This is the 11th Guy Memo in a year guiding the media and other observers on dynamics within U.S. evangelical Protestantism. There are growing signs of a crack-up including, for sure, sexual scandals and self-inflicted wounds, but also the gap between institutional elites and the grassroots, creating division, instability and, we can expect, long-term damage.

If 11 articles seem like overkill, The Guy notes this has long been the most dynamic segment in American religion, and probably the largest in terms of active attendance. Though made up of organizationally chaotic fiefdoms, the movement’s impact rested upon substantial solidarity in belief and social outlook compared with other religious sectors.

Then seven years ago the disruptive force known as Donald J. Trump emerged.

Which brings us to last week’s significant scan by prominent evangelical Marvin Olasky in the conservative National Review.

Importantly, this does not come from some well-meaning outsider (thinking of you, David Brooks) but a career-long insider who’s profoundly conservative in both biblical belief and politics. But he is also anti-Trump.

Here we need to pause to sketch the landscape in evangelical journalism.

Olasky says the “big three” news outlets of evangelicalism are World magazine, where he was longtime editor-in-chief, the 66-year-old Christianity Today and Charisma, voice of the Pentecostal-charismatic wing of this hard-to-define world. (Beat specialists would of course add other informative websites without print editions.)

During Trump’s 2020 campaign, Charisma CEO Stephen Strang issued a book subtitled “Why He [Trump] Must Win and What’s at Stake for Christians If He Loses,” followed by a magazine piece telling readers “Why We Must Support Trump in Prayer and at the Polls.”

But the other two top editors disagreed. In World, Olasky proclaimed Trump morally “unfit for power” just before the 2016 election. In 2019, Christianity Today editor-in-chief Mark Galli called for Trump’s impeachment and removal from office over Ukraine meddling for partisan purposes.