tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/religion-in-politics-32673/articlesReligion in politics – The Conversation2018-06-15T11:39:30Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/979742018-06-15T11:39:30Z2018-06-15T11:39:30ZEvangelicals and Trump – lessons from the Nixon era<p>More than 81% of the US’s protestant evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. A year and a half into his presidency, they seem as dedicated to him as ever – and just as ready to make excuses for his decidedly un-Christian misdeeds.</p>
<p>Many Christian rightists, among them “family values” foghorn <a href="http://drjamesdobson.org/about-us/James-Dobson">James Dobson</a>, consider Trump a “<a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/august/james-dobson-explains-why-donald-trump-baby-christian.html">baby Christian</a>”. His lewd and predatory comments about women are simply the mark of a very imperfect man. Any of his actions, no matter how debased or inhumane, are dismissed or approved by the faithful. </p>
<p>On June 14 the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/sessions-cites-bible-defense-breaking-families-blames-migrant-parents-n883296">used scripture</a> to back up Trump’s cruel policies on refugees, which are currently tearing families apart along the southern border. Now, through the alchemy of political tribalism, the former casino owner, who once starred in a softcore porn film and who confessed on the radio to multiple affairs, is a Man of God who speaks his mind with confidence, however deep his ignorance.</p>
<p>But today’s evangelical leaders should be wary of <a href="http://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/235208/things-know-evangelicals-america.aspx">hitching their wagon</a> to an amoral, corrupt president. They could learn a thing or two from their predecessors, who aligned themselves closely with another troublesome president: Richard Nixon, whose malfeasance eventually became too much for the Christian right to tolerate. When the <a href="https://theconversation.com/muellers-russia-probe-a-year-on-trump-is-far-from-out-of-the-woods-96595">depth of Trump’s misconduct</a> is established, will his prayer warrior enthusiasts have to rethink their allegiance? </p>
<p>For now, the love affair continues. In May 2018, First Baptist Dallas pastor, Robert Jeffress,, <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/evangelical-majority-prefers-trump-2020-013750997.html">proclaimed on Fox News</a> that the vast majority of his fellow believers hoped their candidate would win again in 2020. Trump has reciprocated by waxing pious at prayer breakfasts about the glories and mercies of God. His staunchly evangelical vice president, Mike Pence, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/who-says-president-trump-doesnt-have-a-prayer/2018/05/04/013eafc6-4fd4-11e8-af46-b1d6dc0d9bfe_story.html?utm_term=.df3eea9834ae">assures Americans that</a> “there’s prayer going on on a regular basis in this White House”. Pence recently delivered a Trumpian, campaign-style address at a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/pence-campaign-style-speech-southern-baptists-55872174">meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention</a>, America’s largest Protestant denomination. </p>
<p>Trump hagiographies are rolling off the presses: <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062749598/the-faith-of-donald-j-trump/">The Faith of Donald J. Trump</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Donald-Trump-Stephen-Strang/dp/1629994863">God and Donald Trump</a>, <a href="http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2017/december/he-predicted-trump-would-be-president-6-years-ago-heres-why-this-prophet-says-trump-is-in-for-two-terms">The Trump Prophecies</a>. The latter is <a href="http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/entertainment/2018/may/the-trump-prophecy-liberty-university-helping-turn-prophetic-book-into-nationwide-movie">being adapted into a film</a> with the help of fundamentalist bastion Liberty University. </p>
<p>Trump iconographer and right-wing Mormon Jon McNaughton, who once depicted a resolute Barack Obama <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/nov/17/jon-mcnaughton-painting-trump-white-house-the-forgotten-man">with the Constitution under his foot</a>, has created a series of kitsch classics rendering <a href="http://jonmcnaughton.com/search.php?search_query=trump">Trump</a> as a cross between prophet, priest and king. Perhaps one day in the not-so-distant future the artist will paint The Apotheosis of The Donald for the capitol rotunda.</p>
<p>What about the president’s habitual lying? His sordid past? His bragging and bullying? <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/24/republicans-turn-more-negative-toward-refugees-as-number-admitted-to-u-s-plummets/">His demonising of refugees</a>? His lawer’s payment of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43988586">US$130,000 in alleged hush money</a> to a porn star? Influential evangelist Franklin Graham recently said that Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels happened many years ago. It didn’t matter now. </p>
<p>In March 2018, the Pew Research Center reported that white evangelical support for Trump <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/15/disagreements-about-trump-widely-seen-as-reflecting-divides-over-other-values-and-goals/">stood at 78%</a>, a figure that had actually grown since news about Daniels broke. Democrats, progressive Christians, and the media hated Trump. That was reason enough for many others to support him. </p>
<p>Anyhow, <a href="https://www.worldreligionnews.com/religion-news/franklin-graham-stormy-daniels-is-not-your-business-god-chose-trump">said Graham</a>: “I don’t think that he came to be president by mistake or by happenstance. I think somehow God put him in this position.” And Graham was even more assured when Trump told him that his father, Fred Trump, had <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/inside-donald-trumps-relationship-rev-billy-graham/story?id=53448191">taken him to an evangelistic crusade</a> held by Graham’s own father, Billy.</p>
<h2>Common cause</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most famous and influential revivalist of the 20th century, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/21/us/how-billy-graham-became-famous/index.html">Billy Graham</a> preached a simple message of repentance and salvation. Though he claimed to stay away from politics, he was in fact deeply political, and a close confidant of presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan. </p>
<p>During the 1960 presidential campaign, Graham and his fellow travellers were faced with the possibility that John F. Kennedy, a <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/JFK-and-Religion.aspx">Catholic</a> and a Democrat, would be the next president. They rallied behind Richard Nixon – and stayed behind him for years.</p>
<p>Like Graham, many white evangelicals in the late 1960s and early 1970s found in Nixon a strong, powerful man who boldly stood up to liberal politicians, civil rights agitators and amoral student activists. When the president championed the “silent majority” on national television, they were heartened that such a Christian leader would speak for them. Nixon signalled that they were the true victims in the heated political and cultural battles of the age.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223340/original/file-20180615-85869-d8yrls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223340/original/file-20180615-85869-d8yrls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223340/original/file-20180615-85869-d8yrls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223340/original/file-20180615-85869-d8yrls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223340/original/file-20180615-85869-d8yrls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223340/original/file-20180615-85869-d8yrls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223340/original/file-20180615-85869-d8yrls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Richard Nixon with Billy Graham.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_M._Nixon_with_Billy_Graham_at_a_%22BIlly_Graham_Crusade%22_-_NARA_-_194319.tif">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Nixon won <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9781137014795_8">69% of the evangelical vote</a> in his successful 1968 bid, and he instituted regular White House religious services at the start of his presidency. The president’s call for “law and order” also inspired the faithful. The head of the National Association of Evangelicals endorsed the Republican president in 1972, praising Nixon’s Cold War policies. 84% of evangelicals cast their votes for Nixon that year. </p>
