How Evangelicals Became White

WHAT VALUES WERE really at stake for the 81 percent of white evangelicals who voted for a presidential candidate who uses crass language and admits to engaging in coarse behavior, and whose campaign was marked by vitriolic hatred of various people, particularly people of color?

I raised this question with a white male leader of a Christian foundation. In response, he told me to consider the “moral values”—such as pro-life concerns—that he said prompted, if not demanded, white evangelical support of Donald Trump’s candidacy.

The Christian leader suggested that these particular concerns mitigated any misgivings that white evangelicals might have with Trump’s dissolute behaviors and bigoted views. For many others, the moral imperatives not to support Trump were more overriding, especially for those who prioritize personal virtue as a core religious value.

The “value proposition” displayed by white evangelicals in the 2016 election, and the definition of what constitutes “moral values” and what doesn’t, is inextricably related to the nation’s upcoming demographic shift—the fact that, by the year 2044, the United States is expected to become majority nonwhite. This has significant implications for the wider faith community regarding issues of race. Much more may be at stake than the leader of the Christian foundation was able or willing to recognize.

‘The new Israelites’

The value proposition of the Trump campaign was made clear in the campaign’s “Make America Great Again” vision. This mantra tapped into America’s defining Anglo-Saxon myth and revitalized the culture of white supremacy constructed to protect it.

The Anglo-Saxon myth was introduced to this country when America’s Pilgrim and Puritan forebears fled England, intent on carrying forth an Anglo-Saxon legacy they believed was compromised in English church and society with the Norman Conquest in 1066. These early Americans believed themselves descendants of an ancient Anglo-Saxon people, “free from the taint of intermarriages,” who uniquely possessed high moral values and an “instinctive love for freedom.” Their beliefs reflected the thought of first-century Roman philosopher Tacitus (quoted above), who touted the unique superiority of an Anglo-Saxon people from the ancient woods of Germany. In his treatise Germania, Tacitus describes these Germanic tribes as a people for whom “good [moral] habits” were more effectual than “good laws” and argues that they possess a peculiar respect for individual rights and freedom.

Tacitus’ writings not only played an influential role in determining systems of governance in America, but they also laid the foundation for the subjugation, if not elimination, of certain peoples: namely, those who were not members of the “unmixed race” that Tacitus described. Indeed, Germania has been called “one of the most dangerous books ever written,” not so much for what Tacitus wrote but for how his words have been used to undergird horrific movements, such as the Nazis’ monstrous program for “racial purity.”

Considering themselves descendants of these mythic Anglo-Saxon people, the Puritans and Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic with a vision to build a nation that was politically and culturally—if not demographically—true to their “exceptional” Anglo-Saxon heritage.

They saw this as a divine vision. They traced their Anglo-Saxon heritage through the ancient woods of Germany back to the Bible. They considered themselves the “new Israelites,” carrying forth a godly mission. Central to this mission was building not simply an Anglo-Saxon nation but a religious nation—one that reflected the morals and virtues of God, which in their minds were synonymous with the unsullied ways of their freedom-loving Anglo-Saxon ancestors. “The Lord will make [America] a city upon a hill,” Puritan leader John Winthrop preached in 1630, “[with] the eyes of all people upon us.”

From its beginning, America’s social-identity, with a legitimating religious canopy, was Anglo-Saxon. Even Founding Fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin envisioned America as a sacred witness to Anglo-Saxon character and values, if not people. (Jefferson wrote, “Tacitus I consider as the first writer in the world without a single exception.”)

Jefferson’s proposed language for a United States seal affirmed this belief. As John Adams described it, Jefferson’s seal included “the children of Israel in the wilderness ... and on the other side, Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon chiefs from whom we claim the honor of being descended, and whose political principles and form of government we have assumed.” America’s democracy was conceived of as an expression of a biblically ordained Anglo-Saxon mission.

A whitewashed ‘city on the hill’

Anglo-Saxon America had a perpetually vexing problem. Anglo-Saxons were not native to American soil. Those native to American soil were decidedly not Anglo-Saxon. And not everybody wholooked like Anglo-Saxons were Anglo-Saxon.

In 1751, Benjamin Franklin wrote that “the number of purely white people in the world is proportionally very small. ... And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians, and Swedes are generally of what we call a swarthy complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principle body of white people on the face of the earth. I could wish their numbers were increased.”

Yet, for most who came from Europe, there was a mitigating factor: They were “white”—and whiteness made all the difference. To safeguard the Anglo-Saxon vision, a pervasive culture of whiteness—with defined political, religious, and ethnic identities—was born. To be “white” eventually would be considered Anglo-Saxon enough. Whiteness became the passport into the exceptional space that was American identity.

