Evangelicals in the United States Don’t Speak for All Christians

Someone should tell them

Like many other followers on social media sites, I have begun to receive unsolicited and definitely unwelcome messages. These messages inform me that if I vote Democratic in the national election on November 3, I will be going to hell. Not only that, but as a Democrat I am a demon who worships Satan.

Speaking of hell, what the hell is going on with these people?

All of these messages come from white, Republican, American, Christian Evangelicals. Some of these Evangelicals are my relatives. It’s easy to say I’m more likely to have these religious extremists as relatives because I live in the American South.

I shouldn’t be so surprised by receiving these messages from a couple of my cousins. After all, we haven’t seen each other or called each other since Donald Trump was elected President. I am sure his election was a defining moment in many other families’ relationships too.

“Are you saved?”

Prior to Trump’s rise to power, American Evangelicals were already becoming surer of their perceived right to proselytize whenever they chose. When I moved to my small town in 2006, I was shocked the first time an older man approached me, stopped, stared, and asked, “Are you saved?”

It took me a minute to process the question and try to come up with an answer that wasn’t too rude. I wanted to leave no doubt I was not a likely candidate for “saving.”

I smiled, said “I’m Buddhist,” and walked away.

I have never been a Buddhist, although my beliefs align more easily with Buddhism than any other recognized religion.

I want to make the point here though that in 2006 I felt comfortably safe enough to make my remark about Buddhism. In 2020, the Evangelicals seem angry about politics, immigration, same-sex marriage, almost every other kind of sex, all races except lily white and Nascar race-track owners pulling down Confederate flags.

At or near the top of Evangelicals’ lists of people, events, and other things to be angry about is the subject of a woman’s right to choose to undergo an abortion. I had to list it here because it creeps into so many discussions with Evangelicals within the first ten minutes of discourse.

Do they mean Pro-Pre Life?

Abortion is a complicated, painful issue for all involved. I refuse to be lectured to about it by anyone who then doesn’t want to provide any kind of support for that woman or any mother and live child after full-term birth. Should they call themselves Pro-Pre Life until Breathing and Alive?

As I mentioned above, I live in the American South. No extensive research is required to learn Evangelicals are the most popular branch of Protestantism in the South. There are various denominations, such as Baptists, Pentecostals, and Church of God, but there seem to be only small differences in their creeds.

Evangelicals as a group make up approximately 25% of American Protestants. That jumps to 49% of Protestants living in the South.

In the U.S 76% of self-identified Evangelical Protestants are white.

A major factor giving political power to American Evangelicals is the addition of Catholic voices on issues such as abortion. American Catholics make up almost 21% of the voting public.

How did the Evangelicals become so powerful?

Prior to the 1970s, American Protestant Evangelicals were known primarily as a sect believing in the inerrancy of the Bible. Many followers professed they had been “born again” when they joined Evangelical churches.

One of their leaders, Jerry Falwell, Sr. became well-known and powerful by taking his church’s Sunday services to regional and then national television stations.

In 1979, Falwell and two others established the Moral Majority, primarily a lobbying group to further conservative Evangelical Christian values.

The establishment of the Moral Majority and the growing friendship between Falwell and Republican Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan led to cementing the political alliance between the “religious right” and the Republican Party.

In every American election since 1980, the Evangelical voting bloc has been key to elections Republicans have won.

A lobbying group now, not a religious sect

In 2016’s election, the Evangelical voting bloc was purely (impurely?) a lobbying organization with only a nominal nod to its religious roots. The leaders are secular in actions, if not in personal religious identity. Either way, they are definitely effective.

More than 80% of white Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump for President.

I can’t decide if someone forgot to tell the individual, far-flung, often small-town-or-rural church members that their denomination has changed.

Maybe they don’t realize the Evangelical sect leaders no longer even talk about New Testament Biblical values.

If the members do recognize how their sect has changed, do they not care that they are now often called out for their bullying, jack-hammer words and actions?

Either way, someone needs to tell American Evangelicals that they not only don’t speak for all American Christians, they don’t even sound like any kind of Christians anywhere who follow the New Testament.

It is almost impossible to change anyone’s opinions on politics or religion, I’ve often been told. I didn’t try anything that audacious or ambitious here.

I did give those of you who can use it, a new answer to give the next time you’re asked “Are you saved?” You never know when you may need this, on the street or if they knock on your front door.

Become kind of Buddhist-ish, at least when you answer that question on the street or at your door.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll come visit my virtual neighborhood!