Consider This from NPR - Why Trump Still Looms Large In Many Evangelical Congregations

Episode Date: January 18, 2022

During his time in office, former President Donald Trump embraced a Christian nationalist stance; the idea that the U.S. is a Christian country and should enforce those beliefs. Now, despite being out of office for nearly a year, those beliefs continue to spread. NPR correspondent John Burnett reports on the growing movement of Christian nationalism, and the the other Christian congregations that are pushing against it. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Pastor David Roach leads the Shiloh Baptist Church just outside of Mobile, Alabama. He's never asked his congregants straight up what their political views are, but he has a pretty good idea. I'm certain that the church I pastor leans toward being Trump supporters and definitely leans toward being Republican. But Roach told NPR he doesn't want his congregation's religious identity and political identity to be synonymous with each other. We have addressed in an intentional way that the church shouldn't be identified with a political belief, and certainly not more so than our belief in the gospel. This means, for example, that he doesn't want outsiders to see his largely conservative congregation

and assume they're careless about pandemic restrictions. And that we even need to make welcome people that wear masks more frequently, have a different stance toward vaccination, and who voted Democratic in the last election. Roach says that kind of welcome attitude goes over well with the churchgoers at Shiloh Baptist. When you get people that have a deep commitment to Christ

in a room and you start talking about the need to place Christ above those political divisions and even intentionally cross them, that resonates. Or to put it more succinctly, the church is not a Trump church. The church is a Jesus church. But elsewhere, it can be a very different story. Is this a Donald Trump church?

I think it is a Donald Trump church. Donald Trump represented what we stand for as a nation. Murray Clementson is a member of the Patriot Church in Tennessee. And for evangelicals like him, Trump is as relevant as ever, as is the kind of Christian nationalism he embraced. This idea that the U.S. is a Christian nation and should enforce those beliefs. You go to fly over country and people have good moral values. They love the Lord and they want the best for the country. And that's what Donald Trump tapped into. That's what he represented. Consider this.

A year after the end of the Trump administration, the Christian nationalism that Trump endorsed continues to spread. And some faith leaders are trying to push back. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Tuesday, January 18th. This message comes from NPR sponsor, Sotva, the comfort company. Sotva luxury mattresses are sold online and priced at about 50% less than mattress stores. Visit s-double-a-t-v-a-dot-com-slash-npr-today and save an additional $200.

This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. The Sunday service at the Patriot Church in Lenore City, Tennessee, starts out like a lot of evangelical worship does. And I heard about his healing. There are Bibles in laps, hands raised high in the air, and full-throated singing. My dear Jesus, come and heal my broken heart. And when Reverend Ken Peters picks up the mic, the service takes a sharp turn towards politics.

Don't let the mainstream media or the left tell you that we were not a Christian nation. You know why there's churches everywhere and not mosques? Because we're a Christian nation. NPR correspondent John Burnett recently paid a visit to the Patriot Church. The sermon, titled How Satan Destroys the World, zigzags between familiar grievances of conservative Christians, like abortion and trans rights. But what makes this church different is its embrace of the contemporary agenda of the far right. Masks and vaccinations violate religious freedom. The participants in the January 6th riot were proud patriots.

The Biden administration is evil and illegitimate. You know he's not the most popular president in America. How many Biden parades did you see? Yet he beat Trump with 70 million. Give me a break. We know something's up. Christian nationalism is on the march, providing a godly underpinning for right-wing activism in venues like school board elections and anti-vaccine protests. The movement holds that America is Christian, that the government should keep it that way, and Donald Trump was and is their best hope to accomplish that. After the service, I sit down with Jim Willis, a 72-year-old retired army colonel

and software salesman who wears on his lapel an American flag inside of a Christian cross. This is a spiritual battle. It's good versus evil. Willis says he and his wife fled California for Tennessee because of heavy-handed COVID restrictions, and the Holy Spirit led them to the Patriot Church, which is not afraid to jump into the fight. And unfortunately, evil's taken charge. And we know what their agenda is. Their agenda is to close down churches, to get rid of religion permanently in this country. When I point out that President Biden is a lifelong Catholic who attends weekly mass, he responds, no, he isn't. No, he isn't. In this partisan fissure that we're living in,

