It's always amazing to me how — somehow, apparently, mysteriously, and even miraculously — Jesus has survived all of us Christians.
And yet, it’s undeniable that the election of Donald Trump and the presidency that has followed — and the Christian response to all of it — have revealed how disconnected many American Christians have become from Jesus. In particular, the uncritical support Trump enjoys from many white evangelicals in the religious right, and the Faustian bargain they have made for power, are turning many Americans (and others) away from Christianity altogether.
While we’ve long known that institutional Christianity is in decline in the United States — especially among younger generations — the bottom is starting to fall out of evangelicalism, with people identifying with “no religion” surpassing evangelicals and Catholics for the first time earlier this year as the most common answer on a religious self-identification survey of Americans. Increasing numbers of Americans are “falling away from religion because they see it as so wrapped up with Republican politics.”
Here’s why I believe this is actually good news.
Recently, I spoke to a group of university students who are in Washington, D.C. doing internships this semester on the Hill, at the White House, the cabinet, and other agencies around the Capitol.
As I began to talk about this Jesus who we have all become disconnected from (especially in the churches), and how the questions he asked or prompted are so deeply connected to the moral and political crisis we now find ourselves in, they lit up. After I laid out some of those Jesus questions and their relevance to us today, including what they see and hear around them in the nation’s capital every day, hands came up from all over the room.
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