Evangelical support for Trump and emerging theologies of presidential leadership

The Theological Reason behind Evangelicals’ Support of Trump and the Emerging Theology of Leadership Coming from the Trump Base
The Evangelicals who are known to be ardent supporters of the Republican Party have so far intensified their loyalty to the conservative party since the emergence of President Donald Trump in 2016. They have shown by their statements and body language, to be one of the biggest fans of President Donald Trump. While most religious leaders in the US and other parts of the world have consistently expressed their disappointments towards Trump’s actions that are observed by many to be highly unfounded and controversial, judging by most of his policies against immigrants in the US and other tribes that are not whites or Americans, the Evangelicals, on the other hand appeared to completely be in tune with the president whose administration has been deemed to be one of the most controversial in the history of the U.S. Leading voices among the Evangelicals defending every action of the president, like Robert Jeffress and Paula White have several times been criticized for being inconsistent and some described them as hypocrites. Their critics stance against them is based on the fact that these popular religious leaders have spent a good part of their adult and ministerial lives extolling morality, love, and neighborliness, and at the same time condemning immorality, and hatred most of which Donald Trump has been accused of, and even caught being involved in. However, with all the moral baggage of the president and his open stance against certain immigrants in the country, the Evangelicals have come out several times in defense of the president's policies and dismissing his pointed-out moral decadence as being “irrelevant”.
Instances like these are what their critics' views are based upon. However, while the accusers of Jeffress and his likes continue in their condemnation of the Evangelical leaders' characters as being "unbiblical and unlike Christ", it will be good to examine a few social and religious perspectives that are connected to the Trump/Evangelicals matter. This literature review explores several works of different authors in relation to the debates that the relationship between Trump and Evangelicals has generated since the emergence of president Trump in 2016. It examines issues like the relationship between religion and politics; religious leaders’ interest in politics vis-à-vis the Trump-Evangelical relationship; and Trump’s personality and leadership style in light of the Bible standard. To approach these issues raised with clarity of thought, this review will further explores leading perspective into the questions in understanding, for instance, how the evangelicals became a force to reckon with in America politics; the basis and genesis of their relationship with the Republicans; and the voting behavior of different demographic representations in America especially the religious groups.
In an article by Amy Black (2016), the author, while pointing out that the evangelicals support base for the Republicans has been in existence since 1980, was, however, very concise in chronicling the present day religious mix with politics to the19th century Fundamentalism days of Martin Luther which was given birth to by Charles Darwin’s evolution theory. The fundamentalism was focused on protecting Christian rights. Although it became not too popular since the protestant emergence, however, the ideologies are still the realities till today, and such were the Evangelicals preference in electioneering process in the country as they always want to give their mandate to the candidate perceived to have the political traits to protect their interest. A viewpoint that has been tagged by many as mixing religion with politics, and at different times, been condemned by different people.
For example, Philip W. Gray, (2003), while opposing the concept of the role of religion in politics, Gray believed that such a concept had created more problems than solving it. He argued that "While the weakening of the church in the centuries before the Reformation is of great importance, the Reformation itself cemented the subordination of the church to the state.” He described such idea as "theology of politics" and "political theology" claiming that in a society where religion plays an essential role, such society's every institution reflects religion. Gray belonged to the school of thought that believed the political ideology that gives rooms for religion influence, upon which most Western civilization is built, is creating more problems in the political arenas of most of the countries and he wondered if these problems could ever be solved by the same ideology that created it, as the two major religions in the world, Christianity and Islam appeared to be gripped by divisions which they may not overcome in centuries to come. This interesting angle might worth considering judging by the evangelicals' political ideologies since the Trump era. Perhaps, a second will be needed at the roles and influence of religion and religion leaders in election matters. But as suggested by Gray, should there be complete negligence of spirituality from the politics, or in other words, should religious leaders be completely apolitical?
