I'm Still Sore from the Whiplash of Evangelical Support for Donald Trump

Lots of Christians were sleeping on just how far adrift evangelical Christianity had grown from the teachings of Jesus. Trump's 2016 election win shocked many (but not enough) people awake.

Jul 08, 2025

The movements we now call ex-vangelical, post-evangelical, and #deconstruction didn’t begin on Nov 8, 2016, but the election of Donald Trump that evening was a mighty match thrown on the dried out pile of questions, doubts, and illusions held by many evangelical Christians.

A ton has been written on this subject by people far smarter than me and who have given this topic significant time and energy (I’ll list several of my favorites down below), but even after almost a decade of massive ink being spilled trying to explain and understand the phenomenon, I still don’t think enough can be said about the whiplash of the evangelical support of Trump.

Whiplash is the experience of being suddenly and forcefully jolted in a direction you weren’t anticipating. You’re cruising along in one direction and then blammo a force in the opposite direction violently whips you around causing serious injury.

Waking up the morning after the 2016 presidential election to find that Trump had won was hard enough for many of us, but the whiplash of epic proportions happened as the exit polls began describing the post-election scene.

We learned that 8 in 10 white evangelical Americans voted for Donald J Trump.

EIGHT in TEN.

This happened back when it was the iPhone 7, and I still can’t wrap my head around that statistic.

Now, I know (I know) that when people step into the voting booth they aren’t voting for a pastor or priest. I’m not suggesting that our votes for presidents should only go to those with exemplary standards of morality. In fact, I think a decent argument could (and maybe should) be made that it’s all but impossible for a person of faith to be a consistently morally good president of a country like ours in a world like this one. There’s a lot to what it means to be Christian that would make leading a nation extremely challenging.

But let’s be serious for a moment. Trump wouldn’t even make the short list for serving on a Church board or be allowed to lead a small group, let alone be hired on staff as a leader of any kind. His pattern of behavior, the way he conducts himself, his criminal record, these things would disqualify him from leadership in every church in the country.1

Yet a disturbing majority of evangelicals said, yep, that’s our guy!

Whiplash.

How do I reconcile that a majority of the kinds of Christians I grew up with, the very ones who raised me and taught me and trained me and led me, they looked at a person who bragged about sexual assault, who lies about things both small and big, and who boasted that he could shoot a man in broad daylight and still not lose his followers…and not be bothered at all!?

I say this with as much kindness as I can, but how can decent people even like such a person, let alone respect him enough to want him to lead them?

When the ancient Israelites asked God for a King to lead them so that they could be more like the nations around them they chose Saul. Why? Mostly because he was tall and handsome. That’s sweet, I suppose. In hindsight, though, we might read 1 Samuel 9-10 and think the Israelites were a bit vapid in their choosing of Saul, but at least in their context it made some semblance of sense—meaning, he looked the part.

But, like, how did or does Trump make sense?

I cannot empathize this enough: his life, his character, the way he talks and acts and treats people (especially anyone who isn’t wealthy like he is) is a picture perfect representation of what all of us evangelical kids grew up being taught was the opposite of what mature, Christian faith looked like.

The opposite.

Laughably so.

Again, I know the point of voting for a president is not to the same as evaluating a person’s Christianity. And I also know that you could likewise analyze the morality of Hilary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024 and end up feeling like there are no good options (a point I made the other day as well).

But still… still… the overwhelming support for Trump felt like a collective flushing down the toilet of all the principles and values and ethics of what we were told makes for a more loving, kind, compassionate, forgiving, just and generous world.

Whiplash.

Make it make sense that 8 out of the 10 kinds of people who raised us and—with straight faces—taught us to believe that morality matters, then turned around and voted for a man who probably hasn’t considered the ethics of his choices in decades (if ever).

He was and is a known sexual offender; mocks the disadvantaged; was celebrated by neo-Nazis and white supremacists (why isn’t that more alarming to people?!); and if we’re being honest he epitomizes what most Christians would imagine if you asked them, “What does unchecked greed, gluttony, and pride look like?”

