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Trumpism and the Rise of Meta-Christianity
The medium is the message in Trump’s postmodern political cult
Is conservative Christianity surging or declining in the US under Donald Trump’s presidency? It depends on how you think of this religion.
In an article for the conservative publication, American Compass, Aaron M. Renn argues that ironically “the decline of Evangelicalism helped elect Donald Trump.” Trump could win the presidency only because conservative Christians had lost the culture war.
Renn distinguishes between three recent phases or “worlds” of political Christianity in the US. In what he calls the Positive World (1964–1994), “Christianity was declining but still viewed positively,” while in the Neutral World (1994–2014), Christianity was no longer seen positively or negatively, and in the Negative World (post-2014), “for the first time in American history, official, elite culture now views traditional Christianity negatively, or certainly at least skeptically.”
Evangelicals could proclaim that they form a “moral majority” only in the Positive World, whereas in the Negative World, that proclamation could come across as lunacy. According to Renn, this is why Trump didn’t run for office in the Positive World because he knew his candidacy would have been dismissed on moral grounds. Back…