Expectedly, the evangelical leaders thought otherwise several decades ago and would still say otherwise even today. Alan Wolfe (2017) recalled the 1976 event that first gave birth to the religious sentiments at the White House. Before then, political aspirants in the country had always kept their faith to themselves, until 1976 elections when Jimmy Carter, to the surprise of many people in the academic and political world, declared himself as "born again" after rising to the Oval office as the 39th President of the U.S., This was the genesis of the Christian faith influence in the political space of the country. Just in the same year, a prominent Christian religious leader emphasized that religion and politics should not be kept apart stressing that the notion of separating the state from religion must have been “invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.” Falwell went further to insinuate that from that moment, modern American politics would be taking a completely different and radical dimension, and true to his words, many leaders of the country has since maintained an appearance of ‘Christian' to make themselves appealing to the Christian community. So, it should not be surprising seeing Trump taking advantage of the long-term sentiments to be the evangelicals' favorite in the 2016 election. While there will ever be back and front argument on the role of religion in politics, one question, however, remains, even if there is or there should, is the evangelical way of supporting Trump biblical and can be found to be theological-base?
Having explored the relationship between religion and politics and the religious leaders’ interest in political affairs, the best answer to many questions which this literature review aspires to find will not be established without taking a moment to define who and what Evangelical indeed means. Many, at different times have attempted to define the word evangelical, but all attempts have given one answer which is there is not really a generally-accepted definition for it. In a journal chronicling the birth of the Christian movement in the US to several decades of histories and activities in the religious and political space of the country, Jonathan Merrit, (2015) pointed out that " [evangelical's] meaning has shifted throughout Christianity's long history and changes." Merrit quoted religious historian, George Marsden, who had once said that in an evangelical Christian, in the 1950s and 1960s, was "anyone who likes Billy Graham." Only for Billy Graham also to appear to be bereft of the true definition of the word when asked to define evangelical, the revered televangelist was quoted to have replied thus, "Actually, that's a question I'd like to ask somebody too."
While its nature of having several denominations belonging to it has made it somewhat difficult to have a consensus of how to be defined, unlike the Catholics and church of Mormon which have central bodies, Merrit’s research, however, found that the widely accepted definition of the movement, which was the one put forward by David Bebbington in 1989 called “Bebbington quadrilateral”. It identifies evangelical Christian “as anyone with high regard for the Bible; a focus on Jesus's crucifixion and its saving effects; a belief that humans need to be converted; and the belief that faith should influence one's public life.” Though this Bebbington definition might not have given an explicit view of who an evangelical is, from it, however, one can deduce the political philosophy of those who form the majority of the community.
In another monthly magazine which chronicles the activities of the evangelicals in their unrelenting support of Donald Trump, Samuel Buntz, (2017), lamented the prominent faith-based organization’s derailment of the Bible standard in their bid to defend Trump’s actions. For instance, one of the leading voices in the Evangelicals support of president Trump, the Liberty University President, Jerry Falwell Jr. who had likened Trump's reign to that of King David in the Bible. Falwell Jr. had posited that despite King David's shortcomings which included committing adultery and arranging the death of his mistress's husband in battle, he remained God's favorite. He went further to claim that Trump was not as bad as he appeared to be, he was, rather, "a warrior for righteousness tragically beset by unpredictable appetites."
Buntz, (2017), however, found the comparison appalling and unfounded, judging by his view of Trump’s brashness in approaching national and international matters. He was quick to point out to the University Don and others like him in the camp of Trump's support base, that despite all that they quoted about David, King David was never among other things, recorded to have a disdainful attitude towards his subjects, citing Trump's examples of insulting disabled reporters and accusing debate moderators. Bruntz believed that while “the un-attuned observer might mistake Trump’s victory for evidence of conservative resurgence”, the typical Trump support was rather a signal of final hollowing out and a complete revelation of emptiness. He opined that the Evangelical’s way of blindly supporting the president is indeed making liberal Christianity unappealing to people, and the current dimension of religious life as being purported by the evangelicals would need to be addressed.
To understand the genesis of the relationship between the faith-based group and the president, the preliminary 2016 analysis by Gregory Smith & Jessica Martinez, (2016) showed a little change in the political alignments of the religious groups in the country. According to Smith and Martinez, “those who supported Republican candidates in recent elections, such as white born-again or evangelical Christians and white Catholics, strongly supported Donald Trump as well.” The authors’ analysis showed various religious groups in comparison to their alignments in different past five elections. In particular, the Evangelicals vote bloc showed thus, 2004 – Kerry; 21 vs. Bush; 78, Obama; 24 vs. McCain; 74, Obama; 21 vs. Romney; 78, and Clinton; 16 vs Trump; 81. Presenting the same statistic in his aftermath examination of the events that led to the 2016 election, Daniel Miller (2018), also berated the Evangelicals for their, what he termed “incongruous support for Trump”. He, like many others also pondered upon the motivation behind the Evangelical support as they were among the leading voices that overwhelmingly condemned Bill Clinton in the “context of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky” back in the year 1998. While the statistics although showed an increase from 2012’s 78% to 2016’s 81%, it, however, revealed that the bias which the evangelicals have against the Democrats has been on for a long time.
