Just as I am

KANNAPOLIS, N.C.—Jack Parker wears his faith on his hat.

On a recent Tuesday evening in Kannapolis, N.C., the retired truck driver leaned against the back wall of Central Baptist Church with a Bible in his hand and a hat on his head embroidered with the message “John 3:16.”

For half an hour, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, paced in front of a choir loft at the packed church, urging supporters to back him in a GOP primary battle against business mogul Donald Trump.

When Cruz promised to shutter the IRS, Parker yelled, “Amen.” When he pledged to support Israel, Parker shouted, “Preach it, brother.” After the campaign rally ended, Parker talked about his own nearby church and said he attends regularly. When it comes to Cruz, he said, “I think he loves the Lord, and I think this guy’s got the answers.”

Larry McDonald wears his faith on his hat too.

A day before the Cruz rally, McDonald walked through the parking lot of the Cabarrus Arena and Events Center in nearby Concord, N.C., with two identical red caps stacked on his head. They both declared, “Make America Great Again.”

The retired factory worker had come to hear Trump speak to a rowdy crowd of 3,000 supporters on a Monday afternoon. After the rally, McDonald said he believes Trump will bring jobs back to the country. He’s seen blue-collar workers suffer as companies move jobs overseas.

As we talked about the campaign, McDonald said he does wish Trump would ease off insulting other candidates. I asked McDonald if he is a Christian. He replied, “Yes, me and my wife both are.” Do you go to a church here in town? “No,” he said. “We haven’t gone to church since we moved here, but sometimes we watch a minister on TV.”

How long ago did you move here? His reply: “Sixteen-and-a-half years.”

Call it the evangelical divide of 2016.

Indeed, as a slew of exit polls reported Trump had won the support of at least one-third of evangelicals or born-again Christians across a dozen states by early March, many marveled to see a thrice-married casino owner who uses vulgar language and brags about adultery capturing the support of evangelical Christians.

But a critical question arose: What’s an evangelical?

For pollsters, the answer seems simple: An evangelical is a person who claims to be an evangelical. Most exit polls apparently allowed voters to self-identify as evangelical or born-again, without any follow-up questions about beliefs or practice.

For Bible-believing Christians, the answer is much richer: Evangelical comes from the Greek word for “good news” and conveys one of the core teachings of Scripture: Christ saves sinners. A crucial outflow: The life of the saved sinner shows it.

For centuries, church councils and biblical scholars have taught and summarized these gospel doctrines in majestic statements like the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Russell Moore of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention offered a working definition for pundits scratching their heads over the word’s meaning in 2016.

It’s not a political word, says Moore: “Evangelical means a commitment to the truth of God’s revelation in the Bible and a conviction that the blood of Christ is offered to any repentant, believing sinner as a full atonement for sin.”

Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center added another layer from biblical teaching: “My definition of evangelical includes someone who takes church seriously.”

The distinctions are crucial, particularly since Trump claims to be “a strong Christian” (and even an evangelical) while also saying he’s never asked God for forgiveness. It’s also crucial for understanding another sad reality: A significant portion of voters self-identifying as evangelical might not be evangelical at all.

As Moore noted in the Post: “Many of those who tell pollsters they are ‘evangelical’ may well be drunk right now, and haven’t been into a church since someone invited them to Vacation Bible School sometime back when Seinfeld was in first-run episodes.”

In a 2007 study, the Barna Group asked participants a series of nine questions about Christian beliefs, including whether Jesus lived a sinless life, and if salvation is through grace, not works. Based on the results, the study found as few as 8 percent of Americans may be truly evangelical.

That’s far fewer than estimates from other national groups with less stringent measures, and it’s also fewer than what some politicians proclaim. Cruz has told supporters that some 54 million evangelical Christians didn’t vote during the last election. Out of 129 million voters, that number seems glaringly high.

Given the problems with how some pollsters define “evangelical,” is it possible to gauge evangelical support in the presidential contests?

NOT FLAWLESSLY. Evangelicals aren’t monolithic voters and—as in past elections—they’ve seemed to divide their votes again among several contenders, including Cruz, Trump, and Sen. Marco Rubio (prior to Rubio’s March 15 exit from the race).

