Alan Noble | Vox

I’m an evangelical. The religious right leaders who support Trump don’t speak for me.

2016-10-24T09:00:21-04:00

When the tape was released earlier this month of Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, I felt hopeful about politics for the first time in months. It wasn’t that I took pleasure in the fact that Trump was indeed as terrible as I thought he was. I was hopeful because to me the tape was clear, incontrovertible evidence of his unfitness for office, evidence that even the most ardent leaders on the religious right would be unable to ignore.

As a conservative evangelical, the past year has been emotionally and spiritually draining. I have watched as leaders on the religious right who purport to represent me have enthusiastically supported a presidential candidate who opposes the very values that supposedly defined the religious right. And although some evangelicals have denounced Trump’s campaign as promoting a racist, nationalist, fraudulent, and ignorant form of politics, others have warned that if Clinton is elected, the American experiment will come to an end.

Evangelicalism has been sharply divided over Trump, and so my hope was that this tape would finally persuade the remaining evangelical defenders of Trump to abandon him. But for the most part, that’s not what happened.

Several religious right leaders have refused to denounce Trump

Instead of rescinding their endorsements or resigning from their positions on Trump’s advisory board, many leaders doubled down on their support.

Jerry Falwell Jr. announced on CNN that he would support Trump even if the allegations against him were true.

Wayne Grudem, an important evangelical theologian and one of the few leaders who rescinded his endorsement and called for Trump to withdraw, re-endorsed Trump right before the third debate. Grudem argued that since both candidates are “morally objectionable,” we need to focus on policies.

Ben Carson made a similar argument on MSNBC, insisting that Trump’s character is a distraction from the “real” issues.

Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, claimed that he never supported Trump because of their “shared values, rather it was built on shared concerns.”

James Dobson, Mike Huckabee, Robert Jeffress, Ralph Reed, and Eric Metaxas all reasserted their support.

And to a person, they offered the same reason for supporting Trump despite his bragging about sexual assault and the growing number of allegations of assault: Trump may have a bad character, but his policies are good, whereas Clinton has a bad character and her policies are bad. Therefore, Christians should vote for Trump.

Perhaps the most illuminating example of this logic at work was featured in a column for LifeSiteNews, a very popular pro-life website. Managing director Steve Jalsevac warns that Christians are “dangerously falling into Democrats’ trap of focusing on personalities instead of issues” (my emphasis). He laments the way “personal disgust for the character of Donald Trump” has distracted from the issues (my emphasis).

Jalsevac makes explicit the logic of so many leaders on the religious right: Character is fundamentally private and only tangentially related the public work of policymaking and politics. Sin is still bad, but since we are all sinners, and since we are not electing a “pastor in chief,” what matters most is what kind of president the candidates would be. The real is the political. Everything else is just style.

The religious right in 1998: “Character DOES matter. You can’t run a family, let alone a country, without it”

Having grown up as a conservative evangelical during Bill Clinton’s administration, I believe that character matters. This is what leaders on the religious right taught me when Clinton was caught in his affair with Monica Lewinsky. At the time, some people tried to shrug off Clinton’s infidelity as a private matter: Of course he shouldn’t have done it, but this didn’t affect his ability to be president. But conservative evangelicals rejected this logic, and they were right.

In response to President Clinton’s infidelity, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a “Resolution on the Moral Character of Public Officials”:

Therefore, be it RESOLVED, That we, the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting June 9-11, 1998, in Salt Lake City, Utah, affirm that moral character matters to God and should matter to all citizens, especially God’s people, when choosing public leaders; and

Be it further RESOLVED, That we implore our government leaders to live by the highest standards of morality both in their private actions and in their public duties, and thereby serve as models of moral excellence and character; and

…

Be it finally RESOLVED, That we urge all Americans to embrace and act on the conviction that character does count in public office, and to elect those officials and candidates who, although imperfect, demonstrate consistent honesty, moral purity and the highest character.

