Evangelicals: From Pulpit To Politics

[Music] hello there i'm chuck todd and welcome to another episode of meet the press reports where each week we take one issue and dive deep into it this week it's evangelicals when donald trump announced his presidential campaign in 2015 a big reason campaign strategist at the time doubted he could actually win the nomination was that they did not see how an adulterous twice divorced casino-owning reality tv star could win over the most conservative part of the republican party's base white evangelicals but from the beginning trump got strong support from these values voters and easily cleared the field he went on to win 77 percent of the evangelical vote in 2016 and he did even better four years later winning 84 against joe biden it was clear then that evangelical support for donald trump was not an aberration but an affirmation there are many evangelicals who want to move on from donald trump those that are concerned that the devotional has taken a backseat to the political and that the very term evangelical has lost its religious meaning altogether but they are in the minority in some churches now it's commonplace to hear anti-mass tirades and vaccine disinformation nearly half of pastors have reported hearing parishioners repeating conspiracy theories and three in five white evangelicals believe the 2020 election was somehow stolen from donald trump our own ann thompson went to tennessee recently to see how one city is figuring out what it means to be an evangelical today under this flag painted roof religion and politics mix i want trump to come back sooner than later but you know it would be a lot better than trump coming back jesus coming back with gusto biden you trouble israel leftists you trouble israel this is the patriot church on the outskirts of knoxville tennessee you unvaccinated people you are causing the trouble in the land that's what they say founded by pastor ken peters this nation was founded on predominantly christian values by predominantly christian people we just want to keep that in play we just want to keep our roots alive and not let this reconstruction this tearing up of our nation's roots and a new set of values is being pushed on us it literally is so whose values are being pushed on you these are leftist worldly values they can't stand christian culture why because we believe marriage is between a man and a woman we believe that there are only two genders we believe that life in the womb is actually human life and they're murdering human life for money he's not afraid to take sides and thinks god does too one thing i've learned about scripture and the lord is god can use anybody in the bible he even used a donkey and if god can use a donkey he can use president trump do you think god is using president trump absolutely i think president trump is is a miracle i think god picked donald trump an imperfect vessel to be the champion of his people that intertwining of patriotism politics and religion is attracting a devoted following when you're in a culture where everybody's trying to silence you it's great to be able to share how you really feel with people who feel the same way we're just checking it out actually saw it on cnn and if they say something bad about it it might be good peter's leading one side of the battle for the soul of the evangelical church some of the evangelical church i think is soft i think they're cowardly and they're trying to ride the fence between the left and and the right and so that's kind of where the divide is here in the heart of the bible belt i would say as a person of faith who's been around church all my life that the bible belt is unbuckling across town pastor phil nordstrom leads the life church what do you mean that the bible belt is unbuckling the branding of christianity has suffered i think that our association with political extremism has especially turned off a younger generation toward evangelicalism so one of the challenges we face right now is who are we what does it mean to be an evangelical nordstrom is decidedly old school a pro-life pastor pointedly staying away from partisan politics on sunday the funny thing is i'm probably personally pretty conservative so i don't come across as like i'm a liberal evangelical but but people get the spirit i get the feeling pretty quick that we're pretty inclusive church that everyone's welcome that we're trying to not fight the culture wars from the pulpit nordstrom builds his church with passengers he meets driving for uber and lyft you have a wonderful day all right appreciate you under his soft-spoken demeanor a growing anger that the things he loves are misconstrued i think the easy thing to do would be to say i'm no longer an evangelical or like i'm no longer a patriot no i'm a patriot and i'm an evangelical and i'm proud of it i still believe in a personal relationship with jesus christ which is what an evangelical in my view is a view shared by his men's group amen all right meeting for saturday morning bible study we're christians because we follow christ and not because we're americans and our faith isn't in the political system nor is nordstrom's in the former president a lot of pastors have the approach of i'll just put it just bluntly hold your nose and vote for trump in other words we're we're not really totally on board with his attitude spirit but if you give us those kind of policies we'll put up with almost anything if that makes sense does that make sense to you it does not make sense to me because and the reason it doesn't make sense to me is because the end doesn't justify the means two men of faith with different ways of serving god peters marched to the capitol on january 6th nordstrom marched with black lives matter peters wraps himself in red white and blue nordstrom doesn't have a flag inside his church peters gives voting instructions from his pulpit nordstrom thinks voting is a private matter evangelicals first became a political force in 1976. their candidate then the born-again baptist democrat jimmy carter my name is jimmy carter and i'm running for president four years later jerry falwell's moral majority led evangelicals to the republican party and helped deliver to ronald reagan a 44 state election victory evangelical