written by Jerry Gramckow

How Did Evangelicals Ever Join In On The Grand Old Party?

Evangelicals’ Erroneous Epistemology

On October 26, 1978, 268 of the world’s most prominent evangelical leaders met in the Hyatt Regency Hotel at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. After three days of deliberation there, the group released the publication they’d gathered to produce; they called it The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

Signing the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

Outside evangelical circles the statement went utterly unnoticed. Even within the evangelical community, few learned of the evangelical leaders’ meeting and the product it produced. But in the coming decades, as the Chicago Statement’s overall simplified premise—if not its specifics—trickled down to the evangelical masses, it had an incalculable impact on American culture.

The gist of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is that the Bible—as originally written—was error-free. The theme the statement’s authors then implied was that Christians could count on the error-free Bible as their reference point for life. One could confidently order one’s daily life on the inerrant text of the 66 books of Hebrew/Christian Scripture that make up the Bible. Decades later—today—America is experiencing an alarming unintended consequence, not from the document itself, but from evangelicals’ misunderstanding and misguided response to the trickled-down concept of inerrancy.

What Is an Evangelical?

Who are these evangelicals who view ancient Hebrew and Greek scripture as error-free and vital as a guide for daily living? To understand evangelicalism one must first understand fundamentalism, the root from which evangelicalism sprang. The term “fundamentalist” came from a reference to affirming what many Christians proclaimed as the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Those fundamentals typically included:

declaring the Bible to be God’s inspired revelation of Himself and of His ways and plans for humans;
God as Creator;
man’s willful fall from grace, which led to every human being born with a “sin nature”;
the arrival of Jesus—via virgin birth—as the Messiah who took on the sins of all humanity and died to satisfy God’s wrath against all those sins;
the formation of the Church made up of those who believe the just-mentioned creeds;
and Jesus’ eventual return to judge non believers and to establish His eternal kingdom.

And while some would have added other fundamentals to that list, all fundamentalists would have stood firm on the basics listed above. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fundamentalists emphasized those key elements largely as a reaction to secularists’ proclamations disputing them. That era was, as most now know, a time of intense rivalry between newly emerging fields of science and long-held religious beliefs, reaching its apex with the Scopes Trial, regarding the teaching of evolution in the Tennessee public schools in 1925.

Rather than the validity of the law under which Scopes was being charged, it was the authority of the Bible versus the soundness of Darwin's theory that became the focus of the arguments. And though the court sided against the teaching of evolution, they say that the progressive secularists had “won” the argument culturally. But with great societal change comes the whiplash that sends fear into conservatives, into those determined to preserve the status quo. And sometimes that requires nothing more than a different telling of the same old story.

In 1942 a faction within fundamentalism broke away from that often contentious confederation of uncompromising fundamentalist Christians. The new group sought to retain their faith in the biblical fundamentals, but to do so in a less truculent manner. That breakaway group called itself the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Here’s how the NAE defines an evangelical: “Evangelicals take the Bible seriously and believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.”

The term ‘evangelical’ comes from the Greek word euangelion, meaning ‘the good news’ or the ‘gospel.’ Thus, the evangelical faith focuses on the ‘good news’ of salvation brought to sinners by Jesus Christ.” Yet ideologically, there is actually little to no difference between fundamentalism and evangelicalism. One might say the primary difference between fundamentalists and evangelicals is that the former tended to engage in a gospel hard sell while the latter chose a gentler approach in presenting the “good news.” In other words, the birth of evangelicalism was nothing more than a fundamentalist rebrand.

The Evangelical Influence on American Culture

Jimmy Carter with Roe vs Wade Attorney Sarah Weddington

Though the fundamentalist evangelicals who formed the NAE in 1942 were not focused on political involvement, by 1978, the year of the Chicago Statement’s publication, that changed. It was during Jimmy Carter’s presidency that the NAE expanded its D.C. operation and became more involved in politics because President Carter, a self-described evangelical, supported the 1973 Roe vs Wade Supreme Court ruling. And in the eyes of the leadership, he sought no rapport with the NAE. However, Carter’s Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, who made no such claim to being an evangelical, chose to court evangelicals through the NAE as the 1980 presidential election approached—a complicated social and political development that would change American society forever.