<p>Their affinity lasted for most of Nixon’s doomed presidency. Graham’s private conversations with Nixon, recorded by a secret White House taping system, revealed the extent of the preacher’s partisanship and his willingness to encourage the president’s many prejudices and burning grudges. <a href="http://nixontapeaudio.org/chron3/rmn_e662a.mp3">On February 10, 1972</a>, Graham listened intently as the commander-in-chief railed against Jews and their overpowering influence. America’s pastor replied that “this stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain”. Nixon sympathised: “I can’t ever say that, but I believe it.”</p>
<h2>Keeping the faith</h2>
<p>But the following year, the scandal over the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover-up dominated headlines and nightly TV news. Like other right-wing partisans, conservative Christians tried to brush it aside, but they could only ignore the obvious for so long – when it came down to it, their political hero was a squalid criminal. When Graham finally heard the profanity-laced Watergate tapes, he reportedly <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BE1QCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=graham+watergate+tape+richard+perlstein&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjkrtSTxNXbAhXIOcAKHZFTD2IQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=billy%20graham%20vomit&f=false">vomited</a>.</p>
<p>Quite a few evangelicals, though disillusioned, didn’t really come to grips with the deeper meaning of it all, responding with a kind of born-again dodge. </p>
<p>Graham reckoned that Watergate was a symptom of a deeper, national moral problem. He wondered if Americans should have prayed more for their president. “There’s a little bit of Watergate in all of us,” Graham cautioned. Some – like the fundamentalist minister and Christian right political broker Jerry Falwell – continued to revere the disgraced former president. In the years after Nixon’s 1974 resignation, evangelicals voted Republican in growing numbers.</p>
<p>Will Trump’s solid, evangelical base ever come to terms with the kind of person they voted into office? Will there be a reckoning in the coming months and years that will open their eyes to his cynical manipulations, his divisive, culture-war grandstanding, his philandering, or <a href="http://projects.thestar.com/donald-trump-fact-check/">repeated lying</a>? It’s difficult to say. But if the past is any guide, the answer is a resounding no.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97974/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Randall J. Stephens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Evangelicals overwhelmingly support Donald Trump. Decades ago their allegiance to Nixon was just as strong.Randall J. Stephens, Associate Professor and Reader in History and American Studies, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/776052017-05-26T01:32:35Z2017-05-26T01:32:35ZTrump says the IRS regulates churches too much. Here’s why he’s wrong<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170441/original/file-20170522-7327-1wg2m9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who enforces regulations that bar churches from engaging in politics?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/politician-woman-holding-religious-bible-215878255">www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump recently signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/04/presidential-executive-order-promoting-free-speech-and-religious-liberty">executive order</a> that he said would keep his campaign promise to defend religious groups from the IRS when they engage in political speech.</p>
<p>Like other <a href="https://surlysubgroup.com/2017/05/04/trumps-johnson-amendment-executive-order-does-not-say-what-he-said-it-said/">experts</a>, I believe this move <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/04/president-trumps-religious-order-could-unleash-political-money/101289500/">does nothing</a> to change IRS policy. But as a law professor who used to litigate exempt-organization tax issues for the Internal Revenue Service, I’m concerned the news might suggest that charities are over-regulated. </p>
<p>In fact, the opposite is true. </p>
<h2>The Johnson Amendment</h2>
<p>During the campaign, Trump often trumpeted a false claim that churches were under attack by the IRS due to the Johnson Amendment, a 63-year-old law that bars all charities from engaging in political activities. </p>
<p>Soon after he took office, Trump swore he would <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-vow-to-destroy-johnson-amendment-could-wreak-havoc-on-charitable-world-72561">destroy it</a>. However, his recent order merely directed the IRS to keep up its already light regulation of religious groups. </p>
<p>Trump couldn’t defang the Johnson Amendment if he tried because the IRS rarely punishes any nonprofit organizations, including churches, for violating it. While the IRS has admonished churches that may have violated the amendment inadvertently, the IRS has <a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/cases/branch-ministries-v-rossotti">revoked a church’s tax-exempt status</a> for violating the Johnson Amendment only once since it became law. In that instance, a Binghamton, New York church published newspaper ads urging Christians to vote against Bill Clinton in 1992.</p>
<p>In other words, the Johnson Amendment is mostly toothless.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170431/original/file-20170522-7379-8moxrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170431/original/file-20170522-7379-8moxrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170431/original/file-20170522-7379-8moxrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170431/original/file-20170522-7379-8moxrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170431/original/file-20170522-7379-8moxrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170431/original/file-20170522-7379-8moxrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170431/original/file-20170522-7379-8moxrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170431/original/file-20170522-7379-8moxrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Johnson Amendment establishes boundaries due to the separation of church and state.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?src=-rzkjocFM4Ojnv9N6f2eiA-1-4">www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<h2>Federal oversight</h2>
<p>One problem with the fuss Trump made over the law: It fostered the impression that churches are being oppressed by the IRS, when in reality the federal government does not employ enough regulators to properly oversee the nonprofit sector – including religious and secular groups.</p>
<p>In 2000, the IRS had about 800 employees dedicated to reviewing applications and auditing tax-exempt nonprofit organizations. In 2013 <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/670/667595.pdf">it had 842</a>. Staffing appears to have actually shrunk since the 1970s, when the Treasury Department undertook a thorough study of the charitable sector and its oversight environment, known as the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. That commission <a href="https://archives.iupui.edu/handle/2450/812">counted 1,000</a> employees dedicated to this function. </p>
<p>While the agency’s staffing has declined, the number of charities registered with the IRS has soared to <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/16databk.pdf">more than 1.2 million in 2016</a>, from <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/80dbfullar.pdf">around 320,000 in 1980</a>. The real number is higher because churches <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/churches-integrated-auxiliaries-and-conventions-or-associations-of-churches">automatically qualify</a> for tax-exempt status without doing any paperwork. That means the nation’s estimated <a href="http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html#numcong">350,000 religious congregations</a> don’t need to register with the IRS or file tax returns – a fact at odds with Trump’s over-regulation myth.</p>
<p>In addition, nonprofit assets have almost tripled to <a href="http://www.urban.org/research/publication/nonprofit-sector-brief-2015-public-charities-giving-and-volunteering">US$3.2 trillion in 2013</a> from <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2658325">$1.1 trillion in 1995</a>.</p>
