For decades, evangelical Christian voters — specifically white evangelicals — have been an essential voting bloc for Republican presidential candidates, including Donald Trump. While evangelical support for Trump remains strong in 2020, there is evidence that their support is waning. Most notably, more than 1,600 U.S. faith leaders have publicly endorsed Trump’s challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden.

According to Lerone A. Martin, director of American Culture Studies and associate professor of religion and politics and of African and African-American studies, all in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, modern evangelical voters have supported political candidates for myriad reasons, not all of which are in line with traditional Christian values.

Below, Martin discusses the complex relationship between religion and politics in America and its role in the 2020 election.

Religion has played such a central role in the 2020 election and other modern elections. Why is this?  

Religion has long been a key aspect of U.S. political convictions. Voters take their religious and accompanying moral and ethical commitments with them inside the voting booth and to the ballot box, influencing voter behavior. We have seen this throughout American history: Religious values compelled abolitionists to organize and vote for anti-slavery candidates; it compelled white nationalist political aspirations and labors of Ku Klux Klan and elected officials during Reconstruction; it led voters to cast their votes for President Eisenhower two times over, crowning him “the spiritual leader of our times.” Faith empowered civil rights protesters and activists to organize not only for the vote, but also for local and national candidates that believed racial justice would “redeem the soul of the nation.” Furthermore, the white evangelical vote carried Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump into the White House. Indeed religion continues to play a central role in political contests.

How do you explain the evangelical support for Trump, whose personal values appear to contradict Christian values?

Contrary to popular belief, white evangelical support for Trump is very much in line with the white evangelical tradition, not a departure from it. From its post-World War II genesis, modern white evangelicalism was more than just a movement for supposed Biblical and theological fidelity and purity. It also involved broader political commitments, including Christian nationalism, white racial purity, patriarchal families, laissez-faire capitalism and virulent anti-statism — opposing intervention by the state into personal, social and economic affairs — only when it appears federal government support will upset the aforementioned social order. As a result, post-war white evangelicals have overwhelmingly supported and worked with political actors they believe will fight for and defend the world they believe in by any means necessary.

For example, Billy Graham and Carl F.H. Henry, the founders of Christianity Today, embraced longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover eschewed the evangelical belief in the necessity of being born-again, rumors swirled that he was gay and his penchant for illegal wiretapping was well documented and publicly known as was his anti-blackness. Nevertheless, Hoover’s power, Christian nationalist politics and moral policing garnered the favor of white evangelical power brokers. Editor Carl F.H. Henry thanked Hoover for his FBI service, telling the FBI boss that he played a “vital part” in the “message” and “mission” of white evangelical Christianity. Likewise, Ronald Reagan left a great deal to be desired when it came to evangelical ethical commitments. He was not a church goer, never confessed being born-again, was divorced and remarried, supported murderous regimes abroad, illegally sold arms to a foreign adversary and preferred to consult astrology and astrologists as opposed to clergy, prayer and Jesus for political and personal guidance. Nevertheless, white evangelicals overwhelmingly voted for him, carrying him to the White House, largely based on his stringent commitment to laissez faire capitalism and his unfulfilled promises to put prayer back in schools and outlaw abortion.

So white evangelicals have longed supported white politicos whose theological, sexual and constitutional commitments do not comport with their stated standards. Trump is simply the latest in a long tradition.

Throughout Biden’s political career, he has been very vocal about his faith and religious beliefs as a Catholic. Has this resonated with voters?

Biden would be the second Catholic president in American history, after JFK.  Polls show his faith has indeed resonated with a broad cross section of American Catholics of all races, particularly those who identify with the long Catholic tradition of social justice, poverty and racial equality. As a pro-choice Catholic, Biden has not been successful with the tradition of the Catholic faith that has almost seamlessly merged with white evangelicalism around the issue of a woman’s right to choose. Indeed, for the latter group of Catholics, issues such as social justice, poverty and racial equality are a distant second to the issue of abortion.

Trump frequently claims that Biden’s America will be anti-Christian. Why does this resonate with evangelical voters?

The white evangelical worldview is all-encompassing. “Christian” then includes broader political commitments including Christian nationalism, white racial purity, patriarchal families, laissez-faire capitalism and virulent anti-statism only when it appears federal government support will upset the aforementioned social order. Therefore, any political agenda that appears to be outside of these commitments is considered “anti-Christian.”

As a marker of identity that transcends national borders, religion influences many environmentally relevant behaviors. Thus, understanding its role is key to tackling environmental challenges that are fundamentally transnational.

