After former President Donald Trump gave his victory speech at the Palm Beach Convention Center early Wednesday, dozens of his supporters gathered in a lobby to sing “How Great Thou Art,” reciting by heart the words and harmonies of a classic hymn, which is popular with many Protestant Christians.
It was a fitting end to an election in which Trump once again won the support of about eight in 10 white evangelical Christian voters, according to AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of more than 120,000 voters. This level of support — from a group that made up about 20% of the total electorate — replicates the similarly staggering evangelical support Trump received in 2020.
Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church of Dallas, one of Trump’s most prominent evangelical supporters since the 2016 campaign, called the election a “huge victory.”
“Yes, there were some faith issues that were important to evangelicals, but evangelicals are Americans too,” Jeffress said. “They care about immigration, they care about the economy.”
Some Trump critics fear he will implement a Christian nationalist agenda that they say gives Christians a privileged position in the country and disrespects the separation of church and state.
Even if some of the government’s religious statements come more in rhetoric than policy, that can have an impact in a country that is more secular and religiously diverse than in previous generations, said Andrew Whitehead, author of “Taking America Back for God.” :Christian”. Nationalism in the United States.”
“Anyone who adopts this expression of Christianity or the Christian religion or no religion at all will feel labeled as ‘other’ and not truly American,” said Whitehead, an associate professor of sociology at Indiana University Indianapolis.
Whitehead assumed that a Christian nationalist perspective would likely lead to restrictive immigration policies aimed at protecting customary American culture, such as the first Trump administration’s ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries.
Jeffress dismissed the concerns of those predicting a Christian nationalist government.
“People who are not Christians are overly concerned that he will establish some kind of oppressive theocracy. He has no interest in that,” Jeffress said, noting that Trump has shown no interest in banning same-sex marriage or imposing an outright ban on abortion.
Trump’s strongest supporters among evangelical leaders can likely expect the same access to the White House that they had in Trump’s first term.
Trump has proclaimed a sense of divine mission.
“Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason,” Trump said in his victory speech, referencing widespread proclamations among evangelical followers that he died in the near-fatal assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania miraculously received divine protection July 13: “And that reason was to save our country and restore America to greatness.”
During the campaign, Trump promised to protect “Christians in our schools, our military and our government” and in “our public square.” Many conflicts between church and state in recent years have focused on Christian symbols in public spaces, such as the depiction of crosses.
The Republican platform promised to defend both Christians and persecuted Jews. While it contained a general promise to protect the worship of all faith communities, these were the only two that were singled out by name. The platform also advocated for the right to “pray and read the Bible in school.”
Trump vows to support other evangelical priorities, such as supporting Israel and opposing transgender rights, saying, “God created two sexes, male and female.” Evangelicals were dismayed that Trump backed away from the most stringent anti-abortion proposals has distanced himself, even though evangelical leaders considered Trump better than Harris’ sturdy support for abortion rights.
Pro-Trump rallies featured phrases that were picked up by Christian nationalists, such as the song “God Bless the USA.” Many at Trump rallies wear T-shirts that read: “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president.”
Evangelicals’ support for Trump initially surprised many given his casino ventures, his multiple marriages, his allegations of sexual misconduct and, more recently, his central role in inciting the 2021 Capitol insurrection and his conviction on fraud charges. But many supporters deny these allegations or see him as an imperfect but powerful advocate.
“People support President Trump not because of his piety but because of his policies,” Jeffress said.
John Fea, a history professor at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who wrote a book about evangelical support for Trump in his 2016 campaign, said the continued support of that support is not surprising.
In this campaign, Fea said he has spoken to evangelicals who are uncomfortable with Trump. They were looking for “any reason to vote for Harris,” such as moderation on abortion. “I don’t think Harris gave them much.”
It wasn’t just white, non-Hispanic evangelicals who supported Trump. This was also the case for just over half of Latino evangelicals and about six in 10 white Catholics, according to AP VoteCast. Overall, about six in ten Mormons also supported the former president.
Pastor Abraham Rivera of La Puerta Life Center in North Miami, Florida, attributed Trump’s popularity among all Latinos, and especially evangelicals, to their conservative values on morality and family.
“The issue of gender identity, which the left is pushing a lot, I think turns off a lot of Latino evangelicals,” Rivera said. Members of his community expressed concerns about Trump’s “personality or the things he says” but not his policies, Rivera said.
He expects the constant contacts that Latin American evangelical leaders had with Trump’s first administration to continue and give them a voice. In contrast, he felt the doors were “too closed” in the Biden White House, which seemed to disregard the values of many conservatives.
But Rivera added: “The idea that an evil Christian right is going to take over everything is just crazy.”
Fea said a Christian nationalist agenda at the national level may be more rhetorical than substantive – while he said there are real cases of it at the local level. He assumed the Trump administration wouldn’t push back against things like a up-to-date Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in public schools and an Oklahoma education official’s order for public schools to include the Bible in the classroom to include. Both are on trial.
The 2024 Republican platform promised to “use existing federal law to keep foreign Christian-hating communists, Marxists and socialists” and “jihadists” out of America. During the campaign, Trump said he would form a federal task force to combat the “persecution of Christians in America.”
Other groups at the national and local levels are poised to push back on a Christian nationalist agenda.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is committed to opposing any Trump administration policies that privilege Christians and exploit religious freedom claims as a “license to discriminate,” said Andrew Seidel, the group’s vice president of strategic communications.
He expects the up-to-date Trump administration to have a plan to implement the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which he says has a Christian nationalist design, although Trump has distanced himself from it.
“This time they are ready for a win,” said Seidel. “Last time they were the dog that caught the car. They didn’t know what they were doing. They’ll be ready to go from day one.”
The Rev. Tim Schaefer, pastor of First Baptist Church of Madison, Wisconsin, said he rejects Christian nationalism in part because it opposes separation of church and state, a key tenet of his Baptist tradition.
“Our job is to remind people that we were not founded as a Christian nation,” he said. “On the part of the founding fathers there was a desire to be a religiously pluralistic nation.”
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Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto, Tiffany Stanley and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed.
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Associated Press religion coverage is supported by the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
