The immoral majority demonstrated the pulpit is no place for politics. Otherwise, Jesus would have arrived as a powerful king not as an innocent baby. The Founding Fathers intended the separation of church and state to keep government out of the sanctuary. It was a court case that turned that concept around and may have given birth to a sense of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” among evangelicals. Historically, when the Church delved into politics, things did not turn out well. The decline of the Roman church was accelerated by the conversion of Constantine and the establishment of a government-supported church.

The German Lutheran Church sold its soul by supporting Adolph Hitler. (For more details, see my blog entitled, Silence is Evil). Yet, over the past few elections cycles evangelicals have increasingly begun to define faith in political terms. In the interest of transparency, I am a graduate of Liberty University Baptist Theological Seminary. Sadly, the pride I once had in that diploma disappeared with the support Jerry Falwell Jr., son of its founder, gave President Trump during both his candidacy and presidency. Falwell’s own fall from grace only made it worse. This book helped me articulate what I have been feeling. I encourage anyone sensing a blurring of the line between faith and politics to invest some time reading it.

The author is the son of an evangelical pastor with strong, prior ties to Jerry Falwell, Sr. He asserts the moral majority has lost its way and reveals an ungodly change in American evangelicalism. His book describes “what happens when the people who believe they have the moral high ground find themselves on the low road.” He further asserted evangelicals turned a blind eye to the actions of the Trump administration in exchange for a “greater moral consideration.”

The focus of the original moral majority was the exact opposite of what self-professed evangelicals elected in 2016. The senior Falwell’s moral majority believed character matters and sought to elect those exhibiting moral lives. But this is how the author describes the current immoral majority. “They believe that one should be more concerned with the lives and happiness of their children than whether or not a president is a lying, philandering, unethical charlatan.” Trump’s moral reputation has further eroded since his election defeat in 2020. It is beginning to look like he will be adding criminal and insurrectionist to his resume.

In the author’s estimation, the moral majority had morphed into something far removed from the vision of its founder when Falwell’s son, Jerry junior, posed with Donald Trump in front of the cover of a pornographic magazine his father fought suppress. The author reminds us of Jerry Falwell’s Herculean efforts to see Larry Flynt, the publisher of a different pornographic magazine, surrender his life to Jesus. Howe observed, “. . . here was Falwell’s son, not seeking to “save” a man who was cut from the same cloth as Flynt but rather to endorse an effort to put such a man into the most influential position on the face of the Earth.”

Howe quoted Michael Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, “Today, we see politics fully influencing a thousand Christian leaders. This is a day of mourning. . .  In a generation, the movement had changed . . . from trying to be a force for change in politics, to being forcefully changed by politics.”

Sadly, many of Trump’s self-described, evangelical supporters have still not concluded they were sold a bill of goods. Howe maintains they hold the view that “you do not question the vessel,’ and goes on to observe Trump cannot be considered a hypocrite because he lacks a personal moral code to betray. He further asserts the president, “pulls many evangelicals into a vortex of moral ambiguity and relativism that has become almost required to continue supporting him.”

To underscore the damage Trump has done, he concludes, “Donald Trump is the single greatest source of hypocrisy I’ve seen in a movement already perceived by many as pharisaic.” In effect we have become that which we have despised, and the unbelieving world is chalking it up to even more church hypocrisy. Consequently, our evangelistic mission suffers because of it.

He then makes a case for evangelicals to adopt what he calls ‘empathetic conservatism,’ by which he means “speaking to people in a way that is optimistic and helps them see a brighter future without abandoning our principles or compromising our beliefs.” That is a far cry from the words shouted by some pastors since the election. The author addressed this, as well,” . . . creating a “Christian” culture that has become divisively self-interested and bitterly self-righteous, these leaders have taught their flocks to value the things of the world, rather than the things of Christ.”

He maintains, “for the Trump right, the end of overthrowing the popular left’s regime is worth achieving by any means necessary.” And on January 6, 2021, his words became truer than he could ever have imagined. He concludes by referring to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. “That brings me back to the evangelical movement at large, which has a rather massive log in its eye at the moment. For the possibility of a bit of worldly influence, they surrendered their moral voice in the public sphere.”

The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power Over Christian Values by Ben Howe, Harper Collins/Broadside Books, 2019