How Trump Stole Christmas

Attending the event in person allowed me to appreciate how central Trump remains to white evangelicalism. Not just for Robert Jeffress, Trump's most loyal "court evangelical." Not just for First Baptist Dallas, the church that once wrote and performed a hymn for Trump entitled "Make America Great Again." In fact, it would be a mistake for readers to roll their eyes at an event like this and dismiss it as "wacky" or "fringe." On the contrary, what I observed in person Sunday morning, as well as what we can see from national survey data, make clear how Trump has conformed white evangelicalism to his own image, and why so many evangelicals await his second advent.