Donald Trump, a 77-year-old Bible salesman from Palm Beach, Florida, has emerged as the nation’s most prominent Christian leader. Trump is running for president as a divinely chosen champion of White Christians, promising to sanctify their grievances, destroy their perceived enemies, bolster their social status, and grant them the power to impose an anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ, White-centric Christian nationalism from coast to coast. That Trump doesn’t attend church and has obviously never read the book that he hawks for $59.99, seems of interest exclusively to his political opponents.
What might catch the attention of some evangelical conservatives, however, is that Trump’s ostentatious embrace of White Christian militantism coincides with a precipitous decline in religious affiliation in the US. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, one-quarter of Americans in 2023 said they were religiously unaffiliated. “Unaffiliated” is the only religious category experiencing growth. In a single decade, from 2013 to 2023, the percentage of Americans saying that religion is the most important thing, or among the most important things, in their life plummeted to 53% from 72%.
That’s correlation, not causation, at best. In fact, it might be the other way around.
The precipitous decline in Christianity is more likely the reason they’re getting more aggressive.
Yeah. Actually it wouldn’t surprise me that he makes a trump church and urged ppl to go to that instead.
I mean the logo for Christianity is already a lowercase t.
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What percent of people visited church on christmas?
Say it with me now: RELIGION AND POLITICS ARE EXPLICITLY FORBIDDEN FROM JOINING EACH OTHER ACCORDING TO THE WISHES OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
Secular state. Ask France, they are experienced at it. And at atheism state.
Trump the Bible salesman.
Okay then.
Yeshua (i.e. “Jesus”): “Treat everyone with love and respect. Welcome the stranger. Don’t worry about other people’s perceived shortcomings, worry about your own; live and lead by example. Pay your taxes. Share everything you have with others, especially the less fortunate, the needy, and the hurting. All of it. If you are rich, you aren’t doing this, and you will not enter the Kingdom of God. Profit from my faith and I will end you.”
Religious MAGAs: “Kill foreigners. I’m “good people” but those others who want to be left alone and live differently than me need to be beat into submission. Taxation is theft. And socialism! My bank account is God’s will! Let those poors pull themselves up by their bootstrings. My pastor needs a new limousine to spread the Good News of supply-side Jesus! Hey, why are all the people leaving the church?”
Coincidence is not causation.
People waking up to conservatives using religion as a cudgel for decades is not something that should be laid at one person’s feet, he is just riding along for the ride. Wish the media would stop slapping his stupid name on everything conservatives have stood for far longer than he claimed to be a Republican.
They aren’t leaving church because Trump.
They are leaving church because church leadership worships Trump.
Religions with members who don’t support Trump are doing just fine.
Religions with members who don’t support Trump are doing just fine.
Curious, do you have the numbers to back this up?
Anecdotally, I’m a former pastor who hasn’t stepped foot inside a church in four years because of Trump and these people.
I almost walked out of church in 2016 when the head pastor thanked God for Trump from the pulpit. I hung on till the pandemic and when the church insisted on becoming centers for disease, I was just through.
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Thanks. It’s been very difficult because I’m not an ex-Christian, but I’m not one of them anymore either. I doubt I ever really was.
I still want to be a pastor though, to talk about God and theology and support others as they go through life. It was my entire adult life.
I just don’t think there’s a puzzle out there that will fit my jagged little piece.
I totally get that tbh. I’m naturally drawn to religion and when I look at the benefits to society that pastors can provide I see a lot of capacity for it, but I’m queer and drawn to paganism. In a different world I’d’ve been a pastor or priestess or whatever. Thankfully I’ve got another career I’m called to.
I’ve heard the term seeker used to refer to people who just feel called to religious wisdom more than to a specific dogma and I kinda like it. No matter where I go I’m looking to better understand the same things. What I saw in Catholicism and was drawn to there I find in a way that makes more sense in my current understanding of old gods.
I don’t know if you’ve already looked into it, but check out a non-denominational church in your area. Most of my family is reformed Catholic, and my grandfather was the only one who attended a real church. I’m not a fan of them, but my uncle and mother found solace in ND churches to fill their spiritual needs.
I’ve been in more than a few of them, and someone like you might do very well in one. I enjoyed listening to the sermons for the most part, and it’s always nice to see someone who doesn’t dress up bigotry and hatred in the trappings of religion.