The 1973 Supreme Court abortion ruling proved to be the litmus test for evangelical orthodoxy. Evangelicals deemed Carter, a Baptist Sunday school teacher, as an outsider. Meanwhile Reagan, with no evangelical leanings, gained overwhelming evangelical support, largely for his newfound opposition to the Roe ruling. Reagan trounced Carter in that 1980 election, winning 489 electoral votes to just 49 for Carter. Evangelicals, by then galvanized and energized through evangelical/political organizations such as Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, played a large role in that outcome. And thus began the era—unbroken through the decades—of white evangelicals generally seeming to select style over substance. That preference was evident in the movement’s fawning adoration of televangelists such as the eventually disgraced Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Robert Tilton and Ted Haggard, just to name a few.

Despite the many scandals among its leaders, the evangelical movement flourished throughout the ‘70’s and '80’s. In 1972, just 17 percent of Americans identified as evangelicals. By 1992 that figure had jumped to just short of 30 percent. But then began a slow but mostly steady decline to about 25 percent today, which is probably more reflective of a general turn away from religiosity overall.

Even at 25 percent, Evangelicals, who are encouraged to be politically engaged when called upon make up a huge block of potential voters, so the Republican Party successfully courted them. While evangelical leaders occasionally had some disagreements with Republican presidents over the following several decades of their deep forays into the political realm, generally they remained steadfast in supporting Republicans. And where evangelical leaders go, their flocks follow. So that evangelical support carried through the decades and into the recent 2016 campaign.

The Most Unlikely Recipient of Evangelical Devotion

The 2016 Republican presidential primary race attracted 17 entrants. All but two of those 17 had fairly extensive political experience—one might correctly call them public policy experts. The 15 policy experts bored the Republican voters with deep, meaningful policy discussions about crucial issues. One of the two novices, Dr. Ben Carson, tried to keep pace with the 15 experts on their turf. His inexperience became obvious and he dropped out to support the other novice.

That other novice, Donald Trump, pumped up ever-growing crowds of simple, hard-working folks—mostly white evangelicals—by ironically convincing them he was one of them. However, the only characteristic they had in common was their overwhelming disregard for deep knowledge. So this simpleton wowed the crowds with simple, trivial phrases like "Make America Great Again," and by warning them about the dangers of elitists (the well-educated) and about others who might threaten the established way of life (whatever that might be). Seemingly against all odds, the simpleton won.

And since then, support for the simpleton among evangelicals has solidified. Most white evangelicals believe God chose Donald Trump to be America’s president. That belief in Donald Trump’s divine appointment to hold the world’s most powerful and influential office comes primarily from one biblical passage, Romans 13:1-5, taken out of context and misinterpreted. That passage from the apostle Paul’s letter to the fledgling church in Rome begins, “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”

In evangelicals’ interpretation of this text one can see the influence of The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, referred to above. Unfortunately, as with economics, trickle down theories like these are generally problematic. Isolated from the surrounding context and taken literally, the passage does appear to tell its audience that God appoints all leaders and that Christians must submit to those leaders. Despite their confidence in the Bible’s perspicuity, The Chicago Statement’s authors did not intend for the literal approach to be taken to absurd extremes. But many—perhaps most—evangelicals have done exactly that, in this passage and elsewhere. While most evangelicals have never heard of The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, the document’s influence alone has filtered down to the masses, where many seek to demonstrate their evangelical credentials by the deep level of their audaciously articulated adherence to biblical literalism.