<p>Yet Trump’s proposed 2018 budget may weaken enforcement capacity even more. It calls for <a href="http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-tax/2017/05/23/still-skin-and-bones-220465">cutting current IRS funding</a> – following a <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/irs-funding-cuts-compromise-taxpayer-service-and-weaken-enforcement">17 percent decline</a> since 2010 – by another $239 million in 2018.</p>
<p>The National Taxpayer Advocate, an independent office within the IRS that <a href="https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/about-tas">represents taxpayer voices</a>, <a href="http://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/2012-Annual-Report/downloads/Most-Serious-Problems-Tax-Exempt-Automatic-Revocation.pdf">since 2012</a> has regularly described the IRS as <a href="http://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/2013-Annual-Report/downloads/EXEMPT-ORGANIZATIONS-The-IRS-Continues-to-Struggle-with-Revocation-Processes-and-Erroneous-Revocations-of-Exempt-Status.pdf">severely lacking</a> the resources needed to oversee the charitable sector. </p>
<h2>State-level oversight</h2>
<p>Theoretically, the federal government does not need to heavily regulate charities because state attorneys general typically bear the responsibility for providing this oversight.</p>
<p>In reality, the states don’t employ the staff or spend the money required to oversee nonprofits either. According to a survey conducted by University of Minnesota Law School Dean <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1010985">Garry Jenkins</a> 10 years ago, most states employed no more than the equivalent of a single full-time staffer to do this work.</p>
<p>Even New York state’s team of more than 20 full-time employees, the largest Jenkins found, was still arguably unable to keep up with its workload. Given the <a href="http://origin-nyi.thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/state-local-politics/327199-your-state-may-be-facing-the-dawn-of-an-unforgiving">economic stress</a> the states are experiencing, there’s no reason to believe that this situation has improved over the past decade.</p>
<h2>Rogue charities</h2>
<p>While the IRS has rarely found significant noncompliance among charitable organizations, reports of rogue charities are common enough to suggest that the nation needs stronger nonprofit oversight. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/06/16/482020436/senators-report-finds-fundamental-concerns-about-red-cross-finances">Red Cross</a> is still struggling to quell concerns from Congress <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/07/21/424988126/documents-show-red-cross-may-not-know-how-it-spent-millions-in-haiti">about its accounting</a> practices in Haiti after the group raised $500 million to response to that country’s 2010 earthquake. In 2013, the <a href="http://cironline.org/reports/part-1-dirty-secrets-worst-charities-4603">Center for Investigative Reporting</a> and the Tampa Bay Times zeroed in on 50 charities that spent as little as three cents on the dollar they raised for charitable activity on work tied to their missions. </p>
<p>And in 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), all 50 states and the District of Columbia settled
with the <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/03/ftc-states-settle-claims-against-two-entities-claiming-be-cancer">Cancer Fund of America Inc.</a>, Cancer Support Services Inc. and the leader of both groups, James Reynolds Sr., barring them all from operating in the charitable world again. The FTC alleged that they spent most of their money on families, friends and operators rather than on charity.</p>
<p>Were the charitable sector small, the limited oversight resources might not matter much. However, nonprofits today account for <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/10/24/nonprofit-workforce-numbers/">almost 5 percent of GDP and employ roughly 1 in 10 American workers</a>. </p>
<h2>An independent agency</h2>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly, research by the IRS and reviewed by Notre Dame University law professor <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2658325">Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer</a> suggests that noncompliance isn’t widespread. But enough wrongdoing has surfaced that several legal scholars, including Mayer and Catholic University professor <a href="http://scholarship.law.edu/scholar/117/">Roger Colinvaux</a>, have called for significantly stronger nonprofit oversight.</p>
<p>Texas A&M law professor <a href="http://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=facscholar">Terri Lynn Helge</a> has reviewed various ideas for boosting oversight, such as creating state boards to oversee charities or allowing a charity’s big donors and founders to sue over perceived malfeasance. However, no state has significantly tightened its oversight. </p>
<p>Helge supports the creation of an independent self-regulating entity technically backed by federal agency power to strengthen nonprofit regulation. It would be akin to the <a href="https://www.finra.org/about">Financial Industry Regulatory Authority</a>, which oversees stockbrokers and brokerage firms. <a href="http://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/microsites/attorneys-general/Marcus%20Owens%203.18.pdf">Marcus S. Owens</a>, the former head of the IRS Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division, has made similar recommendations.</p>
<p>While the states have made little headway, the IRS has made some adjustments. In 2014, it introduced Form 1023-EZ, which allows small charities to file a very abbreviated application for tax-exempt status with no formal review by the IRS, to eliminate its backlog of applications and to focus its human resources on audits. This change, though, has been <a href="http://www.forpurposelaw.com/critics-concerns-about-form-1023-ez-spot-on/">widely criticized</a> by the charitable sector as making oversight worse because small charities can now form with no IRS check on basic compliance. It has also tried to zero in on high-priority charities such as <a href="http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1244&context=yjhple">hospitals</a> and <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/CUCP_FinalRpt_050213.pdf">universities</a>. </p>
<p>What does this mean in terms of the Johnson Amendment and Trump’s wish to destroy it? There are real problems with charity regulation, but they have nothing to do with regulatory overkill.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77605/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Hackney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Trump claims that churches suffer from the over-regulation of their political speech. In reality, oversight is lax for religious groups and secular tax-exempt nonprofits alike.Philip Hackney, James E. & Betty M. Phillips Associate Professor of Law, Louisiana State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/737192017-03-30T14:18:12Z2017-03-30T14:18:12ZAmerica’s evangelical Christian right isn’t the political force it once was<p>Anyone who has been <a href="http://time.com/4565010/donald-trump-evangelicals-win/">reading</a> about how evangelical Christians were “crucial” to Donald Trump’s victory in November 2016 would probably be forgiven for assuming that the US’s religious right still wields enormous clout, whether as a political bloc or as a bulwark against secularisation. </p>
<p>They would be mistaken. It seems that, after nearly 40 years of religious conservatives leading the right, the parishioners they depended upon so heavily have accidentally raised a generation of sceptics and progressives. And there are plenty of other signs all pointing in one direction: the religious right is in decline.</p>
<p>For starters, we know that Americans as a whole routinely over-report their religious activities. While Gallup polls <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/200186/five-key-findings-religion.aspx">regularly report</a> that around 40% of Americans claim to attend church every week, more robust studies show the actual proportion to be <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3590599?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">closer to 22%</a>. If over-reporting church attendance comes so naturally to so many Americans, it’s not much of a leap to presume that a substantial portion of poll respondents are overstating their piety.</p>
