If you stop and think about it, the latest New York Times feature about those dreaded White evangelicals includes a few signs of progress.
The good news is that the story focuses on the many ways White American evangelicals are divided, these days. That’s progress, since it undercuts the dominant news narrative of the years since 2016. You know the one: That White evangelicals from sea to shining sea just love Donald Trump and that’s that.
The truth was always more complex than that, but many blue-checkmark experts on Twitter really needed someone to blame for Trump. White evangelicals were the answer, of course, since it would have required a great deal of introspection to blame the Democratic Party for nominating Hillary Clinton — perhaps the only opponent that scared millions of depressed Americans more than Trump.
But back to the key truth in this Times report — which is that White evangelicals are divided, which is true, and that is certainly not the same thing as the myth of monolithic unity. For background, see this 2018 post: “Complex realities hidden in '81 percent of evangelicals' love Trump myth.”
At the heart of this story is a character that will be familiar to some news consumers — a conservative religious leader whose beliefs would normally cause heart attacks in blue-zip-code newsrooms, but this leader is shown to deserve sympathy because believers who are much worse are attacking him/her. (The irony in this case is that this particular pastor seems very familiar to me since he appears to represent the evangelicalism in which I was raised and that I greatly respect.)
The headline: “As a ‘Seismic Shift’ Fractures Evangelicals, an Arkansas Pastor Leaves Home.” Here’s the overture:
FORT SMITH, Ark. — In the fall of 2020, Kevin Thompson delivered a sermon about the gentleness of God. At one point, he drew a quick contrast between a loving, accessible God and remote, inaccessible celebrities. Speaking without notes, his Bible in his hand, he reached for a few easy examples: Oprah, Jay-Z, Tom Hanks.
Mr. Thompson could not tell how his sermon was received. The church he led had only recently returned to meeting in person. Attendance was sparse, and it was hard to appreciate if his jokes were landing, or if his congregation — with family groups spaced three seats apart, and others watching online — remained engaged.
So he was caught off guard when two church members expressed alarm about the passing reference to Mr. Hanks. A young woman texted him, concerned; another member suggested the reference to Mr. Hanks proved Mr. Thompson did not care about the issue of sex trafficking. Mr. Thompson soon realized that their worries sprung from the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that the movie star is part of a ring of Hollywood pedophiles.
A side note: At least Thompson (who should, by the way, be the Rev. Kevin Thompson on first reference) didn’t mention that Hanks is pretty open about his own faith as a Greek Orthodox Christian, even if one whose approach to some moral issues may clash with the teachings of his church. That would have really complicated things, but I digress.
This brings us to the sweeping statement of The Big Idea in this Times feature, which (#SURPRISE) even includes clear references to sources for some material. Read this carefully:
Across the country, theologically conservative white evangelical churches that were once comfortably united have found themselves at odds over many of the same issues dividing the Republican Party and other institutions. The disruption, fear and physical separation of the pandemic have exacerbated every rift.
Many churches are fragile, with attendance far below prepandemic levels; denominations are shrinking, and so is the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian. Forty-two percent of Protestant pastors said they had seriously considered quitting full-time ministry within the past year, according to a new survey by the evangelical pollster Barna, a number that had risen 13 points since the beginning of 2021.
Michael O. Emerson, a sociologist at the University of Illinois Chicago, described a “seismic shift” coming, with white evangelical churches dividing into two broad camps: those embracing Trump-style messaging and politics, including references to conspiracy theories, and those seeking to navigate a different way.
As always, it would complicate things to note that — in keeping with trends that are decades long — some evangelical churches and denominations are shrinking, plateaued or slowly growing, while those on the cultural left continue, with few exceptions, to implode.
The broader truth is that the middle is vanishing, with many once “moderate” and-or lukewarm believers being more honest about their beliefs and joining the rapidly growing world of the “nones” and “nothing in particulars.” But that’s another important story that world complicate this Times story even more.
But here is another truth that must be noted: The conspiracy theory trend is — everyone has known this for several years now — at the heart of the tensions in evangelical life and lots of other religious flocks, as well. And, yes, this is clearly linked to the pew and pulpit battles over Trump and the online media culture that as continued to back him (think of it as the mirror image of much of the blue-checkmark Twitter world).
It’s also positive that the Times has recognized, again, these divisions. It would also help to note that most of the wildness on the edge of the evangelical world has had relatively little impact (yes, do keep your eye on this summer’s Southern Baptist Convention votes) on the denominations, publishing houses, parachurch groups and schools that are the framework of mainstream evangelical culture.
