Here's Why Evangelical Christians Continue to Support Trump

Over at The Atlantic, Michael Gerson, a former George W. Bush speechwriter, has penned an extended essay that attempts to explain a complex and disturbing reality: how evangelicals "became an anxious religious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory." Gerson is evangelical, he has deep knowledge of evangelical history, and his essay is compelling on a number of fronts. It suffers, however, from a rather curious omission.While Gerson ably explains that evangelicals feel as if they're under siege, he doesn't give an adequate explanation as to why. This belittles their concerns as hysterical and self-pitying. The effect is to make evangelicals appear irrational when, in fact, evangelicals made their political choice in response to actual, ominous cultural and legal developments that jeopardized their religious liberty and threatened some of their most precious religious and cultural institutions.Yes, some went too far and adopted the "Flight 93 election" rhetoric that helped poison American political discourse, but one doesn't have to think that the republic was at stake to understand that the issues in play were very serious.  Continue reading...