Beaming the searchlight further on the relationship between the Evangelicals and the president since during the primary elections, inauguration day, and till now, Tara Isabella Burton (2018) research work confirmed this long-term relationship. Burton traced white Evangelicals’ 81% of vote blocs for Trump to “pure partisanship,” quoting Robert Jones, author of The End of White Christian America. Jones noted that initially, the evangelical support for Trump was not so high before the results of primaries, it was 30 per cent. However, after Trump won the nomination of the Republicans, the favorability skyrocketed to 74 per cent and has so far been steady, which explains his claim of 81 per cent of their votes. This, Jones who also recalled similar voting behavior of the evangelicals toward another Republican candidate, George W. Bush 2001, believed, reeked of being partisan than of value. He revealed that the values voting and morality which the evangelicals was known for, has dissipated to "transactional and utilitarian political ethics." He pointed out that the evangelical's attitudes towards political issues and their alliance with Republicans can best be described "elect our guy." In other words, the narrative among the leading figures of the formidable Christian groups in America has now wholly been shifted from morality sake to pure partisanship.
Also, in trying to make sense of the evangelicals choice of Trumps amongst several other Republican candidates at the primary election, and over Clinton at the general election, Philip Gorski, (2017) in his own submission, termed it to have come from The ‘‘Lesser of Two Evils’’ Voters concept. He noted that while the evangelicals were indeed driven by concerns about “abortion, religious freedom, and the Supreme Court”, they were in spite of all that, would still prefer him to Clinton. This is because they were “White Christian nationalists" and the Trump's political ideologies, which despite smearing of hatred and racism towards non-whites, still appeared to protect their interest. Like others quoted already in this paper, Gorski also expressed his awe of Trump's victory and support base in rhetoric, asking “Why did so many evangelical Christians vote for Donald Trump? Why did they vote for a man who has six children by three wives? A man who bragged about ‘‘grabbing’’ women? And who nonetheless claimed that he’s never done anything he needed to be forgiven for?” He also could not but wonder why the popular Christian body vote for "a man who hadn't darkened a church door in decades would? Why, in short, did they rally behind someone who seems the very antithesis of most everything they have ever claimed to stand for?" However, for all these questions, the only sense Gorski could make out of the evangelicals’ bend which is completely in opposition to Biblical injunctions of love, mercy, meekness and several other fruits of the spirit, is that their action was based on the fact that they were “White Christian nationalists”. Expressing similar view to that of Gorski, Janelle Wong (2018) in his paper highlighting the White Evangelicals’ political attitude across different racial groups, posited “White evangelicals' more conservative political attitudes are driven by a sense of in-group embattlement.” And of course, judging by the way the leading figures in the evangelical community have been trying hard to defend Trump’s policies and playing down his shortcomings as something that should be dismissed, it would be a difficult task trying to fault this Gorski’s and Wong’s position. .
As stated above, for a broad view of the thesis posed in this review, there is a need for a brief drift into a nonreligious perspective of the topic to understand the evangelicals voting pattern could not have been formed singly from a faith-based standpoint. Leading to the elections, there had been signs that more than at any time in the U.S history, the division between the two parties had become wider. A survey carried out by Pew Research Center (2014) revealed that “Republicans and Democrats [were] more divided along ideological lines – and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive.” The survey of 10,000 adults nationwide revealed that the divisions were more real among the people who were the most active in the country’s politics. As at that time when former president Obama was still in the office, the research showed that “fully 66% of consistently conservative Republicans think the Democrats' policies threaten the nation's well-being. By comparison, half (50%) of consistently liberal Democrats say Republican policies jeopardize the nation's well-being." This perhaps explains the mutual suspicion leading to the election and Trump's appearance of a man with the confidence needed by the conservative Republicans to challenge the Democrat's reign was why he eventually clinched the ticket ahead of other rivals of his.
