In an investigation conducted by Reuters, it was found that highly religious conservative circles are moving to support former President Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential elections against current President Joe Biden, portraying the presidential elections as a race between good, represented by Trump, and evil, represented by Biden. The agency quoted evangelical preacher Hank Kunneman as saying that the criminal charges filed against Trump are in fact a battle between good and evil, noting that evil forces are trying to prevent Trump from reaching the White House, while one of the pastors considered that the upcoming presidential race will constitute a battle for the Salvation of America's soul, considering that Trump enjoys divine protection.

The irony of the matter is that Trump previously enjoyed the support of evangelical voters in the 2016 and 2020 elections, despite reports that he committed adultery with a porn actress. However, this charge and others were interpreted by evangelicals as an attempt to prevent him from ridding America of the forces of evil. About 80 million Americans, or about a quarter of the population, who describe themselves as born-again Christians, or evangelical Protestants, have constituted the main factor in Trump's rapid rise, and it is expected that their support for him will be decisive in enhancing his chances of returning to the White House, knowing that they depend on Christian media to defend political issues related to their faith, such as anti-communism, anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, and their agendas that they consider to be contrary to the Christian religion.

Christian media include thousands of religious podcasts, radio shows, cable television, and streaming platforms, with more than 140 million US subscribers, according to the National Religious Broadcasters Association. In a speech to a conference of the association, Trump pledged to defend Christianity and urged Christians to vote for him in the November 5 election, a contest he portrayed in religious terms and likened to the major battles of World War II. He told the audience amid applause, “I know that to achieve victory in this battle, as in the battles of the past, we still need the hand of our Lord and the grace of God Almighty.” It is worth noting that Trump, in adopting this speech, is benefiting from the reaction of large American groups that were shocked by the liberal policies that were adopted, especially in the last three decades, in opposition to the religious values ​​on which the United States was founded three centuries ago.

The historical role of Protestants in America

Evangelicals consider themselves to be adhering to the main line drawn by Jesus Christ, focusing on the new birth as the true birth represented by adherence to Christian teachings. And to be born again is a phrase, especially in the Bible, that refers to “the new spiritual birth,” or the renewal of the human spirit, and it is in contrast to physical birth, as the “second birth” occurs clearly and separately from the work of the Holy Spirit, and it occurs when a person is baptized in water. This forms a fundamental doctrine of the Anabaptist, Moravian, Methodist, Baptist, Plymouth Brethren, and Pentecostal denominations along with all other evangelical Christian denominations. All of these churches strongly believe in Jesus' words in the Gospels: "You must be born again before you can see or enter the kingdom of heaven." Their doctrines also state that in order to be “born again” and “saved", one must have a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

It is worth noting that the Protestant sects, led by the Puritans, played a decisive role in the founding of the United States. In the seventeenth century, the Puritan Protestants, led by Oliver Cromwell, played a major role in overthrowing the English King Charles Stuart, who was executed, after which Cromwell ruled as Speaker of Parliament for ten years. But after the death of Cromwell, King Charles II was able to regain power and began a massive persecution campaign against the Puritans, who immigrated in large numbers to the English colonies in North America, which they considered the promised land to them, where they could practice their faith freely. They called it “the Second Israel.” The Puritans played a pivotal role in the independence of the United States from Britain in 1776. While secularists such as George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson considered that they were reviving the Roman Empire, religious Protestants considered that by establishing the United States, they were reviving the Kingdom of God on earth.

Therefore, the religious dimension gained a pivotal role in the United States and was mixed with the idea of ​​white supremacy. From this mixture emerged the concept of the pivotal role of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant “Wasp” in the United States of America as the dominant and leading group of American society, while those of Spanish, Asian, and Black origins were considered inferior. This idea was mixed with the concerns of Christian salvation and rebirth from the eighteenth century to the present day.

The concept of new birth

The Lutheran Church believes that people will be cleansed of their sins and born again through holy baptism with the Holy Spirit. Some Lutheran extremists believe that baptism is a continuous process that occurs daily through atonement for sins and daily repentance until the old Adam disappears and the new man is born, who will walk in the path of God forever. As for the Moravian Church, it believes that personal conversion to Christianity is a happy experience, where the individual accepts Christ as Lord, and after that, faith grows daily within the person. For this church, “Christ lived as a man because he wanted to chart the way for future generations, and the born-again person can try to live in his image and become daily like Jesus.” As such, the “religion of the essence” is what distinguishes Moravian Christianity, and this is what made it focus on evangelization. As for the Mennonites, they are considered one of the churches that are based on the principle of Baptism, as true faith requires a new birth and spiritual renewal by God’s grace and power. It believes that believers are those who have become the spiritual children of God, and this church sees in Baptism the path to Salvation that is achieved only through complete repentance, self-denial, and new birth through faith and obedience. Meanwhile, the Anglican Church sees the second birth as being rid of sins, especially since Christ is the only one who was born without sin, and thus getting rid of sins is considered the only way to imitate Christ. Reformism considers that the second birth refers to the role of the Holy Spirit, which urges the sinner to respond to the effective call, as the ordinary means by which Christ conveys to us the benefits of redemption are represented by his decrees, including the word, the sacraments, and prayer. According to Reformed theology, the new Christian birth must precede faith, which is what Quakers agree with.

