We move along, far less encumbered by the litmus test wills of evangelicals trying to dictate how we think, what we do and how we live. Republicans know they can't win a national election on Republican votes alone, they need Independents and at least some fiscally conservative Liberals to win. Traditionally, and it's still the case with the Elites in power, the tactic has been to win over (if not force) others to believe in the same list of social litmus tests required to be a Conservative. You must be against abortion, you must be against immigration amnesty, you must be pro-military unilateralism, you must be anti anything LGBTQ, you must support the War on Drugs, including harsh sentencing, and you must support and uphold "traditional values" (of Ward and June Cleaver of the 1950s).
But there are a lot of Conservatives who don't buy into the socially conservative litmus tests. These are the voters that the GOP desperately wants, but only on their terms, not the terms of the voters. These are the voters who, while not exactly straight-up liberal on social issues, don't tow the evangelical party line on them, either. These are the exact voters that Trump is gathering up, with many of them being evangelical Christians, which just chaps the butts of evangelical leaders. Trump's candidacy has brought to light the real distance between evangelical leaders and rank-and-file Christians similar to the one coming to light in the GOP.
Evangelical leaders are urging Christians to evaluate candidates using the Bible, but the rank and file Christians are using other criteria, such as seeking a candidate who will take the fight to ISIS instead of letting it come to us, who is against socialist liberalism, who is against the growing secularism among Americans, and who will fight the economic insecurity for the country and their families. The Public Religion Research Institute found that white, working-class evangelicals (what used to be the middle class) are more than twice as likely to support Trump than are evangelicals with a college degree.
One evangelical leader, John Stemberger, (head of the Florida Family Policy Council, an affiliate of Focus on the Family), said many Christians have changed, and for the worse. "The litmus tests that for so long defined the boundaries for morally acceptable candidates seem to have been abandoned by many Christians. Evangelical Christians are looking at those issues less and less. They've just become too worldly, letting anger and frustration control them, as opposed to trusting in God."
"Too worldly." Wow.
Look what trusting God has gotten the right wing religious conservatives. Obama. Eight years.
Follow, lead, or get out of the way. Right now, evangelical Christians are just in the way.
David Green (Hobby Lobby guy and all-around conservative hero) said, "I cannot ... understand why the faith world would come alongside someone that completely is different than what we would like our children to be,"
The answer to that for rank and file Christians is best summed up in a comment by the Reverend Carl Gallups, a Southern Baptist pastor from Milton, Florida, who gave the invocation at Trump's Pensacola rally last January, when he said, "If you are not thoroughly satisfied with what you might interpret the depth of his faith might be, then the next thing we must look at is the candidate who will best preserve your First Amendment rights and allow you to express your Christian faith. We're not electing a priest, a pope or a pastor. We're electing a president, a CEO, a commander in chief. I'm not perfectly happy with Donald Trump either, but I'm a realist."
