If South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg wants to distinguish himself in a crowded field of Democratic candidates, he might want to try something other than evangelical bashing. In a party that's made religious hostility a competitive sport, Buttigieg's latest Christian shaming is just more of the same.
On Sunday's edition of "Meet the Press," Buttigieg proved he's really no different than the rest of the 2020 challengers when he took the opportunity to slam some of Donald Trump's staunchest supporters. Talking about the evangelicals who helped propel the president to victory in 2016, he fumed, "It's something that frustrates me because the hypocrisy is unbelievable... Here you have somebody that not only acts in a way that's not consistent with anything I hear in scripture..."
In fact, he argues, "We see the diametric opposite of that in this presidency. I think there was a cynical process where he decided to, for example, pretend to be pro-life and govern accordingly which was good enough to bring many evangelicals over to his side. But even on the version of Christianity that you hear from the religious right... I cannot believe that... [evangelicals are] lifting up [Trump] as the kind of person you want leading this nation."
Of course, what Buttigieg and the army of liberals who've made a business of printing evangelicals-as-hypocrites columns don't seem to understand is that the support for Trump is not for his "Christian" rhetoric, but for the policies that reflect biblical truth. If this White House is "pretending" to be pro-life, then I'd have to say, they've done a very believable job. No administration in history has done more to protect the unborn and taxpayers than the man he just accused of putting on a conservative act. That's because it is no act! Unlike the Left, which likes to throw around language that's decoupled from the truth of Scripture, this president doesn't just talk about these principles. He tries to govern by them. That's why so many SAGE Cons (spiritually active governance engaged conservatives) support Trump. They understand the Bible is more than platitudes. It's transcendent truth that's meant to be applied to the world around us.
No one is rationalizing or excusing Trump's failings. But what most liberals don't seem to understand is that when Christians went to the voting booth, they chose a leader based on policy – not personality. And on everything from life and religious liberty to the military and the courts, he's earned conservatives' trust. This isn't blind allegiance on the part of evangelicals or phony opportunism. This is reasoned support for a political leader who has made and kept his campaign promises.
If you want to know the real reason Buttigieg is unhappy with evangelicals, it's not because we're hypocrites. It's because we stand in the way of his radical designs. His goal, like the goal of so many liberals, is to try to embarrass evangelicals into disengaging from politics. But if there's anything evangelicals have learned over the last 10 years, it's how much elections matter. In a country where religious persecution is always one vote away, you'll have a hard time persuading Christians to back away.