In another dimension, looking at Trump's support from a secular demographic perspective, John Dean (2018), in one of his columns, dissected the president's support base from other demographics like gender, educational level, race, age, etc. The columnist believed that Trump's support base evidently resides within the group of people who supported him at the 2016 polls. Backing up his claims with a Boston Globe's November 2016 polls, Dean recollected that leading to the elections the polls comparing Hillary Clinton's versus Donald Trump’s bases showed-Gender-wise, men (41% vs. 53%); women (54% vs. 42%). Race-wise –Whites; (37%vs.58%), Blacks; (88%vs.8%), Hispanic; (65% vs. 29%), Asians; (65% vs. 29%), Education-wise-White College Grads; (45% vs. 49%), White Not College Grads; (28% vs. 67%), Non-White College Grads; (71%-23%), and Non-White Not College Grads (75%-20%).
From the above statistics, Dean believed the 12-point margin Trump had over Clinton with men, might be the reason behind the president’s refusal to show empathy towards women, citing Trump’s disparaging allegations of sexual abuse of over 12 women and his White House staff’s abuse of women. Dean also believed the president support base as revealed by the polls might be the reason behind his confidence of unwavering support from those whom he believed would always be his fans and stick out their necks from him through thick and thin. Those he referred to as “the people who would still cast their ballots for him even if he shot someone on 5th Avenue.” This suggests that even from nonreligious perspective Trump’s support remains a puzzle, which many observers still find intriguing, and Dean just like many others still cannot fathom the motivation behind these set of people’s love for Trumps. The columnist wondered why these set of “people support this most untraditional, norm shattering.”
Dean obviously was not alone in his awe of events leading to the 2016 presidential election that produced Donald Trump as the POTUS. In an essay that captured Trump's and other Republican party's candidates approach towards the campaign and general vote canvassing, Luiza-Maria Filimon (2016) described the candidates' attitudes and words towards national issues, as figurative Cold War M.A.D. (mutual assured destruction). Comparing the Republicans' campaigns and regular discussion in their camp to their democratic counterparts, Filimon believed that while the Democratic appeared to have their focus and argument on issue-based campaigns, the Republicans’, on the other hand, were more of showmanship and mise-en-scène. She cited many captions from mass-media titles of the Republicans’ attitudes and approach. Filimon recalled many observers’ likening of their attitudes to madness. For instance, most leading media houses in the country could not help it but to express their shock over the republican’s candidates approach, so much that they began to ask, in their publications, questions like “Are the Republicans mad?” (The Economist, April 28th, 2012); - “Republicans’ big problem with crazy” (Michael Cohen, The Guardian, August 15th, 2013); - “How the GOP Slowly went insane” (Jon Lovett, The Atlantic, October 16th, 2013). Others interesting captions were “How long can the GOP hide the crazy?”(Dean Obeidallah, The Daily Beast, September 20th, 2014); - “The GOP’s demented family values: From the Duggars to David Vitter, again and again, the social conservatives have horrifying hypocrisy problems” (Sean Illing, Salon, June 8th, 2015).
These were as a result of disrespectful statements from these candidates. For instance, Mike Huckabee, one of the candidates was quoted to have said in his show of lack of respect for women that "a statistical reality that most single moms are very poor, under-educated, can't get a job", and he went further to say, "if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death." Also, Ted Cruz, another popular candidate was also caught to have in an attempt perceived to be humor in a poor state, said "God should ?give women a hymen that grows back every time she has intercourse with a different guy, because that will be a ?visible sign' of the breach of trust." While, apart from many of disparaging speeches portraying "war against women", some of which have been mentioned above, credited to Donald Trump, his attacks against the Mexicans towards the elections is one that will for a long time remain a reference point as amongst campaign hate speech and racism in the political discourse in the country. He was quoted to have said, "The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico and, in fact, for many other parts of the world…………." Moreover, in describing Mexican immigrants in the US, Trumps, among other things said, “they’re bringing [their] problems to us, they’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime”; and he went further to label them “they’rerapists.”
