I have been writing about the MAGA movement among evangelicals for a decade. Because I am a Christian, a preacher, and a rhetorical scholar, I remain concerned about the evangelical commitment to President Donald Trump and MAGA. But I have become convinced politics is only a sideshow in our nation, a distraction from what is happening to the nature of Christian faith.
Rodney Kennedy
One can read the Age of Trump as evidence of the public undermining of traditional ethics. When President Trump was asked why he was using the office of the president to enrich himself, he said, “I found out no one cared.” What matters among MAGA evangelicals is winning.
There’s evidence down in Texas of how Trumpism poisons everything. Ken Paxton may be the most ethically challenged candidate since Trump. He is the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate against James Talarico. And Paxton has decided character doesn’t matter and people just don’t care.
Imagine a political “Back to the Future.” It’s 1990 again. Americans prefer candidates who are men and women of character. When the news broke about the sexual misconduct of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, evangelical leaders started spreading the word he was “lackadaisical” in his moral attitude, lied repeatedly, bribed other officials, and was a sex addict.
Rev. Robert Jeffress might tell the congregation at First Baptist Church in Dallas, “Our political leaders are required to ‘flee from all appearances of evil.’ He also insists moral standards must be higher for Christians.” Josh Howerton could say, “Paxton’s lies and his trip to Norway with another woman was corrupting the morals of America’s youth. … These children cannot be set adrift into a culture that tells them lying is okay, that fidelity is old-fashioned and that character doesn’t count.” Megan Basham may express shock: “What has alarmed me has been the willingness of Americans to rationalize Paxton’s behavior even after they knew he was guilty of numerous sins. There is plenty of evidence Paxton has a moral problem.”
Now, back to reality. This is not 1990, and the previous quotes were made by Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer, and James Dobson. Today’s evangelicals are “leopards who have changed their spots.” The definition of character has changed for evangelicals.
Maybe evangelicals decided they were wrong to believe moral values are universal. The ethos of 1990s evangelicals is not the same on every count as the ethos of contemporary U.S. public culture. In other words, evangelicals have adopted a platform they swear they oppose – pluralism and diversity. You can hear the change in slogans MAGA evangelicals now use: “Who am I to judge? We are all sinners.”
What if ethos is relative to the ethos of the larger society that frames the audience? Jeffress is a perfect example of this shift in evangelical ethos. “I mean, obviously, we don’t support extramarital affairs, we don’t support hush-money payments, but what we do support are these president’s excellent policies.” Jeffress expressed the ethical outlook of pragmatism and the importance of winning elections. He offers what he considers ethical proof relative to the ethical outlook of MAGA.
What if we had an election producing a turn toward ethos, the third Aristotelian mode of proof? More particularly, what if the US Senate race in Texas depended on ethos – moral character of the candidates? Making the election about ethos would be MAGA’s worst nightmare. Evangelicals know they are on shaky ground on the character issue. Ken Paxton is not a typical Republican. Republicans were for moral character before they were against it.
Evangelical leaders know they don’t need to run on the issue of character. They have reason for confidence. No candidate has ever been as ethically challenged as Trump. And he won — twice. MAGA may worry about Paxton lacking Trump’s forceful persona, tremendous wealth, and tough guy reputation. But they probably think they can overcome charges of adultery, bribery, and stealing. Paxton has already survived an impeachment.
A Texas star (photo by Michael Keeney on Unsplash)
The MAGA problem is the Democratic candidate: James Talarico. He presents himself as a person of high moral character. David French observes, “If the primary American divide is between decent and indecent, then the equation changes. Talarico shines.” He adds, “Talarico is one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian, and by acting like a Christian, he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the MAGA Christian movement that’s dominated American political life for 10 years.”
Talarico’s attempt to make the election about ethos — character, credibility, and integrity — throws a Nolan Ryan fastball at Paxton and MAGA. After a decade of elections based on pathos (emotion), MAGA has no desire to talk about Christian practices and virtues. Talarico wins the traditional ethos battle hands down, but Paxton and MAGA are betting character doesn’t matter.
No politician other than Paxton has so thoroughly followed the Trump template. Lying is not a problem. Sexual misconduct only has to be denied and, of course, millions paid to keep it quiet or make it go away. Immigrants are criminals, vermin, scum. Democrats are not Christians. Profanity and demeaning others are signs of hegemonic masculinity. Jeffrey Epstein is no big deal. The ends justify the means. Trump has, in effect, said, “Go and do likewise.” Paxton seems to have taken his mentor literally.
Therefore, evangelicals tiptoe around the character issue. Al Mohler doesn’t offer Paxton a ringing moral character endorsement. He sounds as if he has lost the evangelical definition of sin when he describes Paxton as carrying “a lot of controversy,” having a “rather complicated personal life,” “Paxton carries a lot of controversy wherever he goes, and his personal and public lives are what one observer described as “rather complicated.” Mohler, seemingly at a loss for an explanation, falls back on, “As you can imagine, that’s an understatement. To my knowledge, he is the first Senate candidate to run for office just as his wife filed for divorce ‘for cause.’ These are strange days, and not just in Texas.” He sounds like a preacher incapable of expressing knowledge of God’s ways.
Long-standing evangelical insistence on character and moral behavior has crashed right into a limit: their love for power. Lovers of the Ten Commandments, the holiness code of Leviticus, the moral strictures of some passages in Paul, have been driven to deny the necessity of integrity, truth-telling, moral conduct, and ethical practices. Once you abandon the Ten Commandments and consider the Sermon on the Mount as “woke,” the barn door swings open and all the cattle in Texas are free on the range.
Whatever became of the evangelical understanding of sin? Josh Howerton excuses Paxton’s ethically challenged resume as “baggage.” He says, “Ken Paxton has personal baggage. I don’t deny that. But Talarico has plenty too — and he openly mocks God’s law and treats Jesus as a political mascot all while pushing a radical far-left agenda that would be a disaster for my state.”
MAGA evangelicals don’t care about character as long as they can make Paxton look better than Talarico. In evangelical minds, Talarico has some other kind of lack of character — unknown and unsayable, but Megan Basham is sure he has such a lack. After all, he’s a Democrat and the “lack” has to be there somewhere. Basham opines, “This percent of the local electorate doesn’t turn on the incumbent just because they don’t care about personal conduct anymore. It’s that they see some other sort of lack of character that they know impacts them more.”
They don’t care how many bad things Paxton has done; they only care whether they can position Paxton as the better choice. Every absurd accusation they can concoct about Talarico, in their mind, makes Paxton look better. And none of their statements require evidence, facts, or truthfulness. These MAGA evangelicals are definitely not from 1990. They have severely compromised Christian ethics and done untold damage to the reputation of the faith. But when nothing matters but winning, they just don’t care.
Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div. from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. The pastor of 7 Southern Baptist churches over the course of 20 years, he pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton, Ohio — which is an American Baptist Church — for 13 years. He is currently professor of homiletics at Palmer Theological Seminary, and interim pastor of Emmanuel Friedens Federated Church, Schenectady, New York. His eighth book, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, is out now from Cascade Books.
