Tim Alberta

There was a reason Christian views writ large were now summarily dismissed as “inherently intolerant and undemocratic.” for generations, white evangelicals had been overwhelmingly supportive of both immigrants and refugees entering the United States; by 2020 they were, far and away, the least likely of any religious subgroup to advocate for either one. And this was not some outlying development. In the year after Trump left office, polling repeatedly showed there was one demographic group most likely to believe that the election had been stolen, that vaccines were dangerous, that globalists were controlling the U.S. population, that liberal celebrities were feasting on the blood of infants, that resorting to violence might be necessary to save the country: white evangelicals.

None of this justified the sweeping censure of tens of millions of people. Having spent Trump’s presidency traveling the country, meeting religious voters in small towns and big cities alike, I knew how many serious, sane evangelicals were still out there. These people have no place in the left-wing fever dreams that inform cable news punditry and op-ed pages. They are reasonable and realistic, making prudential political judgments that often reflect something quite limited about their core values, their commitment to others, their complex set of religious convictions. They are dismayed by the hysteria and hyperbole that has captured their movement and want nothing more than to reclaim it.

"A small-town restaurant owner who’d been arrested four times in the decade before seeking political office, Boebert was fond of boasting that God told her to run for Congress because her unlikely victory 'would be a sign and a wonder to the unbeliever.' If the unbeliever paid attention to Boebert, the only signs they saw were of psychosis. "

frequently invoked the Book of Ephesians while traveling the country in 2022 to raise money and rally the conservative base. “Put on the full armor of God,” DeSantis would say, “and take a stand against the left’s schemes.” In substituting “the left” for “the devil,” DeSantis wasn’t just counting on the biblical illiteracy of his listeners. He was banking on a nationalist fervor that rendered scriptural restraint irrelevant. He was confident that evangelicals in the audience would agree that he knew better than Paul; that the real enemy is the left; that the real struggle is against flesh and blood; that the real power belongs to a politician who can ignore Anthony Fauci’s coronavirus protocols and eliminate Disney World’s tax exemptions.

Champions of Christian nationalism would have you believe that these efforts to rule the country are inherently theological; that they are in service of a broader effort to reclaim America for God. This is a lie. Christian nationalism is a contradiction in terms: Paul told the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. This assurance—transcends all known racial, ethnic, and national identities.