But in February , he changed his position on the Act and instructed Attorney General Eric Holder to stop defending it in court. In , the Supreme Court, in United States v. Windsor , declared the Defense of Marriage of Act unconstitutional and the Obama administration began extending federal rights and benefits to same-sex married couples.
By , when the Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that the United States government would recognize same-sex marriages, the practice was legal in 36 states and Washington, D.
On the evening after the Obergefell decision, Obama showed his appreciation by illuminating the White House in rainbow colors. The LGBT community saw the Obergefell decision as the culmination of a long struggle for civil rights.
Conservative evangelicals cringed. For them it all happened too fast. In the hours after the decision they turned to their blogs, websites, and media outlets and wrote apocalyptic opinion pieces on how to cope in a post-Christian society. This history of evangelical fear would come to an end, at least for the moment, with a chapter on Hillary Clinton.
After a recent lecture on Trump and his evangelical supporters, a woman approached me at the lectern and identified herself as an evangelical who voted for Trump.
Evangelicals are not supposed to hate. But many hate Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton did not help herself among evangelicals in the election campaign. She lied about using a private email server in her role as secretary of state. On the policy front, Clinton was, for most white evangelicals, an extension of the Obama presidency—a candidate who would steamroll their long-cherished conservative values. Faced with a choice between Clinton and a race-baiting, xenophobic, lying adulterer who promised to support conservative Supreme Court justices, white conservative evangelicals chose the latter.
In , American evangelicals were looking for a strongman to protect them from the progressive forces wreaking havoc on their Christian nation. Donald Trump was the strongman. Most evangelicals did not believe more traditional candidates of the Christian right such as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or Ben Carson could protect them as well as the bombastic big-talking New York real-estate tycoon.
Frankly, I want the meanest, toughest son of a gun I can find. Ironically, some evangelicals have found a savior. They sought after Trump, he answered them, and he delivered them from all their fears. But other evangelical options are available. Evangelicals are people of hope, not fear. The Kingdom of God is characterized by the love of enemies, the welcoming of strangers, the belief in the human dignity of all people, a humble and self-sacrificial posture toward public life, and a trust in the sovereign God of the universe.
Fear is a natural human response to social change, but evangelicals betray their deepest spiritual convictions when they choose to dwell in it. First, some white evangelicals see themselves as engaged in an epic struggle to rescue souls. Desperate for comfort, the sick may spiritually cast themselves at the feet of the crucified Christ where, overcome by faith in his atoning work on the Cross, they may be born again and their immortal souls saved for eternity.
From this perspective, then, the greatest kindness one can show others is to help them reach the salvation of the Cross. Such a crucicentrist view on compassion explains puzzling statements by white evangelicals like Mark Green, a Tennessee state senator. It was either hunger or a disease. How common is crucicentrism? A study in indicated that more than one in four American and Canadian evangelicals held such a view. Crucicentrist evangelicals are not insensitive to the pain endured by sick people without health insurance.
Green, for one, wanted to open free clinics throughout his home state—in churches. An essay by David Barnett illustrates the antipathy of white evangelicals to what they view as state meddling.
Such fines, designed to prevent younger, healthier people from opting out, exert unacceptable control over how people spend their earnings or care for their own person and family. In part because of white evangelical advocacy, Congress has eliminated the mandate starting in As a result, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office calculates that, by , 13 million fewer Americans will be insured. White evangelicals argue for economic individualism and disciplined self-reliance based on key scriptural passages.
However, Lydia Bean, who has researched evangelical identity in the United States and Canada, finds that although Canadian evangelicals draw on the same theological resources as their American counterparts, they do not insist on individualism, self-reliance, or freedom from government influence to the same extent. Overall, evangelicals in Canada are more supportive of legislated efforts to address income inequalities.
Despite recent backlash against certain welfare programs, Canadian evangelicals are likely to see themselves as members of a single society. They generally view redistributive social policies like universal health insurance as expressions of national solidarity.
Studies of black American evangelicals also underscore the cultural distinctiveness of white American evangelicals. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U. Heading into the election season, a new Pew Research Center survey delves into the relationship between religion and politics, including perceptions about President Donald Trump among white evangelical Protestants, a key part of his electoral base. It finds that white evangelicals largely see Trump as fighting for their beliefs and advancing their interests, and they feel their side generally has been winning recently on political matters important to them.
Even among this strongly supportive constituency, most do not view Trump as a very religious, honest or morally upstanding person though many white evangelicals say he is somewhat religious, fairly honest or fairly morally upstanding. More broadly, the survey finds that U. By comparison, just one-in-five say it is very important for a president to have strong religious beliefs, and even fewer respondents think it is vital for the president to share their own religious beliefs.
On the whole, Americans care more about having a president who stands up for their religious beliefs than having one who personally shares those beliefs. White evangelical Protestants are particularly likely to hold this view.
Two-thirds of white evangelicals say it is very important to have a president who stands up for their religious beliefs, about double the share who say it is very important for a president to have strong religious beliefs. While white evangelical Protestants generally see Trump as standing up for them, they are less convinced that he personally lives a moral and ethical life or conducts himself admirably.
Compared with white evangelical Protestants, the U. These are among the key findings of a new Pew Research Center survey conducted Feb. The rest of this Overview looks at these questions and others in greater detail. White evangelical Protestants are not alone in their admiration of Trump. Similar shares of white Protestants who are not born-again or evangelical Christians say the same. And more than half of people in both groups say they agree with Trump on many, nearly all or all of the important issues facing the country.
The survey shows, furthermore, that growing numbers in all three of the largest white Christian groups white evangelical Protestants, white Protestants who are not evangelical and white Catholics think that their side has been winning recently on the political issues that matter to them.
The share of white non-evangelical Protestants who think their side has been winning politically is up 19 percentage points over the same period, and the share of white Catholics who think their side has been politically victorious of late is 29 points higher today than it was in The positive sentiments that white Christians express about Trump and their growing sense that their side has been winning politically largely reflect their political partisanship.
Meanwhile, religious groups whose partisan leanings favor the Democratic Party over the GOP — including Christians who belong to racial and ethnic minority groups, Jews and people with no religious affiliation — are far less admiring of Trump and far more discouraged about how their side has been doing in politics lately.
While white Christians — and especially white evangelical Protestants — are feeling good about their political prospects, they are not as positive about the status of Christianity in America today.
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