<p>Studies also show that some Americans are starting to become braver about describing themselves as unaffiliated to any church or faith. In 2008, the <a href="http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2011/08/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf">American Religious Identification Survey</a> found that the number of Americans claiming no religious affiliation (often called “nones”) had almost doubled since 1990, from 8.2% to 15%. It was no temporary dip, either. The <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/">Pew Religious Landscape Study</a>, which tracked changes between 2007 and 2014, found that the number had increased to almost 23%. The losses weren’t evenly distributed: declines were steepest among Catholic and mainline Protestant denominations, while evangelicals showed only slight losses. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the word “evangelical” has now grown to encompass wings of several mainline Protestant denominations and even, to a smaller extent, some Catholics. As the term has become harder to define, tracking where those losses come from may prove to be increasingly difficult. The fact still remains, however, that the “nones” (the vast majority of which are first-generation) have been on the rise and <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/26619711/American-Nones-The-Profile-of-the-No-Religion-Population">tend to be progressive</a>. While the relative youth of the group on average meant <a href="http://religionnews.com/2016/09/22/nones-religiously-unaffiliated-study-nones-prri-voting-polls/">low voter turnout in 2016</a>, they represent a demographic that could soon match the religious right vote-for-vote as participation rates increase with age.</p>
<h2>Past prime</h2>
<p>The oft-cited statistic that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/11/09/exit-polls-show-white-evangelicals-voted-overwhelmingly-for-donald-trump/">80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump</a> certainly appears to indicate the continued vitality of the religious right – but look closer and the data tell a different story. </p>
<p>Firstly, that statistic relies upon exit polls, which carry the same self-reporting problems as the polls mentioned above. Secondly, let’s not forget that around 42% of the American electorate <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-voter-turnout-wasnt-way-down-from-2012/">didn’t vote</a> in the election. If roughly the same proportion of self-identifying evangelicals joined those staying home, and only 80% of those that voted did so for Trump, then that would mean fewer than half of evangelicals voted for him. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163169/original/image-20170329-8553-1580nps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163169/original/image-20170329-8553-1580nps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163169/original/image-20170329-8553-1580nps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163169/original/image-20170329-8553-1580nps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163169/original/image-20170329-8553-1580nps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163169/original/image-20170329-8553-1580nps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163169/original/image-20170329-8553-1580nps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Squeezed out.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/asheville-north-carolina-usa-july-26-169418261?src=I5VAHjJa8zX_FW-kusi37g-1-11">J.Bicking/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If that seems outlandish, note that the word “evangelical” doesn’t describe a homogeneous conservative bloc. The liberal wing of evangelicalism (yes, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/25/they-have-faith-their-church-will-change.html">it exists</a>), whose voice was drowned out by the hard-right <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/122716/can-evangelical-left-rise-again">Moral Majority</a> in the 1980s, has recently began to reassert itself in front-line politics. </p>
<p>Progressive evangelicals even published an <a href="https://www.change.org/p/donald-trump-a-declaration-by-american-evangelicals-concerning-donald-trump">open letter</a> condemning Donald Trump’s “racial, religious and gender bigotry”, during the election, seeking to distinguish themselves from “the media’s continued identification of ‘evangelical’ with mostly white, conservative, older men”. </p>
<p>Give these progressives a little time, and the phrase “evangelicals in politics” may one day evoke <a href="https://theconversation.com/pussyhat-power-the-feminist-protesters-crafting-resistance-to-trump-and-his-supporters-72221">pink knitted hats</a> and income inequality protests.</p>
<h2>The new resistance</h2>
<p>Leaving the data aside, the starkest evidence that organised conservative religious politics is losing its vigour has been the response to several religiously motivated policies. </p>
<p>One of the more infamous is Indiana’s <a href="http://time.com/3764347/indiana-religious-freedom-discrimination-act/">Religious Freedom Restoration Act</a>, which was passed in March 2015. Presided over by Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence (then governor) and touted by religious conservatives, the act drew fierce opposition from critics across the US, who pointed out that it would allow private businesses to discriminate against LGBT citizens. It proved so unpopular that the state of Indiana <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2016/01/31/indianas-religious-freedom-act-cost-indianapolis-60-million-in-lost-revenue/#4416db682e2a">lost US$60m</a> in revenue from businesses that withdrew or cancelled expansions in the state. </p>
<p>But the ultimate example of recent years is surely North Carolina’s notorious “bathroom bill”, introduced and passed by <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/queen_city_agenda/2016/06/exclusive-inside-hb-2-authors-legislative-emails.html">religiously motivated conservative legislators</a>. That policy, which paints transgender individuals as bathroom predators, has <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/corinnejurney/2016/11/03/north-carolinas-bathroom-bill-flushes-away-nearly-1-billion-in-business-and-governor-mccrorys-re-election-hopes/#33980b9d682a">cost North Carolina $630m</a>, not least from businesses boycotting the state while the bill remains in place. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163172/original/image-20170329-8557-17eejth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163172/original/image-20170329-8557-17eejth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163172/original/image-20170329-8557-17eejth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163172/original/image-20170329-8557-17eejth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163172/original/image-20170329-8557-17eejth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163172/original/image-20170329-8557-17eejth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163172/original/image-20170329-8557-17eejth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">North Carolina’s legislators are getting more than they bargained for.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/asheville-north-carolina-usa-april-2-405337726?src=qaMPo7kmXr33D71Eg2xfGw-1-32">J.Bicking/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These backlashes are not just Change.org petitions circulating in progressive Facebook groups. They are real, tangible consequences, spoken in a language Republicans can understand.</p>
<p>Various Trump administration policies have already met with the sort of opposition that a strong religious right could have helped fend off. Top of the list is the recent “Muslim ban”, which <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/27/politics/trump-christian-refugees/">originally favoured Christian immigrants</a> – the poorly implemented order almost brought some airports to a grinding halt as they <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/28/1000-flood-sfo-protest-immigration-ban/97200022/">filled to the brim with protesters</a>. </p>
<p>And while the Christian foot-soldiers Trump might have been counting on have failed to materialise, progressive people of faith are reportedly <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/salvadorhernandez/sanctuary-churches-v-trump-deportation-mandate?bffbmain&ref=bffbmain&utm_term=.nwgzPAzx6k#.qf3oBJo4kL">building a national network</a> to hide undocumented immigrants from the administration’s harsh crackdowns. </p>
<p>These are not the actions of a pious public respectfully nodding from the back pew. Enough Americans have reached a consensus on what fair play looks like, and this new resistance is willing to take to the streets to fight for it. </p>