The resolution bases its conclusion on the belief that the character of public leaders has a formative effect upon the nation. The Old Testament has numerous examples of kingdoms that suffered for the sins of their leaders. Part of the reason for this is that the Bible does not treat sin as primarily internal and private. The effects of sin always go beyond our hearts, potentially harming our family, our neighbors, and our community.

And so if someone is placed in a highly influential position and he or she has a significantly sinful character, the potential for that person to harm others is tremendous. The Southern Baptist Convention understood this and called upon its members to reaffirm the importance of character.

Even today, some of the strongest evangelical voices opposing Trump have come from the Southern Baptists. Two of the denomination’s most respected leaders, Russell Moore and Albert Mohler, have publicly denounced Trump. Still, other prominent leaders and pastors have endorsed Trump, including Richard Land, Jack Graham, and Robert Jeffress, who has made several TV appearances in defense of the candidate.

Also in 1998, James Dobson, then President of Focus on the Family, wrote a letter to his followers deeply worried about the country’s disregard for Bill Clinton’s infidelity:

Our most serious concern … is not with those in Washington; it is with the American people. What has alarmed me throughout this episode has been the willingness of my fellow citizens to rationalize the President’s behavior even after they suspected, and later knew, that he was lying. Because the economy is strong, millions of people have said infidelity in the Oval Office is just a private affair–something between himself and Hillary. We heard it time and again during those months: “As long as Mr. Clinton is doing a good job, it’s nobody’s business what he does with his personal life.”

…

As it turns out, character DOES matter. You can’t run a family, let alone a country, without it. How foolish to believe that a person who lacks honesty and moral integrity is qualified to lead a nation and the world! Nevertheless, our people continue to say that the President is doing a good job even if they don’t respect him personally. Those two positions are fundamentally incompatible. In the Book of James the question is posed, “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring” (James 3:11 NIV). The answer is no.

…

We are facing a profound moral crisis — not only because one man has disgraced us — but because our people no longer recognize the nature of evil. And when a nation reaches that state of depravity — judgment is a certainty.

Contrast this stirring statement with Dobson’s justification of his endorsement of Trump: “I’m not under any illusions that he is an outstanding moral example,” he told Christianity Today in September. But, he went on: “It’s a cliché but true: We are electing a commander-in-chief, not a theologian-in-chief.”

Note that the very argument that is widely used by Dobson and other members of the religious right in 2016 to justify his support of Trump is denounced as a sign of judgment on our nation by Dobson in 1998.

When did religious conservatives abandon “character matters”? Right around the time Trump came along.

This dramatic shift didn’t take place in the late ’90s, however. As recently as December, 2015 Mike Huckabee was denouncing the private/public division of character. On Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, Hewitt asked former Gov. Huckabee if millennials would care about Bill Clinton’s infidelities if they come up in the 2016 campaign.

Huckabee responded:

Probably not, for two reasons. One, they were infants when it all happened. And the second reason is that growing up in a moral climate in which people just don’t seem to care that much about other people’s lives. They don’t make the connection between personal character and public character. They don’t seem to think that there is a correlation. I think there is. I think if a person will lie to an individual, they will lie to a country. I think if a person is not honest with themselves, they’ll be dishonest with the voters. And so I do think character matters, I believe it always had. It doesn’t mean we elect perfect people. We don’t, we never have, we never will, but I do think that it matters that a person represents himself or herself with a level of authenticity and that doesn’t always happen, Hugh, and I do think it’s one of the pitfalls of our current political environment.

Ironically, millennials seem to recognize the danger of Trump’s character, preferring Clinton by 48 points. As a group, however, white evangelicals have overwhelmingly come to accept this private/public character divide. In a recent survey by PRRI, 72 percent of white evangelicals said “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.” In 2011, only 30 percent agreed with this statement.

In just five years, white evangelicals went from overwhelmingly denying a division between private and public character to overwhelmingly embracing the division. It is very difficult for me to imagine an explanation of this shift other than the candidacy of Donald Trump.