So, to think Trump would eventually clinch the Republicans ticket beating other candidates, including those who appeared to be calmer and more homely like Ben Carson says a lot about the party's present-day political ideology. More interesting, however, is that beyond the party level which already came as a surprise to many political observers, the general election which saw the majority of American electorates gave their mandates to him above the Democrat's candidate, Hillary Clinton, remained a mirage which proved many observers wrong, including Filimon who had earlier saw the antics as mutual assured destruction.
Another observer belonging to the group of those who could not contain their amazement for Trump’s victory was John Fletcher (2017). In an article reminiscing on the mood of the nation and the contest between the Democrats faithful versus the Republican lovers, Fletcher admitted to seeing Trump as a merely “hopeful-drunk” who would never match Clinton’s popularity and acceptance at the polls. Fletcher, a member of the Democratic Party himself, stated that Trump’s victory came as a surprising reality. He also, like others in his shoes, posited that Trump's ideologies and philosophies are one that violates “the presumption of the legitimacy of ideological opposition necessary for agonistic democracy to work at all.” Just like many other commentators over Evangelicals love base for Trump, Fletcher also commented on the 81% votes given to the president from the leading Christian group in the US as the one that represents a derail from “moral imagination or grace." While this group of people who were surprised of the outcome of the elections cannot be begrudged for their expression and disappointment expressed for the generality of American Trump's supporters, and the evangelical camp, in particular, the underlying factor many have failed to consider is that the acceptance of Trump's style goes beyond religious perspective. It cut across almost every stratum of the Americans' political ideology which Trump appeared to represent more when compared to other candidates. So, judging by Boston Globe's November 2016 polls as presented above by Dean, the upsurge of the political paradigm shift which seemed to be less concerned about values, is beyond the religion in general and the evangelicals in particular.
One of the few observers who took the new reality beyond generalization viewpoint and the trending painting of the evangelical community in light of misrepresentations of Biblical standard is a research work by Benjamin F Hachten (2017). Hatchen looked at it from a personal angle rather than a community angle. In his work, he compared some evangelical leaders' stance against Trump throughout the campaigns to those of the leaders who have, on the other hand, been Trump's men, and then observed that the Trump’s endorser perspectives might have been formed from their likeness and beliefs in him rather than policies and characters. He particularly focused on these four lovers of Trump evangelical leaders, Dobson, Burns, White, and Falwell, Jr. T and categorized their total statements about Trump towards the election, into three. The three categories were Policy; 32, Partisan; 2, and Personal; 38. Hatchen’s comparison of the three categories of statements showed that the four leaders expressed more personal statements towards Trumps than that of partisan and policy.
For instance, citing one of the endorsers, Paula White’s, comment on Donald Trump in an interview, her enthusiasm in singing Trump's praises revealed a personal motivation rather than policy-based viewpoint. She was quoted to have said, " Mr Trump is totally and entirely pro-life. He has acknowledged again and again his commitment to appoint pro-life Supreme Court Justices, and he's written an op-ed about his pro-life position”, countering Clinton’s submission on abortion (“Hillary Clinton on Abortion”, 2018). She went further to say Trump has "even publicly released the list of justices he would appoint", and in her endorsement of Trump of Clinton, White said, "People have a clear choice this election: a pro-life Donald Trump or a pro-choice Hillary Clinton." Hatchen likened their voting behavior to that of celebrity endorsement, citing the example of Oprah Winfrey's endorsement for Barrack Obama in 2007 election which appeared to be more of personal preference than the one influenced by policy-driven. So, if we are to go by Hatchen’s view, which of course, is worth considering, it may be right to say beyond evangelical/republican unwritten alliance, personal motivation contributed to their 81% voting blocs for Trump in the 2016 election. This further establishes the fact that while religious interest played a significant part in Trump's victory, personal motivation is also a contributing factor in the Evangelicals camp.
President Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States of America who rose to power on “Make America Great Again” slogan. He was a successful businessman in real estate, sports, and entertainment. He became the president in his first ever run for any political office Apart from his outstanding career and political successes, he is also an accomplished author-his first book on business, The Art of the Deal, is considered a business classic and a best seller. President Trump has been married to his wife, Melania, for twelve years, “Official Biography of Donald J. Trump.” U.S. White House (2018). This political and business career aspect of Trump is what most people know about him. So, spiritual-wise, who is Donald Trump?