<p>Of course, the ideologies of the religious right will always appeal to at least some of the American electorate. But, at the end of the day, this is a game of coalition politics – and this particular team simply doesn’t have enough friends to keep playing for much longer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Huskinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The religious right’s leaders are old men, and the generation coming up behind them is something quite different.Benjamin Huskinson, PhD Candidate, History, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/714972017-01-26T16:28:33Z2017-01-26T16:28:33ZHow the US’s Christian conservatives got back in the political game<p>The demise of the Christian right has been prophesied on numerous occasions, but it’s never come to pass. Far from it: with the Trump administration taking shape, the movement is prepared to take power and exert influence at the top of government as never before.</p>
<p>This was not preordained. In one of the biggest gambles they’ve taken in years, the Christian right’s ageing leaders turned away from presidential candidates more aligned with their politics to strike a Faustian pact with the all-too-worldly Donald Trump. The bet threatened to split the movement, but in the end, it paid off, and Trump now owes Christian conservatives big for turning out and backing his campaign. And if his cabinet appointees are anything to go by, his administration is preparing to pursue an agenda the Christian right has been pushing for years. </p>
<p>Mainly but not exclusively comprised of <a href="http://www.e-ir.info/2010/04/14/the-christian-right-and-us-foreign-policy-today/">white conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants</a>, the movement’s stated aims are to defend and advance values threatened by a rapidly transforming society, among them the “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RP_GCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT16&lpg=PT16&dq=%22traditional+family%22+evangelical&source=bl&ots=NN2bQcBjM9&sig=NV8GoofQg77Nv0n1K8CM3Oy-nWQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjVjsHa2N3RAhVmLMAKHY23BesQ6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q&f=false">traditional family</a>”, prayer in schools, small government, and fiscal conservatism. It stands opposed to pornography, promiscuity, abortion, LGBT rights, and the long-mooted equal rights amendment, designed to guarantee equal rights for women.</p>
<p>Rather than pursue its ends as an outside pressure group, the movement organised itself into a political force, getting behind the Republican Party in particular. Its leaders and footsoldiers helped secure Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential victory, and its agenda has played a key role in American politics ever since. Around 26% of the US electorate <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2016/01/27/faith-and-the-2016-campaign/">self-identify as white evangelicals</a>, and their votes are now a crucial part of the Republicans’ electoral coalition. </p>
<p>In recent election cycles, though, the connection between the movement and the party has frayed. While the presidency of conservative evangelical George W. Bush was a high point for the Christian right, no bona fide conservative Christian Republican candidate has attracted overwhelming support from the movement, which has no single recognised leadership or formal structure. </p>
<p>Instead, white evangelical Republicans have ultimately backed the candidate they felt had the greatest potential of defeating a Democrat. In 2008, <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/Mike_Huckabee.htm">Mike Huckabee</a> was rejected for John McCain; in 2012, Catholic <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-is-santorum-losing-the-catholic-vote/2012/03/09/gIQAyDud1R_story.html?utm_term=.33eb7f434ed7">Rick Santorum</a> and Conservative evangelicals <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxzONeK1OwQ">Rick Perry</a> and <a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/27/michele-bachmann-as-evangelical-feminist/">Michele Bachmann</a> were rejected for Mitt Romney, a Mormon. Both nominees were defeated by Barack Obama.</p>
<p>The same dilema was presented in 2016. Conservative Christian voters had to get behind a candidate who could defeat their longtime bête noire, Hillary Clinton, while remaining at least sympathetic to their views. As in previous races there were strong conservative evangelical candidates on offer, in particular Ted Cruz, who had a <a href="https://www.frcaction.org/scorecard">100% voting record on values issues</a> in the Senate and who won the straw polls taken at the <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/ted-cruz-wins-values-voter-summit-straw-poll">Values Voter Summit</a> three years in a row. </p>
<p>But for all his impeccable evangelical credentials, Cruz was and still is <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/why-dc-hates-ted-cruz/426915/">enormously disliked</a> even by most Republicans for his perceived cynicism and grandstanding; John Boehner, former speaker of the House of Representatives, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/28/politics/john-boehner-ted-cruz-lucifer-stanford/index.html">described</a> him as “Lucifer made flesh”.</p>
<p>This left an opening for Trump, at least at the top of the movement. Despite his flamboyant lifestyle, dubious business background and predatory misogyny, he was nonetheless backed by key figures within the Christian right who identified his potential surprisingly early on.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.liberty.edu/media/1617/2016/january/PresidentFalwell-DonaldTrump-Introduction-00.pdf">Jerry Falwell Jr</a>, a key movement figure, summed up their rationale:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For decades, conservatives and evangelicals have chosen the political candidates who have told us what we wanted to hear on social, religious, and political issues only to be betrayed by those same candidates after they were elected.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Realising this would be a two-way street, Trump courted the movement from the outset. </p>
<h2>A relationship with Him</h2>
<p>He positioned himself as a Christian, albeit one who had never found the need to ask God’s forgiveness. In his 2015 book <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Crippled-America/Donald-J-Trump/9781501137969">Crippled America</a>, he wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think people, are shocked when they find out that I am a Christian, that I am a religious person. They see me with all the surroundings of wealth so that they sometimes don’t associate that with being religious. That’s not accurate. I go to church. I love God, and I love having a relationship with Him.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump made all the right promises: to restore, cherish and protect the nation’s Christian heritage, to appoint anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court, and to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/how-trump-is-trying-to-put-more-money-in-politics/493823/">repeal the Johnson Amendment</a> which prohibits tax-exempt organisations from endorsing political candidates. <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/full-text-trump-values-voter-summit-remarks-227977">He told Values Voters</a> at their 2016 summit that: “There are no more decent, devoted, or selfless people than our Christian brothers and sisters here in the United States.”</p>
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<p>Trump also brought Christian right leaders formally into his campaign, setting up an <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-campaign-announces-evangelical-executive-advisory-board">evangelical</a> and <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-campaign-announces-catholic-advisory-group">Catholic</a> advisory bodies and filling them with movement stalwarts. Above all, he chose as his running mate Indiana Governor <a href="http://religionandpolitics.org/2016/10/10/the-christian-worldview-of-mike-pence/">Mike Pence</a>, a leading campaigner for value issues who describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order”.</p>
<p>Not everyone was pleased. A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/09/donald-trump-has-created-an-excruciating-moment-for-evangelicals/?utm_term=.7939dbc98532">number of prominent evangelicals</a> worried that dallying with Trump would fatally damage the movement’s credibility, given his chequered past and his attitudes towards Mexicans, Muslims and women. This opposition grew with the release of the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/the-trump-tapes/503417/">Trump Tapes</a> revealing his predatory attitude and actions towards women. But none of this seriously diminished the resolve of Trump’s evangelical backers, who were content to <a href="http://time.com/4560074/religious-right-donald-trump-election/">stay the course</a> in pursuit of worldly power. </p>