Perhaps the most helpful gauge for considering evangelical voters is church attendance. While as many as 70 percent of Americans self-identify as Christian, only 37 percent report attending church weekly, according to a 2013 Pew Research study.

When it comes to voting in the GOP primary, church attendance apparently matters: Recent polls from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Barna Group showed voters who attend religious services regularly were less likely to support Trump.

In South Carolina, Trump easily won the state with a heavy evangelical population, but his margins of victory sometimes were largest in counties where church attendance was lower, according to data from the Association of Religious Data Archives.

While it’s important to note that church attendance alone doesn’t guarantee evangelical faith in a churchgoer, it does offer a helpful indicator: Those more committed to regular religious observance seem less committed to Trump.

Still, Trump did win contests across the South in states with significant evangelical populations, including in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The losses were a blow to Cruz, who had hoped to solidify evangelical support in Southern states early on.

Beyond Christian tradition, these four states had something else in common: Their workers earn the lowest wages in the country. The 2008 economic crisis hit hard in the region, and Mississippi has lost some 75,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 15 years. The state has the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

Trump has made a relentless appeal to such voters, promising to return jobs that went overseas, though some economists say his plan for high tariffs on imported goods would raise prices on affordable goods for middle- and lower-class workers.

Voters in this southern strip have cited concerns over the economy and immigration among their top issues in the election, and many embrace Trump as the solution. At least a few evangelical leaders have agreed, and have stoked fear as a reason to support Trump.

Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. offered a controversial endorsement of Trump in late January. “All the social issues—traditional family values, abortion—are moot if ISIS blows up some of our cities or if the borders aren’t fortified,” he told The New York Times. “Rank-and-file evangelicals are smarter than many of the leaders. They are trying to save the country and maybe vote on social issues next time.”

MANY EVANGELICAL LEADERS disagree with Falwell’s prioritization. Pastors and leaders from Russell Moore to Max Lucado have criticized Trump for his years of liberal positions on a range of issues (including being “very, very pro-choice” until recently) and have raised significant questions about his moral character (including his boasts over adultery).

Plenty of politicians, both Republican and Democrat, have had moral crashes while in office, but many tearfully apologized or expressed regret. Trump boasts about greed, love of money, and promiscuity.

In his book Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life, Trump used the word “screw” as a synonym for “date” when talking about his past relationships with women, and he bragged: “Beautiful, famous, successful, married—I’ve had them all. …”

He’s also used vulgar language on the campaign trail, as the culture surrounding some of his events grows coarser. Before the rally in Concord, children walked by with their parents as a T-shirt vendor shouted a crude slogan in the parking lot. Another child held a poster board full of buttons for sale with profanity-laden phrases.

Supporters anticipate Trump’s showdowns with protesters, often jeering, booing, and shouting as Trump taunts and police descend on the demonstrators. At a rally in Fayetteville, N.C., a Trump supporter punched a protester in the face as he left the arena. (Trump had said he would pay the legal fees of anyone who punched a protester.)

In recent years, many voters have grown less bothered by moral failings. Former President Bill Clinton faced shame after admitting to adultery in the Oval Office; but his popularity later soared, and he remains popular today.

So does his wife. As the Democratic primaries unfold, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remains her party’s front-runner, despite facing possible indictment for using a personal email server to conduct highly sensitive State Department business and possibly compromising national security. (She also promises to be one of the most pro-abortion presidents in history.)

This summer, Trump faces a civil lawsuit from a group of plaintiffs claiming he cheated them out of large sums of money through his now-defunct Trump University. Trump denies the claims.

Still, Trump doesn’t shy away from criticizing the character of others. He’s dubbed Cruz “lying Ted,” and he’s pinged Bill Clinton for committing adultery. When reporters asked if Trump’s personal life was “fair game,” he said yes. The journalists didn’t follow up.

Neither have other candidates. Through a relentless series of debates, Cruz, Rubio, and others have pointed out Trump’s inconsistent positions and legal troubles over Trump University, but they’ve stayed away from questions about his failed marriages and boasted promiscuity. (A Trump spokeswoman didn’t respond to written questions for this story.)