I really appreciate the suggestion, but I think my personal hesitation is that most churches hide their problems fairly well. So long as they’re not waving Trump flags or maga hats, it can be hard to know how healthy a church is until you’re reasonably invested in it.
I just don’t think I could handle that sort of discovery right now.
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That’s absolutely my hope, though I’m not sure if it will ever be properly realized. Thank you for the encouragement.
For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for my part in the system that hurt you and so many others.
What’s funny to me is my ex mother-out-law (mom of the long term ex I never married) told me recently she could not find a Christian church she agreed with. She said they are unchristian, so I asked “not welcoming to the poor and immigrants? Too focused on dogma and not the spirit of Christ? Prosperity Gospel nonsense?”.
No, apparently the Christian churches were too “woke” for her. Too nice, not enough conservative politics in the sermons. Oh my goodness, but I think at least my questions landed.
So she may be part of this number of dis-churched people but not for the reasons we might hope.
Trump may be accellerating the issue, but people have been turning away from religion for at least the 5 decades I’ve been on this planet. I think it’s more that younger people take a more critical eye to the idea and realize that if you look at organized religion in general, none of it makes the least bit of sense.
I’d love to see a CinemaSins style video on the Bible.
This is my own personal experience, so your experience may vary significantly. But I was born in the early 70s and I think my generation was really the first generation that may have had strict, God-fearing parents, but were the first generation to actually start thinking critically about it instead of just blindly accepting the religious ideas being passed down by our parents even if we know they don’t make sense. In turn, we raised our children either without religious influence at all, or at least a heavily scaled down emphasis on religion, while allowing our children to make their religious decisions on their own, assuming they bother practicing religion at all. All things considered, the increasing trend of abandoning religion entirely should not only be no surprise, but should also accellerate as the next generation will likely be raised by mostly atheist parents, or at least non-practicing parishioners, who’s children will look at religion as a relic of the past that their great grandparents cared about back in the day.
I think in a few short generations, our descendants will look at religion the same way we look at medieval practices of using leeches to cure disease.
My understanding is that Christianity is dwindling in numbers but Islam and Judaism are growing.
I also think religion is on the downswing, I’m fascinated by how we’re seeing people like Trump accelerating it.
Well that makes sense because Islam and Judaism are religions that people are typically born into. Baptism and other religious ceremonies aside, nobody is Christian by birth. So it’s not a surprise to see those religions grow as the population grows.
And don’t forget that Catholics can simply just stop going to church. Even considering that option in some Islamic countries is punishable by death. Which means there are probably at least some Muslims that aren’t Muslims by choice.
LoL. Ya, one of those certainly isn’t known for forcibly converting people at the threat of death or for force converting part of an entire continent and not a single one of those raped choir boys was born into that environment.
This is the best comment I’ve seen online today and I’m not complementing you.
Theres plenty of reasons people are done with organized religion, Trump is merely one of those reasons.
The mixing of politics and religion is one of the big reasons.
For me, the way churches and church people have treated the pandemic was absolutely disgusting. They preach about loving each other, but showed a complete lack of empathy towards vulnerable people by continuing to hold services despite the risks involved. Also, most people in church were either wearing masks under their chin, some not wearing one at all. I got covid from church.
Working in a restaurant shows how disgusting Christans are. The Sunday brunch/lunch crowd are rude, impatient, dirty, and tip poorly. They come from a place where they’re ostensibly being told to love everyone and then forget everything before they get in their car.
They continued to hold services because theyre a business first and foremost, and shuttering the business temporarily meant shuttering forever.
I doubt Trump is even a major one. It’s probably a much bigger factor that baby boomers are dying off and boomers are much more religious than GenX, Millenials, or Gen Z.
So you’re saying that the biggest factor in people leaving religion is people leaving religion?
Less people leaving and more too many people not really signing on in the first place, at least not beyond possibly being forced to attend as kids. Combine that with the baby boomers being an unusually large generation (hence the name) and in the process of dying off, and…
Short version - anything even kinda popular among boomers that isn’t ubiquitous among the following generations is going to decline due to the sheer number of boomers and religion is experiencing a genuine decline in rate of uptake in addition to that effect.
In other words, Trump isn’t causing people to leave religion so much much as people aren’t really leaving religion so much as not really joining up in earnest while the existing flock slowly dies off.