Now, what did Pastor Thompson do that causes his church to crash? Since we are dealing with a nondenominational church of the somewhat “progressive” tribe, it would help to know where he went to seminary. But, never mind.
Here are some chunks of the Times-speak about this situation:
* "Despite their status as an influential voting bloc, most white American evangelicals have historically avoided the perception of mixing politics and worship. In many evangelical settings, “political” means biased or tainted — an opposite of “biblical.”
“The one thing that I loved and was so refreshing about this ministry is there were no politics at all,” recalled Sara Adams-Moitoza, a longtime church member who owns a boutique shopping center in Fort Smith. “Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.”
* Mr. Thompson has voted Republican in almost every major election. He admires Mitt Romney and the Bush family and is conservative on issues of gender and sexual orientation, although he does not emphasize them often.
* If he spoke against abortion from the pulpit, Mr. Thompson noticed, the congregation had no problem with it. The members were overwhelmingly anti-abortion and saw the issue as a matter of biblical truth. But if he spoke about race in ways that made people uncomfortable, that was “politics.”
* The discontent over Mr. Thompson’s approach started with the 2016 presidential campaign. The pastor wrote a blog post that did not critique Mr. Trump by name, but whose point was clear. “Many who thought Bill Clinton was the Antichrist now campaign for a man who would make Bill Clinton blush,” he wrote.
* Mr. Thompson was equally frustrated by the actions of some of his congregants. People he thought should have known better were endorsing online conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and the results of the 2020 election. On his blog, he called for Christians to apply “research and discernment.” “When we share, promote, like and further things that are not true about others, we are violating the ninth commandment,” he wrote.
You get the idea.
When the pastor wrote “Black lives matter” in a blog post, things began to get out of hand. Is this Black Lives matter the liberal organization or “Black lives matter” the broader police-reform movement that united many White and Black churches, either liberal or conservative? Again, there is little room for specifics.
Moving on. Eventually, bad actors enter the drama — urging Christians to get more involved in politics. And so forth and so on.
The key is that there are bad White evangelicals and, apparently, there are some relatively good White evangelicals. The Times gets to say who is who and the voices in the report all support that framework. If you are looking for shades of gray, you won’t find it here.
My take: This story is so, so, 2016 — with the exception of the pandemic pain that soaked into the ruptures caused by the 2016 earthquake. In the end, this is all about Trump. #ALAS
Thus, I would like readers to read the Times story and try to fit some of its characters into a more complex framework. It’s possible that there isn’t enough information here to do that, but, what the heck, let’s try.
Flash back to this 2018 post — “If hundreds of evangelicals gather, but don't talk about Trump, do they make a sound?” — and to an evangelical typology that I have used several times since.
Which of these six groups do you, the reader, see in the voices found in this Times epic?
(1) Many evangelicals supported Trump from the get-go. For them, Trump is great and everything is going GREAT.
(2) Other evangelicals may have supported Trump early on, but they have always seen him as a flawed leader — but the best available. They see him as complicated and evolving and are willing to keep their criticisms PRIVATE.
(3) There are evangelicals who moved into Trump's tent when it became obvious he would win the GOP nomination. They think he is flawed, but they trust him to – at least – protect their interests, primarily on First Amendment issues.
(4) Then there are the lesser-of-two-evils Trump evangelicals who went his way in the general election, because they could not back Hillary Clinton under any circumstances. They believe Trump's team has done some good, mixed with quite a bit of bad, especially on race and immigration. They think religious conservatives must be willing to criticize Trump — in public.
(5) There are evangelicals who never backed Trump and they never will. Many voted for third-party candidates. They welcome seeing what will happen when Trump team people are put under oath and asked hard questions. … However, they are willing to admit that Trump has done some good, even if in their heart of hearts they'd rather be working with President Mike Pence.
(6) Folks on the evangelical left simply say, "No Trump, ever." Anything he touches is bad and must be rejected. Most voted for Clinton and may have yearned for Bernie Sanders.
Obviously, there are lots of folks here who appear to be in Camp 1. But are all of the pastor’s critics in that camp?
Where is Pastor Thompson? It appears — with the Bush and Romney references — that he might be in Camp 5. But he is also a moral and doctrinal conservative and, to be blunt, many believers of that kind voted in different ways in 2016 and 2020 (and I say that as a #NeverTrump #NeverHillary third-party voter).
In the end, it’s good that this story spotted the big split among White evangelicals.
The issue is whether the Times missed the bigger picture — which is that these divisions are way more complicated than a two-way split, a split between evangelicals that the Gray Lady respects and those that are beyond the pale.
FIRST IMAGE: Illustration posted with a Public Reading Rooms feature on Donald Trump and religion.