Evangelicals, whose zeal often operates independent of genuine knowledge, have largely grabbed hold of that Romans 13 passage with little to no regard for its textual or historical context. The fact that the Roman government imprisoned and eventually killed Paul, the author of the Romans letter, and then imprisoned and killed many of the letter’s recipients, argues against the notion that Paul and his readers gave unqualified fealty to a “God-ordained” Roman government.

Why would a government feel a need to eliminate passively obedient citizens? Those citizens understood what most present-day Christians miss: Paul’s instructions in the thirteenth chapter of this letter—like so much within the Bible—were general principles, not absolute, specific, universal commands. The Chicago Statement’s authors prudently professed, “So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth.” In other words, the instructions came with a plea for common sense and some cultural and historical context as idioms have changed over the millennia since then. But evangelicals—most of whom have never read the statement—are, not surprisingly, unaware of—and perhaps unconcerned with—such nuances.

If the popular present-day absolutist views were correct, then Moses should not have confronted Egypt’s Pharaoh. The prophet Elijah should not have challenged King Ahab. None of the Hebrew prophets should have challenged any of the Hebrew nations’ kings. John the Baptist should not have opposed King Herod. Jesus should not have chased the moneychangers from the temple. The apostles Peter and John should have submitted to the Sanhedrin’s demand to quit preaching about Jesus. And, perhaps shocking to Trump followers, American colonists should have remained loyal to King George.

The notion that God places governmental leaders in power and that believers must always submit to them is a dangerous misunderstanding of Paul’s teaching found in Romans 13. Tyrants throughout the ages have used that misinterpretation to subjugate those within their spheres of influence. Politicians and charismatic leaders have also used it to blindly defend certain leaders here in the U.S. while turning against those, like Jimmy Carter and Barak Obama, who might share their Christian values, just not their politics. Sadly, even today, many white American evangelicals regularly misuse this passage to defend a president who certainly does not deserve defending.

Why Are White Evangelicals So Infatuated with Trump?

No other politician in America’s history has generated the level of admiration and loyalty from evangelicals that Donald Trump has garnered. One recent poll found that a majority of Republicans—including evangelicals—rated Donald Trump as America’s greatest president, above traditional Republican favorites such as Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower—and sometimes even ahead of the conservative icon Ronald Reagan. What might explain this puzzling phenomenon?

Trump’s popularity cannot be due to any great faith or Christian piety. He openly stated he sees no reason to ask God’s forgiveness, a key tenet of evangelical doctrine. He has bragged of his many marital infidelities. He mocks people he dislikes. He curses incessantly. He’s lied more than 16,000 times since taking office three years ago. Kylee Zempel, an assistant editor at The Federalist, and a devoted Trump supporter, wrote, “Trump doesn’t appeal to scripture to absolve his shame. He simply doesn’t have shame. And while objectively, that isn’t a good thing, it also doesn’t in itself harm the cause of Christ because it doesn’t associate itself with Him.” Her point, apparently, is that Trump can do and say whatever he pleases as long as he gives evangelicals their desired policies and does not openly admit, for the world to hear, that he is pandering to them.

Evangelicals adore Donald Trump not because he in any way represents Christian values; they glorify him because he has promised to give them policies they favor, policies that in many cases have nothing to do with anything Jesus ever advocated. Those policy preferences, such as opposition to gun-control laws and climate-change mitigation efforts come primarily from common conservative—and now, under Trump, populist—talking points, not from the Bible. And this brings us back to that four-decades-old marriage of evangelical Christianity and the Republican Party—and to evangelicals’ biblical ignorance.