fundamentalist churches follow the cue of their pastor efforts soon augmented by the christian coalition today many of the people that would have been part of the christian coalition are just in the republican party university of notre dame professor david campbell writes about religion and politics how did we go from jimmy carter to patriot churches it's not like americans many americans didn't already think of themselves as evangelicals before jimmy carter they did they just never connected it to politics so you could sort of think of jimmy carter's campaign in 1976 where he made much of his evangelical bona fides is essentially opening a pandora's box for american politics that has brought us to the current state where evangelicals are not just a religious movement but a very powerful political movement at the patriot church peters preaches from the gospel of the republican right wing railing against vaccine mandates i don't want to shove that in my body why should i have to insisting the election was stolen of course they don't care about the dominion machines and that religious freedom is under attack it's freedom of religion not freedom from religion in the patriot movement do you have to win all these battles or is there room for compromise there's definitely room for compromise compromise like i said we believe as christians that everyone should be free so within the realm of freedom yes there is compromise is there a compromise on gay marriage that's possible absolutely i would say civil unions what's the compromise on immigration yeah legal immigration what about on the issue of abortion services is there a compromise there no not murder human life but even at liberty university founded by jerry falwell there are fissures over faith and partisanship centered on its political think tank the standing for freedom center student matt morris gathered 1 000 signatures from the liberty community demanding the center shut down i think the signers of the petition are sick of being told that christianity needs to look a certain way in politics or that it needs to be engaged in politics the center's social media manager christian losval says it is following falwell seniors vision of evangelicals participating in the public square those are not political issues those are god issues that have been made political we have a moral obligation as believers to do what we can with what we've been given in this country to preserve and protect what god has deemed to be good some take it a step further to american exceptionalism says author and historian kristen dumay we see these broader trends throughout mainstream evangelicalism itself this embrace of patriotism this commitment to christian nationalism how close is christian nationalism to white nationalism it is close in many ways because christian nationalism holds up this mythical understanding of america as god's chosen nation and it really does whitewash uh the troubled history of racism in america so it's not a huge step in many cases from ardent christian nationalists to white nationalism an association pastor peters vehemently disputes they're wonderful christian black folk and and asian and hispanic you know christianity is for the whole world it's for every race it's every for every tribe every tongue so no it has nothing to do with white at all i don't even understand uh how that could uh be considered that sort of thing i don't even get it but you know people make that connection i guess i don't i don't make that connection at all trying to strengthen the connection between god and country people yet dividing of faith and a nation so what is the future of the evangelical movement joining me now to discuss is my colleague ann thompson who you just heard there eddie glad junior he's chair of the department of african american studies at princeton university and david french is a senior editor of the dispatch and look anytime you go into a reported reporting assignment you have an idea of what you're going to find but you're surprised by some things what surprised you the most on this assignment i think when i asked people at the patriot church why they attended that church you know i've been covering religion for truly decades now chuck and usually when people when you talk to people about going to church they speak about god they speak about seeking spiritual nourishment i didn't hear any of that at the patriot church these are people who go to that church because there are like-minded people people who think like them on issues of abortion on issues of same-sex marriage they are also all people who are very worried about the u.s constitution and that it is being somehow harmed and the very fabric of this country is being harmed by what's happening in the world today david french here you uh you live in tennessee she captured this well i'll tell you there are two things that were captured particularly well here one is from the patriot church pastor and patriot churches are there's not many patriot churches out there but he said something that a lot of people say and it was this that god had this specific purpose for donald trump that he had this sort of kind of special calling and this is something you're going to hear a lot particularly in pentecostal churches that it's not just that sort of god and his sovereignty um you know god in his sovereignty permitted trump to be president the way he does all presidents but that there was something special about trump so that was number one and another thing that was really important was the other pastor she highlighted how he was befuddled befuddled may not be the right word but kind of taken aback at the idea that his leaving of politics would in any way imply that he was some sort of squish theologically because that's what a lot of people imply is that if you don't support donald trump then you're you don't believe the bible there's something wrong with you theologically and for a lot of us like myself and and russell moore and some other people um who are evangelical we are theologically orthodox it's been incredibly disorienting to see that our support for our opposition for trump was sort of taken as a sign of spiritual backsliding you know eddie the the phrase that i can't stop thinking about is the