Even though I’m an atheist, I’ve been joking to colleagues: I now believe in Hell — because we’re surely living in it.
Many pundits and Democrats are asking after the election: How did America sink into this political nightmare? Seriously?
You can talk about the economy. You can blame President Biden’s late departure from the race. You can indict the Democrats for supposedly abandoning the working class. Yada yada yada. Sure, soul-searching by political analysts is in order. But you can’t fully understand the (re)election of Trump unless you understand the role religion has played in setting the stage for it.
The religious vote played a huge role. As Religion News Service reported, “White Christians made Donald Trump president — again.” A decisive 72 percent of white Protestants and 61 percent of white Catholics say they voted for Trump. By contrast, 78 percent of Jews, 71 percent with no religious affiliation and 59 percent of other non-Christians supported Kamala Harris.
Christian nationalism played an outsized role, too, with Trump (“God spared my life for a reason”) ginning up his piety to pander to theocrats. Extremist, monied Christian nationalist groups have been organizing donors, pastors and congregations for nearly half a century, aiming for this moment. There’s Christian dominionism. Seven Mountain Mandate. New Apostolic Reformation. Family Research Council. Alliance Defending Freedom and other Christian legal groups. Southern Baptist Convention. U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Opus Dei. Leonard Leo, Federalist Society. Heritage Foundation. Independent Charismatics. Countless Christo-political groups such as Turning Point and anti-abortion organizations. Numerous radical evangelists and megachurch pastors. As the films “Bad Faith” and “God & Country” and well-researched books have documented, Christian nationalism is a scary, hyperorganized, anti-democratic movement intent on turning America into a “Christian nation.” And the movement regards the sinner Trump as their King Cyrus.
The role religion played in the election is broader than just Christian nationalist voter drives or propaganda. I blame America’s longstanding undue deference for religion — as well as the American taboo against criticizing religious faith — for being the kindling that Trump’s campaigns set on fire.
Religion set the scene as the original promulgator of “alternative facts.” The New Testament assures us in Hebrews 11:1–3 that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Evidence is not required to accept or believe religious claims. Evidence is even derided. Wishful, if not deluded, thinking is glorified. Mark Twain’s Puddin’ Head Wilson observes: “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.” Religion teaches that truth is irrelevant.
Second Corinthians 10:6 even tells us that we must bring “into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” Imprison your thoughts? Proverbs instructs us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Turn off your understanding? Who would voluntarily abandon their own powers of reasoning? Apparently, a lot of believers and voters.
Without the ballast of reason, there’s no way to separate the chaff from the wheat, the facts from Fox News. How much of a step is it from swallowing that the Earth was created in literally seven days to believing that Haitian immigrants are eating white peoples’ cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio? From believing that the bible is literally true to giving credence to claims that Democrats are “aborting” babies after birth? That the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave its hurricane relief money to a bunch of “illegal immigrants” instead of North Carolina storm victims. That schools are performing gender-affirming surgeries on students behind their parents’ backs. That wind power means people can’t watch TV if there’s no breeze that night. I could go on and on citing Trump’s outrageous lies — and that’s only some of them told at recent rallies, according to CNN. Not to mention more than 30,000 other lies documented by the Washington Post.
Hundreds of millions of Americans are made vulnerable to such hucksterism thanks to religious upbringings that teach them it’s virtuous to believe without evidence. Being rendered susceptible to false propaganda because of prior indoctrination doesn’t let true believers off the hook, of course. As Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler has pointed out, “One reason that Trump’s false statements may have mattered little to his supporters is because he echoed things they already believed.” But Trump, just like the snake-oil televangelists he consciously imitates, teaches that truth doesn’t matter. It’s the mark of strongmen to manipulate information and become “spin dictators” — and they share that characteristic with a lot of preachers.
This isn’t to tar every believer, or minister or even Trump voter with the same brush. Not all evangelicals are Christian nationalists and there are many liberal believers who conscientiously do their homework before forming political or other “secular” opinions. Nor can we exonerate all atheists and agnostics as perfect examples of critical thinkers. It’s the human condition to be susceptible to confirmation bias and tribalism. But the kind of Christian nationalism being preached today, whether from a church pulpit or a political podium, has been able to take root so successfully because so many Americans have been groomed by religion to give credence to outrageous claims without asking for evidence. That credulity — whether about religion or Trump’s supposed ability to “fix” the economy better than Kamala Harris could — may have brought our democracy to the precipice.
Of course, the only “hell” I believe in as an atheist is the one we human beings can turn our Earth into. By the same token, the only paradise is one we could and should be building here on Earth. The purposes authorized by “We the People” as set forth in the preamble of our godless Constitution make an excellent start, especially the vow to secure “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” We secularists must concentrate on keeping secure at least some of those blessings — until we can open more voters’ eyes to the dangers of demagoguery and Christian nationalism.
