White Evangelicalism Has Always Been Right Wing

Given that eighty-one percent of white evangelicals who voted in the 2016 election supported Donald Trump, it may seem strange that Trump's victory has generated such spirited debates within conservative Christian circles about whether to abandon the “evangelical” label. This post-election handwringing builds on conversations that took place for over a year among a small set of evangelicals who opposed Trump from the start, but the latest rounds demonstrate an even greater propensity to rewrite history and recent events in an attempt to disconnect evangelicals from the rise of Trump.