Via Baptist News Global: Schaeffer: White nationalist evangelicals believe in Trump like an article of faith
Evangelicals fervently support Donald Trump — a thrice-married gambling mogul and television reality star — because they have made his presidency a matter of faith, said Frank Schaeffer, son of the late evangelical theologian Francis Schaeffer.
“In other words, when you challenge Trump now it would be like challenging the virgin birth or the resurrection of Jesus or the reality of the miracles, the walking on water. It’s an element of faith,” Schaeffer said during a recent webinar about Christian nationalism hosted by Christians in Public Service.
“This is a man they believe was chosen by God,and so reason and facts and poll numbers, none of these things apply —nor does an even, fair election where every Republican official in every state has upheld the veracity of the election except right-wing Republican politicians catering to the evangelical far right,” said Schaeffer, a filmmaker, public speaker and a bestselling author of books including Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back.
And his late father, who famously rallied conservative Christians to oppose abortion and engage secular culture, “would literally have thrown up at the idea of Christians storming the Capitol in the name of Jesus to support a con artist like Donald Trump and his claim the election had been stolen when it hadn’t been,” he said. “This is not Christianity. It is not evangelicalism. It is not the light Christianity has often been to the United States.”
Schaeffer was joined in the webinar by Amanda Tyler, executive director of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, who focused on defining Christian nationalism and shared examples of the language and imagery its adherents use in pursuing their social and political agendas.