Earlier this week the progressive religious website Religion Dispatches ran Greg Carey’s review of my Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump.
Today, Religion Dispatches is running Eric C. Miller’s interview with me about the book.
Here is a taste:
In Trump’s speech, these appeals often have racial dimensions. Why are white evangelicals comfortable with this?
I am hesitant to say that all evangelicals are comfortable with this, but many of them are.
One way to look at this is to observe that evangelicals have always prioritized certain social issues over others, and race has never been one of their priorities. Abortion, they would argue, transcends race. People of all races have abortions and “kill babies.” Traditional marriage, similarly, is an institution that transcends race. I think such a view goes back to one of the defining beliefs of American evangelicalism—that all humans, of all races and ethnicities, can be saved by the gospel. Abortion and marriage are universal, race is particular. This is how many evangelicals see it. Many of them may be uncomfortable with Trump’s racist remarks, but they are willing to look the other way because Trump has the right policies on the issues they deem to be more important.
But we also must remember that American evangelicalism has always been a very white version of Christianity. Evangelicals have always been fearful of African Americans and the threat they are perceived to pose to a white Christian America. For example, much of the Southern evangelical approach to reading the Bible was forged in the context of their defenses of slavery. So there is a long tradition of racism in white evangelicalism, just as there is a long tradition of racism among white Americans writ large. Yet evangelicals claim to follow the teachings of Jesus, a set of moral principles that should motivate them to fight racism.
Read the entire interview here.