I do not want to speculate here on what exactly in Trump’s candidacy caused this shift in white evangelicals. Most of the possibilities are grim and warrant their own thorough exploration. But right now evangelicals can turn back to our traditional teaching that character matters and correct the mistake of supporting Donald Trump.

Evangelicals should reclaim their commitment to the importance of political candidates’ morality

Evangelicals should return to the belief that character and politics are not separate spheres. Your character will necessarily shape your politics, because who you are, what you love, and what you desire determines how you will act. And if you love your own pleasure more than justice or your neighbor, then you will take advantage of your neighbor when it pleases you. And that is precisely the kind of man Trump has demonstrated himself to be.

For example, Trump’s comments about his freedom to grab women because he is famous are not “locker room talk”; they are the words of a man who appears to believe that abusing his power for his own pleasure is funny. They are the words of a man who seems to want other men to be impressed by his power to abuse women without consequences.

After the release of the tapes, many women have come forward to allege that Trump has sexually assaulted them. In addition, some Miss Teen USA contestants have said that he walked in on them getting dressed, just as he bragged about to Howard Stern in 2005. Since he owned the pageant, Trump said that he could get away with seeing the contestants nude. Again, he apparently used his power inappropriately to violate women without consequences and then bragged about it to other men.

Some evangelical leaders have claimed that we just have two morally flawed candidates. They point to Hillary Clinton’s flawed character and her sins and conclude that since they are both sinners, we have to simply judge them on their policies. But that does not reflect a Christian conception of character and behavior.

Like many evangelicals, I cannot vote for Clinton because I do not believe she would be a good president for my neighbor. Since I believe that life begins at conception, Clinton’s intention to repeal the Hyde Amendment so that federal funds can be spent on abortions reveals a profound flaw in her character.

But her flaw does not magically make Trump’s flaws any less grievous. Given what we know about Trump from his own words, from his actions, and from the multiple allegations against him, he will abuse his power. There is no justification for giving a person who abuses his power one of the most powerful roles on earth, no matter how much he denies the allegations or offers feigned remorse. And that is why it is so important for evangelicals to return to the belief that character does shape a politician’s public work.

I understand the anguish that many evangelicals feel at being faced with what appears to be a hopeless decision, which is why I have explained that I cannot vote for either candidate. If we believe the character of both candidates makes them unfit for office, the answer is not to deny that character matters, but to find an alternative.

At this point, I believe the best choice is to support Evan McMullin, a man of good character and good politics. No, he will almost certainly not win the presidency. However, with our vote we can live out a hope for a president who is worthy of the title and who we believe will bless our neighbors and our country. And in the process, we will be working toward something essential to the flourishing of our country: the cultivation of virtues.

Alan Noble, PhD, is the editor in chief of Christ and Pop Culture, co-founder of Public Faith, a professor, and a member of the And Campaign.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

Evangelicals like me can’t vote for Trump — or Clinton. Here’s what we can do instead.

2017-12-14T11:43:18-05:00

Pastor Joshua Nink prays for Donald Trump after a Sunday service at First Christian Church in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in January 2016 | AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File

Suppose you believe the presidential frontrunners are unfit for office — so unfit, in fact, that they are a threat to the moral, political, and social fabric of our nation. For the past three decades, conservative evangelical Christians in America have felt this way about Democratic nominees, particularly because of their stances on abortion and, more recently, religious liberty.

As we see it, a failure to protect the most vulnerable lives and our freedom of religion in a pluralist society is a direct threat to the foundations of that society.

White evangelical disdain for the Democratic Party is borne out in our voting patterns: According to exit polls, 79 percent of evangelicals voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, 73 percent voted for John McCain in 2008, and 79 percent went for George W. Bush in 2004.

But GOP nominees have never been ideal candidates. Whether it is neocon hawkishness or the expansion of the federal government at the cost of local, community-based governance, most conservative evangelicals have had some serious objections to the policies of GOP presidential nominees. But then, that is the two-party system. Nobody really gets what they want. We all just have to settle for someone close enough to our values.