During the First Great Awakening, when evangelical Protestantism spread across New England, revivalist Jonathan Edwards was convinced that the “glorious work of God” was destined to begin in America. Based on his interpretation of the prophecy of Isaiah, Edwards wrote, “It is signified that it shall begin in some very remote part of the world. ... I cannot think that anything else can be here intended but America.” Edwards further proclaimed that “in order to introduce a new and more excellent state of the church” where “the power of God might be more conspicuous,” God had to start all over in a new world, America.

Such confidence in the divine nature of America’s mission easily gave way to white evangelicals believing themselves to be God’s uniquely “chosen” people. The white evangelical community assumed that spreading their brand of Christianity was essential to the nation remaining true to its divine mission—to build an Anglo-Saxon nation. Thus, the white evangelical community was alarmed when great numbers of non-Anglo-Saxon Europeans began to flood into the country. They offered what they believed to be an efficacious solution: Convert them to Anglo-Saxon Christianity and hence to “whiteness.”

As evangelicals were spreading their brand of Christianity in the 18th and 19th centuries, they believed themselves to be also spreading Anglo-Saxonism. Their mission was as much an Anglo-Saxon mission as it was a Christian mission. Converting “foreigners” was for them a way to protect the Anglo-Saxon identity of America. “Conversion to [evangelical] Christianity was considered the only logical way to produce Anglo-Saxons out of the tired and huddled masses,” explained sociologist Daniel B. Lee. By linking Anglo-Saxonism with godliness, evangelical Christianity has been historically complicit in promoting a “great” America that is equated with white supremacy.

“In a word, our national character is that of the Anglo-Saxon race,” wrote 19th-century church historian Robert Baird. Baird argued that “essentially Germanic or Teutonic [are] the chief supports of the ideas and institutions of evangelical Christianity.”

Christian Anglo-Saxon whiteness has subsequently served as the criterion, spoken or unspoken, for determining who is a “real” American, who is entitled to the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and who has the right to cross borders and occupy certain spaces. Essentially, whiteness provides the measure for what it means to be a legitimate citizen.

The “city on the hill” that the early Americans were building was to be nothing less than a sacred witness to Anglo-Saxon (white) supremacy.

When character no longer matters

Donald Trump’s vision to Make America Great Again is a 21st-century effort to carry forth the legacy of the Anglo-Saxon myth and the culture of whiteness that protects that myth. Recovery of America’s “greatness” was associated with the country ridding itself of nonwhite immigrants, whose very presence—according to Trump—has sent the nation spiraling into social disarray and moral decadence.

To bolster this prescription for America’s greatness, Trump trafficked in disparaging misrepresentations of Mexican immigrants as rapists and of African-American communities as dangerous enclaves of criminality. His vision for “greatness” therefore resonates with those who have longed for an Anglo-Saxon/white America. In this way Trump’s campaign served as a clarion call to “take back the country” from those detrimental to America’s exceptionalist identity, namely nonwhite people.

The value proposition of Trump’s Make America Great Again campaign is clear. It is the promise to make America white again—which is why so many people of color had a visceral reaction to this campaign mantra.

This brings us back to white evangelical support for Donald Trump. What does this unprecedented support say about their priority of values?

Given evangelical Protestantism’s historical relationship to white supremacy, it is no wonder that Trump’s campaign appealed to a vast majority of white evangelical voters. Trump harkened back to this history by aligning America’s greatness with evangelical Christian values, as he consistently linked a great America with a Christian America. He made it clear by suggesting that saying “Merry Christmas” was a sign of patriotism.

In this view, safeguarding the property of Anglo-Saxon white America takes priority over a commitment to individual morality. Ironically, that which was proclaimed as a mark of Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism—upright character—is dwarfed by a resolve to maintain a white supremacist nation.

The ‘death rattle’ of white Christian America?

Most of white Christian America ignored Trump’s intemperate behavior to support his vision of American greatness. In this regard, a majority of white Christian America found common cause with Trump’s Anglo-Saxon exceptionalist values, eschewing any pretense of valuing personal morality. Such support reveals the corrupting nature of Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism.

To be fair, white evangelicals were not alone in their significant support of Trump’s campaign. Fifty-eight percent of nonevangelical white Protestants and 60 percent of white Catholics did the same. Researcher Robert P. Jones argues that the 2016 presidential election represented the “death rattle” of white Christian America’s attempt to protect the country from the consequences of a nonwhite America.

No one made this case more sharply than Michele Bachmann, who said to a gathering of “values-voter” evangelicals, “It’s a math problem of demographics and a changing United States. ... [T]his is the last election when we even have a chance to vote for somebody who will stand up for godly moral principles. This is it.” The implication is clear: The more threatened the white demographic, the fiercer the defense of Anglo-Saxon white supremacy.

The bottom line is that in their support of Trump, much of white Christian America opted to support a white supremacist vision for the country. As for white evangelicals, far from abandoning their role as “values voters,” they simply made clear what they value above all else.

Left to be determined is what those in the faith community who did not support the Make America Great Again campaign value most. Their real vote will be seen in their actions, because silence means consent.