Are Many ‘Evangelicals’ Who Support Trump Not Actually Evangelicals?

Since 2016, in private conversations and in responses from newspaper readers, the question I’ve probably been asked more consistently than any other is: “How do you account for White evangelicals’ devotion to Donald Trump?” 

I’m a lifelong evangelical — the son of a Southern Baptist minister turned Pentecostal, and for more than 40 years now a Pentecostal pastor myself.

So I’ve taken stabs at answering that question. But more often than not I’ve ended up shrugging and saying, “I don’t know. I don’t get it, either.”