bible belt is unbuckling right it it it was a very i think uh it was a pretty sticky quote because you see what he's saying the thing that i take away is where where's the christianity that seems to be what's missing right it seems as if the adjective is overly determining the noun white evangelical right and let me just say this up front i'm the former president of the american academy of religion the largest body of scholars of religion in the world so this is in my wheelhouse chuck and part of what we have to do is to kind of understand the historical backdrop to this what i was hearing from pastor peters in knoxville sounded really familiar it was the language of paul warwick uh of the you know fr that was the organization free congress foundation it was the language of those who responded to the secularization of american culture coming out of the 60s and 70s responding to desegregation responding to the women's rights movement responding to the gay rights movement so what we're seeing in donald trump is in some ways the culmination of 50 years of organizing and although trump was a broken vessel he's a christian in progress he is in fact if i if we read him correctly it seems to me uh an outcome of organizing that we have seen in the country among white evangelical christians on the right um for for at least four or five decades trump you know and one of the things i i have a podcast with kristin dumay who wrote jesus and john wayne and one of the things she noted is how many christian denominations feel as if what's happening in the evangelical movement is staining all christianity a bit have you found this i think what what's happening in the evangelical movement you could say the same thing is happening in the catholic church in many ways it is the left versus right and it all starts from the issue of abortion and goes from there but you know the thing that i was really struck by in talking to pastor peters is why he started the patriot church outside of knoxville tennessee he said it was because of people's political beliefs there he knew they would have a home there so now there's a patriot church in knoxville in lynchburg virginia home of liberty university two out in washington state where he's from and he's got two more on the drawing board it will be interesting to see just how far this movement goes are we ever going to see a you know i was raised by parents who said hey the two things you don't discuss for religion and politics of course that's what i do for a living these days but david we're part of the is this part of the politicizing of everything movement is this what's happened to evangelicals or is it deeper than that oh it's a part of politicizing of everything and also turning politics into religion there's some really interesting research research that shows that people who describe themselves as evangelical more than half of them go to church once a month or less okay so in many ways evangelicalism is becoming a god and country lifestyle brand for some folks there's even research that shows that two-thirds of republican protestants who are two-thirds of republican protestants who go to church only yearly call themselves evangelicals so evangelical has become such a religious marker i mean a political marker that that people who even have a casual connection uh to religion so long as they're republican so long as their white republicans are calling themselves evangelical and that's a big part of this movement that a lot of evangelical leaders don't like to recognize they they like to say that oh look we're all these church-going folks who've decided on donald trump not not as much not as much as they might lead you to believe eddie is this uh is do we even fight to keep religion out of politics it i could argue the best thing for all religious movements would be to separate from politics um but that's not the history of our country but would it be healthier i don't think so what that would become the occasion for people to act in bad faith right you know the late philosopher richard rorty would say that religion was by definition a conversation stopper i don't think that's true i think we want people to be to act in good faith these are my commitments this is why i hold this particular position and i want to argue for in in the public domain so banning it doesn't make much sense to me well it's a conversation uh that is always awkward to have religion and politics but these days it's an important one to have and you guys are thoughtful people to have that discussion ann thompson terrific reporting david french and eddie glad junior you guys always add so much to the conversation thank you both uh coming up i sat down you've heard his name invoked a few times here russell moore while i sat down with russell moore and where the evangelical movement is right now and where it's headed ten years ago i was having parents come to me and say i'm worried about my children they're losing the faith now i'm having children coming to me and saying i'm worried about my parents welcome back from 2013 until this past summer dr russell moore was the president of the ethics and religious liberty commission it's the policy arm of the southern baptist convention dr moore also was one of the highest profile conservative evangelical opponents of donald trump he is now the public theologian at christianity today i spoke with dr moore earlier and began by asking him about a phrase he often uses the secularization of evangelicalism the use of religion as a means to an end uh for an end of politics uh for for for various sorts of ends that there really can transform and change the nature of christianity itself so if you look at for instance some of the tactics often used by people who are claiming to be evangelical christians they're often quite short of the sermon on the mount what's fascinating is that if you look at some of the pew studies more people are identifying as white evangelical and yet fewer people are going to church it is it is right it is it is it is not it is not as if these people are finding religion in the sense of what that phrase would have meant just a decade ago what is happening here well that's what concerns me i'm talking every day to church going uh evangelical christians who