<p>In the end, white evangelicals came out to vote in greater numbers than ever before, and <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/">81% of them backed Trump</a> on November 9.</p>
<p>Trump clearly intends to return the favour, and is already appointing <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/6-interesting-facts-about-ben-carsons-christian-faith-138786/">leading</a> <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/betsy-devos-education-trump-religion-232150">religious</a> <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/23/trump-s-epa-pick-blends-conservative-christianity-with-anti-environmental-activism.html">conservatives</a> to key cabinet posts. As far as the organised Christian right is concerned, it doesn’t get much better than this. Their movement is back, bigger and bolder than ever. In <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/full-text-trump-values-voter-summit-remarks-227977">Trump’s own words</a>: “And you believe it. And you know it. You know it.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71497/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee Marsden receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>Christian conservative leaders gambled on Donald Trump, and it paid off in spades.Lee Marsden, Professor of International Relations, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/677072016-12-07T18:36:48Z2016-12-07T18:36:48ZBy framing secular society as a Christian creation, Hanson’s revival goes beyond simple racism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143997/original/image-20161101-9607-1hx61ln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On September 15, 2012, a protest in Sydney by Salafi Muslims against an 'anti-Islam' film ended in violent confrontations with police. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/49283475@N00/7991822782/">Jamie Kennedy/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> with the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Across the Western world we have seen the <a href="https://theconversation.com/face-the-facts-populism-is-here-to-stay-63771">rise</a> of right-wing populists such as Donald Trump in the US, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen in France. They have seized on Western fears of Islamic invasion and translated them into votes.</p>
<p>The political resurrection of Pauline Hanson and the appearance of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/one-in-two-favour-muslim-immigration-ban-beware-the-survey-panel-given-an-all-or-nothing-choice-65956">poll indicating</a> that <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/09/21/new-poll-suggests-49-cent-australians-back-muslim-migrant-ban">49% of Australians</a> wish to stop Muslim immigration suggest right-wing populism has found fertile ground in Australia. </p>
<p>The rise of the populist right tends to be rationalised as either the <a href="http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/we-shouldnt-be-surprised-by-the-return-of-pauline-hanson-20160703-gpxsjz.html">resurgent racism of white people</a>, manifesting as Islamophobia, or as a <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2016/07/09/the-return-pauline-hanson-and-one-nation/14679864003470">protest vote</a> against the negative effects of globalisation.</p>
<p>But behind the rise of anti-Muslim antipathy in Australia lies a more uncomfortable explanation: the surprising persistence of religious identity in Australian public life.</p>
<p>Hanson’s racism cannot be downplayed. Nor should the possibility that many Australians voted for One Nation as a protest against the major parties be discounted. Still, racist attitudes and economic factors alone cannot explain the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/results/senate/">nearly 600,000 votes</a> One Nation’s Senate candidates received at the last federal election.</p>
<p>One Nation’s arguments against multiculturalism and immigration – like those of similar right-wing populist parties around the world – do not preclude the idea that people of different ethnicities can live together. Rather, they tout a vision of Western civilisation that is founded upon Judeo-Christian values and under siege by the alien force of Islam.</p>
<h2>Linking Christianity to a secular society</h2>
<p>One glance at the One Nation website reveals how important Christianity has become to the party’s understanding of Australian identity. The <a href="http://www.onenation.com.au/policies/islam">One Nation page on Islam</a> begins:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Australia is a country built on Christian values. Our laws, way of life and customs enforced in the Australian Constitution were based on a secular society. Secularism is asserting the right to be free from religious rule and teachings or, in a state declared to be neutral on matters of belief, from the imposition by government or religion or religious practices upon the people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Secularism has often been understood as the overcoming of religious belief. However, One Nation describes Australian culture as both Christian and secular. The implication is that secularism itself has come out of Christian values, so the two are entirely compatible.</p>
<p>For One Nation, Islam is the polar opposite of Christianity and secularism. Where Christianity allows a separation of church and state, Islam, according to One Nation, is inextricably political. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-15/pauline-hanson-maiden-speech-2016/7847136">her maiden speech</a> to the Senate this year, Hanson remarked:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Islam does not believe in democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of assembly. It does not separate religion and politics. It is partly a religion, but it is much more than that. It has a political agenda that goes far outside the realm of religion.</p>
</blockquote>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Pauline Hanson’s maiden speech to the Senate framed Islam as more than a religion and a threat to Australian secular society.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Contrast this language to Hanson’s <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/guide/article/2016/07/19/revisit-pauline-hansons-infamous-maiden-speech">1996 maiden speech</a>. Back then, her primary concern was that white Australians would be “swamped” by Asian immigrants. </p>
<p>Today, Hanson seldom speaks about the threat of Asian immigration. Rather, when warning of the dangers of mass immigration to Australia, she no longer sees the threat as coming from particular ethnic groups, but from the cultures that certain migrants – especially Muslims – carry with them.</p>
<h2>The religionising of politics</h2>
<p>Western Europe, where right-wing populism has flourished over the past decade, has seen a similar religionising of politics. </p>
<p>German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has noted the return of religion in European public life. He argues that Europe has undergone a <a href="http://www.signandsight.com/features/1714.html">“change in consciousness”</a> about religion. According to Habermas, this change largely came about due to Muslim immigration. </p>
<p>Two decades ago it was possible for Europeans to believe secular culture would triumph over religion the world over. Yet the increasing presence of Muslims in Europe, who continue to practise their faith despite the seemingly overwhelming forces of secular modernity around them, has forced Europeans to confront the reality that not all communities are happy to privatise their religious beliefs and adopt secular culture as their own.</p>
<p>Secular culture, then, suddenly seems far less universal and natural, and more like a particular product of the religion that gave it shape: Christianity.</p>
