Donald Trump, a 77-year-old Bible salesman from Palm Beach, Florida, has emerged as the nation’s most prominent Christian leader. Trump is running for president as a divinely chosen champion of White Christians, promising to sanctify their grievances, destroy their perceived enemies, bolster their social status, and grant them the power to impose an anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ, White-centric Christian nationalism from coast to coast. That Trump doesn’t attend church and has obviously never read the book that he hawks for $59.99, seems of interest exclusively to his political opponents.
What might catch the attention of some evangelical conservatives, however, is that Trump’s ostentatious embrace of White Christian militantism coincides with a precipitous decline in religious affiliation in the US. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, one-quarter of Americans in 2023 said they were religiously unaffiliated. “Unaffiliated” is the only religious category experiencing growth. In a single decade, from 2013 to 2023, the percentage of Americans saying that religion is the most important thing, or among the most important things, in their life plummeted to 53% from 72%.
Was also born in the 70s, feel the same way. I was raised Catholic, but we were taught that abortion and gay people were absolutely fine no matter what the church said. When I left home I left Catholicism simply because I didn’t relate to it, what does a voluntary eunuch have to say to a young woman about her life, was my reasoning?
But in the last few years I started going to a very lefty inclusive and completely welcoming non-denominational Christian Church. I still think much of the Bible is loony tunes, but applying some of the wisdom of the teachings of Christ to life is appealing to me, and there’s just something about singing in an old building with stained glass windows on a Sunday morning that feels sacred in a way nothing else does. This church is actively trying to find a path forward to be good humans together while acknowledging and trying to repair the damage Christianity has done, we have openly gay and trans people who attend and participate fully, and I don’t know why they all can’t be like that. Conservatives suck the life breath out of everything they touch.