don't want to use the word evangelical because it's become merely a political word and then those who don't go to church but who are using evangelical in a political sense as a way to own the libs that's not a that's not a good development in my in my view once evangelical christianity is defined not by the gospel but by some sort of cultural or political movement we're in a really dangerous place evangelical christianity is meant to be the good news of jesus christ and handing that over to a political agenda no matter what the political agenda is a bad idea and that's especially true when we're in this crisis moment where the moral credibility of virtually every institution is being challenged and the church is certainly no exception you know it's interesting david french i want to use this phrase correctly he calls these unchurched evangelicals he says they're helping to create a god and country lifestyle brand um but it seems totally separated from a values approach to living uh living a god-fearing life yes and i i think that's the end result of having so many evangelical leaders say character doesn't matter winning matters uh diminishing the uh the role of theology and moral formation and highlighting the role of evangelicalism as a voting bloc i think when people see that they start to emulate uh the characteristics of their leaders and um i mean we have seen evangelical leaders speaking in uh in terms that would have been incomprehensible in the bill clinton era and i think that's having an effect and so often what i'm doing is spending all day talking faithful evangelical young people uh out of walking away from the church at the same time that you have people who haven't been uh in a church since vacation bible school but think they're evangelicals because of their political beliefs you know it's interesting i'll have uh family acquaintances who push back and say um well you know it's because of bill clinton that i decided that i should uh accept donald trump how much is that connected well i think that there's a reasonable argument that many of my fellow evangelical christians made and make that they were voting for the lesser of two evils that they were voting for supreme court appointments and and that they they weren't voting for the rest of it and in the cases where there are people who did that and then wanted to hold the president accountable for his moral failings in other areas that's reasonable enough it's not my view but it's a it's a reasonable view the problem is when we get into this idea that whatever the tactics of the quote-unquote other side is should be the the tactics that we adopt i think that's a a really social darwinian form of form of thinking about how we engage with our neighbors and i think we ought to have a distinctive witness one that's characterized by something quite different from all that when you hear that the former president who told a christian broadcast he went on television told him he did more for christianity or for evangelicals or for religion himself that nobody else had done more what what do you think when you hear him say this you know i think that's the tragic part about the past several years if i had heard that in 2015 or 2016 or 2017 even i think i would have been i would have been outraged all day i would have flinched immediately when hearing it i wasn't really even surprised i think i gave it a half seconds thought and moved on because we have so so many things like that being said that we've become used to it and i think that's that's part of the problem right now the the coarsening uh and the trivialization of rhetoric in american life we're getting used to it and that's dangerous christian nationalism when you hear that phrase it it strikes fear into some people when they hear it um but that seems to be a growing movement within the movement what do you make of it well i'm not sure that christian nationalism is a helpful term just because i have heard it used correctly about people who want to use god as a as a totem for kind of a white identity politics i've also heard people use christian nationalism to describe christians who simply are engaged in the civic arena that's not an appropriate use of the term and frankly i'm very concerned about the rise of christian nationalism not just in the united states but in europe in latin america and elsewhere and so people who were worried that somehow george w bush was leading a theocratic takeover actually are part of the problem here because when we actually do have a serious uh issue emerging around the world right it seems it it seems as though we're immune to it the word evangelical obviously do you no longer want to be described engagement yeah do you no longer want to be described as an evangelical has the word been distorted you know at the very in the middle in the middle of 2016 i stopped calling myself evangelical for about a month and i found that i couldn't find a replacement for it to describe what it means to be a gospel-centered christian protestant christian who believes in the things that we believe now i just find i have to explain it to people it was meant to be a shorthand the shorthand doesn't work when we have to add several sentences to explain it but i haven't found an alternative dr russell moore this is exactly the conversation i hope we could have uh you brought a lot of thought and heart to this thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective thanks for having me and that's all we have for meet the press reports this week next week we're going to take a look at a topic that is animating school boards all across the country it's the fight over how race is taught in public schools i'll see you next week right here on peacock and this sunday on meet the [Music] press thanks for watching our youtube channel follow today's top stories and breaking news by downloading the nbc news app you

Channel: NBC News

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Keywords: politics, Chuck Todd, NBC News, Washington, political, interview, public affairs, public, Senate, President, Representatives, Sunday, leader, issues, roundtable, Congress, commentary, panel

Id: o5kimddVS38

Length: 27min 24sec (1644 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 20 2021