WCP: Trumped Up Charges Against Evangelicals

Posted in Visiting Scholars  |  Tagged John Russo, Sherry Linkon, WCP, Working-Class Perspectives

Despite the attention received by white working-class voters this election cycle, Evangelicals accounted for nearly half of Donald Trump’s support. In this week’s Working-Class Perspective, Ken Estey urges us to look deeper into the diversity and working-class ethos that characterizes this demographic and the theology to which it subscribes.

“In the coming weeks and months, amid various attempts to mitigate the effects of the Trump victory, fingers will point at evangelicals and strategies will emerge to counter their influence. But there should be close scrutiny of any attempt to shift blame to evangelicals for a Trump presidency. Evangelicals will not be silenced and they cannot be wished away. To rephrase Jesus slightly – the evangelicals you will always have with you. What we do not know is how and what kind of evangelicals will be among us. The joint study from the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and LifeWay Research concludes evangelicals are to be defined by what they believe.

This is very significant. Consider the four major beliefs: the Bible as highest authority, the importance of personally encouraging non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as savior, the death of Christ on the cross to remove sin’s penalty, and finally, trust in Christ as the way to receive God’s gift of salvation. However one views these foundation stones of evangelical orthodoxy, like it or not, there is no iron chain that binds these doctrines to a particular political party, platform or program for action. The same Bible being accorded the same highest authority has been used to support or to abolish slavery, to criticize or uphold capital accumulation, to slash through or properly steward the environment.

Evangelical belief in Jesus Christ as Savior has also been the basis for a gospel call for a regeneration and renewal of the social order. For evangelicals, the penalty of sin is not only about wayward individuals but also bound up in the very fabric of society. Advocacy of structural change to meet the challenge of sin at the societal level is not a strange idea for many evangelicals. Salvation is not only about eternity in a sweet by and by but also based in a redemptive process that Christians may faithfully engage in to transform the present order. Liberal Protestants usually get the credit for developing and spreading the social gospel, but the major social gospel proponents in years past saw themselves as evangelicals.”

Read the post in its entirety and check out other Working-Class Perspectives posts on our website.