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Previous research has found that religion influences many aspects of lifestyle that affect the environment. These include childbearing decisions and the use of contraceptives (and resulting effects on population growth); risk behaviors and use of health services (which affect life expectancy); whether people see climatic change as human-caused, or related to forces beyond human control; consumption patterns, and thereby use of natural resources and emissions of greenhouse gases; and willingness to take actions to abate environmental degradation.

We have investigated the link between environmental challenges and religion in a new study in the Journal of Religion and Demography. The work builds on a growing body of research carried out at the Center for International Earth Science Information Network and the Columbia Aging Center. We looked at the environment-religion relationship by analyzing religious affiliation together with a variety of environment and climate change-related indicators at the country level. We also conducted exploratory and descriptive statistical analyses to better understand the associations among religion on one hand, and economic development, greenhouse gas emissions and exposure to environmental stressors on the other.

Basically, we found that nations whose inhabitants are less religious tend to use more resources and produce more emissions; yet, they are also better prepared to deal with resulting environmental challenges, because they are wealthier. On the other hand, nations whose populations are more religious tend to use fewer resources; yet at the same time, they have less capacity to meet environmental challenges, and are subject to more adverse outcomes, in part due to their high levels of poverty and continuing population growth.

We argue that it is important to consider the religious dimension when discussing who wins and who loses amid environmental degradation, resource shortages and global warming. To address issues of environmental justice, we need to identify groups that are disproportionately causing environmental risks, and those who are disproportionately exposed.

A key aim of our study is to assess the religious composition of those subject to environmental changes, and how gaining an understanding can help to craft environmental policies that are more effective in fighting climate change. This aspect is especially relevant in the poorest nations of the world, where close to 100 percent of the population ascribes to a religion, and where religion plays a very important role in providing basic services and social cohesion.

Further, the study looks into the role of religion in shaping human behavior. Religious change can affect social cohesion, consumption trends and willingness to pay for climate-change mitigation or adaptation initiatives. Our findings indicate that religious affiliation relates to greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and gross domestic product on a global scale. Countries with more emissions and greater GDP tend to be less religious, have less population growth and to be better prepared for environmental challenges. Conversely, countries with a greater proportion of religiously affiliated tend to have younger populations, higher environmental risks, lower GDP and lower preparedness levels.

Nations that are more religious may behave differently as they develop economically and technologically. This implies that international disagreements based on religious beliefs, values and viewpoints may play strong roles in the future.

The lowest level of energy use per capita, for instance, is observed among Hindu-dominated countries. The lowest climate-change adaptive capacity is found among countries with Muslim or Hindu majorities. It is conceivable that risk perception, and therefore preparedness, among these religious groups differs from those in other groups. This finding has been backed by previous research.

On the other hand, where the religiously unaffiliated are in majority, levels of climate-change adaptive capacity are the highest. Also, the World Risk Index is lowest for the religiously unaffiliated. In terms of risk of future water shortages, owing to their geography, climate and population dynamics, countries dominated by Muslims and Hindus have the highest levels of water stress. Christian and Buddhist countries have the lowest levels.

As the impacts of climate change become greater, the world is becoming more religious; the share of the world population with a religious affiliation is expected to rise, from 84% in 2010 to 87% by 2050. The world is also becoming more polarized in regard to how different nations affect the environment, with high and growing emissions shares from Europe and China, both regions with a high share of people without religious affiliation.

How exactly growth in the importance of religion might translate to climate policy and the future evolution of the climate system remains to be seen. Since religion may influence which policies are most effective and plausible, it is important to understand the evolution of the religious composition of the world alongside environmental changes. Furthermore, the ethical dimensions of climate change—namely the ways in which different faith traditions disproportionately contribute to or are impacted by climate change—will likely receive growing attention. Finally, identifying effective ways to communicate environmental issues and risks within faith traditions, and encouraging inter-faith and religious-nonreligious collaboration, will be important for addressing future global environmental challenges.

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                                        <a class="text-medium text-info mt-2 d-inline-block" href="https://phys.org/news/2020-09-faith-politics-evangelical-christians-climate.html" rel="nofollow">Faith and politics mix to drive evangelical Christians' climate change denial</a>
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                                                                                            <strong>More information:</strong>
                                            Religious Affiliation and Environmental Challenges in the 21st Century. <i>Journal of Religion and Demography</i>. DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/2589742X-12347110" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">doi.org/10.1163/2589742X-12347110</a>

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