The religious right isn’t dead. But it is changing

A lot of people have been asking me what’s going on with “the evangelicals” in 2016. The truth is, it’s hard to say. The term ‘evangelical’ in the context of political polling is almost meaningless, often little more than a synonym for conservative white Protestant. Many Catholic voters seem animated and energized almost exclusively by conservative white evangelicals’ priorities rather than by the whole counsel of Catholic social teaching.

At the elite level, we are seeing a divide over Trump like we have not seen in this movement. There have always been differences in strategy, emphases, theology, breadth of issue engagement, tone, and posture. The Trump phenomenon has clarified and intensified differences that long existed in the Christian right.

Usually, differences fade after the election. The Christian right unites in time to extol Republican voting as a Christian duty in the next cycle.

Will this time be different? I am inclined to think the answer is yes. Anti-Trump and pro-Trump evangelicals have taken public stands against each other that will be hard to walk back or ignore. Both factions have arguments in favor of their positions, though I am clearly more sympathetic to the #NeverTrump group.

These folks have done some soul searching. It is probably the case that the tenuous truces that sustained past “Justice Sundays” and Value Voter Summits will not hold. One group will continue Christianizing white nativism, racial resentment and economic grievances. The other will pull back from quite such an automatic association with the Republican Party and will challenge the party on immigration, criminal justice reform, and its scaled-back, subdued opposition  to same sex marriage (but not health care, defense spending, taxes, or income/wealth inequality).

I don’t really understand the impulse to pronounce the Christian right dead every four years. Most atheists, church/state separation advocates, and conservative Christians themselves think evangelical Republicanism will be alive and well long into the future. Journalists are quick to write the religious right’s obituary. But the conservative Christian political movement will outlive us all.