I am not a political person, meaning I do not favor a political party. When I was an evangelical, I followed the suit of that subculture, meaning I considered the Republican Party as “God’s party” and always voted that way. Now I vote according to what I think is best for the American society, and I always favor factual truth because the closer a society lives in reality—and truth is simply that which is consistent with reality—the better that society is.

Make no mistake, this election is different than any other, at least in my lifetime. While in previous elections, we had candidates on both sides who were decent people but with subtle different views on what is best for our country. In one week, we will be voting on two totally different realities, Trumpism, or a typical Democrat politician. Also, politicians have always used hyperbole, but Trumpism is different from politics as usual. One of the foundations to Donald Trump’s approach to business and now politics is creating your own reality (lies) and never backing down. Virtually everything he says is a lie. This was certainly not the case with Nixon, Reagan, or the Bushes.

In 2016, it was the evangelical bloc that elected Donald Trump and if he wins this year, it will again be because of the evangelical vote. As an ex-evangelical, in 2015 I found this perplexing.  When I was an evangelical, we demonized Bill Clinton as the evilest politician in history because he used his position of power to coax an intern into having sexual relations with him, and then lied about it. But then Trump is a habitual adulter, sexual assaulter, a rapist and (as mentioned) liar. Surely the love of him by the evangelicals couldn’t be true, or could it?

So, I spoke to five of my old evangelical friends around 2020. Some of them I had been very close to, and they were all and still are good people. All five friends were strong Trump supporters and voted for him in 2016. All said they were voting for him because Trump was “Biblical.”  I was confounded.

Let’s be honest, American Evangelicals in 2024, define being “Biblical” as being “pro-life” and hating homosexuals (yes hate is the correct word). Trump, for political expediency promised to overturn Roe Vs Wade, if elected, and being a bigot, Trump has expressed hatred for homosexuals and other minorities.

I’m going to make further bold statements. In an earlier version of this paper, I defended each of these statements and the paper was quickly approaching ten pages. No one would read that. So here, I will just make the controversial statements and leave most of them hanging, but my opinions come from years of study and thought.

1. “Biblical Christianity” is Determined by their Subculture, not by what the Bible Says

I could give countless examples of where Christians have very different views across history and geography but have the same Bible. One quick example is that the “Biblical Christians” of my boyhood geography (the south) and in the pre-1900s believed the Bible condoned slavery and discrimination of blacks. First comes the cultural beliefs for various malicious reasons and those beliefs are projected into words they find in the Bible, disregarding the honest interpretation.

• The Bible is Silent about Abortion

Abortion has been around for at least five thousand years and certainly was around during the time of Jesus, but he said nothing about it. During most of Jewish history, they believed that a baby becomes human only when it drew its first breath, based on Genesis, where Adam and Eve became human when God breathed breath into them. Judaism also has always considered the mother’s life as far more important than the fetus. This is clear in Exodus 21 and interpreted that way by Jewish scholars, however, the modern “Biblical” evangelicals project their anti-abortion views onto this passage and interpret it opposite of its plain writing.

Before 1889, abortion was never seen as murder by the church, including all the great church fathers such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. As mentioned, these fathers agreed with Aristotle that human life began at quickening or ensoulment. Without getting too far in the weeds, abortion was frowned upon by the church, not because it was seen as murder of a human, but because in an agrarian society, the more children someone had was always an advantage, so abortion was only used to cover sexual sin, fornication, rape, and adultery. It was because it was tied to sexual sin, abortion was not condoned by most of the church, although there were priests who wrote pamphlets describing the safest way to do an abortion.

To prove that this is a cultural issue, the evangelicals were strongly pro-choice up until the 1970s. The Southern Baptist Convention (the largest evangelical or “Biblical Christian” group) voted in favor of pro-choice in any case that would benefit the mother. They supported Roe Vs Wade in 1973.

Aristotle (4 century BC) determined that a fetus becomes human at the moment of ensoulment, when the baby first moves (around week 20 of pregnancy), before that, it is just tissue and part of the mother’s body. This view was held by most of society for the past two thousand years, and by the church until 1869. That year the Pope declared (for reasons too complicated to explain here) human life begins at conception. Twenty years later, the Catholic church determined that abortion was murder.

