(RNS) — In Iowa’s Republican caucuses this month, 53% of white evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump. In the New Hampshire primary, 70% of them did.
Are you surprised? Of course not.
The attachment of white evangelicals to Trump has been described, discussed and derided for years. But to understand what it’s all about, the place to go is Tim Alberta’s new book, “The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory.”
Alberta, an evangelical pastor’s kid as well as a seasoned political reporter, has used his insider’s knowledge to compile what amounts to a field report on the spiritual politics of white evangelicalism in America since the 2020 election.
The impact of COVID-19 cannot be overestimated. Government mandates restricting in-person worship seemed to provide concrete evidence for a widespread belief among evangelicals that secular authorities are coming after Christianity. Around the country, Alberta found, many congregants abandoned evangelical churches that observed the mandates in favor of those that defied them.
The effect, which Alberta lays out in “The Kingdom,” the book’s opening section, has been an intensified politicization of the white evangelical world.
Next, in “The Power,” Alberta engages with a legion of evangelical characters who have promoted and profited from the politicization: Ralph Reed and Paula White, David Barton and Charlie Kirk, Michael Flynn and Greg Locke, and lesser-known exploiters of the fears and anxieties of the rank and file. These he calls out as grifters — shepherds who know they are leading their flocks with false teachings for their own benefit.
Tim Alberta participates in an interview on “CBS Sunday Morning.” (Video screen grab/CBS)
“The Glory,” the book’s final section, focuses on Alberta’s heroes — people who have pushed back against the evangelical establishment’s powers and principalities. These include fellow conservative evangelicals such as Russell Moore, former head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s policy office; Rachael Denhollander, legal champion of sexually abused evangelical women; and lawyer-turned-New York Times columnist David French.
The good news, Alberta maintains, is that (by his estimate) only 20% of white evangelicals have been fully MAGA-fied. The bad news is that the remaining 80% are complacent. And, as he recently told evangelical podcaster Curtis Chang, “That committed 20% is going to beat that complacent 80% every time.”
Channeling his inner pastor, Alberta issues a kind of altar call to the 80% to abandon their complacency and stand up for Christianity’s true nature.
Although he criticizes what he sometimes calls “American Christendom” for ignoring Jesus’ injunctions on behalf of the poor, the stranger and the marginalized, he issues no summons to some version of the Social Gospel. His restorationist ideal is the primitive Church, a wayfarer enterprise dedicated to love of enemies and not just friends, disengaged from earthly politics because Christ’s kingdom is not of this world.
As he said to Chang, “Maybe just maybe now there’s a demand starting to grow in among those 80% … not to go to war with the 20, but to be better equipped so that they can help to reclaim their church, reclaim their congregation, reclaim their faith tradition, from those who have tried to hijack it.”
Judging by the Iowa and New Hampshire results, the evidence for such a reclamation is pretty slim. But “faith,” says the Good Book, “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
And Tim Alberta is determined to keep the faith.