Do those issues matter? Decades ago, former President Harry Truman warned: “A man not honorable in his marital relations is not usually honorable in any other.”

Denny Burk of Boyce College says “vulgarity matters” and character is crucial: “A guy who brags about all the women he has conquered is not something we can hold up as a model of character.” Cromartie of the EPCC agrees, and says he considers evangelical leaders endorsing Trump “a scandal.”

HOW DO PRO-TRUMP evangelicals respond?

Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, supports Trump and said he would “make a great president of the United States.”

Jeffress is well-known in Dallas for pastoring the historic Southern Baptist church he recently led through a $135 million renovation. He’s also well-known on the Fox News circuit, and his church bio page notes he’s made more than 2,000 radio and television appearances.

In recent months, he’s appeared at a handful of Trump rallies, and the pastor told a crowd in Fort Worth that evangelicals would have a friend in the White House if Trump were elected.

In a phone interview, I asked Jeffress about concerns over Trump’s character. The pastor noted other Republican politicians have committed adultery.

When I pointed out Trump has boasted about his sins and doesn’t express regret, Jeffress said: “I’m not sure we ought to be in the business of grading sin. I think sin is sin in God’s eyes.” He added: “We’re not electing our children’s Sunday school teacher. We’re electing the leader of the free world.”

It’s an interesting dynamic for a pastor who urged evangelicals not to vote for Mitt Romney in the 2012 GOP primary because Romney is a Mormon. At the time, Jeffress said we ought to have “a born-again follower of Christ in the Oval Office if we have a choice.”

What about professing Christian candidates like Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who were still in the GOP primary race?

Jeffress said he admires Cruz but thinks Trump is the most electable candidate in the general election. (The most recent national polls show Trump trailing Hillary Clinton by 6 percentage points. Cruz leads Clinton by 1 point.)

The pastor also said he believes Trump will be a pro-life, pro-religious-liberty candidate.

When I asked about Trump saying abortion giant Planned Parenthood does “wonderful things” for women apart from its abortion practices, Jeffress said: “He’s right. There are some positive things Planned Parenthood does for women. But he’s been very clear as long as they continue to do abortions he would defund them.”

On the question of Trump’s claims that he’s a Christian who’s never asked God for forgiveness, Jeffress said the Bible is clear: “God is willing to forgive anyone who asks for it. But you have to ask for it.” Jeffress said he considers Trump a friend and would prefer to speak with him personally about any concerns he might have about his relationship with God.

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee is less hesitant: “I find it utterly astonishing that a person [claiming to be a Christian] could say they’ve never asked God for forgiveness. That’s why I don’t have any reasonable thought that [Trump] is a Christian candidate.”

‘They’re not oblivious to what [Trump] says and how vulgar and vain and vicious he can be. But it’s almost like, yeah, we know all that. … But at least you know where he’s coming from.’ —Mike Huckabee

Still, Huckabee has defended Trump’s candidacy in recent weeks, though he says he’s “not defending anything Donald Trump has done in his personal life that is so very in opposition to biblical principles and standards.”

Huckabee says he knows evangelicals in his own church who are supporting Trump because they feel like Republican politicians haven’t kept their promises.

When it comes to Trump’s character, Huckabee says: “They’re not oblivious to what he says and how vulgar and vain and vicious he can be. But it’s almost like, yeah, we know all that. … But at least you know where he’s coming from.”

Not everyone is so sure.

When former neurosurgeon Ben Carson endorsed Trump, he offered an unusual commendation: He told reporters “there are two Donald Trumps”—the public image and the one who “considers things carefully.”

Carson’s endorsement surprised at least some of the evangelicals who supported his surging primary bid against Trump last fall. The two men offered a stark contrast: Trump declaring his greatness; Carson promoting humility.

Whatever changed in Carson’s assessment of Trump, at least one thing hasn’t changed: The truth from the book of Proverbs that Carson often quoted on the winding campaign trail: “By humility and fear of the LORD are riches and honor and life.”

This article has been edited to note that Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed Donald Trump in late January.