,” made waves during the 1980s and 1990s. Baptist journalist Brian Kalyor referred to the particular rally as “transformative,” and serving “in many ways as the marriage ceremony between Southern Baptists (a strongly evangelical denomination) and the Republican Party.”
In more recent years, the bond between evangelical Christians and the Republican Party has grown even stronger. Donald Trump’s presidency, one filled with sexual misconduct allegations and defamatory comments, has seen evangelical support of the Republican Party remain strong despite the president’s many actions that contradict traditional Biblical teachings. As of July 2020, 82% of evangelical Protestants surveyed by Pew Research Center maintained that they would vote for Donald Trump in the presidential election. Support amongst white evangelicals likely hasn’t waned because Trump has taken the appropriate stances on the issues evangelicals hold dearest. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump pledged to defund Planned Parenthood and appoint justices to the Supreme Court who would make abortion a criminal offense. Yale University sociologist Philip Gorski claims evangelicals, “seem to have been motivated primarily by opposition to abortion,” in casting their votes for Trump in 2016.
Throughout his presidency, Trump has kept evangelicals in the fold. At the January 2020 March For Life in Washington, D.C, the president addressed a crowd saying, “all of us here today understand an eternal truth: every child is a precious and sacred gift from God. Together, we must protect, cherish, and defend the dignity and sanctity of every human life.” He’s also worked hard to pander to the evangelical desire to infuse Christianity into everyday American life and education. In July 2018, the Trump Administration added new rules to Title IV of the Higher Education Act that would remove certain protections against using taxpayer dollars to support religion in federal student aid programs. In January 2019, President Trump expressed his support for Christian education in a tweet, stating that, “numerous states [are] introducing Bible Literacy classes, giving students the option of studying the Bible. Starting to make a turn back? Great!” His support for the type of Christian-centered education that famous Evangelists pushed for in the 1980s and 1990s has garnered him further support and trust of the evangelical community.
Since the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, Republicans have made friends out of the millions of white evangelical Protestants in the United States. According to Pew Research Center, as of mid-June of 2020, 72% of evangelical Protestants approved of former President Donald Trump, compared to just 39% of American adults overall. Out of all the religious groups surveyed, evangelical Protestants were the group that supported the president in the highest percentage. Will the Republican party continue to become even more intertwined with the religious right? If so, will Republican leaders begin to practice the values that they preach? If instead, the Republican party wants to appeal to a broader range of American citizens of varying religious and racial backgrounds, they must denounce racism and try to appeal to American values of freedom and democracy, rather than strict evangelical Christian morals.
Comments