To further expand the scope of this paper, there is need to look at Trump's personality and leadership approach and the impact of his political philosophy and policies in comparison with Biblical standard to assess the rightness of the evangelicals’ critics if they were entirely correct in their accusations of the faith-based community.
Looking at the impacts of the president’s rule and personality, one of the elites who still find Trump’s policies and actions intriguing since assuming office is Senator Van Hollen, the Democrat Representative for Maryland 8th Congressional district. In a conversation between the lawmaker and a university Don, Professor, Shibley Telhami, during the University of Maryland’s Sadat Forum on September 28 2017. Hollen decried Trump’s leadership as the one dividing America along racial lines. While commenting on several issues including travel ban, North Korea and Iran issues, and racial uprising at the University of Maryland, College Park, Hollen traced Trump's leadership style to the racial tension at the Bowie State University—Maryland's oldest historically black university, where a white student murdered a black student, Richard Collins. Issues like this and the president's approach to solving the Arab/Israel issues are what made Hollen believed Trump had created a big problem that will require a lot of works to be corrected. Also worried about Trump’s leadership style, Louwerse Colter and Ron Dart, (2017) raised concerns over the president’s policies especially in his administration foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East concerning the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Colter and Dart believed that his close relationship with a certain evangelical-right has had deleterious consequences in many of his policies. Expressing similar concerns, Judith Roberts et al. (2018) also pointed out the "possible consequences of Trump’s election” advocating support for the people who are affected by the presidents’ policies.
Apart from travel ban and other anti-immigrant stance of Trump, he had also advocated for the use of torture both during his campaigns and his time as the president. Mathew Weaver & Spencer Ackerman (2017) recalled Trump position as what he termed "fighting fire for fire" in his first presidential interview with ABC News. Trump believed terrorists who have no regard for human lives should also be given torture, and he has at different occasions canvassed for reinstatement of the detention of terrorism suspects at facilities known as "black sites". This idea has, however, been advised against by many security experts, warning that such approach has 'potentially existential' costs.
Instances like the above are the premise upon which Trump's and Evangelicals' critics based their argument; and if this international Christian organization, Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWE)'s doctrines is to go by, it would be challenging to ascertain that the Evangelical political style is theologically-proven. For instance, in one of the guidelines of the commission in their guide practical book titled TOGETHER TOWARDS LIFE, the Jooseop Keum (2013)'s publication of the mission outreach highlighted in their outreach guidelines. A part of the guidelines said, "they were aware of tensions between people and communities of different religious convictions and varied interpretations of Christian witness, authentic evangelism must always be guided by life-affirming values" which among other things are
a. Rejection of all forms of violence, discrimination and repression by religious and secular authority, including the abuse of power—psychological or social;
b. Affirming the freedom of religion to practice and profess faith without any fear of reprisal and or intimidation. Mutual respect and solidarity which promote justice, peace and the common good of all; and
c. Respect for all people and human cultures, while also discerning the elements in our own cultures, such as patriarchy, racism, casteism, etc., that need to be challenged by the gospel.
It is also noteworthy that one of the leadership styles, as demonstrated by Jesus Christ in the Bible, is the Servant Leader character. Jesus told his disciples in Matthew chapter 20 verses 26 that “whoever wishes to be great among [them] must be their servant.” Larry Boone (2012), in his book, Five Necessary of Servant Leader also emphasized the essence of possessing the attitudes that make servant leader style work for anyone in the position of authority. Prominent and most relevant to this review among the necessities as advocated by Boone are the parts that said “listening is hard work requiring a major investment of personal time and effort – and it is worth every ounce of energy expended”; and where he pointed out that a leader must always remember that he is a “community builder.” So, in light of Jesus’ laid-down leadership style and Boone's highlighted qualities of a servant leader, could Trump and his evangelical support base be said to be on the right track? The highlighted above virtues seem to be lacking in Trump's ideologies, and this will remain one of the reasons why the world will continue to question the evangelicals' obsession for the man.
However, despite all the appearance of the anti-people stance of Donald Trump, can everything about his person and administration be said to be entirely theologically unfounded? A more in-depth search of the scripture might prove otherwise, and that is one area many Christian faithful especially the Evangelicals have so far held on to.