imperviousness to facts is a sign of the times. I head outside to talk to Murray Clementson, a law school student and father of three kids, all homeschooled. He was among the 80 percent of white evangelicals who voted for Trump in 2020. Is this a Donald Trump church? I think it is a Donald Trump church. Donald Trump represented what we think it is a Donald Trump church. Donald Trump represented what we stand for as a nation. You go to fly over country, and people have good moral values. They love the Lord, and they want the best for the country. And that's what Donald Trump tapped into.

That's what he represented. The next morning, I returned to Lenora City, to the barn-like building with the American flag painted on the roof that's home to the Patriot Church. It came into being while Trump was president, and it's done well. There are currently four campuses in Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington State, with about 350 members. Two more locations are on the way. Reverend Peters greets me with a warm handshake. He's a rising star on the Christian right and one of the few MAGA church leaders who welcomes journalists. Peters believes so fervently that his candidate won, he went to the Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C. and addressed protesters the day before the Capitol

riot. I told him that one of his parishioners said his church is a Donald Trump church. We love Donald Trump. We love him. We will be accused a lot of worshiping him or being part of his religion as if he's some sort of cult. No, Donald Trump passes away tomorrow, God forbid. Does that stop us? Does that slow us down? Not one bit. We'll be looking for the next guy to lead the way. The rise of Christian nationalism is both a symptom and an accelerant of the polarization that afflicts America. But there's more and more pushback. Last year, a long list of mainstream and progressive church leaders signed an open letter that condemned Christian nationalism as a distortion of the faith and idolatrous of the former president. That letter and the proximity of the Patriot Church

motivated one congregation just up the highway to take a stand. Church of the Savior is perched on a bluff overlooking Interstate 40 in Knoxville. It's a liberal, inclusive congregation that's part of the United Church of Christ. Senior pastor John Gill stood at the pulpit one recent Sunday and started his sermon this way. I think many of us believed and hoped that the fever of misinformation about the election and the pandemic and all the related efforts to undermine democracy in our nation would somehow abate. But that's not happening. Indeed, he says, things have gotten worse.

It's difficult for me to understand how those who embrace this ideology can call themselves Christian and so thoroughly ignore Jesus' call to nonviolence. The youth minister at the Church of the Savior is 58-year-old Reverend Tanya Barnett. She sits with a group of church members who agreed to be interviewed. She says Christian Trumpism has also broken out in the Pentecostal churches where she grew up in Appalachia. My family would go to the Patriot Church if there were one around Big Stone Gap, Virginia. The churches they go to teach the same things. Reverend Barnett is lesbian.

She says her sexuality and her progressive church are still rejected by some members of her family in the coal town of Big Stone Gap. She says she understands why people in the Patriot Church are scared. I think it's some kind of fear of difference, fear of me as being different, fear of the nation changing so that it's not white, cis, straight, male Christians in charge only, and it's moving more toward people who are different. Barnett says in her opinion, Christian patriots are completely missing the true message of the gospel.

Wanting to gain power as Christian nationalists is in direct opposition to what Jesus taught, compassion, kindness, and care for the people who are most oppressed. That's what Jesus did. I mean, there's nothing new about Christian nationalism. It's been part of this country's history for a long time, decades. Ed Sullivan is a 55-year-old librarian who goes to Church of the Savior. As he observes, the Bible has been thrust into Republican politics long before the Patriot Church. Jerry Falwell's moral majority helped to get conservative Christians involved in politics back in the 1980s. But the Patriot Church movement is certainly the most extreme manifestation of that that we have today. Is there any hope, I ask don't see how there's any kind

of common ground that can be found. I put the same question to Reverend Peters of the Patriot Church. He's not optimistic either. He said they don't want a civil war, but coexistence is increasingly difficult in the same United States. That was NPR correspondent John Burnett. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.