Like many younger conservatives, I was very uncomfortable with Bush’s interventionism and surveillance state. And although I did not vote for Obama, I became very frustrated and disillusioned with the GOP when McCain chose Sarah Palin as a running mate. This seemed to me like a failure to understand the seriousness of the presidency.

What options do we have if we value traditional conservatism and Christian values?

Romney’s run in 2012 was uninspiring, and since my mind was focused on finishing a dissertation, I did not have strong enough feelings about either candidate.

But I was excited about the 2016 election. I had grown to see the threats to religious liberty in our nation, but I was also concerned about the reactionary responses to these threats from some influential conservative politicians and pundits, responses that I felt would only distract us from the critical work of pluralism.

My political writing at Christ and Pop Culture, where I am editor in chief, focused primarily on rebuking the extremes of conservatism as a conservative and calling for a more truthful, compassionate, and virtuous movement.

I was particularly alarmed by the popularity, even among some Christians, of fringe right-wing sites that promoted conspiracy theories, inflammatory and racist rhetoric toward minorities, and the demonization of Muslims. It was from these sites that Trump would later lift (intentionally or not) much of his platform and rhetoric.

My hope for the 2016 election was to see a conservative candidate who would help heal our many racial, religious, and class divisions; work to defend the dignity of all people; and promote community-based politics, rather than sovereign individualism and the impersonal state. My experience in the Presbyterian Church in America has taught me that “I am not my own, but belong — body and soul, in life and death — to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ,” as it says in the opening to the Heidelberg Catechism.

My doctoral research at Baylor University on secularism and modernity only reinforced my belief that the concept of sovereign individualism, which dramatically shapes so much of our consumer and political culture, is a threat to human flourishing.

And while no GOP primary candidate came close to advocating these principles as fully as I held them, I was happy to support Marco Rubio’s run as someone who appeared to have a fairly strong respect for human dignity and, relatively speaking, eschewed the apocalyptic and reactionary rhetoric of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. But that was not meant to be.

I have heard evangelicals speak about choosing to vote for the “least of two evils” during past presidential elections, but in retrospect, such hand-wringing feels quaint. For conservative evangelicals like me, the 2016 election really is a choice between two evils.

From the Democrats we have a candidate who radically supports abortion by ending the Hyde Amendment and who most suspect will advocate for LGBTQ laws that put religious institutions in conflict with the law or their conscience.

Clinton’s handling of her email scandal also shows an indifference or even distain for the rule of law and the tremendous responsibility of her position. In short, she appears untrustworthy as a politician and indifferent or hostile to the concerns of many evangelicals.

And from the Republicans we have a deceptive, infantile, racist demagogue with no political principles aside from his own self-interest.

What options do we have if we value traditional conservatism and Christian values?

Conservative evangelicals must not concede to Trump simply to stop Clinton from being elected. In fact, the best way forward for conservative evangelicals is to refuse to submit to a Trump nomination and to focus on down-ticket elections, local government, and community flourishing.

At the same time, we must begin the long process of rebuilding the conservative political imagination through institutions that work from conservative principles but appeal honestly, winsomely, and inclusively to both the current conservative voter base and voters who have traditionally supported Democratic candidates.

Why not Trump

Trump at a Sunday service at First Christian Church in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in January 2016. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong).

While many conservative evangelicals have resigned themselves to Donald Trump as the only choice in this election, a discerning evaluation of his candidacy reveals that we should not support him regardless of how bad a Clinton presidency might be.

Two of the most basic prerequisites for leading our country must be a respect and love of your neighbor and an adherence to moral and political principles of some kind. Yet Trump has consistently demonstrated a callous disregard for nearly every group of people, including the oppressed and vulnerable. And the only lasting political principle he has stood by is “winning” for himself.

Certainly Trump would not be the first president with moral failings and weak principles, but what sets him apart is that he boasts in these faults.

