The testimony by former porn actress Stormy Daniels in the Donald Trump hush money trial got me thinking for the umpteenth time about Evangelical Christians and Trump, given Trump’s behavior.
Daniels testified in detail about her one night stand (Trump denies the affair) with Trump in a hotel room in 2006 just months after Melania gave birth to their son. It’s just one of Trump’s reported infidelities. In a separate case last year, Trump was found liable for sexually abusing a woman.
Trump infamously claimed in the Access Hollywood video that “when you’re a star you can do anything” [to women]. Grab them by the p—-.”
Earlier this year he started hocking Bibles to raise money. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, wrote in his book that Trump, after meeting with prominent evangelicals in 2016, said, “Can you believe that bulls—? Can you believe people believe that bulls—?”
Yet even after those instances and more, most Evangelicals stand with the former president.
A Pew Research Poll released in March found that 67 percent of White Evangelical Protestants have a favorable view of Trump. That must hold true in West Virginia, where at least 40 percent of residents say they are Evangelicals and Trump has won by 40 points in the last two elections.
How is it that deeply religious individuals can support someone whose actions are so antithetical to their beliefs?
Tim Alberta, a journalist, author of the book “The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory,” son of an Evangelical preacher and a practicing Christian himself, says many Evangelicals who support Trump see him as a mercenary.
“They [Christians believe] are under siege, that Christianity is under attack in this country, in the culture [from] the Godless left,” he said in an interview with CNN. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“If you believe the barbarians are at the gate, you might just be willing to turn to a barbarian to do your fighting for you,” he said.
Brad Sherman, an Evangelical Republican state legislator in Iowa, said of Trump in an NPR interview back before the Iowa Caucus, “He’s brash; he’s a fighter. That’s who we need right now in the political arena, in the environment that exists. You gotta be tough.”
Another Evangelical, Shelley Buhrow, told NPR, “Have you read the Bible? Many people in the Bible were married multiple times and they didn’t always do the perfect thing.”
This attitude is a dramatic shift from a few short years ago. Republicans, conservatives and Evangelicals were critical of Bill Clinton because he had an affair with Monica Lewinsky and lied about it. Back then, character mattered.
James Dobson, one of the leaders of the Christian right, said at the time that he was “alarmed [at] the willingness of my fellow citizens to rationalize the President’s behavior even after they suspect, and later knew, that he was lying. You can’t run a family, let alone a country, without character.”
Evangelist Franklin Graham, in an op-ed in Wall Street Journal following the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, wrote, “If he (Clinton) will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those to whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American people.”
But that feels like such a long time ago now.
Perhaps Evangelicals see Trump as the modern day version of King David who united the tribes of Israel. He had many wives and concubines. He sent Uriah, one of his generals, to die in battle so he could have his way with Bathsheba.
However, David did eventually confess, repent and was humbled. Maybe that is what Evangelicals are waiting for from Trump. If his past behavior is any indication, I wouldn’t count on it.