Emerging facts shows that the evangelicals had seemingly been paranoid to the Democrats’ presidency during Obama, which suggests they wanted a man who would restore their perceived dwindling of America value under the Democrats. The emergence of Trump was much to their delight in that regard as many of the Christian faithful in the country ascribed Trump’s presidency to a miracle from God. Katherine Stewart (2018) article confirmed that feelers from various Christian groups in the country is the likening of Trump to King Cyrus, whom they believed was sent from God to restore America just as Cyrus was sent to restore the Israelites from captivity, as recorded in the 45th chapter of the Book of Isaiah. Stewart observed that Trump’s attributes of which sometimes appeared to be autocratic than democratic is why he is more appealing to many Christians in the country.
John Fae (2018), who also observed this distrust feeling in the evangelical camp during the Democrat Obama presidency, observed that the principal motive behind the GOP candidates campaign style which many media people captioned as madness, was actually a calculated move as these candidates understood the conservative evangelicals' commitments politically and knew the best way to capture their camp is to use what Fae called "The Fear Sweepstake." It became a competition of who will create the highest fear in the hearts the Christian faithful in the country and the theatrics or mis en scene as Fillimon called it, perfectly worked best for Trump among other candidates.
Quoting Lance Wallanu, an evangelical author and speaker who had once quipped that he believed that “the 45th president is meant to be an Isaiah 45 Cyrus” who would “restore the crumbling walls that separate us from cultural collapse” Stewart (2018). That perhaps might further explain their preference of Trump over Clinton as another leading voice in the Christian faith, Ralph Drollinger, a leader of weekly Bible study groups in the White House, has also maintained that the Bible only describes "male leadership." This might be the reason for the favorability over Clinton among men. Stewart article revealed that while many of these faithful were indeed sometimes feel concerns of Trump's traits and moral deficiencies, the conclusions which most of them always arrive to is, "the belief that he is a miracle sent straight from heaven to bring the nation back to the Lord."
In trying to understand Trump's spiritual life before and since his days in the office, Matthew Nussbaum (2017), compared Trump's personality during campaigns and his portrayed closeness to God ever since he became the president. According to Nussbaum's findings, Trump never appeared to be religious before and during the campaigns leading to the 2016 elections. However, ever since his inauguration, he has always been referring to God and God factor in most of his statements. For instance, during the campaigns, Nussbaum recollected, Trump talked about religion only when he was particularly asked a question related to that. Unlike now that he mentioned God in most of his decisions, attend church services more, and maintain a cordial relationship with many Christian faith leaders in the country. The new change of spiritual life which he now publicly portrays has made many to wonder if perhaps, the president has just found religion at the White House. And if truly he has, Nussbaum pressed to know if his Vice, Mike Pence was responsible for that, as he, (Pence) is known to be a very spiritual person whose spirituality according to an Ohio pastor, Darrell Scott, who has known Trump for six years, "is contagious". However, when Nussbaum inquired of Scot to know if Mike Pence was indeed behind Trump's noticeable spiritual life of Trump, Scott, who though believed that Trump seemed to have mastered the Apostle Paul's statement in one of his Epistles in the book of 1 Corinthians, "I have become all things to all people", he, however, said he doubted if Mike Pence had been the one who converted Trump. But then, should Trump's perceived spirituality be seen to be genuine and in line with the Bible-believing Christian? Regardless of whatever the answer to this poser is, the "King Cyrus, King David, and Male Leadership concepts upon which many people in the Christian community viewed the emergence of Trump might continue always to supersede other values and tenets of their faith.
Conclusion
In order to completely satisfy all the many questions, this topic has raised, it will be of utmost essence to carry out a study that deals with every aspect of the relationship that exists between politics and religion. The study should among other things, recommend the best way to handle religion influence in political affairs as it appears that total separation of the two might be impossible in the United States, at least for now. Also, a further study should also be conducted, that which will in no small extent recommend a consensus on which should be of more significant concern to Christian faith in their political commitment, protection of moral value above “Christian interest” or vice versa?