In 1979 a movie was produced by my favorite Christian philosopher of the twentieth century, Francis Schaffer and his son, Frank, What Ever Happened to the Human Race. This movie had several warnings about the direction western society was heading, one of those the devaluing of human life, exhibited by abortion and euthanasia. This movie was shown across the country including in many evangelical churches. Before this point (and after 1869) abortion was seen by the evangelicals as only a Catholic issue. Quickly, the attitude of evangelicals changed to an anti-abortion stance (cultural change). Frank Schaeffer describes then, to his and his father’s surprise, the Republican Party saw an opportunity to use abortion to hook the evangelical vote (after watching them bringing pro-choice Jimmy Carter out of obscurity into the white house). Soon, “Pro-life” became the defining issue of “Biblical Christianity” and was passionately held. I do believe that the pro-life issue now supersedes God or Jesus themselves within the evangelical community, becoming what the Bible describes as idolatry. Frank Schaeffer (his father is now deceased) believes his father never anticipated what their movie led to, especially the politicization and idolatry of the issue.

• Abortion Could Be Virtually Eliminated if that Was the True Cause of “Biblical Christians.”

If you ask a woman, any woman, abortion is never an easy choice. They have a maternal instinct that men don’t understand that the potential of a new human life is inside them. But the need for abortion could almost be eliminated if there was an aggressive sex education program for middle schoolers and teens, that make it clear how pregnancy occurs and how to prevent it. This combined with easy and discrete access birth control could eliminate most abortions. “Biblical Christians” have been the number one opposition to these moves because of the delusion that their children aren’t having sex, and such education would make them more prone to do so.

Many abortions occur because of economic issues. It is interesting that government support of new mothers (family leave, child tax breaks) has been championed by the “pro-choice” community and resisted by the “pro-life” communities.

But these acts of education and financial support of new mothers could go a long way in eliminating unwanted pregnancy. What would not be easy to eliminate are fetal defects, threats of a pregnancy on the life of the mother, incest, and rape.

• The “Pro-life” Issue has Become the Gate-way Drug to Trumpism

Sadly, my evangelical friends who said they “held their noses” to vote for Trump in 2015, now that Roe Vs Wade has been overturned, will still vote for Trump this year. They will not hold their noses anymore but take in deep breaths of Trumpism. From the conversations I’ve had, and being honest, they now have been converted to Trumpism because he hates the same people they hate.

For example, one my evangelical friends, we were best friends in college and had a ministry of bringing homeless people to our house. Now, he says that homeless people should be rounded up and thrown into the worst prisons. Also, those immigrants, men, women, and children should be met with deadly force at the border, even with machine gun fire. What happened to this good man? Trumpism.

• Donald Trump is the Most Unbiblical Candidate in History and “Bible Believing Christians” are Without Excuse

I’ve talked about how culture is projected into the Bible, where it takes extensive inference to arrive at Biblical support for their positions. When we look at the plain language of the Bible’s instructions, we will see a profound antithesis with Donald Trump.

1. Biblical instructions for us could begin with the summary that is found in Micah 6:8

 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Think of Donald Trump, this is the opposite of his character.

• The next clear language of instruction from the Bible are the Ten Commandments.

You shall have no other gods before Me. (some now worship Trump as a god, and he welcomes that)

You shall make no idols. (These things are now held as idols by Trumpism: Donald Trump himself, Being Pro-Life, American Nationalism)

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. (Trump)

Keep the Sabbath day holy.

Honor your father and your mother.

You shall not murder. (Trump lies about immigrants and then one of his followers murdered 20 in El Paso. I could make many more references of Trumps words = murder)

You shall not commit adultery. (Donald Trump is a habitual, unrepentant adulterer)

You shall not steal. (in business, Donald Trump is known as a cheater and stealer throughout his life. Even now, he has stolen millions from his supporters who gave money designated for his wall or by him selling worthless crap)

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. (Donald Trump is a habitual and pathological liar. His lies about immigrants and stolen elections are destructive to our country)

You shall not covet. (coveting other men’s wives, other people’s money etc. define Donald Trump)

I am running out of space, but the next level of instruction is the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Any plain reading of the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes is clear that the character of Jesus Christ and his teachings are the exact opposite of Donald Trump. This is why I call the Pro-life movement as now idolatry because it is a cultural position that supersedes the plainly written instructions of the Bible.

The church in America is dying. It is not dying due to the rejection of the historical teachings of Jesus Christ, but due to the mischief of the Church. It is the evangelical and progressive culture of the churches that are being rejected. The evangelical church is now becoming Trumpism, the absolute opposite of the teachings of the historical Jesus. Yes, pro-life movement has been the gateway drug to Trumpism, a complete disaster for the Church and America. There is no excuse.

Mike