Have white evangelicals been unfairly demonized by scholars and pundits alike in the run-up to November’s election? True, white evangelicals have distinguished themselves by throwing their support behind a president who appears to be the antithesis of the moral values evangelicals claim to hold dear. They’ve cast their lot with a president who revels in crassness, brags about assaulting women, denigrates immigrants and refugees, and cannot bring himself to denounce white supremacy.
Defenders of evangelicals, however, chide critics for stereotyping white evangelicals, for “lumping them together in the basket of deplorables” when in fact many evangelicals are “the salt of the earth.” Evangelicals, after all, are generous and patriotic Americans, “conscientious parents, church members and Little League coaches.” Indeed, walk through the doors of any evangelical megachurch and you’re likely to be greeted with effusive friendliness. According to evangelicalism’s defenders, much of the problem comes down to a media that persists in portraying evangelicalism in an unflattering light.
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