White Evangelicals’ Elevation of Ignorance

As suggested above, several surveys—some by evangelical pollsters such as George Barna—have revealed evangelicals’ ignorance of the Bible they claim as the guidebook for their lives. That ignorance often extends beyond the Bible to knowledge in general. And it is especially evident in politics, particularly because most evangelicals get virtually all their news from one source: Fox News (and then primarily from Fox commentators who make no pretense of being objective journalists). Amy Sullivan stated it well in her New York Times essay “America’s New Religion: Fox Evangelicalism.” Sullivan wrote, “The result [of this Fox monopoly] is a malleable religious identity that can be weaponized not just to complain about department stores that hang ‘Happy Holidays’ banners, but more significantly, in support of politicians like Mr. Trump or Mr. Moore—and of virtually any policy, so long as it is promoted by someone Fox evangelicals consider on their side of the culture war.”

This evangelical celebration of ignorance can be attributed to more than Fox-inspired groupthink. Another contributing element to evangelical ignorance is plain old laziness. Outsourcing one’s opinion-formations to pastors, TV preachers, cable-news pundits, and Facebook memes is markedly easier than reading and analyzing well-researched books and articles. It’s also easier to simply pick a side and accept whatever the leaders of that side—such as Jerry Falwell Jr. and Franklin Graham—pronounce as truth.

That phenomenon is in full display in the current impeachment proceedings. Throughout the House hearings, numerous witnesses testified to firsthand knowledge of illegalities by the president and members of his administration. And that does not count the 12 key witnesses the president blocked from testifying. Evidence of the president’s alleged quid pro quo demand for the announcement of a criminal investigation of a likely political foe—Joe Biden—was abundant and indisputable. (According to several inside sources, President Trump wanted only the announcement of the investigation; he never insisted on a real investigation.) Even so, the president and his defenders stuck to his claim that his phone call with Ukraine’s president was “perfect.” Meanwhile, the volumes of evidence failed to move the opinion polls; evangelical Republican voters chose to esteem the president’s denials over the undeniable evidence. After ignoring his 16,000 lies over the last three years, his supporters have, it seems, been inoculated to truth.

Why White Evangelicals?

It’s worth noting that non-whites generally do not share white evangelicals’ enthusiasm for President Trump. According to a Public Religion Research Institute poll, 75 percent of black Protestants view Trump negatively. Meanwhile, a Pew Poll found that 69 percent of Hispanics disapprove of Trump’s job performance. That Pew survey did not survey Hispanic evangelicals as a separate subgroup. But another survey found that 67 percent of Hispanic evangelicals have a favorable view of Trump. However, only about 20 percent of Hispanics identify as evangelical, so overall, only a small percentage of Hispanics have a favorable view of President Trump.

So why are white evangelicals the one cohort most loyal to a president whose life counters so much of the beliefs they claim to hold dear? Racism, though generally not explicit, might be a factor. While, historically, some evangelicals such as William Wilberforce were at the forefront of the abolition movement, most white evangelicals, throughout the decades, were either ambivalent about slavery and racial discrimination or actively participated in those unholy activities. One would be hard pressed to find any overt racists among today’s white evangelicals. Far more common seems to be an unwillingness to empathize with hardships endured by other groups. And that disinclination might be connected back to white evangelicals’ above-mentioned tendency to view the world as they believe it is rather than as it actually is. Trump-style platitudes seem to trump inconvenient, yet objective realities.

Impending Epistemological Relinquishment

White evangelicals’ willingness to sacrifice objective, verifiable facts and incontrovertible truths in favor of a demagogue’s deceptions could point to an even broader long-term crisis— the potential loss of our culture’s epistemological base. There was a time when evangelical leaders such as Francis Schaeffer—one of the signers of the above-mentioned Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy—issued compelling warnings about the impending degradation of our epistemological base by a culture willing to embrace pretense over facts and situational ethics over transcendent principles. But in the Trump era, those warnings appear to be falling on deaf evangelical ears.

Can a culture willing to accept obvious deceptions over unambiguous, verifiable facts continue to function properly? Perhaps not for long. As bad as would be the loss of the nation’s constitutional and cultural norms, even more frightening, if this trend continues, might be the loss of our individual and collective ability to know anything for certain, religious or otherwise.