It looks like Donald Trump. There really isn’t any debate here.

Or at least, that’s what most (honest) evangelicals would’ve told you pre-2015.

Then when he became the savior for the Republican party, an expeditor of rich, white prestige and power, suddenly his rampant immorality, his con-man ways, his deceptive business practices, his infidelity, his cruelty and arrogance no longer mattered.

Evangelical convictions about integrity and morality… meet Toilet.

Flush.

Evangelicals who were not manipulated by his con nor lulled into group-think about power and wealth and security… meet Whiplash.

I wish I could say that Trump’s first term was enough pulling back of the curtain to expose that not only does the emperor have no clothes on, but that the whole thing was a deceptive sham of epic proportions. The Wizard who deceived Oz was child’s play compared to how Trump deceived and manipulated the Christians who supported him.

Of course a person like Trump doesn’t care for people who are not rich, powerful, or influential like he is. And of course he doesn’t have an honest bone in his body or an ounce of virtue. Even though his presidency wasn’t as bad as many feared, it was still bad enough to demonstrate that such a person is not fit for the office.

Yet shockingly (perhaps even more shockingly than his initial election) people either did not actually look at the naked, deceptive wizard staring them dumbly in the face, or if they did, they simply didn’t care.

For reasons pundits are still piecing together, he managed to come back and win again. And if the numbers are to be believed then he won just about the same amount of the white, evangelical voting block.

You know what I did not feel this time around?

Whiplash.

How sad is that. Like a frog slowly acclimating to the boiling water,2 I’ve just come to accept that most evangelicals have lost their moral core. When Trump won the first time around Father Richard Rohr said, “The evangelical support of Trump will be an indictment against its validity as a Christian movement for generations to come.” He’s right, of course, but also eight years later and the lack of surprise around evangelical support is demoralizing.

People fled the church in 2016 because of the whiplash of support for Trump. The re-election of him in 2024 was less shock and more awe. This is still a thing… somehow.

Somehow people who claim to be followers of Jesus continue to be deceived, manipulated, confused, and lost as it relates to just how blatantly un-Christ like the MAGA movement is. As I said the other day, fine by me if someone wants to support the goals of this administration and continue voting for Trumpian politics… but for the love of God, do not dare try and justify it by appealing to your Christian faith.

It cannot be done.

There are relatively few who have been honest to say that they did indeed vote for Trump, but they did so while holding their nose. They did so very, very reluctantly. They did so because they just couldn’t see a better option. In other words, it was less of a vote for Trump and more of a vote against things they deeply oppose.

This is a move I understand and respect.

What I don’t understand, and struggle to respect, is the voting of Trump—as a Christian—with great pride, enthusiasm, and delight.

God forgive us.

Look, I’m not claiming to be the arbiter of what “real” or “true” Christianity looks like. Obviously our religion has splintered so many times in 2000 years that it’s silly to think any one tradition or denomination has it all figured out—let alone a divorced 43 year old pastor/author guy living in Portland, Oregon. (it me)

But I also won’t insult my own intelligence by denying that what passes for so much of “Christianity” nowadays has very little—if anything at all—to do with Jesus.

In my ongoing attempt to try and process the whiplash of what has felt like the wholesale removal of Jesus from modern day, western, American Christianity, my friends and I recently published a ten-episode podcast called Keep Christ in Christian.

If you haven’t listened yet, here’s what one satisfied customer had to say:

Just started listening to your podcast! AMAZING!! I feel seen. New to the faith journey. Recovering catholic. Love Jesus. Don’t want to give him up!! Can’t wait to listen to the rest. Thank you!!

It may not alleviate the pain in your neck from the whiplash, but perhaps it will help soothe the ache in your soul of having your faith get hijacked by an anti-Jesus “Christian” movement.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and/or Substack.

I'm Still Sore from the Whiplash of Evangelical Support for Donald Trump

Lots of Christians were sleeping on just how far adrift evangelical Christianity had grown from the teachings of Jesus. Trump's 2016 election win shocked many (but not enough) people awake.

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