Podcast: More ink about crazy churches sinking down (maybe) into partisan politics

I’m hiding in a different set of mountains this week, but it’s my understanding that important political stuff has happened. Was that the midterm elections or something like that?

I also understand — based on reading stories on my smartphone — that those nasty evangelical churches had a bad week, in terms of getting “their candidates” elected. I know that because I wrote a post about that topic earlier this week, right before I fired up the electric car and rushed off to hide in the hills. That headline: “Crazy political stuff happening in churches right now, but which events get the elite ink?”

We revisited that topic in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), as a way of dipping a toe into the churning midterm waters. The key to the discussion was trying to discern whether political-beat reporters — religion-beat pros tend to do much better work — understand what religious leaders are allowed to do when talking about “political” topics and politicos who are running for office.

This happens on the Religious Right and (#triggerwarning) even more on the Religious Left (click here for more on that from Baptist progressive Ryan Burge). But most of the political-beat coverage is built on scary passages like this one from a piece at The Guardian that ran with the headline, “He was chosen’: the rightwing Christian roadshow spreading the gospel of Trump.” The coverage focus on the ReAwaken rallies that blend lots of Donald Trumpian talk with nondenominational evangelical-speak. That sounds like this:

Mark Trudo, who runs his own swimming pool construction company near St Louis, is more optimistic, saying: “Right now I’m hopeful, I think things are going to turn around, a great awakening is taking place.”
Like most of his ReAwaken peers, he sees the current politics in apocalyptic terms: “The country is being taken away from us from within. This is good versus evil.”
Actual evil? As in satanic evil?
“Is God real, is Satan real? Yes, I believe they are,” he says.
Is Biden satanic?

Two insiders' writings should be weighed carefully by evangelical-watchers in the press

As U.S. Protestant evangelicalism copes with internal divisions and problematic status in the broader society, along with the usual brickbats from the Left, non-partisan journalists and evangelical strategists alike should carefully monitor the thinking of knowledgeable insiders who are not wedded to customary loyalties and assumptions. Two in particular: David French and the lesser-known Michael F. Bird.

Preliminaries: (1) The media should indicate when they're talking about WHITE evangelicals, who are so distinct from the Hispanic and Black subgroups in socio-political terms. (2) Contrary to the customary media story line, it's important to acknowledge that grassroots, evangelicalism remains the LEAST politically involved of U.S. religion's major segments, as seen in the National Congregations Study.

Attorney-turned-pundit David French is, yes, a critic of Donald Trump who even flirted with a quixotic third-party run against him in 2016. Therefore his journalism is ignored if not despised by legions yearning for a second Trump term (which would end when he's age 82.5). Yet consider that though a Harvard Law product, French is a conservative's conservative and an evangelical's evangelical.

The Tennessee-based writer, who worships in the conservative Presbyterian Church in America, is a senior editor of The Dispatch and formerly a National Review writer. During his prior legal career he was a senior counsel with two top evangelical shops, the American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defending Freedom, and president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Perhaps no attorney has labored more effectively to defend Christian voices and organizations on U.S. campuses, harassed local churches and conservatives and pro-lifers exercising Bill of Rights freedoms.

Additionally, he served with the U.S. Army in Iraq, winning the Bronze Star for combat service. His importance as a conservative thinker was depicted in this 2019 New Yorker article. Wife Nancy was a Sarah Palin ghostwriter and founded Evangelicals for Romney in 2012.

With that background, you'll understand why The Guy keeps thinking about the contention in French's weekly column on religion February 13 that "the seeds of renewed political violence are being sown in churches across the land."