Trump has boasted of infidelities, profited off gambling, mocked the handicapped, cheered and offered financial assistance for his supporters who fight protestors, supported abortion (until his fortuitous change of heart before the election), called for war crimes against innocent people, demonized minorities and immigrants, knowingly played upon racist fears, promoted open racists through social media, promoted conspiracy theories, and crudely treated women. And the list grows every single day.

Even when Trump pretends to recognize the importance of minorities and groups, he very openly uses them and their culture as pawns: I love Hispanics, because I’m eating a taco bowl! I love Christians, because, look, I own a Bible! I love black people, because look at my African American over there!

At every turn, instead of appealing to various demographics as real people whose concerns and needs he has an obligation to consider as a potential future leader, Trump views them as props in his grand marketing campaign. Except it’s not even good marketing. Trump is the late-night infomercial: “I’ll even throw in a token minority!”

In response to these profound violations of human decency, he scoffs, changes the subject, denies he even said it, or doubles down. As he has said, he does not ask God for forgiveness, because he doesn’t believe he needs it.

That insight into Trump’s perception of his own soul should tell evangelicals all they need to know about him as a leader. Any man who is so unaware of his own depravity that he cannot recognize his need for forgiveness is incapable of justly leading any country. There simply is no way around this fact for evangelicals.

Perhaps even worse, Trump lacks the principles necessary to lead and represent America. His politics are not driven by carefully considered values and principles of justice and governance. Every position he takes is chosen based on the need of the moment and therefore can change rapidly. He swears he will destroy ISIS but calls for a smaller global footprint. He will build a wall but make Mexico pay for it. He will prevent jobs from leaving the US but has argued for outsourcing.

But most often, Trump doesn’t even bother to make specific promises, let alone explain how he will fulfill them. Instead, he tells us that he will give us “everything,” and that he is the only one who can do so.

Such brazen disregard for the truth and reality shows the character of a man who is driven by one principle: to win this election and gain more power. Under such a principle, any deception, any exaggeration, and any ridiculous policy proposal can be justified.

A man who is so unaware of his own depravity that he cannot recognize his need for forgiveness is incapable of justly leading any country. There simply is no way around this for evangelicals.

For conservative Christians who are (rightfully) concerned about the appointment of several new Supreme Court justices, Trump’s lack of integrity (except to his own aggrandizement) means we have no reason to believe he will follow through with his promises. Likewise, his recent pro-life stance cannot be taken as a serious moral and political position, but rather is the blatantly empty promise of a con man.

To vote for Donald Trump is to betray the values of both conservatism and Christianity, and the results may do serious harm to our nation and our souls.

There are more pragmatic reasons to oppose Trump. Supporting him now will undermine the ability of conservative evangelicals to speak prophetically against corruption, infidelity, oppression, and deception in government later. If we excuse these flaws in Trump, we have no right to criticize other politicians for the same ones. This would go against decades of the religious right’s insistence that character matters in politicians.

It is also true that it will be much easier for a Republican Congress to oppose a Democratic president than a Republican one. The election of Hillary Clinton will provide a rallying point for conservatives, making it easy for them to unify in opposing unconstitutional or harmful policies. But if Trump becomes president, Republicans in Congress will feel a substantial obligation to fall in line with their party leader’s platform, and we have already seen how effective Trump is at bullying otherwise principled politicians into submission.

If we know that both candidates will require considerable restraints in order to protect our rights and promote flourishing, then we should prefer the enemy outside the gates to the one inside.

For proof that a President Trump would be difficult for conservatives to oppose, look no further than Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan. Rubio has announced his support of the man he repeatedly called a con artist unfit for office — a hurtful and disappointing turn of events for Rubio’s substantial evangelical following. Paul Ryan’s endorsement last week was no less distressing.

Both of these men understand Trump’s threat to our nation and the party, but whether out of fear or self-delusion or political pressure, they have submitted to a bully. Ryan’s announcement insisted that he would vote for Trump because the nominee has promised to work with the House to pass various Republican agendas, but this explanation is patently absurd. If GOP leaders cannot control Trump before he is elected, how on earth will they do so once he has even more power?

