"Deliberately or not, Mr. Trump may be the perfect candidate for an evangelical subculture that has increasingly become enamored with the prosperity, or health and wealth, gospel. In trying to build a singular religious faction that agreed on some core issues (like abortion), the Republican Party has courted that subculture, even though many evangelicals consider prosperity theology to be heretical. Mr. Trump acts more like a televangelist than an evangelical.
Although Ted Cruz used the traditional religious right playbook to win in Iowa, Mr. Trump’s subsequent successes in beating Mr. Cruz among evangelicals — including across wide sections of the Bible Belt — demonstrated that many Republican voters, and even many evangelical Republicans, were more swept up in Trump-style nativist culture wars than battles over abortion, marriage or, especially, bathrooms. Mr. Trump understood he could unite nativists and culture warriors using his diatribes against political correctness as an all-purpose code to stoke conservative resentments.
Mr. Trump has some big-name evangelical endorsements, notably from Jerry Falwell Jr., but he has vocal opponents within the religious right as well. Many historically Republican evangelicals may stay home, or vote for the Democrat or a third party.
It doesn’t mean that the union of America’s evangelicals and the party is over forever. But at least in 2016, many influential voices within the religious right are not interested in entering into a suicide pact with the Republican Party.
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