First there was Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020. In recent months, the rise of Christian nationalism in the midterms has drawn unflattering attention. And this week thousands of Southern Baptists spent much of their annual meeting discussing — and apologizing for — a sexual abuse scandal that has roiled the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
All this as Americans appear to be growing less religious. Last year, Gallup reported church membership in the United States had fallen below a majority for the first time.
But the religious right’s fortunes may be about to change. Christian conservatives this summer will likely be running victory laps, with the Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. Separately, the earliest stage of Republicans’ 2024 presidential primary campaign is picking up. This means that party heavyweights’ attention is focused on a swath of the electorate that, regardless of its overall standing in America, remains very much at the heart of the GOP.
For the Christian right, it’s an uncommonly good confluence of timing, the force of which will be on display through Saturday at a Faith & Freedom Coalition gathering in Nashville — one of the more significant meetups of potential 2024 presidential candidates to date.
He said, “In the Republican presidential nominating process, evangelical Christians today, in the Republican party, occupy a position of criticality and centrality that is analogous to the role that African Americans play in the Democratic Party.”