The resignation of A.R. Bernard from the White House Evangelical Advisory Board was nearly ignored amid the slew of high-profile departures from White House advisory councils in the wake of President Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville. And for good reason, as Bernard had begun distancing himself from the administration as early as October 2016.
What’s bigger news is that the remaining 24 pastors that make up the Evangelical Advisory Board held their ground. Several, such as Tony Suarez, executive vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, decried the events in Charlottesville. “The racism and hate being spewed by the alt-right and white supremacists that have invaded our state this weekend, is an insult to Christianity and our country,” said Suarez. Evangelical leaders Johnnie Moore and Ralph Reed took similar routes, specifically condemning white supremacy.
More extreme members made headlines by defending the president, and echoed his blame of “both sides.” Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, told the Christian Broadcasting Network, “the media has painted, the liberals have painted—a false narrative that the president is a racist.” Jerry Falwell Jr. claimed the president “does not have a racist bone in his body,” and in a tweet praised his initial statements regarding Charlottesville as “bold” and “truthful,” saying that he was “so proud of Donald Trump.” Later, Falwell tacked alongside the president to call the white supremacists “pure evil.”
The rest of the council waffled somewhere between total silence and condemnation of the extreme right. None, however, resigned or directly criticized the president. Johnnie Moore, a lay pastor on the council, has said, “We believe it would be immoral to resign.”
But regardless of whether or not White House advisers, pastors especially, are obligated to resign, the media attention given to this story is part of a larger, ever-tightening narrative connecting racism and the evangelical church.
Evangelical voters were never expected to support Trump in the first place—a candidate who, for countless reasons, seemed antithetical to their traditional values. But they did. According to exit polls, a plurality of evangelicals helped him gain the party nomination, and 81 percent ultimately supported him for president, a slightly greater share than Bush, McCain, or Romney earned. Now, whenever Trump causes an especially egregious scandal, reporters and op-ed writers cast a sideways glance toward his church-going supporters, looking for a reaction.
A recent, pre-Charlottesville poll shows that 65 percent of white evangelical Protestants “have a favorable view” toward Trump. He’s lost a substantial chunk of white evangelical support, but still owns their loyalty as a group. White evangelicals are less likely than any other voting bloc to support impeaching Trump—with 79 percent opposing the idea. Despite significant contrary evidence, 70 percent do not believe Russia interfered with the 2016 election. In an interview with the Washington Post, Dan Cox, the research director at the Public Religion Research Institute, described white evangelical support as “incredibly consistent and incredibly loyal,” and said that “it’s hard to conceive of an event or an action taken by Trump that would lead them to abandon him at this point.”
Back when Trump’s travel ban was in the news, evangelicals made headlines when the PRRI conducted a study of religious groups between May 2016 and February 2017, measuring support for Trump’s executive order limiting travel from several Muslim-majority countries. During that time, support for the ban declined across every religious category, except among white evangelicals: 55 percent supported the ban in May, 61 percent supported the ban in February. Pew research published a similar study in February and found that 76 percent of white evangelical protestants favored the ban, more so than any other Christian group.
Lest these numbers be blamed on the group’s fringe, Pew has also reported that Trump’s support was strongest among evangelicals who attend church most frequently. Among those who attend church at least monthly, 67 percent “strongly approve of Trump” as opposed to 54 percent of those who “attend less.”
Many evangelicals voted for Trump in opposition to Hillary Clinton. They voted strategically, and the bargain has paid off in some key ways. The polls show that evangelicals (three-quarters of whom are white) are the most politically conservative churchgoers in the country, and remain the president’s staunchest supporters. It is equally true that the vast majority of evangelicals hate racism, but inevitably share some of the concerns (identity politics, illegal immigration, radical Islamic terrorism) that fuel white supremacy. None of this should be a surprise. Evangelicals know they made a deal with the devil, but will lose all sympathy if they treat Trump like a friend. Unless post-Charlottesville poll numbers register some loss of support for Trump, the connection between racism and religion will become all the more persuasive.
