If you're a Christian, and you want institutionalized prayer put back into public schools, and abortion banned everywhere, and have only faith-based schools and charities funded, or generally want naked favoritism towards Christianity in any number of other ways, you are in deep, deep trouble.
Donald Trump is destroying everything you believe.
Already, Christian-based media has been taken over by Trumpism. Trump The Golden Calf is drawing worship away from Jesus Christ, who advocated causes such as clothing the naked, feeding the poor, curing the sick, and other left-wing, liberal nonsense.
The trend lines for religion are down. The trend lines for atheism are up. The percentage of people who identify as atheist, agnostic, or "nothing in particular" has increased from 16% in 2007 to 29% in 2022. This includes a 2021 Gallup poll that found that 31% of millennials and 33% of Generation Z adults have no religious preference.
And if you think the religious craziness of those young peoples' parents didn't have anything to do with that, then you're crazy too.
According to NPR, the percentage of Americans who attend religious services has also decreased, with 28% of respondents in 2023 saying they "seldom" attend and 29% saying they "never" attend. This compares to 22% and 21%, respectively, a decade earlier.
The Pew Research center issued a report in 2022 illustrating this trend. People identifying as Christian fell from 90% in 1972, to 80% in 1992, to 78% in 2002, and finally to a mere 63% in 2022. That's a lot of loss! If current trend lines continue, the number of self-professed Christians will fall below 50% for the first time in our nation's history.
And I get it, Part of the fervor behind Trump is due to religious people being conscious of the fact that their real estate is continually shrinking. They feel threatened, and so they're lashing out. But in their panic, they are flummoxing their one, lone shot at recovery.
You see, throughout Christian history, only two things have resulted in massive, wholesale Christian growth. The first, of course, is the governmental support of the Roman Empire, and how brutally it stomped out all other creeds. But the other thing has been love. Love has always enticed people into religion (or cult). For most people, becoming religious feels very much like falling in love. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:13 tells us, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." It is often quoted at weddings, but seldom do people realize how important it is.
And today's Christians have abandoned any message of love, and have openly embraced a doctrine of hate.
Is it too late to stem the hemorrhaging? In many ways, yes. Even if Trump loses in November, the negative effects he has fomented will continue to erode Christianity for decades to come. Ken Ham & Britt Beemer already wrote a book titled, "Already Gone," detailing how young people have already largely left the Church. And that was published in 2009, a full 15 years ago! Since then, the number of young people leaving the Church has gone up, not down, and that trend won't stop anytime soon.
But maybe, just maybe, the chance exists for Christianity to rescue itself; to throw down its mantra of hate and re-embrace the all-encompassing power of love. If it does, the downward trend will likely continue, but at least may recover. Someday.
And if Trump continues, there will be no recovery. Oh, he might try to use his governmental authority to force people back into being Christians, but that won't make converts. It will only make civil war.
I have, on occasion, called Trump the Antichrist. This is not mere hyperbole on my part. He is truly and deeply and permanently damaging the standing of Christians in this nation. The danger he poses is very real. The fascism he will enact is not being imagined by his critics. The Antichrist, according to most depictions, such as Nicolae Carparthia in the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, will exhibit a sort of mind-control over his subjects. Trump seems to have this mind-control power. (I'm an ATHEIST and I find that argument compelling!) And so nobody under his thrall is calling for him to drop out, as his people should have been doing all this time.
Christians have only one shot at saving their religion from the oh-so-evil trend towards true religious freedom (he said, sarcasm dripping from his chin). They must repent in sackcloth and ashes for 40 days and 40 nights, begging forgiveness for ever having considered Trump in the first place.
Eric
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