<p>European Muslims’ preference – especially since 1989’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_controversy">Rushdie incident</a> – for religious identification rather than ethnic identification has also played a powerful role in making Europeans rethink their own religious identity. As Habermas points out, having a Muslim neighbour makes a Christian European feel more – and identify more readily – as Christian.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143992/original/image-20161101-15821-11d9y7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143992/original/image-20161101-15821-11d9y7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143992/original/image-20161101-15821-11d9y7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143992/original/image-20161101-15821-11d9y7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143992/original/image-20161101-15821-11d9y7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143992/original/image-20161101-15821-11d9y7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143992/original/image-20161101-15821-11d9y7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hanson’s party, like its European counterparts, is demonising Islam as a campaign platform.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pauline Hanson's Please Explain/Facebook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In theory, a Muslim neighbour ought to make a non-religious person more likely to identity as non-religious. But in a society where secularism is increasingly linked to Christianity, many irreligious Europeans appear to be reacting to their new Muslim neighbours by identifying Western culture as “<a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/245609/geert-wilders-islams-war-against-free-west-frontpagemagcom">Judeo-Christian and Humanist</a>”, as Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party For Freedom, puts it.</p>
<p>The populist right has seized on this new identity. By arguing that Muslims threaten the West’s Judeo-Christian and secular culture, it has propelled itself into positions of power in a number of countries, including Australia, France and the Netherlands.</p>
<p>Like its European peers, One Nation has reacted to the growing presence of Islam in Australia by emphasising Western civilisation’s Judeo-Christian and secular identity, and by demonising Muslims as belonging to a religion incompatible with secularism. </p>
<p>Attacking One Nation on the grounds that it is racist will do little to stymie its growth. This is because the party is beholden not merely to a racial conception of Australia as a “white” nation, but to an understanding of Western culture as both Christian and secular.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67707/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Morieson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One Nation has built on the racism of its original anti-Asian platform by linking Australia’s secular society to its Christian origins and presenting Islam as incompatible with this way of life.Nicholas Morieson, PhD Candidate, Institute for Religion, Politics, and Society, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/670442016-10-28T01:01:18Z2016-10-28T01:01:18ZHow a new generation is changing evangelical Christianity<p>Since the late 1970s, American evangelicalism has been largely identified with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/05/16/trumps-success-with-evangelical-voters-isnt-surprising-it-was-inevitable/?utm_term=.d11607f12953">right-wing politics.</a> Conservative religious values entered the political sphere through movements such as <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/age-reagan/timeline-terms/moral-majority">Moral Majority</a> and <a href="http://www.focusonthefamily.com/?utm_source=family.org&utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=vanityURLredirects2016">Focus on the Family</a> that opposed gay rights, abortion, feminism and other liberal issues. </p>
<p>Evangelical leaders have influenced national elections and public policy. They have been instrumental in pushing the Republican Party toward increasingly conservative social policies. They have generally been the <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/23/u-s-religious-groups-and-their-political-leanings/">most consistent voting bloc</a> within the Republican Party.</p>
<p>But, evangelical Christianity, as we have known it, is changing. While <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/07/evangelical-leaders-shrug-at-donald-trump-s-lewd-comments.html">old guard evangelical leaders</a> are vocally supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump for president, there is a <a href="https://www.change.org/p/donald-trump-a-declaration-by-american-evangelicals-concerning-donald-trump">groundswell of opposition</a> from within evangelicals. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://crcc.usc.edu/rcci/">research focus</a> is on vibrant religious congregations. I am seeing the emergence of a new generation of evangelicals that has a very different view of what it means to be a “Jesus follower.” </p>
<p>This generation is abstaining from the political theology of the earlier generation and focusing their attention, instead, on improving the lives of people in their local communities.</p>
<h2>History of evangelicals</h2>
<p>The groundwork for American-style conservative evangelicalism was laid several decades before the rise of the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family movements. Evangelicals, and their forbears the “fundamentalists,” had long made education and mass communication a <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/fundamentalism-and-american-culture-9780195300475?cc=us&lang=en&">centerpiece of their efforts</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143534/original/image-20161027-11260-1744mph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the late 19th century, Bible training schools were set up.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/alex-photos/6385742691/in/photolist-aJhAPV-3A1PnV-8TDYe8-7w4yGQ-DjWTq-p6YBGj-9NtW8B-uA4HE-damrjn-7eX2vf-5EsmGM-9ujjtc-8RqkfM-5r9n3V-4oSuMn-dN3H2g-gq5Mw-9oZ7Xi-5UmiCv-nKDY9i-btEjgF-5jBGX-9NtW6D-scAcbJ-9NwGFS-cD1Lum-6B71Q-36xTo2-9NwGCJ-cKEVJs-dqjQYQ-hdpTVm-Jt92F-muB5SG-8MBxXp-9wQUp9-8SkGgk-bqCKZK-8WSWR7-XNqCp-dRTgg-5Rmzy7-p5CpVq-r4993-6HMSig-7yunJR-8Y9qFN-ziQ8i-efPyCy-icqa4">alex.ch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Starting in the late 19th century, they established post-secondary Bible training schools and utilized various mass media outlets, such as their own magazines and radio stations to get their religious message out.</p>
<p>After World War II, these efforts <a href="https://www.acsi.org/Documents/MarCom/ACSI%202014%20Annual%20Report_web.pdf">expanded to include</a> elementary and secondary schools – now numbering almost 3,000, along with <a href="http://cccu.org/members_and_affiliates">approximately 150 evangelical colleges and seminaries</a> in the U.S. In addition, evangelicals expanded their media efforts in publishing (books and national periodicals such as <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/fundamentalism-and-american-culture-9780195300475?cc=us&lang=en&">Christianity Today</a>), radio and television. </p>
<p>Even though these schools and media outlets were independent from each other, they were unified in a shared theological and moral perspective that served to reproduce evangelical culture and beliefs, and to disseminate the religiously tinged political message of the religious right.</p>
<h2>Rifts within</h2>
<p>This once-unified movement is now dividing over whether to support Donald Trump in the general election. </p>
<p>Old guard evangelicals such as the founder of the Focus on the Family movement <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/october/james-dobson-why-i-am-voting-for-donald-trump.html">James Dobson</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/01/27/jerry-falwell-jr-heres-the-backstory-of-why-i-endorsed-donald-trump/">Jerry Falwell Jr.,</a> son of the Moral Majority founder and current president of Liberty University, are warning of dire consequences for the U.S. if Trump is not elected.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/october/james-dobson-why-i-am-voting-for-donald-trump.html">According to Dobson</a>, without a Trump presidency, the U.S. will “see a massive assault on religious liberty,” which would “limit what pastors… can say publicly,” and would “severely restrict the freedoms of Christian schools, nonprofit organizations, businesses, hospitals, charities, and seminaries.” </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/17/why-people-of-faith-dont-have-to-vote-between-the-lesser-of-two-evils/">not all evangelicals</a> are supporting Trump, even though they remain true to the Republican Party. These evangelicals are alarmed at what they see as the vulgar and immoral lifestyle that Trump exemplifies. </p>
<p>In the past, mobilizing this vast religious and political machinery would have resulted in overwhelming and unquestioning support for the Republican candidate. This was first seen with Ronald Reagan in 1980 who won the White House with widespread support of evangelicals, and has been repeated in <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2012/11/07/how-the-faithful-voted-2012-preliminary-exit-poll-analysis/">each election</a> since. </p>
