2023-06-09 01:38:02
Southern Baptists make up a core part of America’s white, evangelical Christian bloc that has reliably and overwhelmingly voted for the Republican Party in recent elections, and is expected to do so again in 2024.
But Southern Baptists are weighing their alternatives among Republican hopefuls in the presidential primaries: some are backing Donald Trump, others are wary of the former president, whom many evangelical voters supported in previous elections despite his vulgar language, three marriages and his sexual bravado. Some are weighing what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or other candidates might offer.
But even those who criticize the fact that many Baptist voters support far-right politics have little doubt where they are headed by November 2024: Baptists will back the candidate who emerges from the GOP nomination process. The only question is what will be the degree of fervor they bring to the elections.
In addition to Trump and DeSantis, other Republican candidates have emphasized their Christian beliefs, including Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN, former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. Pence gave a speech at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in 2018.
“There is a segment of the white evangelical population that is looking for a way to distance itself from the deal with the devil that they made in 2016” by endorsing Trump, said the Rev. Joel Bowman Sr. of Louisville, Kentucky, who is among several black pastors who they left the SBC in 2021, appalled by what they saw as a racist backlash in a religious denomination that once formally repented of the racism of its forebears.
“Whether it’s Ron DeSantis or Mike Pence, you can be sure of one thing: the majority of the white evangelical population will back some Republican candidate, whoever it is,” said Bowman, pastor of Faith Temple Baptist Church, which maintains ties to SBC churches at the state and local level.
Albert Mohler—longtime president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, also in Louisville, and one of the religious denomination’s most prominent leaders—says he hopes “the GOP nominee is someone not named Donald Trump.”
Mohler emphasized that opposition to abortion is non-negotiable.
“It is not clear where Donald Trump is standing on that issue,” Mohler said. He is looking for someone “clearer on these issues and with less of a troubled background.”
It is the latest twist in Mohler’s opinion on Trump. In 2016, he said that evangelicals’ endorsement of Trump undermined their credibility. But he later stated that he was satisfied with the president’s actions in the presidency, especially in appointing the Supreme Court justices that provided the turning point needed to overturn the Roe v. Wade.
But Trump has since declared that each state should individually decide its position on the issue of abortion, drawing criticism from those who want a federal ban.
Mohler acknowledged that Democrats have benefited politically from the opposition backlash to the Supreme Court decision. He is looking for candidates who can navigate that political reality without compromising on negotiated solutions. “I am not going to support any candidate who is not strongly opposed to abortion and who does not have a sincere and direct strategy to lead an initiative against the termination of pregnancy,” he said, stressing that the Republican Party has “a good number of attractive candidates”, of which he considers DeSantis to be the best.
However, if Trump turns out to be the nominee, “I will reconsider the question” of who to vote for.
DeSantis formally entered the race last month and leads the way among the alternatives to Trump, who for now remains the dominant force in Republican politics. But if the Florida governor ultimately wins the party’s nomination and goes up against Joe Biden, it would be the first time in US history that the presidential candidates of both major parties would be Catholic.
One of Trump’s staunchest supporters in this and past elections is Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas.
“When Trump announced he was running for re-election last November, I predicted that some evangelicals would weigh other candidates but ultimately back Trump, as they did in 2016,” Jeffress said via email. “However, that ‘after all’ happened faster than even I expected.”
Jeffress, who began endorsing Trump during the 2016 primary season, said evangelicals are coming to the conclusion that only Trump can defeat Biden. Jeffress touched on issues traditionally important to evangelicals by calling Trump “the most anti-abortion, most supportive of religious freedom and most supportive of Israel president in the history” of the United States.
The political season is heating up as Southern Baptists head to their annual meeting in mid-June rocked by internal conflicts and scandals over the mishandling of sexual abuse cases, the subject of a Justice Department investigation. While theological debates will be prominent—especially around whether to uphold the expulsion of churches with female pastors—many proposed resolutions in recent years have reflected debates around secular politics.
A key question is how much energy and fervor Southern Baptists will be able to muster for the GOP presidential primaries.
The religious denomination continues to experience long-term declines in membership and other indicators of spiritual vitality, such as baptisms, according to its own statistics. Like other religious groups, it has struggled to regain attendance levels prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. And like many historically white and Protestant religious denominations, Southern Baptists are aging: The median age is 55, according to the 2020 Cooperative Election Study online poll. All of this would affect any campaign to increase voter turnout. among a membership that is smaller than in previous elections and facing many challenges.
Additionally, Southern Baptists are experiencing the same fragmentation in attention paid to the various media as the nation as a whole. Where once the religious denomination press and Baptist state newspapers were influential, today members receive dissenting news and perspectives from a wide array of social media and niche sites.
Pastor Mike Stone of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear, Ga. — a candidate for SBC president from its more conservative wing — said he doesn’t use the pulpit to endorse candidates.
But as a pastor, “I unreservedly address issues that Christians should take into account when making their own personal decisions,” he said. “These include the sanctity of human life, biblical marriage and sexual morality issues, and a scriptural understanding of the role of government” in punishing evil and promoting good, he added.
“Christians should prefer righteous men and women for public office,” he declared. “Because there is no such thing as the perfect candidate, sometimes this means voting for the best among the available alternatives.”
SBC Chairman Bart Barber declined to comment for this report.
At the local church level, pastors weather pressure from members who want them to talk more or less about politics from the pulpit.
“These days it’s almost impossible to avoid it, more so than it used to be,” said Eric Costanzo, pastor of Tulsa Southern Baptist Church, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “We’ve had to cross those lines in different ways because of the issues we’re involved in,” such as advocating for immigrants or for reforms in how Southern Baptists deal with abuse issues.
“During COVID it was difficult, and after the (storm on the Capitol) on January 6 (2021) it was also difficult,” he said. “I try to lead by example by not endorsing or denigrating anyone by name. Sometimes we have to touch on issues that inevitably have political implications.”
For Bowman, attempts by many in Republican and Southern Baptist circles to focus on criticizing “the awakening of consciousness regarding social injustice” have served to divert attention from the realities of systemic racism, as have the SBC’s own internal conflicts.
“If the SBC realigns itself with the Republican Party and continues to focus on contentious issues and culture wars, there will start to be an exodus from the SBC of white members who consider themselves more moderate or centrist,” he warned. “In many ways, the SBC is getting cornered. It’s not going to help his professed cause of bringing people to Christ.”
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The Associated Press’ religious coverage is supported by the AP’s partnership with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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