If Not Trump or Clinton, then what?

Clinton at a South Carolina campaign event in 2008. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

What remains for conservative evangelicals to do? A subset of evangelicals believes it would be wiser to vote for Hillary Clinton because a Trump presidency would be far too damaging to our nation and the safety of minorities.

But most conservative evangelicals cannot in good conscience vote for Clinton, and voting for Trump is harmful for our country, conservatism, and our witness to the world — so we must choose to either support a third-party candidate or abstain from voting for president.

So far, the closest we’ve come to a conservative third-party candidate has been David French, whom Bill Kristol asked to run. But on Sunday night the National Review writer and attorney announced that he was unwilling to take on the task, believing that he simply was not a strong enough candidate. He lacked the capital and name recognition.

And while I was ready to support a run by French, many of his views on race and the culture wars would have made him a weak candidate to draw supporters from the dissatisfied right and left.

I had heard several minority evangelicals express dissatisfaction over French because of his treatment of issues of race in his National Review column. But since French is an honest and intelligent man, I believe he could have moderated on those critical issues. As it is, he has left us with yet another call for a third-party candidate:

Indeed, the path is there. I spent the last several days with some of the best minds in politics. I learned that the ballot-access challenge can be met with modest effort (by an existing network ready to activate), that the polling for a true outsider independent was better than most people know, and that there are many, many Americans — including outstanding political talents — who are willing to quit their jobs — today — to help provide the American people with an alternative.

Alternatively, we can write in candidates, vote for Gary Johnson in a symbolic act (though Johnson’s support for nearly unrestrained personal freedoms will be acceptable to few evangelicals who view community and limits as social and moral goods), or abstain from voting for president altogether.

But unless a third-party candidate with broad appeal emerges, evangelical Christians would be better served by abstaining from that vote and shifting their energy toward electing people to Congress and local and state governments who have the opportunity to restrain whichever candidate is elected as needed. Our success here will be limited but still far more effective and virtuous than folding to Trump’s coercion and losing our political voice.

Toward a future conservatism

(Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Whomever we vote for this November, this election has taught us that we have much more basic and long-term work to do in order to have a robust, effective, principled, and influential conservative movement again.

Donald Trump happened in no small part because a loose network of right-wing alternative media sites, pundits, and personalities spent eight years promoting skepticism of the “establishment,” paranoia over immigration and Muslims, exaggerating the dangers of political correctness, peddling conspiracy theories about President Obama, and raising fears of race wars.

While conservative think tanks may have scholarly and effective solutions to many problems facing middle- and lower-class Americans, the GOP base has largely only heard the answers given in right-wing media—answers designed to retain listeners, viewers, and readers, not to actually solve problems.

Therefore, in order to see the kind of change needed to prevent someone like Trump from rising to power in the future, it is essential for conservative donors to focus their investments on institutions. They should target institutions designed to reach the voter base not with hyperbole and half-truths, and not to whip up the base into faux-outrage with reactionary viral hot takes, but to clearly, compassionately, and engagingly communicate conservative values and ideals.

These institutions should be inspired by traditional conservative philosophy, guided by virtues, and focused intensely on outreach to minority communities — not primarily because these communities are necessary for the continued existence of the GOP (although that is true) but because any national politics that does not represent the concerns and needs of all its citizens is not with its name.

There are no good political options for evangelical Christians in 2016, but we have a critical opportunity to stand by the convictions we have proclaimed and to do so in a way that offers other Americans an alternative political imagination, one committed to principled pluralism, to the flourishing of local communities, and to the common good.

None of these viable options will be easy, cheap, or quick, but the mess that we are witnessing right now cannot be seen as merely “politics as usual.” If we delude ourselves into voting Trump because “it’s just politics,” we will end up with unjust politics.

Alan Noble, PhD, is editor in chief of Christ and Pop Culture, a professor, and a member of the And Campaign.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.