<p>But this time, a call to support Trump has exposed deep divisions within evangelicals that have gone unnoticed until now. </p>
<p>The point is that Trump represents to many the very antithesis of the kind of moral probity that evangelical leaders <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2012/11/07/how-the-faithful-voted-2012-preliminary-exit-poll-analysis/">have spent their lives defending</a>. </p>
<h2>Differences over social and moral issues</h2>
<p>How did this happen? While the <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/racial-and-ethnic-composition/">mostly white religious right</a> was gaining political and cultural power over the last 40 years, evangelicalism became as much a <a href="https://crcc.usc.edu/whats-an-evangelical-these-days-trumps-advisors-point-to-divisions/">political and racial identity</a> as a religious or theological one.</p>
<p>Survey research and election polls have failed to differentiate the differences within the movement between whites, Latinos, African-Americans and Asians who all share the same basic evangelical theology, but who may part company over other social and moral issues.</p>
<p>For example, in most surveys and political polls, “evangelical” is <a href="http://ava.publicreligion.org/#religious/2015/States/religion">limited to white believers</a>, with others who may be similar theologically being classified into other racial/ethnically identified categories such as “Black Protestant,” “Latino Protestant” or “Other nonwhite Protestant.” </p>
<p>Further, as with all religious groups in the U.S., the evangelical movement began struggling to keep its young people in the fold. <a href="https://crcc.usc.edu/will-the-real-evangelical-millennials-please-stand-up/">Recent research</a> shows that among young adults who were identified as evangelicals as teenagers, only 45 percent can still be identified as such. </p>
<h2>A new generation</h2>
<p>At its most basic level, American evangelicalism is characterized by a belief in the literal truth of the Bible, a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” encouraging others to be “born again” in Jesus and a lively worship culture. </p>
<p>This definition encompasses many groups that were not historically included in the old religious right. Thus, while <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-evangelical-latinos-20160523-snap-htmlstory.html">Latino evangelicals believe</a> the same thing about the Bible and Jesus as white evangelicals, their particular social context in many cases leads to a different political stance. </p>
<p>As these new and growing groups find their own voices, <a href="http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com/new-poll-evangelical-support-for-immigration-reform-remains-robust/">they are challenging</a> the dominant evangelical perspective on political issues such as immigration and economic inequality.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com">Evangelical Immigration Table</a>, established in 2014, has been working across a broad spectrum of evangelical churches and other institutions to highlight what they see as the biblical imperative to support a just and humane immigration policy. These groups range from the <a href="http://www.erlc.org">Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission</a> of the Southern Baptist Convention to the <a href="http://www.nhclc.org">National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, younger evangelicals are increasingly coming of age in more diverse neighborhoods and schools, leading to an openness to other racial and religious groups, LGBT people and social justice issues in ways that older evangelicals strenuously opposed. </p>
<p>Further, while the educational successes of evangelicalism, through its many and varied curricula, have served to socialize young people into the “biblically based” moral world, it has also taught them how to read the Bible critically and to pay attention to biblical themes and narrative through-lines that resonate with their own life experiences. </p>
<p>According to a pastor of a church included in my research, he is seeing young evangelicals apply the interpretive skills they have learned in school and church to a broader range of biblical teachings. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When you start to examine the teachings of Jesus, you’re going to end up seeing that justice matters, that we have a responsibility to care for the poor. Younger evangelicals are basically using those same hermeneutical tools to study the Bible and are saying, wait a minute, not only is there nothing wrong with caring about justice, there’s something wrong with not [caring].”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thus, while young evangelicals in some ways still evidence a shared theology with their parents’ generation – for example, on biblical passages that would support a “pro-life” perspective – they part company through their engagement with passages that emphasize the believer’s responsibility for the poor.</p>
<h2>View of social justice</h2>
<p>The younger evangelicals that I’ve been studying are not taking the expected evangelical position in this election, such as supporting Donald Trump, or supporting a broader agenda as that promoted by evangelical leaders such as James Dobson. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143545/original/image-20161027-11260-1nqa1kj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Younger evangelicals have widely different views.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gfes/8551296501/in/photolist-e2KTqf-e2KfHN-e2KPz5-e2Ebxi-e2KQgG-e2Kdef-e2KP5j-e2EawV-e2DB4X-e2KPNq-e2KQ5N-e2KPm3-e2KedE-e2KeK9-e2DA34-e2DAcp-e2Ket9-e2Kgs9-e2Kf7h-e2DCSv-e2Ke5E-e2DvQR-e2DxLe-ryRqGk-995Bds-e2Dvez-e2DAzT-e2KbWu-e2KbDy-e2Dvu2-e2Kgz3-e2Kdu7-e2DvGx-e2DtK6-e2DCwz-e2Kd8s-e2Kh5U-e2DwkZ-e2Dwza-e2Kci3-e2K9Q7-e2Dy4e-e2Duyc-e2Dw5H">George Fox Evangelical Seminary</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, the political activism that these younger evangelicals tend to engage in usually relates to issues like improving local schools, creating job opportunities, caring for the homeless and other activities that have been largely overlooked by American evangelicalism as it has been practiced over the past several decades.</p>
<p>In my interviews, I’ve asked many of these younger evangelicals how their religious commitments relate to politics. Their responses show a simultaneous distancing from “politics,” and a desire to seek change in a way that is consistent with their beliefs. A good example of this kind of response came from a 20-something African-American young woman who told me, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I also don’t care much for politics, because it’s so ugly. I just feel like, let’s commit to loving people. When I think about laws that unjustly affect minorities or the poor, that bothers me only because of the Gospel.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Diverse world view</h2>
<p>These evangelicals have staked out a middle ground that is neither Democrat nor Republican, <a href="http://theconversation.com/evangelical-christians-are-on-the-left-too-66253">liberal</a> or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/17/why-people-of-faith-dont-have-to-vote-between-the-lesser-of-two-evils/">conservative</a>. </p>
<p>This is not to say that younger evangelicals are all in agreement with how their religious views should be applied in the world. Rather, they are opting out of the political identities and battles that have characterized evangelicalism for the past 40 years.</p>
<p>Their world is more diverse in terms of race and ethnicity, social class, sexuality, and religious beliefs. Their friends are as likely to be straight or gay, Christian or Buddhist, or black or Latino. </p>
<p>That has informed the way that they understand their religious beliefs and their political alignments. They are seeking to live out their faith in response to a world that is different from the world that leaders of the old religious right inhabit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Flory has received funding from the John Templeton Foundation.</span></em></p>Younger evangelicals have a very different view of their faith.Their perspective on issues such as immigration and economic inequality differs widely from that of the religious right.Richard Flory, Senior Director of Research and Evaluation, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.