The Methodist or Methodist Church adopts the principle of new birth, which is considered necessary for salvation because it represents the path toward holiness. For it, the new birth “is that great change that God brings about in the soul when he brings it” to life when He raised him from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. In the life of a Christian, new birth is considered the first act of grace. It considers baptism to be a sign of renewal or new birth. As for Baptists, they believe that people are born again when they believe that Jesus died for their sins and was buried and rose again and that through faith in Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, eternal life will be granted as a gift from God to believers or children of God who are born again by the Holy Spirit.

The rise of evangelicals

The late sixties of the last century would witness the launch of the evangelical Christian renewal movement in the United States and from there among Protestants around the world. This constituted a reaction among conservative American societies to a number of transformations in American society that witnessed, on the one hand, an excess of liberal transformations resulting from the expansion of consumption, accompanied by a number of social transformations that accompanied the rise of American consumer culture. In addition, the Evangelical Christian Renewal Movement represented a reaction to the American left movements, which were considered a communist infiltration into this society. Furthermore, this renewal movement constituted a reaction to the youth movement opposing the Vietnam War, which culminated in the hippie movement, which also accompanied the rise of the Black American liberation movement, which constituted a challenge to the backbone on which the United States was built, which is white racism. This coincided with the rise of neoconservatives who called for more assertive and radical policies in confronting leftist and communist movements around the world while protecting what they considered to be the interests and values ​​of the United States in the world.

For the evangelical Christian renewal movement, the expression “born again” was adopted to refer to the conversion experience, accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in order to be saved from hell and grant eternal life to believers in the company of God in heaven. In 1976, the book “Born Again", written by Chuck Colson, received great attention as it was considered one of the most influential evangelical books in the United States. Colson described his path to faith during his imprisonment for his involvement in the Watergate scandal when US President Richard Nixon spied on the Democratic Party campaign in 1974. Colson played a very important role in establishing the concept of “born again” as a cultural construct in the United States, noting that he was able to meet God personally through this experience.

After that, it is rare for a candidate to win the US presidency without the support of evangelicals. Jimmy Carter was the first president of the United States to declare his affiliation with evangelicals, prior to his election as president in 1976. As for Ronald Reagan, he enjoyed the support of 61 percent of evangelicals, allowing him to win the presidency in 1980. With the advent of the new millennium and in parallel with the invasion of Iraq in 2003, forty-two percent of American adults declared themselves born-again evangelicals. The movement was able to penetrate the ranks of Black communities, more than sixty percent of which now belong to born-again evangelicals, at the expense of Islam, which had spread widely among Blacks in the sixties and seventies of the last century. 52 percent of Republicans consider themselves born again, compared to 36 percent of Democrats. The rise of evangelicals was linked to the social support programs they provided after the decline in the role of American welfare programs, which was accompanied by the implementation of neoliberal policies in the United States and the reduction of the state’s role in economic and social care from the seventies of the last century onwards.

Why Trump?

The question remains, why do new evangelicals lean toward Trump more than they tend to support Biden? The obvious answer is that Trump is a Protestant while Biden is a Catholic. It is worth mentioning that Protestantism was launched as a movement of rebellion against the Catholic Church and considered that the Pope embodies the Antichrist in his person. Also, the United States was founded primarily by Protestants, which makes them see Catholics as an alien element to them. Hence, all American presidents were white Protestants with the exception of John Kennedy, the Catholic, who was assassinated three years after his election, and Barack Hussein Obama, the “Black” whose faith was questionable, because his father was a Muslim, and Joe Biden, the Catholic, who had to go to extremes in declaring his Zionism until he found his own. A place in the American Presidents Club.

Likewise, evangelicals resented the social policies of the Democrats, whether during the era of Bill Clinton (1993 - 2001), during the era of Barack Obama (2009 - 2017), or during the era of Biden, as a result of their allowing the passage of laws that affect the core of evangelical values. Among these laws are those related to allowing abortion, to which Evangelical extremists responded by targeting clinics that perform abortions or laws that give rights to homosexuals and transgender people, a large number of whom hold sensitive positions in the Biden administration.

A summary

In conclusion, the position of evangelicals in the upcoming elections will be decisive in determining the winner in the upcoming elections, with Trump tipping the balance over Biden. In addition to Trump adopting policies that are acceptable to evangelicals, such as opposing abortion and gay rights, he adopts a rhetoric calling for the protection of family values, even though he is not an ideal family head. His policies calling for combating illegal immigration from Latin American countries also resonate with evangelicals who complain about changing the structure of the United States from a Protestant country to a country with an increasing number of Catholics.