References
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Fea, John, “The Fear Sweepstakes: How Trump Captured the White Evangelical Vote.” The Christian Century, 135, no.14 (July 4, 2018), 22-26. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/how-trump-won-2016-fear-sweepstakes
Filimon, Luiza-Maria, “Politics and Magical Thinking: How Falsehoods, Showmanship and Hawkishness Became Trademarks of Republican Presidential Electoral Campaign.” British and American Studies (January 1, 2016), 221. https://litere.uvt.ro/publicatii/BAS/pdf/no/bas_2016.pdf
Fisher, Dan, "Merry-Mas: Popular Culture, Political Correctness, and Misrepresented Constitutional Language Are Raining on Christians' Christmas Parade by Stripping Christ from Christmas.” The New American (6 December, 2010), 26, no. 24, 33-37.
Fletcher, John. “Deep Stories of the Demonized: Empathy and Trump Evangelicals.” Performance Matters 3, no. 1 (2017): 94-102.
Frisk, David B. “Still Athwart History.” Modern Age, 60, no. 2 (Spring 2018), 67.
Gorski, Philip. “Why evangelicals voted for Trump: A critical cultural sociology.” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 5, no. 3 (2017): 338-354. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Philip_Gorski2/publication/318794810_Why_evangelicals_voted_for_Trump_A_critical_cultural_sociology/links/59ebf181a6fdccef8b0c5fa3/Why-evangelicals-voted-for-Trump-A-critical-cultural-sociology.pdf?origin=publication_detail
Gray, Phillip W. “Political Theology and the Theology of Politics: Carl Schmitt and Medieval Christian Political Thought1.” Humanitas20, no. 1/2 (2007): 175. http://www.nhinet.org/gray20-1.pdf
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Hanley, Delinda C. “Sen. Chris Van Hollen Discusses Trump’s Effect on Political Division.” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 36, no. 7 (November/December 2017), 57. https://www.wrmea.org/017-november-december/sen.-chris-van-hollen-discusses-trumps-effect-on-political-%C2%ADdivision.html
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Louwerse, Colter, and Ron Dart. “Donald Trump and the Christian Zionist Lobby: Letter from Canada.” Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies 16, no. 2 (2017): 237-243. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/hlps.2017.0167?journalCode=hlps
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Nussbaum, Matthew (2017, April 16). “as Trump found religion in the Oval Office?” Politico. [online] available: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/has-trump-found-religion-in-the-oval-office-237239.
“Obituary: Walter H. Judd, 95, Missionary to China and U.S. Representative (1994, February 15). The New York Times. Available https://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/15/obituaries/walter-h-judd-95-missionary-to-china-and-us-representative.html. (couldn’t strike the connection to the review)

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Pitts, Leonard, “Divided by Our Versions of Reality.” Charleston Gazette Mail (11 August, 2016), 4A.
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Roberts, Judith. "The Lord Has Sounded the TRUMPets?." Constructing Narratives in Response to Trump's Election: How Various Populations Make Sense of an Unexpected Victory (2018): 83. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498564540/Constructing-Narratives-i
Response-to-Trump's-Election-How-Various-Populations-Make-Sense-of-an-Unexpected-Victory
Rogland, Max, “Servants of the Servant: A Biblical Theology of Leadership.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (June 2006), 49, no. 2, 442-446. (couldn’t find the author matching to the available articles)
Smidt, Corwin E. “The role of religion in the 2016 American presidential election.” Zeitschriftfür Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik 1, no. 1 (2017): 133-162.
Smith, G. and J. Martinez, “How the faithful voted: A preliminary 2016 analysis.” Pew Research Center, 2016. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/
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Stewart, Katherine (2018, December 31). “Why Trump Reigns as King Cyrus.” The New York Times. [online] available: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/trump-evangelicals-cyrus-king.html
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Weaver, Matthew and Spencer Ackerman, "Trump Claims Torture Works but Experts Warn of Its 'Potentially Existential' Costs," The Guardian, 26 January 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/26/donald-trump-torture-absolutely-works-says-us-president-in-first-television-interview
Wolfe, Alan, “The Evangelicals” The New York Times (2017, March 28). Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/books/review/evangelicals-struggle-to-shape-america-frances-fitzgerald.html.
Wong, Janelle. “The Evangelical Vote and Race in the 2016 Presidential Election.” Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics (2018): 1-26. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-race-ethnicity-and-politics/article/evangelical-vote-and-race-in-the-2016-presidential-election/1B589FFCC14A784211FD59207A571E0E