Simon Cox Blog: For Blacks, Lies Matter: Black Christians, The Trump Presidency, and New Research

Thursday, 18 October 2018

For Blacks, Lies Matter: Black Christians, The Trump Presidency, and New Research

I fear evangelicals have risked years of processing past racial trauma for a future devoid of Black voices among them.

For two years we’ve seen and heard it everywhere. Eighty-one percent of white evangelical voters chose to cast their vote for Donald Trump. Recently, my colleagues Ed Stetzer and Andrew MacDonald, in partnership with LifeWay Research, conducted a survey that brought more nuance to that 81% number.

They pointed to six key factors in evangelical voters’ approach to the 2016 election that might help differentiate between those identifying as evangelical and those holding evangelical beliefs.

The gist of their findings: There are several nuanced issues among evangelicals by belief that led them to vote for Trump. Understanding those nuances might help soften the perceived blow that accompanies looking at voting trends in the 2016 election.

Unenthusiastic and Apathetic?

One surprising data point from the research found that many evangelicals proverbially held their noses while voting for Trump, unenthusiastic about him as a candidate. For many, it was less about casting a vote for Trump and more about casting a vote against Hillary Clinton. Seeing these votes as begrudging ballots helps contextualized the number of white evangelical voters who voted for Trump. In that way, the data is beneficial.

While the data tells one story, I’m worried about the perception of apathy among evangelicals surrounding some of the President’s actions. In some instances, it’s more than a perception of indifference—it’s outright defense. Some are dumbfounded by a level of apathy or defense for issues that seem ripe for critique from the Christian community.

It’s hard to process data that says many evangelicals were unenthusiastic about Trump as a candidate when some apathetically ignore some of his words ...